The term designates a number of organizations, originating in the 1930s in the USA, deriving from Seventh Day Church of God in Arkansas, and insisting on the importance of employing the original Hebrew names for God and Jesus (generally, but not exclusively, Yahweh and Yahshua). The Movement views the Old Testament as the key to interpreting the New, and celebrates the Jewish festivals of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, as instructed in Leviticus 23. They reject the mainstream Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter on account of their pagan origins. They are non-Trinitarian, and other tenets include tithing, conscientious objection to military service, and the observance of the sabbath (Saturday) for rest and worship.
In 1937 C.O.Dodd, another early exponent, launched the magazine The Faith, which advocated the celebration of the Jewish feasts, and the following year he established the Faith Bible and Tract Society, which was continued by Dodd’s family. The first of the Sacred Name organizations was the Assembly of Yahweh, in Eaton Rapids, Michigan— originally founded as the Assembly of YHWH in 1939.
The largest Sacred Name organization is the Assemblies of Yahweh, founded by Jacob O.Meyer in 1969. Meyer moved to Idaho in 1964, where he became Assistant Editor of the Sacred Name Herald. He was consecrated for ministry the following year, and began a radio ministry—’Sacred Name Broadcast’—in 1966. This was followed by a television ministry, ‘Sacred Name Telecast’.
Other early pioneers of the Sacred Name were Lorenzo Dow Snow (b. 1913) and his wife Icie Lela Paris Snow (b. 1912). Snow joined Dodd’s Assemblies of Yahweh, and was licensed to preach in the 1940s. However, following a disagreement about the spelling of the divine name, Snow, together with E.B.Adam, formed a rival organization, the Assembly of Yahvah in Emory, Texas, in 1949. Snow published The Yahwist Field Reporter, which he edited from 1945 to 1961. The Assembly of Yahvah set up the Missionary Dispensary Bible Research, which brought out the Restoration of the Original Sacred Name Bible, a version of the scripture that restores the Hebrew names for God and Jesus.
Other Sacred Name communities include the Scripture Research Association (founded in 1950 by A.B.Traina), the Bible Study Association (established by David B.Northnagel in 1980), the Assembly of Yhwhhoshua (in Colorado), the Assemblies of the Called Out Ones of Yah (founded by Sam Surrat in 1974), and the House of Yahweh (originally founded in Nazareth, Israel in 1973 by Jacob Hawkins).
