By Mike Oppenheimer
Let Us Reason Ministries
I was brought up Jewish and went to Hebrew school twice a week learning under the Rabbi and cantor. Though this is many years later, I have retained some of what I learned, still knowing the basics.
In 1994, I came across the claims of Daniel Kikawa in his book Perpetuated in Righteousness where he postulated a number of theories. One, that the Hawaiians may have come from two migrations in the Middle East: the Hebrews in the exodus. The other is that they knew God, the Hebrew God who is called by Io.
We interviewed Kikawa for over an hour and a half the first time at the home of my co-partner in ministry, David Alan. In our first interview with him, we discussed and asked numerous questions to be sure of what he was saying. Later on in the interview, we began to challenge his assertions. This is a portion of that interview that is pertinent to the topic of “God’s” name being Io.
Daniel Kikawa: “Until I read Eternity in Their Hearts, I would have thought this was all sacrilege”
David -Alan: Don Richardson.
Daniel Kikawa: “It’s that book, actually, that opened my mind. Because we don’t realize we see things in such a view from our culture and what we learned. And um, for instance, if I say let’s pray , y’know, to um, to Jesus Christ and the, and the y’know the Father, Io, y’know you might go, whoa, I pray to Io and Jesus Christ. but you see, that’s a lot of, that is your perception of that, y’know, because you would feel real comfortable saying Jehovah, Jehovah jiri, Jehovah nissi, all those things. Jehovah is a made up name, y’know it’s not even the name of God. It’s like man saying to God, ok, you got no vowels in your name. I’m gonna put in these vowels, and we’re gonna call you this, y’know. If I were God, I would be more upset at that but Io is the true name of God, and the Hebrews used it.”
Mike Oppenheimer: Io, the Hebrews used it? We’ll have to talk about that. I never heard of that.
Daniel Kikawa: I’ll show you. You got your Strong’s?… Well let me just read this and you can look it up in the Strong’s and the Old Testament Workbook. Actually, the Old Testament Workbook goes more on into it.
David -Alan: I got a Strong’s right here.
Daniel Kikawa: Ok, if you look up the name of Joel, ok, theres no J in Hebrew.
Mike Oppenheimer: It’s Y.
Daniel Kikawa: Yeah it’s Y, so its Io, and yo is Io, or yo, or slave is God, Yahweh, short for Yahweh. If you go to the Old Testament word book, the yo, or the Io sound that’s what an actual name they called, a short name for God and it’s in the Strong’s too. You can go look at that.
It is ironic that he uses the example of vowels being put in God’s name to make up a name, because that is exactly what HE DID with Io. What we can be certain of is that Io cannot be the name of God in Hebrew. First: “I” and “o” are both vowels in Hebrew, not letters. No matter how Kikawa wants to apply the pronunciation to another language they are not the same. How do 2 vowels become the 4 letters of YHWH, which begins in Y? Click here to continue reading. There are several parts to this article, which can be accessed at the end of this article on the Let Us Reason website.
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