Frank E. Shaw
Frank E. Shaw is a retired American professor and biblical scholar. He is best known for arguing that there was no single original form of writing the name of God in the Greek Bible; the Greek rendering Ιαω appeared in various forms and was widely used by Jews and early Christians during the Second Temple period.
Education: Shaw earned a Bachelor of Arts from San Diego State University in 1985, a Master of Arts from San Francisco State University in 1990, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Cincinnati in 2002. His PhD dissertation was The Earliest Non-mystical Jewish Use of Ιαω, supervised by Getzel Cohen.
Teaching career: He taught at several universities including the University of North Dakota, Ball State University, Xavier University in Cincinnati, St. Francis Xavier University, the University of Dayton, Earlham College, Wright State University, and Ashland University. He is now retired.
Major works: Shaw’s notable book is The Earliest Non-mystical Jewish Use of Ιαω (Peeters, 2014), which argues that Ιαω had non-mystical use in the 2nd–1st centuries BCE and that there was no single original form of the Tetragrammaton in the Septuagint. The work examines Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew sources and challenges the idea of a single original rendering, engaging with debates about the name’s history.
Other writings: He contributed articles such as Tetragrammaton in A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations (2005) and published reviews and studies on the divine name.
Shaw’s research is widely cited in the study of the divine name in early Judaism and Christianity. He is living and recognized as a former professor and writer.
This page was last edited on 1 February 2026, at 22:22 (CET).