Thanks Bnonn, I appreciate the thoughtful responses. Another point you could have made contra my original question is that it seems silly to use the lower case caps Lord as some sort of code – why is it we need to use a code word? It’s hard to think of any reason other than either translation or superstition. So I take your points and will think about them.

Possibly I have a hard time getting worked up about this type of translation point simply because I think more should be expected of Christians in their Bible study. With the amount of free material available on programs like E-Sword and The Word there really isn’t much excuse for this to matter.

Particularly here in the US I think people need better shepherding in their local church.
In the particular church I attend I’d be surprised if there is an adult who isn’t aware of what the small cap “Lords” mean, but I understand that’s a blessing and probably pretty rare in the broader world of evangelical Christianity. And the fact that people have access to study material is not a good reason to put the Bible in code.

I admit that when I hear a preacher in church use the name “Yahweh” it often makes me a little uncomfortable. Possibly that is because I share a little of the same superstition that the LXX translators did, so your post may be a good corrective to my own thinking.

Do you think we know enough about how the word was pronounced to be comfortable putting anything but the consonants in a printed Bible? I’m thinking of the older Bibles that sometimes used “Jehovah”. I believe it’s the case that there is still some possibility that we’re pronouncing the name incorrectly.

For what it’s worth, although I take your points I probably don’t see Yahweh as being a personal name in exactly the same way you do. Or at least I see it as being more than that. I believe the name itself was meant to reveal certain facts about God, such as his aseity, his independence from time, his constancy of character, and probably many others I could think of. The name “Yawheh” reveals God’s nature in such as way as to make it different in my mind from the name “Henry”. And I think the concept of God’s Lordship encompasses some of what the name reveals to some extent, so I’m not sure I think “Lord” is quite as atrocious as you.

Certainly the name is very deep, so anything that would spur more Christians to reflect on God’s revelation of himself through this name would be good with me. I think your best point may be that we should use it simply because he gave it to us as the way he wanted to reveal himself. In any case, I appreciate the response. Best, Henry

“But the fact that the NT authors used a bad translation of the divine name, under divine inspiration, is no reason for us to continue translating the divine name badly.”

Errrm…. why not? Why should we second guess this decision?

Hey Henry—

Particularly here in the US I think people need better shepherding in their local church.

The situation is no better in New Zealand I’m afraid.

In the particular church I attend I’d be surprised if there is an adult who isn’t aware of what the small cap “Lords” mean, but I understand that’s a blessing and probably pretty rare in the broader world of evangelical Christianity.

You should take some time to reflect on how fortunate you are, and thank God for it tonight :)

I admit that when I hear a preacher in church use the name “Yahweh” it often makes me a little uncomfortable.

That is very intriguing. I don’t mean to psychoanalyze, but I wonder if this is not so much because of fearing blasphemy, as because Hebrew sounds foreign to our ears, and we have become exceedingly insular in the West. Nearly no one even has an appreciation for other languages, let alone speaks any. I wonder if you would also feel uncomfortable saying, for instance, Yitzak instead of Isaac? I am a fan of using non-anglicized names to recover the original pronunciation precisely because it jolts us out of implicitly casting biblical characters in a modern Western context. It reminds us of the divide between us.

Do you think we know enough about how the word was pronounced to be comfortable putting anything but the consonants in a printed Bible? I’m thinking of the older Bibles that sometimes used “Jehovah”.

“Jehovah” is actually “Yey-ho-uah”, since it comes from Latin. Same with Jesus; we get it through Latin, where it is pronounced, much closer to the original, as Yeh-soos. They had the right general idea, but Hebrew scholarship has come a long way since Tyndale. Since they didn’t know, at that time, what the original vowel sounds were, they simply substituted in the pointings for Adonai, which is how the rabbis wrote the tetragrammaton. So the vowels from Adonai (roughly E/A, O, A) plus the consonants from the tetragrammaton (YHWH) = Ya-Ho-Wah or Ye-Ho-Wah (the initial vowel is like the first E in Rockefeller; it isn’t really pronounced as a letter so much as a gap).

We only lost the original pronunciation because of those bally rabbis refusing to pronounce the divine name. But while there are some scholars who disagree with Yahweh, I don’t find any serious reason to doubt that pronunciation—bearing in mind, of course, that there was no monolithic pronunciation of Hebrew in the ancient world anyway. As with English, there are many variants and accents.

Btw, I agree that Yahweh is more than a personal name. But it isn’t less than one. It certainly reveals his aseity. But it also reveals his immanence and his chesed, his covenant love.

Henry, some good points.

Bnonn, if I made my own Bible translation I would use Yahweh in the OT. Short of that I prefer small caps “Lord” over lower case “Lord” as it identifies the difference. Yet consider also:

1. Do we know how YHWH (YHVH) was pronounced?
2. The LXX was quite a good translation and may be more accurate than the Masoretic in places (compare Dead Sea Scrolls).
3. Could this be God’s intention? The transition to “Lord” was post OT and pre NT. This allows for the use of the name “Jesus” (Yahweh saves) to be associated with the “Lord” portions of the OT by virtue or Jesus being Lord and the OT having the word “Lord”. And in the post NT era we have the use of the name “Jesus” rather than the use of the name “Yahweh”.

John, your argument is simply a non sequitur. The NT authors merely used the LXX; they didn’t create it. The LXX is not inspired; their use of it is. Their use of kurios to translate the tetragrammaton doesn’t mean kurios is a good translation in general, any more than the inspired use of the LXX rendering of Psalm 40:6 in Hebrews 10:5 means that is actually what the Hebrew says.

When we translate the OT, we translate names as names. The tetragrammaton is a name. QED.

It wasn’t exactly an argument, more of a question to your unexplored assertion.

Of course whether the LXX is inspired is also a question with no answer, only opinion.

But forgetting that for a moment, you’ve agreed the NT has blessed this use by inspiration, so whether it is a “bad” translation is kinda irrelevant isn’t it?

Question, is the LXX inspired in those places it is quoted in the NT?

You say that “When we translate the OT, we translate names as names.”, but of course that is the point at issue since in this case nobody did that in Greek. The LXX didn’t do it, and the apostles didn’t do it, but you know better than them apparently. Do you really have warrant to know better than them, that is the question. You have an opinion about how The Name should be translated, it comes back to your opinion, and pointing to how other names are translated. But this isn’t just another name. What is your assertion that the apostles were too ignorant to have corrected the LXX had they wanted to? I mean, the apostles didn’t always quote the LXX. Even when they didn’t quote the LXX, they still used Kurios. What do we do about that? Apostles got it wrong _again_?

You’re not advancing the argument; you’re just repeating the same error of equivocation I’ve already refuted.

Well, firstly, I don’t think I was responding to you emotionally. Secondly, the very next definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which you seem to have completely ignored to support yourself, is as follows: “marked by or being an attack on an opponent’s character rather than by an answer to the contentions made,” which is what it means in the context of an argument.

John, you’re second statement is simply silly. I doubt that even you yourself hold that the LXX is inspired. As for your third statement, irrelevant in what way? It could be considered irrelevant in that even though the translation decision was poor, the NT authors used it under divine inspiration. However,

(continued from the last comment that I posted without completing) it’s not like they had a wide variety of easily accessible translations to choose from like we do today. But if it truly is a bad translation and using the divine name is the better choice, then it can’t be considered irrelevant to Bible translators today. They should indeed use God’s name in the translations instead of keeping the tradition going, especially if it is wrong. To answer the question in your fourth statement, no. You don’t seem to understand what you are asking, so I think you need to be reminded that the Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (along with some uninspired books). It is not its own book. It is a translation of several other books. The NT authors’ use of it is inspired, not the translation in itself.

For the record, I’m censoring John’s comments pretty heavily. To understand why, see the comments on these posts, for example:

http://bnonn.com/does-the-bible-teach-any-kind-of-free-will/

http://bnonn.com/thorny-problems-with-molinism-4/

Censoring “heavily”, LOL, you censored THE WHOLE THING! So in this thread you’re answering questions (which ones?) which are not even here!

Labelling the counter argument to your position “silly”, is of course just ad hominem. It’s what you say when you don’t have an argument. And yet I know you’re well read enough to know that this position has a long (LONG!) history. But no, you’ve written it off in one word “silly”.

Yet again we still lack answers to the 2 main questions : 1) is the LXX inspired at the places the apostles quote it. A yes or no is required here. Get it? Yes or no.

2) what about when the apostles do NOT quote the LXX and yet translate Kurios. What then off your bad uninspired translator theory?

You need to stop with this “we” nonsense. It’s a chronic habit of yours. The fact that you live in a state of perpetual confusion which you mistake for enlightened doubt doesn’t mean that anyone else does.

And yet I know you’re well read enough to know that this position has a long (LONG!) history. But no, you’ve written it off in one word “silly”.

As usual, you can’t keep track of a basic discussion. I’ve written off the position on the basis of accurate translation. That was the whole point of the OP.

To your questions:

(1)

You’re confusing inspired words with true words. Inspiration is a process where men are carried along by the Holy Spirit in such a way that they speak from God. What reason is there to think the translators of the LXX were inspired? Just because the NT quotes the LXX? Inspiration doesn’t work retroactively.

(2)

This question is hopelessly confused on many levels:

i. Why would the NT authors not follow convention here, given its fortuitous theological linkage, and the affordance of their audiences?

a. Their Greek audiences didn’t know the tetragrammaton; kurios by contrast was self-explanatory.

b. Their Jewish audiences didn’t know the tetragrammaton either; its pronunciation had been forgotten by the first century.

ii. How would the NT authors translate the tetragrammaton into Greek?

a. Apropos (i-b), its pronunciation had been forgotten. So they would have needed special revelation. But we’ve already established that God providentially used kurios, so why expect him to change that pattern when not directly quoting the LXX?

b. Moreover, on a slightly lighter note, even if they had known its pronunciation, Greek has no Y, no H, and no W. The best transliteration for Yahweh is ιαβε (iabé). Maybe God just didn’t want his name mangled that badly ;p

So then.. to state plainly what you are obfuscating,

(1) whenever the bible is quoting something else, it is not inspired. So then, we have license to trawl through the bible, speculate on what might be quoted and therefore uninspired, and snip it out. The scholars are pretty unanimous that the Carmen Christi (Phil. 2:6-11) predates Paul, and since as you’ve lectured us that inspiration isn’t retro-active, that’s not inspired. All the OT quotes in the NT are only inspired to the extent that they got it right. If they made a mistake, we can safely tear out those pages. Recovery of sight to the blind in Luke 4:18-19? We can take our scissors to that one since it’s not in our Hebrew versions. And so and and so forth.

(2) Oh, so if there is (a) fortuitous theological linkage and (b) your audiences aren’t very familiar with the term, then LORD or Kurious becomes the favoured translation. In other words, that’s the situation we are all in. So… you are conceding the debate then? That wasn’t too hard now was it?

BTW, concerning your theory that God couldn’t figure out how to spell YHWH in Greek and didn’t want it mangled, it seems odd he didn’t struggle with turning Yehoshuah (Yahweh saves) into Ἰησοῦς. Nor apparently does the shortened for יהּ (Yah) bother him, being used 50 times in the bible.

Just as a side note, I never engaged in ad hominem attacks against you. You don’t seem to know what that is. An ad hominem attack is a personal attack against a person without actually engaging the argument put forth. I did no such thing. I tried to answer you on behalf of Bnonn. I called your second statement in comment #6 (“Of course whether the LXX is inspired is also a question with no answer, only opinion.”) silly because that’s what it was, and like I said, I doubt that you yourself believe that the Septuagint is an inspired translation.

Gabriel: “ad hominem”, Merriam Webster dictionary, “appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect”.

When you say something is “silly”, you’re trying to make the reader dismiss their opponent as an idiot, rather than engaging in the actual issues.

John, your last comment to me is a perfect example of why I don’t publish your screeds. Comments should advance the OP by developing the discussion. I’m happy for people to disagree with me thoughtfully, because that does develop the discussion.

Unfortunately, your disagreement is just aggressively confused all the time; and it’s worse because you don’t even see it.

Publishing your comments simply sets the discussion back by lowering the tone, and forcing me to explain and correct your confusion.

For example:

whenever the bible is quoting something else, it is not inspired.

This is an obvious non sequitur. You are either incompetent or malicious. A biblical writer can, under inspiration, quote a non-inspired source. That doesn’t retroactively cause the non-inspired source to become inspired. Nor does its lack of inspiration imply that the Bible’s quoting of it is not, itself, inspired. Your inability to keep these kinds of obvious distinctions clear in your head makes it pointless to publish your posts.

Please do not comment here again.

Thanks for an interesting article and welcomed effort to de-westernize Christianity. As for John, would he assert that Menander and Aratus were inspired becuase Paul quoted them?

Hey Dominic,
I just wanted to inform you that next year the Master’s Seminary will publish a “refined” version of the NASB. They will use “Yahweh” instead of “LORD” in the OT and translate “doulos” with “slave” in the NT.
Here you can hear about the project:
https://vimeo.com/402824903#t=464s

Thanks for letting me know! I am cautiously very optimistic.

I followed your write-ups closely. I love the part your urging us to know the real and genuine name Yahweh which has been replaced by lord nd God. What about the original and genuine name yahshua exalted by Yahweh which has been entirely removed from scripture and replaced with greek-english transliteration Jesus? Is it not important we know or project our messiYAH’s true name?

His name has not been lost. I don’t like that we use Js instead of Ys, but it’s not a conspiracy—it’s just an accident of history. We get the name Jesus from the Greek New Testament:

Greek: Iesous (yey-soos; the Greek transliteration of Hebrew Yeshua)
Latin: Jesus (yey-soos; the transliteration of the Greek faithfully into the Latin alphabet)

Then Jesus went into German, where it’s pronounced basically the same, and unfortunately also into English, where it really isn’t. But I suspect it might be too late to start a campaign to remove Jesus from the NT and replace him with Yeysoos. And if you did that, you should be consistent and replace every single name that is mangled by English. No more James or Jacob or Isaiah or anything. I’m in favor of such a project for an online Bible where you can toggle the names or have mouse-over tooltips to tell you the normal English version. I think that would be great. But…it’s not a really high priority either…

I think you are too strict about the name Yahweh, here is just a few reasons why:
-The name is a good thing to know but not necessary for salvation.

-LORD is not a wrong translation either.

-In the New Testament they never say Yahweh (YHWH) but instead use the word Kurios which means lord.

-In the Old Testament God was also called other things than just Yahweh

We should not use the new translations!
-God was not the author of all these new versions of the bible because he is not the author of confusion.

-God does not require us to be an expert in Hebrew and Greek to figure out what the proper translation is, all we have to do is trust in God, learn the history, and even the bible tells us what the right version is.

-The Textus Receptus and the Masoretic text are correct.

-Masoretic text is correct because it was passed down and carefully copied by the Jews, (Romans 3:1-2) “1What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? 2Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.”

-People are against the Textus Receptus because they found new manuscripts that are dated earlier. They automatically assume that this means that the scriptures that they have had (Textus receptus) are wrong because they are dated newer than the ones they are finding (the older ones they are finding still disagree with each other in many places). Logically this would be true but, “lean not unto thine own understanding” and realize that if God wanted to preserve his word perfectly through copying an older manuscript, he has the power to do that (the newer dated Byzantine Texts That the Textus Receptus came from had to have been copied from older ones). God’s word (the bible) is supposed to be perfect, so people supporting the recently found manuscripts are either saying that we did not have God’s word for centuries or maybe even over 1000 years, or they are saying that God lies and his word has not always been perfect. (Psalms 12:6) “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” (proverbs 30:5) “Every word of God [is] pure: he [is] a shield unto them that put their trust in him.” (2 Timothy 3:16) “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:” (Isaiah 40:8) “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” Grass dies during winter and comes back, and a flower dies and comes back, but God’s word stays perfect and the same forever. There is no finding lost manuscripts and fixing the bible because God’s word does not die or die and come back. It’s the manuscripts that they have found that are wrong.

The King James Bible is the perfect translation, get one and read the PERFECT word of God!

This isn’t really responsive to any of the actual arguments I lay out.

• LORD is not a translation at all.
• I address the issue of the New Testament using kurios here: https://bnonn.com/if-the-new-testament-says-lord-instead-of-yahweh-why-shouldnt-we/
• The fact that God has many names and titles does not diminish the importance of his covenant name, which he gave to be remembered for all generations.
• God was not the author of the KJV, and I have zero time for anyone who thinks otherwise. I love the KJV, but you are bordering on heresy with that cultic garbage. Indeed, it is obvious that all of your ad hoc objections to my position are purely motivated by a desire to save the suposed perfection of the KJV rather than by sound reason.

Here a really nice video on why the Legacy Standard Bible Translates “Yahweh” in the Old Testament:
https://youtu.be/2hFKPHZL5qI

Of interest, one conservative writer who defends ‘LORD’ against ‘Yahweh’:

http://www.bible-researcher.com/tetragrammaton.html

This is pretty much along the lines of most conservatives. It honestly bothers me quite a lot that so much of the argument rides on the expectations and traditions of average readers. It’s utterly backwards to what Scripture is for.

Yep, FWIW, I’m inclined to agree with you.