LORD, GOD, CHRIST: An orthographic note.

[Smoke]

The translators of the King James Version of the Bible chose to follow pious Jewish and Christian custom by avoiding the use of the Tetragrammaton -- YHWH -- at least for the most part. Rather than rendering YHWH as "Jehovah" or some equivalent name, they usually translated it "Lord." Since Adonai was also translated "Lord," the translators used small caps to indicate where "Lord" stood for YHWH.

Adonai was rendered as Lord;YHWH was rendered as LORD.

In some cases, the Hebrew used Adonai and YHWH together. In those cases, Adonai was rendered Lord and YHWH was rendered GOD: Lord GOD.

In each case, small caps were used to show that the English word was substituted for the Tetragrammaton. Neither "Lord" nor "God" was placed in small caps for any other reason. This is why "Lord" never appears in small caps in the New Testament: YHWH is never used in the New Testament, even in quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures. The New Testament follows the Septuagint in rendering YHWH as Kyrios (Lord).

Unless you have written in Hebrew first, using the Tetragrammaton, and then translated what you have written into English, there is absolutely no reason to write Lord, God, or Christ in all caps -- especially Christ, which never represents the Tetragrammaton.

 

[jaareshiah]

William Tyndale (about 1492-1536 C.E.) was the first English translator to use God's personal name, Jehovah, when he produced an edition of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, from Hebrew in 1530. London scholar David Daniell writes: “It would surely have struck Tyndale’s readers forcibly that the name of God was newly revealed.”

The name Jehovah, in the form of the Tetragrammaton (meaning "four letter"), YHWH, is in the Hebrew part of the Bible (the first thirty nine books), almost 7000 times. Yet, most Bibles today have chosen to follow the Jews in supplanting it with "LORD" or "God". This is rightly called tampering. For example, in the King James Bible, at Psalms 110:1, it reads: "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." God's name of Jehovah, as represented by the Tetragrammaton, was replaced with "The Lord" at the beginning, thus confusing the reader as to who the two "Lords" are.

It reads properly as: "The utterance of Jehovah to my Lord is: “Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet.”(New World Translation) This clarifies and reveals God's personal name as Jehovah. Another example in the King James Bible, is at Genesis 15:2, whereby it reads: "And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?" In the original Hebrew, God's name of Jehovah (YHWH) was replaced with Elohim, meaning "God". More accurately, it reads: "At this A´bram said: “Sovereign Lord Jehovah (Hebrew, ’Adho·nai´ Yehwih´), what will you give me, seeing that I am going childless and the one who will possess my house is a man of Damascus, E·li·e´zer?”(New World Translation)

Of the New International Version (which began to be prepared in 1965), Edwin Palmer, executive secretary for the NIV's committee, when asked why God's name of Jehovah was failed to be mentioned even once, replied: "Here is why we did not: You are right that Jehovah is a distinctive name for God and ideally we should have used it. But we put 2 1/4 million dollars into this translation and a sure way of throwing that down the drain is to translate, for example, Psalm 23 as, 'Yahweh is my shepherd.' Immediately, we would have translated for nothing. Nobody would have used it. Oh, maybe you and a handful [of] others. But a Christian has to be also wise and practical. We are the victims of 350 years of the King James tradition. It is far better to get two million to read it—that is how many have bought it to date—and to follow the King James, than to have two thousand buy it and have the correct translation of Yahweh. . . . It was a hard decision, and many of our translators agree with you."

Thus, there has been tampering of God's personal name, by either using it only four times, as in the case of the King James Bible (at Ex 6:3; Ps 83:18; Isa 12:2; 26:4), or removing it completely. Any person who wrote his autobiography, would be incensed, if he or she left it in the hands of the printer and then later discovered that their personal name had been replaced with "the man" or "the woman". Does Jehovah God feel any differently ?

 

[Mr Cheese]

there are many names for God in Hebrew...

and actually the tetragramaton can be used to transliterate as Jesus...

 

[Smoke]

there has been tampering of God's personal name

actually the tetragramaton can be used to transliterate as Jesus...

Please note that the topic of this thread is English orthography. The question of whether it is desirable to translate YHWH as a proper name is off-topic, as are all crackpot theories about the name(s) of God.

 

[Mr Cheese]

crackpot theories about the name(s) of God.

huh?

Ok, I only mentioned this as in Judaism there are many names of God

I wasnt going to mention aliens or mushrooms

 

[jaareshiah]

Please note that the topic of this thread is English orthography. The question of whether it is desirable to translate YHWH as a proper name is off-topic, as are all crackpot theories about the name(s) of God.

I only brought information to light in order to clarify who is meant by YHWH as God's name is spelled in English, Jehovah, its orthography, its "correct spelling as it has come to be established by usage."(Encarta Dictionary)

 

[yogidog]

My friend just bought a revised King James Bible. He showed me something that surprised me. In the forward it admits that the personal name of God, the tetragrammaton is replaced by Lord or God. Then in the appendix under Yahweh, it says that Yahweh is the personal name of God [at least in Hebrew]. Then it says that Yahweh even belongs in the Christin scriptures when it quotes from the Old testament and where Yahweh appeared there.

 

[Atruthseeker]

My friend just bought a revised King James Bible. He showed me something that surprised me. In the forward it admits that the personal name of God, the tetragrammaton is replaced by Lord or God. Then in the appendix under Yahweh, it says that Yahweh is the personal name of God [at least in Hebrew]. Then it says that Yahweh even belongs in the Christin scriptures when it quotes from the Old testament and where Yahweh appeared there.

Woop woop! Well done, you's learning something boy! Easy to see how people can believe the trinity seeing that they are both called Lord....