Have translators removed God's name from your Bible?
ri...@leading.net
Bible?
We can look at creation and see God's handiwork. But it doesn't tell
us God's personal name. However, God likes names. He even calls all
the stars by names. (see Isa 40:26) He also gave Himself a name and
revealed that name to us in His written word, the Holy Bible.
For example, in the Hebrew-Aramaic Scriptures (Old Testament) God's
name is found there nearly 7000 times!
It consists of four Hebrew letters called the Tetragrammaton. As you
examine the ancient documents and fragments, there it is, over and
over again. Those are the facts.
But when we look at most of the Bibles today, do we find God's name in
them thousands of times? No, we don't. Someone removed it. Who? The
Bible translators themselves! Why on earth would they do such a thing
as that, when they translated all the other words into their Bibles?
(At least we hope) Isn't removing words from God's written word, a
spiritually dangerous thing to do? Yes it is. (see Re 22:18,19)
But, they must have a good reason for making those changes, right?
Here is some of their reasons:
(1) The New International Version Bible (NIV) [1984]: In the Preface
says: "In regard to the divine name YHWH, commonly referred to as the
Tetragrammaton, the translators adopted the device used in most
English versions of rendering that name as "Lord" in capital letters
to distinguish it from Adonai, another Hebrew word rendered "Lord,"
for which small letters are used."
So the reason these translators didn't translate the tetragrammaton is
that other Bibles didn't, so neither will they. When you run across
"LORD" in all capitals they want you think of "YHWH". Why not just put
"YHWH" there to start with?
(2) The Catholic New American Bible (NEB) [revised edition, 1991]: No
explanation given in the Preface why they removed God's personal name
from their Bible.
(3) The New Revised Standard Version Bible (NRSV) [1990]: In "To The
Reader", it states, "Careful readers will notice that here and there
in the Old Testament the word Lord (or in certain cases God) is
printed in capital letters. This represents the traditional manner in
English versions of rendering the Divine Name, the
"Tetragrammaton"...following the precedent of the ancient Greek and
Latin translators..."
It goes on to say "the four consonants YHWH ...had come to be
regarded as too sacred to be pronounced..."
And then concludes, "the use of any proper name for the one and
only God, as though there were other gods from whom the true God has
to be distinguished, began to be discontinued in Judaism before the
Christian era and is inappropriate for the universal faith of the
Christian Church."
So these translators give several reasons. Are they good enough for
you to justify the changing of the original words?
(a) One reason they give for not translating the Divine name is
because it is the "traditional manner" of other translators. Sounds
like the NIV's reason.
(b) Another is that it "had come to be regarded as too sacred to be
pronounced."
That is an interesting statement. The words "had come to be" implies
that at one time it was not considered too sacred to be pronounced.
And that is true. Think about it. Why would God have His name written
around 7000 times if He didn't want people to use it? And they did.
Even the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, used it 48 times.
So somewhere along the stream of time, some men decided not to
pronounce God's name anymore, or even write it down. And many Bible
translators of today, having at their disposal older manuscripts and
more accurate knowledge than their predecessors had, still decided to
follow the tradition of those men. What did Jesus think of following
the traditions of men, rather than God's word? Jesus said at Mt 15:3,
"He answered them, "And why do you break the commandment of God for
the sake of your tradition?"" (NRSV)
(c) That the God of the Bible does not have to be distinguished from
"other gods." That is not true. There are millions of gods that humans
worship. Notice what the apostle Paul wrote at 1 Co 8:5,
"Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on
earth as in fact there are many gods and many lords " (NRSV)
Just as most of those false gods have names, the true God of the Bible
has a name which verbally distinguishes Him from those other gods.
Thus, is the use of a proper name for God "inappropriate for the
universal faith of the Christian Church."? What is "inappropriate" is
cutting out God's name from the Bible, and inserting other words
there.
(4) The King James Version (KJV or AV) [1610]: The "Epistle
Dedicatory" mainly carries on praises for their king, King James. They
do manage to slip in some references about God and Jesus though.
This Bible, for some reason attempted to translate the tetragrammaton,
in only four places out of the thousands. (Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18;
Isaiah 12:2; Isaiah 26:4) For example, Ex 6:3,
"And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name
of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them."
(KJV)
In the other over 6000 places they insert the words "LORD" or "GOD" in
capital letters to designate that it is a substitution for the
tetragrammaton. But when the Bible is read aloud, the listeners have
no idea when the divine name is being used except those four places.
If they translated it in four places, then to be consistent, why not
the other thousands?
So, are those good reasons to change the original words in todays
Bibles? If they tampered with God's name, would they be afraid to
tamper with other Bible words as well? That is up to you to decide.
Sincerely,
James
***********************************
Have Jehovah's Witnesses questions?
Go to the only authorized source:
http://www.watchtower.org
***********************************
[For better or worse, we don't know what the original vowels were. So
we don't have the option of giving the original name. Either we have
to guess at vowels, giving a word such as Yahweh or Jehovah, or we use
something like LORD and add an explanation so that the reader knows
what is going on. Assuming we can trust the NT, Jesus used "Lord".
A lot of people think that's a good precedent. --clh]
Robert Minchin
: (1) The New International Version Bible (NIV) [1984]: In the Preface
: says: "In regard to the divine name YHWH, commonly referred to as the
: Tetragrammaton, the translators adopted the device used in most
: English versions of rendering that name as "Lord" in capital letters
: to distinguish it from Adonai, another Hebrew word rendered "Lord,"
: for which small letters are used."
Note that they make it very clear, as do the translators of the other bible's,
that they have done this, and that they have also distinguished in the text
where they have done this.
: So, are those good reasons to change the original words in todays
: Bibles? If they tampered with God's name, would they be afraid to
: tamper with other Bible words as well? That is up to you to decide.
I would assume that if they were going to change other words then they would
do the same thing as they have done with the tetragrammaton and make it
clear that they have done this and also distinguish the changes in the text.
FWIW, I use the Jerusalem Bible and the New Jerusalem Bible, both of which
use "Yahweh" to represent the tratragrammaton.
Robert
Alexander R Pruss
: Isn't removing words from God's written word, a
: spiritually dangerous thing to do? Yes it is. (see Re 22:18,19)
Rev. 22:18-19 isn't the thing to quote here, because it's only talking
of adding to or removing from the Book of Revelation. As you may know,
it wasn't until around the 4th century when the Bible was collated in
a single whole. Before then, the Book of Revelation would have been a
stand-alone book.
: That is an interesting statement. The words "had come to be" implies
: that at one time it was not considered too sacred to be pronounced.
(Maimonedes gives the following clever answer in his _Guide to the Perplexed_:
it isn't that the Name of the Holy One became too sacred to be
pronounced, but that people had become too sinful to pronounce it.
What changed was the people. Or so Maimonedes thought. I have my
doubts about this argument.)
: So somewhere along the stream of time, some men decided not to
: pronounce God's name anymore, or even write it down. And many Bible
: translators of today, having at their disposal older manuscripts and
: more accurate knowledge than their predecessors had, still decided to
: follow the tradition of those men. What did Jesus think of following
: the traditions of men, rather than God's word? Jesus said at Mt 15:3,
: "He answered them, "And why do you break the commandment of God for
: the sake of your tradition?"" (NRSV)
But what did _Jesus_ do? How do the Gospels, the inspired word of God,
have Him quote the Old Testament? Let's open the Bible to Matthew 4:10.
What does Jesus say to Satan? "For it is written, `The Lord [Kurios] your
God [Theos] you shall worship.'" The words "it is written" signal that
Jesus is quoting the Old Testament. And indeed He is quoting Deut. 10:20:
"You shall worship the LORD [YHWH] your God [Eloheikha]." So, how does
Jesus render "YHWH"? He renders the Name as "Lord" ["Kurios" in the
inspired Gospels]. What was good enough for the writers of the Gospels
is good enough for us.
: Thus, is the use of a proper name for God "inappropriate for the
: universal faith of the Christian Church."?
Because Jesus didn't use the proper name.
: In the other over 6000 places they insert the words "LORD" or "GOD" in
: capital letters to designate that it is a substitution for the
: tetragrammaton. But when the Bible is read aloud, the listeners have
: no idea when the divine name is being used except those four places.
: If they translated it in four places, then to be consistent, why not
: the other thousands?
Because in the four places, the context might not make it clear that it
was the supreme God Who was talked about, while in the other places, the
context would suffice.
Alex
--
Alexander R. Pruss || e-mail: pru...@pitt.edu
Graduate Student || home page: http://www.pitt.edu/~pruss
Department of Philosophy || alternate e-mail address: pr...@member.ams.org
University of Pittsburgh || Erdos number: 4
Pittsburgh, PA 15260 ||
U.S.A. ||
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Philosophiam discimus non ut tantum sciamus, sed ut boni efficiamur."
- Paul of Worczyn (1424)
J.M.D.
>But when we look at most of the Bibles today, do we find God's name in
>them thousands of times? No, we don't. Someone removed it. Who? The
>Bible translators themselves! Why on earth would they do such a thing
>as that, when they translated all the other words into their Bibles?
>(At least we hope) Isn't removing words from God's written word, a
>spiritually dangerous thing to do? Yes it is. (see Re 22:18,19)
The 'tradition' of replacing the tetragrammaton with a euphemism
probably predates Christianity. The practice was made most clear in
the Masoretic texts of the Hebrew Scriptures (after the advent of
Christianity), in which the consonants YHWH were pointed (ie. given
vowel markings, written Hebrew carries consonants only) with the vowel
sounds for 'Adonai', or, in English, 'Lord'. This was a literary
device to remind the reader (presumed to be reading aloud in a
synagogue) to pronounce 'Adonai' instead of the Divine name.
This practice of avoiding use of the Divine name stems from Exodus'
prohibition against taking the Lords' (YHWH's) name in vain. As
Exodus dates to at least the early part of the monarchy of Israel, it
is a safe bet that the prohibition applied to the layperson
(non-priest) several centuries before the birth of Jesus.
The translators of modern Scripture have taken the liberty of
preserving some aspect of that prohibition for the sake of readers
that still adhere to this tenet in Exodus strictly. Greek and Latin
translators did much the same, and for basically the same reasons.
Is this a tradition? Sure. But it is a tradition that predates
Christianity and modern translations.
As for the name 'Jehovah', this is the result of the translators of
the KJV attempting to pronounce YHWH with, roughtly, the vowel
pointing for Adonai. If one is strictly speaking about the original
pronounciation of the Tetragrammaton, 'Jehovah' is most likely NOT it.
Best guesses are that it is 'Yahweh'.
- J. M. D.
Anton Hein
1998 21:44:43 -0500 - wrote:
>So, are those good reasons to change the original words in todays
>Bibles? If they tampered with God's name, would they be afraid to
>tamper with other Bible words as well? That is up to you to decide.
What Greek Scholars Think Of The New World Translation
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ahein/j01.html
About Jehovah's Witnesses
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ahein/j02.html
Anton
--
CMR's Apologetics Index: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ahein/apologetics.html
Apologetics and Counter-Cult Resources for Research and Ministry
ri...@leading.net
>ri...@leading.net wrote:
>
>
>>But when we look at most of the Bibles today, do we find God's name in
>>them thousands of times? No, we don't. Someone removed it. Who? The
>>Bible translators themselves! Why on earth would they do such a thing
>>as that, when they translated all the other words into their Bibles?
>>(At least we hope) Isn't removing words from God's written word, a
>>spiritually dangerous thing to do? Yes it is. (see Re 22:18,19)
>
>
> The 'tradition' of replacing the tetragrammaton with a euphemism
>probably predates Christianity. The practice was made most clear in
>the Masoretic texts of the Hebrew Scriptures (after the advent of
>Christianity), in which the consonants YHWH were pointed (ie. given
>vowel markings, written Hebrew carries consonants only) with the vowel
>sounds for 'Adonai', or, in English, 'Lord'. This was a literary
>device to remind the reader (presumed to be reading aloud in a
>synagogue) to pronounce 'Adonai' instead of the Divine name.
> This practice of avoiding use of the Divine name stems from Exodus'
>prohibition against taking the Lords' (YHWH's) name in vain. As
>Exodus dates to at least the early part of the monarchy of Israel, it
>is a safe bet that the prohibition applied to the layperson
>(non-priest) several centuries before the birth of Jesus.
> The translators of modern Scripture have taken the liberty of
>preserving some aspect of that prohibition for the sake of readers
>that still adhere to this tenet in Exodus strictly. Greek and Latin
>translators did much the same, and for basically the same reasons.
> Is this a tradition? Sure. But it is a tradition that predates
>Christianity and modern translations.
Hello J.M.D,
Yes, by the time Jesus came on the scene the religious leaders of
Jesus' day (such as the Scribes and Pharisees) had gotten ridiculous
in their application of the scriptures. They were "Blind guides, who
strain out the gnat but gulp down the camel!" (Mt 23:24) Their
"traditions" were rejected by Jesus, and their practices were
condemned by him.(Mr 7:9) That is one reason why Jesus referred to
them as "hypocrites". (Mt 15:7)
But just because those religious leaders were doing things NOT
APPROVED by God, doesn't mean that the present day religious leaders
or translators, have to copy them. If those "traditions" were
hypocritical in Jesus' day, those same traditions would be
hypocritical in our day.
> As for the name 'Jehovah', this is the result of the translators of
>the KJV attempting to pronounce YHWH with, roughtly, the vowel
>pointing for Adonai. If one is strictly speaking about the original
>pronounciation of the Tetragrammaton, 'Jehovah' is most likely NOT it.
>Best guesses are that it is 'Yahweh'.
For those who say that we should use "Yahweh" to translate the
tetragrammaton, then for them to be consistent, they should use the
Hebrew form of "Jesus" which would be something like "Yehoshua" or
"Jehoshuah" and "Christ" as "Mashiahh". Or even the Greek form of
Jesus such as "Iesous". (Interestingly, the inspired writers of the NT
did not stay with the Hebrew form for the name Jesus, but used the
Greek form "Iesous".)
Even the New World Bible Translation Committee who produced the NWT
Bible which restores the divine name in all of its original
occurrences stated that "Yahweh" was the more accurate
transliteration. Why then would anyone use the name "Jehovah" instead?
First, since Almighty God did not see fit to preserve the exact
pronunciation of His name, He does not consider its pronunciation of
prime importance at this time.
Second , many people are familiar with the name "Jehovah" . It has
been around for hundreds of years. When they hear that name they
immediately know that it is referring to the God of the Bible.
Third , it still preserves the sounds of the 4 consonants of the
tetragrammaton just as the others do. (JHVH,YHWH)
Fourth , we don't speak ancient Hebrew today. If we speak English, we
use the English pronunciation of the divine name, "Jehovah". In other
languages, it is pronounced a little different. (Italian = Geova,
Fijan = Jiova, Danish = Jehova, etc)
Fifth, not all scholars agree that "Yahweh" is the 100% correct form.
Since certainty of pronunciation is not now attainable, there seems to
be no reason for abandoning in English the well-known form "Jehovah"
in favor of some other suggested pronunciation. The important thing is
to have a personal name for God, that is based on the original. Jesus
said at Mt 6:9,
"YOU must pray, then, this way: 'Our Father in the heavens, let your
name be sanctified."' (NWT)
How can people sanctify God's name, if they don't use it?
And how can they follow the admonition of this scripture in Ac 2:21?,
"And everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved." (NWT)
(to translate as "the name of the Lord" doesn't make it here, since
this verse is a quote from Joel 2:32, where the tetragrammaton is
written in the original.)
No, the true religion based on the "one faith" of the Bible (Eph 4:5)
will not let men's traditions interfere with their true Bible-based
worship. They would always put God ahead of men. (Ac 5:29)
Sincerely,
James
***********************************
Have Jehovah's Witnesses questions?
Go to the only authorized source:
http://www.watchtower.org
***********************************
>
> - J. M. D.
>
>
>