I know the New World Translation is not a reliable translation, but why have the other Bible translations changed the original YHWH to LORD?<\/p>\n\t
When a translator encounters a word, he is faced with two choices: he can translate the word or he can transliterate the word. To translate requires finding a word or phrase in the target language that comes closest to the meaning in the original language while still keeping readability in the target language. To transliterate means to give the closest spelling of a word in the target language so that when pronounced in the target language it sounds close to the sound of the word in the original language.<\/p>\n
As examples, the word “amen” is a transliteration of the Hebrew word. The word “amen” appears in so many languages as a transliteration, that the translators have just carried on the tradition. The word “baptize” is a transliteration of the Greek word. I suspect in its case, the literal translation would have caused ruckus back in the early days of Bible translations. By the 1500’s most churches had long substituted sprinkling or pouring for the original meaning of the word “baptism,” which means “immerse.” Rather than have their translation rejected, the compromise was a transliteration so that the issue would be avoided.<\/p>\n
When the King James Version was being translated, it was thought that YHWH was pronounced as Jehovah. The spelling is based on German letters, which was common in that period of time in English; hence, ‘J’ in German has a ‘Y’ sound and ‘V’ in German has a ‘W’ sound. Unfortunately, English has changed since the days of the King James Version and ‘J’ and ‘V’ now have different sounds than they originally had.<\/p>\n
The word YHWH appears 6,823 times in the Old Testament text. Most of the time the King James Version translated it as LORD, using capital letters to indicate it has special meaning beyond the English word “lord.” About a half-dozen times it was transliterated as Jehovah; mostly to avoid places where the real word for “lord” proceeded YHWH or where the abbreviation for YHWH, Yah proceeded YHWH. Saying the Lord LORD was too awkward, so it became the Lord Jehovah or the LORD Jehovah. The American Standard Version was more consistent. It translated YHWH as Jehovah 5818 times.<\/p>\n
In regards to the meaning of YHWH, most scholars refer to a similar word in Hebrew,\u00a0ehyeh<\/i>.\u00a0Ehyeh\u00a0<\/i>means “I am” but with the additional idea of continuing action mixed in. It is seen in\u00a0Exodus 3:13-14, “Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”<\/i>” The “I AM”‘s in this passage are the word\u00a0ehyeh<\/i>. Thus many scholars believe that the best translation of YHWH is “He is” or “the Eternal.”<\/p>\n
YHWH is not God’s only name. It is not surprising, no one name could describe such a being as our God. God introduced Himself to Abraham as\u00a0El-Shaddai<\/i>\u00a0(“God Almighty”). It is a mistake to think that YHWH is God’s exclusive name or His only real name.<\/p>\n
The pronunciation of YHWH is more difficult. Hebrew is written with only the consonant letters. The pronunciation of the words was passed down from generation to generation verbally. We have clues to the pronunciation because YHWH was incorporated into other words. For example, “hallelujah” comes from “hallelu Yah” or “praise Yah,” where\u00a0yahh<\/i>\u00a0was an abbreviation for YHWH (the first two letters). You can see it at the end of many Hebrew names: Isaiah (YHWH has saved) or Hezekiah (YHWH has strengthened). It can appear at the beginning of names, such as Jehoshaphat (YHWH has judged) or Joash (YHWH has come to help).<\/p>\n
Our real knowledge of the pronunciation of YHWH comes from several very early translations of Hebrew. Shortly after the time of Nehemiah, a group of Jews lived on the island of Elephantine. From their writings, we conclude that they pronounced YHWH as “yahu.” Clement of Alexander, writing about 200 AD, transliterated YHWH into Greek as\u00a0iaoue<\/i>, which would be pronounced “yahweh” in English today.<\/p>\n
How did “Yahweh” become “Jehovah?” Radical rabbis, beginning in the fourth century B.C. became concerned that the name YHWH would be misused, violating\u00a0Exodus 20:7. They decided it was too holy to say, so whenever they came across the name, they would say\u00a0adhon<\/i>\u00a0(“Lord”) instead. Eventually, knowledge of how to pronounce YHWH died out.<\/p>\n
The Septuagint version translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. It was done about 200 B.C. in that translation the word YHWH was translated to the Greek word\u00a0kurios\u00a0<\/i>(“Lord”). In the New Testament, whenever an Old Testament passage was quoted that contained YHWH, the writers used\u00a0kurios<\/i>\u00a0in the Greek. Since these writers were inspired by God, we conclude that God finds “Lord” to be a proper translation of YHWH.<\/p>\n
Jumping ahead to about 700 AD, Jewish scholars, known as the Masoretes, realized that knowledge of how to pronounce Hebrew was dying out. They introduced a system of vowel pointers above and below the text, so as to not change the actual sacred writings. These vowel pointers tell the reader what vowel sounds to use for the various words. However, since YHWH was always pronounced\u00a0adhon\u00a0<\/i>when read (and no one probably remembered the real pronunciation by then), the vowels pointers for\u00a0adhon<\/i>\u00a0was placed around YHWH. If the verse contained\u00a0adhon yhwh<\/i>, they then put the vowel pointers from the word\u00a0elohim<\/i>\u00a0(“God”) around YHWH.<\/p>\n
Jumping ahead to about 1200 AD, scholars transliterated the consonants YHWH into European letters of that era (JHVH) and then added the vowels, not knowing they weren’t the correct ones. Hence, “Jehovah” was born. It has the consonants of the original YHWH, but the vowels of the Hebrew word for “lord.”<\/p>\n
Some people today find “Jehovah” repulsive because, unintentional though it may be, it is a made up word. However, since it has come to be associated exclusively with the name of God, one could argue that it is a translation of YHWH, though not a transliteration.<\/p>\n
Some, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, object to using LORD in place of YHWH. However, they are ignoring God’s own translation of His name. For example, Jesus quotes\u00a0Deuteronomy 6:5\u00a0in\u00a0Matthew 22:37, “Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’<\/i>” Jesus used the Greek word\u00a0kurios<\/i>\u00a0(“lord”) to translate YHWH. This is done consistently in the New Testament, which is inspired by God. Hence, God has shown us that it is proper to translate YHWH as “Lord.” The use of all capitals is a convention used by translators to indicate that YHWH is behind the word “Lord” and not the normal Hebrew word\u00a0adhon<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: I know the New World Translation is not a reliable translation, but why have the other Bible translations changed the original YHWH to LORD? Answer: When a translator encounters a word, he is faced with two choices: he can translate the word or he can transliterate the word. To translate requires finding a word…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[90,190],"class_list":["post-2625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-god","tag-translation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14839,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-dont-we-use-yeshua-instead-of-jesus\/","url_meta":{"origin":2625,"position":0},"title":"Why don’t we use Yeshua instead of Jesus?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Someone asked me why Yeshua, which is believed to be the real name of Christ, is never used today because of the English translation. Jesus is believed to be a corruption of Yeshua. What is your view on this? Answer: We use \"Jesus\" because that is the English transliteration\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14721,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-does-mark-have-eloi-and-matthew-have-eli-for-the-same-statement\/","url_meta":{"origin":2625,"position":1},"title":"Why does Mark have “Eloi” and Matthew have “Eli” for the same statement?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I believe that Matthew's account lists Jesus's cry\u00a0from the ancient texts when he wrote \"Eli, Eli lama sabachthani\".\u00a0 This is not a quote from Psalm 22.\u00a0 The Hebrew in Psalm 22 is 'azab, not sabachthani.\u00a0 I've seen some stretches that try to link sabachthani with 'azab, but I believe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3321,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-jesus-the-name-used-in-the-new-testament\/","url_meta":{"origin":2625,"position":2},"title":"Is “Jesus” the name used in the New Testament?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Can you demonstrate that \"Jesus\" is a very old name mentioned by the writers of the New Testament? Answer: The New Testament was originally written in Greek. The name for our Lord was spelled \"Iesous\" in Greek (using English letters). Four people in the New Testament are mentioned having\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18504,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/arent-the-translators-accurate-enough-so-we-dont-have-to-look-at-the-definitions-of-greek-words-for-alcohol\/","url_meta":{"origin":2625,"position":3},"title":"Aren’t the translators accurate enough so we don’t have to look at the definitions of Greek words for alcohol?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have been studying about wine in the Bible. I am convinced that we should not be using fermented wine.\u00a0However, I was asked some questions for which I don't have a good answer. Why would the translators of the different versions of the Bible make a mistake when translating\u00a0oinos\u00a0with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32018,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-there-any-scriptural-evidence-of-deaconesses\/","url_meta":{"origin":2625,"position":4},"title":"Is there any scriptural evidence of deaconesses?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is there\u00a0any scriptural evidence of\u00a0deaconesses? Answer: The word \"deacon\" is a derivative transliteration of the Greek word\u00a0diakonos. The word is means a servant and it can be translated as servant, minister, deacon, or waiter. Typically translators try to use \"minister\" when\u00a0diakonos\u00a0is being applied to a preacher. \"Who then is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42032,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-are-there-random-italic-words-in-my-bible\/","url_meta":{"origin":2625,"position":5},"title":"Why are there random italic words in my Bible?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: So what is with these random italics in passages? Example: \"And those\u00a0members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts\u00a0have more abundant comeliness.\" It's everywhere. Random words emphasized for what reason? 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