Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Rolf:

On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 10:57 PM, Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no> wrote:

> Dear Doug,
>
> …
> Personally I would say that when the NIV substitutes YHWH with "the
> LORD," the translators are then blaspheming the name. There are two
> reasons for my bold claim, 1) the translators have violated a
> fundamental rule of translation because of their own theological
> views,


That’s a little bit strong. What I think is more likely is that I have found
translators as a group to be remarkably conservative to their trade,
following the herd rather than taking risks. Seeing as the LXX apparently
used κυριος for the name, others merely followed their lead.

That’s not helped by the fact that we don’t know the pronunciation. Yet that
doesn’t seem to have stopped transliterating other names in ways that we
know are wrong.

On that note, I notice that the Chinese Wou Hap Bun (sorry, Cantonese
pronunciation) has “Ye Wou Wa” for the name.

>
> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo
>
>
Karl W. Randolph.