Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf" <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no>]

Dear Yigal,

Your observations regarding YHWH and 'adonay are correct. You ask: "Why is 
this really important?"

Whether YHWH was written in the NT autographs and therefore should be 
included in modern translations of the NT is closely related to what is 
viewed as the most important doctrine of the Christian Churches, namely the 
trinity doctrine. (Please note that I am observing and not arguing for or 
against a particular religious doctrine.) Many persons believe that YHWH of 
the Old Testament is Jesus of the NT, and others believe that Jesus, God, and 
The Holy Spirit are parts of the same godhead—the trinity. Two proper names, 
YHWH and Jesus in the NT would suggest two different individuals, which would 
be problematic for the trinity doctrine. If KURIOS "the Lord" is used for 
both God and Jesus, there is no problem at all. There are about one hundred 
passages in the NT where we cannot know whether the referent is God or Jesus 
when "the Lord" is used. So the issue is very important, and it often stirs 
up strong religious feelings.

The question of whether God's name should be included in the NT was a 
non-issue until the LXX fragments with YHWH and IAO were found. However, most 
English translations do not use the name of God in the Old Testament either. 
That may be for the same reason as I have mentioned above: I will illustrate 
the issue by a quote from H. Rosin, who was a speaker at a conference for 
Bible translators in Djakarta in 1952. H. Rosin believed that the 
substitution of YHWH by 'adonay was caused by God himself, and he wrote:

"It might be disrespectful and disobedient, therefore, to restore something 
that God himself has demolished. It might mean that “Jehovah” would 
irrevocably become the strange God of the O.T. and that the cleavage between 
the two Testaments might also rend apart the church, for are not “Jehovah’s 
witnesses” anti-Trinitarians? We therefore feel that we should most strongly 
advise against a transcription of JHWH in a translation of the Bible." 
(Translating Divine Names "The Bible Translator" 3, 4 (1952), pp.180-87.

The exact pronunciation of YHWH is not important, but to use or not to use 
the name in Bible translations is the burning issue.


Best regards,


Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway


>
> What we're discussing here, from my understanding, is not how the name was 
> written but how it was pronounced. Presumably, during the First Temple 
> Period YHWH was vocalized in some way, and we really do not have enough 
> information to know exactly how. BTW, there may have been different precise 
> vocalizations in different regions.
>
> All the various Greek mss. can tell us, is how their writers could best 
> approximate the way the name was pronounced in whatever circles they 
> operated in during the various stages of the Second Temple Period. What we 
> do know is that eventually, most Jews began saying "Adonai" instead of 
> vocalizing "YHWH", and this practice was emulated buy the translations by 
> using Kurios. We do not have enough information to trace the precise 
> process by which this happened. In any case, why is this really important?
>
>
>
>
>
> Yigal Levin
>
>