Pronouncing and Translating the Divine Name

Introduction

Andrew Case, Pronouncing and Translating the Divine Name (Creative Commons Attributions Share-Alike, 2022).

"[In advising translation teams] There was a need for a comprehensive treatment of the divine name that adequately supplied translators with everything required to make an informed decision. This paper is an opportunity to explore this vast field of study, evaluate the evidence, articulate our own position, guide translators, and help and encourage others to reevaluate preconceptions they may have about the matter." (pp. 8-9)

Summary

Those in the Christian and Jewish faiths often have a lot of questions surrounding the divine name of God, such as: Why and how did we lose God's personal name? Is it important to use it? What does God think about us calling him by a title or substitute like LORD? Can we accurately recover the exact pronunciation of the tetragrammaton in the way it sounded in the days of Moses? Why did the New Testament authors use kurios (Lord) to refer to God? How seriously should we take the command in Exodus 3:15--where God first reveals his name as YHWH--in this whole discussion? Should we never pronounce God's name out of reverence, or is there biblical evidence to the contrary?
Andrew Case provides an exhaustive discussion of these issues and more, considering implications for Bible translation and beyond. Overall, he sets out to answer two primary questions throughout the book:

1) Would it be better for translations of the Hebrew Bible to use some approximation of Yahweh, or a title like "the Lord"?

2) When teaching and reading Hebrew today outside of Israel, would it be better to pronounce his name as some approximation like Yahweh, or say Adonai (Lord)?

Outline

Introduction & Motivation

Use of the Divine Name in the Hebrew Bible

The Beginning of the End for Pronouncing God’s Name

The Septuagint

The Early Church and the Divine Name

The New Testament Use of “Lord”

The Early Church & Late Antiquity

Translation Traditions from the Reformation to the Present

Sacred Name Movement & Bibles

Returning to Exodus 3:15

The Evidence for Yahweh

Contracted forms of the Name

How יָה Supplies the First Part of the Name

The Root of the Name

The Lack of Evidence for Yahweh

Objections

We Don’t Have an Audio Recording of Moses

The Pronunciation of Yahweh is Historically Artificial

Nehemiah Gordon

We Run the Risk of “Taking God’s Name in Vain”

Inconsistency, Overwhelming the Reader, and Creating Obstacles

Jews Will Be Offended

It Spoils the Literary Effect

Conclusion

Appendices

A Short Selection of Verses where a Title Substitute Is Awkward/Inadequate for YHWH

A Roman Catholic Perspective

Key Concepts

• Tetragrammaton: A term for the four letters of the personal name of Israel’s God, derived from the Greek for “four” and “letter.” In Hebrew, the name consists of four consonants, יהוה (yhwh).
• Septuagint: Greek translation(s) of the Hebrew Old Testament.
• The Sacred Name Movement: starting in the 1930s, this movement that began with Seventh-Day Adventists seeks to conform Christianity to its Hebrew roots, including using the divine name. They have made about 18 translations of the Bible, but none of them are published by well-established publishers, and their theology is troubling. They are more or less known as a cult, and their usage of Yahweh can thus have cultish associations.
• Kurios (kurioß): an ancient Greek word meaning "lord"; actually is a title but came to be known as a name; used by the Septuagint and the New Testament authors in place of the divine name

Key Arguments

• There is no evidence in the Old Testament that the name YHWH should be avoided out of respect. On the contrary, God commanded the people of Israel to remember and repeat his name "from generation to generation" in Exodus 3:15.
• The divine name probably stopped being said by Israelites after the exile, due to trauma and negative associations with the name.
• The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) manuscripts in the intertestamental period used kurios ("lord") in place of YHWH, due to the practice already in place of avoiding pronunciation of the name.
• The New Testament authors used the Greek kurios ("lord") in place of YHWH to avoid conclusion, but also because it was God-ordained that the Hebrew substitution of the title "adonai" for YHWH would lead to "kurios" appearing for YHWH. This would allow the NT audience to easily associate Jesus (also called by the title "kurios") with YHWH of the Old Testament.
• Over time and a loss of Hebrew language and culture knowledge, the common person came to understand "kurios" as a name rather than a title (a similar happening took place in the English language with "the Lord").
• The history of the usage of the divine name has been chaotic, widely varied, and shrouded in mystery, largely due to misunderstandings of the third commandment, given in Exodus 20:7, and a Septuagint mistranslation of Lev. 24:15 (glossing the Hebrew verb as "naming" the name rather than "blaspheming" the name). Other huge factors in the acceptance or rejection of the divine name are societal opinions, comfort/familiarity with certain forms, and tradition.
• The closest approximation we can land on for the vowels originally used with the tetragrammaton give us the rendering "Yahweh". This name, or some phonetic approximation of it, should in theory be used and embraced by all languages and cultures, both in writing and speech.
• YHWH desires his covenant people to use his personal name, not a title like "lord" or substitution.

Key Evidence

• Exodus 3:15 NIV-- God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord [YHWH], the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation."

It's clear that YHWH desired for his people to say his name--in oral cultures like the ancient Israelites, the way things are remembered from generation to generation is by speaking them! He never prohibited his name being said; on the contrary, he commanded the people of Israel to remember ("call") and honor his name. YHWH's revealing of his name made for a special relationship with his people, especially given that other gods at that time were known by titles or the attributes they ruled over, not their names.

• Many righteous people throughout the Old Testament said YHWH's name for oaths or greetings, like Elijah and Boaz (Ruth 3:13, 1 Sam. 14:45, 19:6; 1 Kings 17:1, i.a.)

• Most of the arguments against saying the name are based on tradition, subjective opinions, or mistranslations/misunderstandings of verses like Leviticus 24:16 and Exodus 20:7, which are about cursing, blaspheming, or misrepresenting YHWH rather simply speaking his name.

• Theophoric names (names containing shortened forms of the divine name) in Hebrew such as Elijah, Jonathan, Joshua, etc. give us clues as to the original vowels of the name.

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Impact

Given the fact this book is open-sourced and self-published, no reviews of it yet appear in any other scholarly works. However, it is the opinion of the author of this review, along with many other Bible translation practitioners via hearsay, that Case lays out a thorough and detailed history of the divine name, as well as how its usage and pronunciation came to be considered taboo. As he goes, he gives compelling arguments for the use of the divine name in Bible translations today, as well as for its pronunciation ("Yahweh" or some language-specific phonetic approximation). He also provides rebuttals to some of the most common objections to the use of the name. Translation teams need not absorb every element of the argument to appreciate Case's final conclusions and recommendations. This paper is a good resource for translators to be confident in their decision to use an approximation of YHWH in their translations--an essential decision that should be made early in a translation project.

References

1. Barry et al., 2016

For a free PDF of the paper: http://freehebrew.online/the-divine-name