Angelo Traina

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Angelo Traina
Born22 January 1889  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Cerda   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Died4 November 1971  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg (aged 82)
OccupationBible translator  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Angelo Benedetto Traina (January 22, 1889 - November 4, 1971) was a biblical scholar, best known for his emphasis on what he called restoring "Semitic proper names to their Aramaic and Hebrew forms". [1]

Contents

Life

Traina was born in Sicily into a Catholic family. [1] They later moved to New York City, where he left home at the age of 13, ending up in Buffalo. Part of a group of drinking and gambling youths, he was part of a conspiracy to disrupt a revival meeting, but instead converted, joining a Protestant church. He later worked for Aimee Semple McPherson. [1] He credited the Millerism movement, a group that stressed keeping the sabbath, as an influence in his life. [1]

His biblical studies resulted in placing a special emphasis on the Hebrew form of God's name. This led to him translating The Sacred Name New Testament (1950), with C. O. Dodd, the first example of a sacred name Bible. He went on to translate the Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures also, in The Holy Name Bible containing the Holy Name Version of the Old and New Testaments (1963). His translation was based on the King James Version, but "with special emphasis on the use of 'Yahweh' for the Father and 'Yahshua' for Jesus.

The name "Yahvahshua" was created by Angelo Traina, an Italian-American Bible scholar and translator, in the mid-20th century. Traina was a prominent figure in the Sacred Name Movement, which sought to restore the original Hebrew names and words in the Bible.

Traina's work, "The New Testament of our Messiah and Saviour Yahshua" (1950), conceived and introduced the name "Yahvahshua" as a way to combine the divine name "Yahvah" (YHVH) with the name "Yahshua" (Jesus). Since then, the name "Yahvahshua" has been adopted by some Sacred Name groups and individuals. This name was later adobted by Lloyd Snow and R Favitta, into an edited version of The Restoration of Original Sacred Name Bible.

While Traina is credited with popularizing the name, it's unlikely that similar combinations of the divine name with "Yahvah" and "Yahshua" existed in earlier writings or oral traditions within the Sacred Name Movement.

[1] A fifth edition was published in 1989 by the Scripture Research Association, based in New Jersey and founded by him. He was the first Bible translator to deliberately transliterate Hebrew forms of divine names. [2] A number of others have followed his example in this, including Jacob O. Meyer producing the Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition.

He believed that the Hebrew form of the names of God were vital for believers of all times. He believed that most the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew, then later translated into Greek. [3] He taught that the Greek copies available have erred in their translation of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton by Greek κυριος. Also, he rejected the Greek spelling which is the basis for the English form "Jesus", using a Hebrew-based form "Yahshua". [4]

He also wrote many pamphlets and articles, many of which were published in the magazine The Faith. [5] Traina was one of the early foundational figures in the Sacred Name Movement, having been a featured speaker at the 1938 Feast of Tabernacles Camp Meeting near Warrior, Alabama, an event which is seen by some as the launching of the movement, [6] [7] a movement that has spread from the USA to other countries, such as Indonesia, Kenya, and the Philippines. [8]

Following Traina's lead, many Sacred Name Bible translations have been produced. In 2011, there were at least 20 such English translation that presented at least parts of the Bible using Hebrew-based forms of sacred names. [2] Traina's innovative work has spawned the translation of Sacred Name Bibles in other places, e.g. Indonesia. [9] The idea of Sacred Name Bible translations spawned by Traina has been attacked by some, including David Bivin. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bible</span> Collection of religious texts

The Bible is a collection of religious texts or scriptures, some, all, or a variant of which are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, Islam, the Baha'i Faith, and other Abrahamic religions. The Bible is an anthology originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophecies, among other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies.

The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events relating to first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, is called the Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as Sacred Scripture by Christians.

The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Israelites. The second division of Christian Bibles is the New Testament, written in Koine Greek.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Septuagint</span> Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures

The Septuagint, sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy, and often abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by seventy-two Hebrew translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Jah or Yah is a short form of the tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH), the personal name of God: Yahweh, which the ancient Israelites used. The conventional Christian English pronunciation of Jah is, even though the letter J here transliterates the palatal approximant. The spelling Yah is designed to make the pronunciation explicit in an English-language context, especially for Christians who may not use Hebrew regularly during prayer and study.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mammon</span> Wealth or an entity that promises wealth

Mammon in the New Testament is commonly thought to mean money, material wealth, or any entity that promises wealth, and is associated with the greedy pursuit of gain. The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke both quote Jesus using the word in a phrase often rendered in English as "You cannot serve both God and mammon."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bible translations</span> Translations of the Bible

The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. As of September 2023 all of the Bible has been translated into 736 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,658 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,264 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance. Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,658 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New American Standard Bible</span> English translation of the Bible

The New American Standard Bible is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published by the Lockman Foundation, the complete NASB was released in 1971. New revisions were published in 1995 and 2020. The NASB relies on recently published critical editions of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. It is known for preferring a literal translation style that generally preserves the structure of the original language when possible, rather than an idiomatic style that attempts to match natural English usage.

A Hebrew name is a name of Hebrew origin. In a more narrow meaning, it is a name used by Jews only in a religious context and different from an individual's secular name for everyday use.

There exists a consensus among scholars that the language of Jesus and his disciples was Aramaic. Aramaic was the common language of Judea in the first century AD. The villages of Nazareth and Capernaum in Galilee, where Jesus spent most of his time, were Aramaic-speaking communities. Jesus probably spoke a Galilean variant of the language, distinguishable from that of Jerusalem. Based on the symbolic renaming or nicknaming of some of his apostles it is also likely that Jesus or at least one of his apostles knew enough Koine Greek to converse with those not native to Judea. It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was well versed in Hebrew for religious purposes.

Yahshua is a proposed transliteration of יהושוע‎, the original Hebrew name of Jesus. The pronunciation Yahshua is philologically impossible in the original Hebrew and has support neither in archeological findings, such as the Dead Sea scrolls or inscriptions, nor in rabbinical texts as a form of Joshua. Scholarship generally considers the original form of Jesus to be Yeshua, a Hebrew Bible form of Joshua.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jehovah</span> Vocalization of the divine name YHWH

Jehovah is a Latinization of the Hebrew יְהֹוָהYəhōwā, one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The Tetragrammaton יהוה is considered one of the seven names of God in Judaism and a form of God's name in Christianity.

In contrast to the variety of absolute or personal names of God in the Old Testament, the New Testament uses only two, according to the International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. From the 20th century onwards, "a number of scholars find various evidence for the name [YHWH or related form] in the New Testament.

The Sacred Name Movement (SNM) is a movement within Adventism concerned with emphasizing the use of the Hebrew name of God. Influenced by Clarence Orvil Dodd, the movement considers the use of God's name as important as the Jewish festivals. SNM believers also generally observe many of the Old Testament laws and ceremonies such as the Seventh-day Sabbath, Torah festivals, and kashrut food laws. The movement also rejects the doctrine of the Trinity as unbiblical.

The Old Testament is the first section of the two-part Christian biblical canon; the second section is the New Testament. The Old Testament includes the books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) or protocanon, and in various Christian denominations also includes deuterocanonical books. Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants use different canons, which differ with respect to the texts that are included in the Old Testament.

This is a glossary of terms used in Christianity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition</span> Sacred Name Bible

The Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition (SSBE) is a Sacred Name Bible which uses the names Yahweh and Yahshua in both the Old and New Testaments. It was produced by Jacob O. Meyer, based on the American Standard Version of 1901 and it contains over 977 pages. The Assemblies of Yahweh printed 5,500 copies of the first edition in 1981. It is also used by some members of the Sacred Name Movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sacred Name Bible</span> Bible translations that use Hebraic forms of Gods personal name (YHWH)

Sacred Name Bibles are Bible translations that consistently use Hebraic forms of the God of Israel's personal name, instead of its English language translation, in both the Old and New Testaments. Some Bible versions, such as the Jerusalem Bible, employ the name Yahweh, a transliteration of the Hebrew tetragrammaton (YHWH), in the English text of the Old Testament, where traditional English versions have LORD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Names of God in Christianity</span> Terms for the Christian deity

The Bible usually uses the name of God in the singular, generally using the terms in a very general sense rather than referring to any special designation of God. However, general references to the name of God may branch to other special forms which express his multifaceted attributes. The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible reveals YHWH as the personal name of God, along with certain titles including El Elyon and El Shaddai. Jah or Yah is an abbreviation of Jahweh/Yahweh, and often sees usage by Christians in the interjection "Hallelujah", meaning "Praise Yah", which is used to give God glory. In the New Testament the terms Theos, Kyrios and Patēr are additionally used to reference God.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">4Q120</span> Biblical manuscript dating to the first century BCE

The manuscript 4Q120 is a Septuagint manuscript (LXX) of the biblical Book of Leviticus written on papyrus, found at Qumran. The Rahlfs-No. is 802. Paleographically it dates from the first century BCE. Currently the manuscript is housed in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Paul 2009, pp. 230.
  2. 1 2 Unseth, Peter (2011). "Sacred Name Bible Translations in English: A Fast-Growing Phenomenon". The Bible Translator. 62 (3): 185–194. doi:10.1177/026009351106200306. ISSN   2051-6770. S2CID   163735860.
  3. ""Not Greek but Hebrew" by Traina". Archived from the original on 2022-05-09. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  4. ""Not Greek but Hebrew", by Traina". Archived from the original on 2022-05-09. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  5. Kurian, George Thomas; Lamport, Mark A., eds. (2016). "Sacred Name Movement". Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States. Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States. Vol. 5. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN   9781442244320.
  6. Origin of Sacred Name Movement
  7. Piepkorn, Arthur Carl (1977). Profiles in Belief: The Religious Bodies of the United States and Canada, Vol. 3-4. Profiles in Belief: The Religious Bodies of the United States and Canada, Arthur Carl Piepkorn. Harper & Row. p. 147. ISBN   9780060665807.
  8. p. 120. Feldman, Rachel Z. "The Children of Noah: Has Messianic Zionism Created a New World Religion?." Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 22, no. 1 (2018): 115-128.
  9. Daud Soesilo, “Translating the Names of God: Recent Experience from Indonesia and Malaysia,” The Bible Translator 52.4 [2001]: 414-423.
  10. Bivin, David. “The Fallacy of Sacred Name Bibles,” Jerusalem Perspective 4.6 (1991): 7, 12.

Sources