Sacred Name Bible

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Excerpt from the Halleluyah Scriptures, a Sacred Name Bible that uses modern characters inspired by southern inscriptions of the of the Canaanite script (at times called Paleo-Hebrew since the 1950s) for some divine names and Yeshayahu for "Isaiah" Excerpt from a Sacred Name Bible.jpg
Excerpt from the Halleluyah Scriptures, a Sacred Name Bible that uses modern characters inspired by southern inscriptions of the of the Canaanite script (at times called Paleo-Hebrew since the 1950s) for some divine names and Yeshayahu for "Isaiah"

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. [1] [2] 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. [3]

Contents

Instead of the traditional English form "Jesus", Sacred Name versions use a form that they believe reflects the Semitic original, such as Yahshua. [1]

Some Sacred Name Bibles are available for download on the Web. [1] Very few of these Bibles have been noted or reviewed by scholars outside the Sacred Name Movement. [4]

Historical background

YHWH occurs in the Hebrew Bible, and also within the Greek text in a few manuscripts of the Greek translation found at Qumran among the Dead Sea Scrolls. It does not occur in early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. Although the Greek forms Iao and Iave do occur in magical inscriptions in the Hellenistic Jewish texts of Philo, Josephus and the New Testament use the word Kyrios ("Lord") when citing verses where YHWH occurs in the Hebrew. [5]

For centuries, Bible translators around the world did not transliterate or copy the tetragrammaton in their translations. For example, English Bible translators (Christian and Jewish) used LORD to represent it. Modern authorities on Bible translation have called for translating it with a vernacular word or phrase that would be locally meaningful. [6] [7] [8] The Catholic Church has called for maintaining in the liturgy the tradition of using "the Lord" to represent the tetragrammaton, [9] but does not forbid its use outside the liturgy, as is shown by the existence of Catholic Bibles such as the Jerusalem Bible (1966) and the New Jerusalem Bible (1985), where it appears as "Yahweh", and place names that incorporate the tetragrammaton are not affected. [10]

A few Bible translators, with varying theological motivations, have taken a different approach to translating the tetragrammaton. In the 1800s–1900s at least three English translations contained a variation of YHWH. [11] Two of these translations comprised only a portion of the New Testament. They did not restore YHWH throughout the body of the New Testament.

In the twentieth century, Rotherham's Emphasized Bible was the first to employ full transliteration of the tetragrammaton where it appears in the Bible (i.e., in the Old Testament). Angelo Traina's translation, The New Testament of our Messiah and Saviour Yahshua in 1950 also used it throughout to translate Κύριος, and The Holy Name Bible containing the Holy Name Version of the Old and New Testaments in 1963 was the first to systematically use a Hebrew form for sacred names throughout the Old and New Testament, becoming the first complete Sacred Name Bible.

Aramaic primacy

Some translators of Sacred Name Bibles hold to an 18th-century hypothesis within Biblical scholarship, first advanced by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. It argues that the synoptic Gospels are Greek translations of an Aramaic Urgospel. [12] The current consensus view held by almost all scholars of the New Testament is that all of its contents were originally written in Koine Greek. [13] [14] [15] In the 20th-century Matthew Black tried to advance Lessing's hypothesis further, but only was able to establish with some degree of certainty that some parts of the Gospel of Mark could derive from an Aramaic sayings-source or tradition. [16] His work was heavily critiqued for its methodology. [17] [18] [19] It is republished today with a critical preface lauding it as the "highmark" of an older theory, but describing consequent developments in scholarship. [20]

Although no early manuscripts of the New Testament contain these names, some rabbinical translations of Matthew did use the tetragrammaton in part of the Hebrew New Testament. Sidney Jellicoe in The Septuagint and Modern Study (Oxford, 1968) states that the name YHWH appeared in Greek Old Testament texts written for Jews by Jews, often in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet to indicate that it was not to be pronounced, or in Aramaic[ clarification needed ], or using the four Greek letters PIPI (Π   Ι   Π   Ι) that physically imitate the appearance of the Hebrew-Aramaic Square Script יהוה, YHWH), and that Kyrios was a Christian introduction. [21] Bible scholars and translators such as Eusebius and Jerome (translator of the Latin Vulgate) consulted the Hexapla, but did not attempt to preserve sacred names in Semitic forms. Justin Martyr (second century) argued that YHWH is not a personal name, writing of the "namelessness of God". [22]

George Lamsa, the translator of The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts: Containing the Old and New Testaments (1957), believed the New Testament was originally written in a Semitic language, not clearly differentiating between Syriac and Aramaic. However, despite his adherence to a Semitic original of the New Testament, Lamsa translated using the English word "Lord" instead of a Hebraic form of the divine name.

Accuracy or popularity

Sacred Name Bibles are not used frequently within Christianity, or Judaism. Only a few translations replace Jesus with Semitic forms such as Yeshua or Yahshua. Most English Bible translations translate the tetragrammaton with LORD where it occurs in the Old Testament rather than use a transliteration into English. This pattern is followed in languages around the world, as translators have translated sacred names without preserving the Hebraic forms, often preferring local names for the creator or highest deity, [7] [23] conceptualizing accuracy as semantic rather than phonetic.

The limited number and popularity of Sacred Name Bible translations suggests that phonetic accuracy is not considered to be of major importance by Bible translators or the public. The translator Joseph Bryant Rotherham lamented not making his work into a Sacred Name Bible by using the more accurate name Yahweh in his translation (pp. 20 – 26), though he also said, "I trust that in a popular version like the present my choice will be understood even by those who may be slow to pardon it." (p. xxi).

One notable example of Sacred Name advocacy in South Africa is Hannes Redelinghuys, a self-proclaimed professor who republished a version of the Restoration of Original Sacred Name Bible incorporating Sacred Name elements like Yahvahshua. Redelinghuys attempted to reintroduce the name "Yahvah" in Hebrew on the cover of his translation but used a non-standard and erroneous spelling, including two alephs and a tav in place of the correct Hebrew characters. This reflects the broader trend among Sacred Name proponents to prioritize phonetic renderings of divine names, even when lacking linguistic accuracy or scholarly consensus.

Transliterated Sacred Name Bibles

These Bibles systematically transliterate the tetragrammaton (usually as Yahweh) in both the Old and New Testaments, as well as a Semitic form of the name of Jesus such as Yahshua or Yeshua. They consider the names of both God the Father, and God the Son, to be sacred. [24]

Tetragrammaton Sacred Name Bibles

These Sacred Name Bibles use the tetragrammaton without vowels. They follow this practice in both the Old and New Testaments (though some translations are not complete).

Limited Sacred Name Bibles

Some translations use a form of "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" only sporadically:

Inconsistent translation of tetragrammaton, both .mw-parser-output span.smallcaps{font-variant:small-caps}.mw-parser-output span.smallcaps-smaller{font-size:85%} "Ever-living" for the tetragrammaton, as well as "Jehovah", Numbers 14, Ferrar Fenton Bible Ferrar Fenton Bible-- mixed sacred names.png
Inconsistent translation of tetragrammaton, both "Ever-living" for the tetragrammaton, as well as "Jehovah", Numbers 14, Ferrar Fenton Bible
Five Sacred Name Bibles Sacred Name Bibles.jpg
Five Sacred Name Bibles

These versions use either "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" only in the Old Testament:

The Literal Standard Version uses the unpointed tetragrammaton "YHWH" only where it occurs in the Hebrew text.

Non-English

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Unseth, Peter (1 July 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.
  2. ↑ Unseth, Peter. 2019. "Sacred Name Bibles" p. 721, in Noss, Philip A., and Charles S. Houser, eds. A Guide to Bible Translation: People, Languages, and Topics. Maitland, FL: Xulon Press; and Swindon, UK: United Bible Societies
  3. ↑ Rhodes Ron. The Complete Guide to Bible Translations: How They Were Developed 2009 p. 206 "Unlike most other translations today, the New Jerusalem Bible renders the Old Testament name for God, YHWH, as "Yahweh," just as the Jerusalem Bible did. In place of "Lord of hosts" is "Yahweh Sabaoth"
  4. ↑ "THE SCRIPTURES Institute for Scripture Research". www.biblecollectors.org. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  5. ↑ Aland, K. Text of the New Testament
  6. ↑ David Moomo. 2005. Translating YHWH into African languages. Scriptura 88: 151–60.
  7. 1 2 Ernst R. Wendland. 1992. yhwh- The Case For Chauta 'Great-[God]-of-the-Bow'. The Bible Translator. 43.4: 430–438.
  8. ↑ Helmut Rosin. 1956. The Lord Is God: The Translation of the Divine Names and the Missionary Calling of the Church. Amsterdam: Netherlands Bible Society.
  9. ↑ "In accordance with immemorial tradition which indeed is already evident in the above-mentioned 'Septuagint' version, the name of almighty God, expressed by the sacred Hebrew tetragrammaton (YHWH) and rendered in Latin by the word Dominus, is to be rendered in any vernacular by a word of equivalent meaning." Liturgiam authenticam, fifth instruction on vernacular translation of the Roman liturgy, Issue 5, section 41c. Congregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina Sacramentorum. 2001. ISBN   1-57455-428-X.
  10. ↑ United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: "The Name of God in the Liturgy"
  11. ↑
    • A Literal Translation of the New Testament, by Herman Heinfetter (1863)[ citation needed ]
    • The Epistles of Paul in Modern English, by George Barker Stevens (1898)[ citation needed ]
    • St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, by W. G. Rutherford (1900)[ citation needed ]
  12. ↑ Kloppenborg, John S., ed. (2020). "The History of the Synoptic Problem". The Oxford Handbook of the Synoptic Gospels (PDF). Oxford University Press. ...tracing the variations to differing translations of the same Aramaic original... [as earlier hypotheses now contrasted with later approaches].
  13. ↑ Longacre, Drew (29 April 2023). "Was the New Testament Written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek?". Logos. In light of all of this, it is clear that the scholarly consensus that the New Testament was written in Greek is correct.
  14. ↑ Porter, Stanley E., ed. (27 March 2014). "Greek Language". Oxford Bibliographies in Biblical Studies. Oxford University Press. The New Testament, apart from a few words in Aramaic and Hebrew, is written in a form of the Greek language used throughout the Roman Mediterranean world.
  15. ↑ Brown, Raymond E. (1997). "Textual Criticism". An Introduction to the New Testament. Doubleday / Yale University Press. Almost two thousand years ago evangelists wrote four Gospels in Greek.
  16. ↑ Black, Matthew (1967). An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (3rd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 271. A survey of the results of this study in this connexion yields one conclusion only which can be regarded as in any degree established, that an Aramaic sayings-source or tradition lies behind the Synoptic Gospels. [...] we have to do with a translation-tradition, sometimes literal, mostly, however, literary and interpretative, but generally bearing the stamp upon it, in one feature or another, of its Aramaic origin. Whether that source was written or oral, it is not possible from the evidence to decide. [...] They may conceivably be construed as evidence of the kind of Greek which an Aramaic-speaking Jew would write. [...] Certainly what evidence we do possess makes the assumption of Aramaic sources for the Marcan narrative much less difficult than for the non-Marcan narrative portions of Matthew and Luke.
  17. ↑ Fitzmyer, Joseph A. (1968). "Review of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts. Third Edition". The Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 30 (3): 417–428. ISSN   0008-7912. Consequently, any discussion of the Aramaic substratum of the NT today must begin with local and contemporary Aramaic. We should be suspicious of philological arguments[…] when they depend on texts and dialects[…] from a later date.[...] Fragmentary though these [Qumran] texts are, they do give a good impression of the language; B. has written them off too hastily as 'miscellaneous "bits and pieces".'[...] In all of this I am suggesting that the third edition of B.'s book no longer copes with the present-day problem of the Aramaic substratum of the Gospels and Acts.[...] B.'s discussion of Aramaisms often lacks rigor and logic.[...] I see no reason to contest B.'s 'one established conclusion'[…] that an Aramaic sayings-source or tradition lies behind the Synoptic Gospels. It is vaguely enough stated to be tenable.[...] It grieves me to write this way about the latest edition of B.'s book[…] I shall surely continue to be stimulated by it despite the criticisms which I have expressed against the third edition.
  18. ↑ Harrington, Daniel J. (1999). "Review of Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (3rd ed.; repr. with new introduction)". Review of Biblical Literature. Despite the many justified criticisms raised against it, Black's work has become something of a "classic" in New Testament studies.
  19. ↑ "The Language of the New Testament". The Language Environment of First-Century Judaism (PDF). Brill. 2018. The third edition of this book was very severely reviewed by J. A. Fitzmyer, CBQ.
  20. ↑ Harrington, Daniel J. (1999). "Review of Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (3rd ed.; repr. with new introduction)". Review of Biblical Literature. And so we have this reprint of Black's classic study, along with a new 21-page introduction by Evans, who justly hails Black's study as representing "the highwater mark" of the older approaches and as laying "the groundwork for subsequent research"
  21. ↑ Peter M. Head Christology and the Synoptic problem: an argument for Markan priority p161 "Jellicoe summarises: LXX texts, written by Jews for Jews, retained the Divine Name in Hebrew Letters (palaeo-Hebrew or "
  22. ↑ Justin Martyr, Hortatory Address, ch. 21
  23. ↑ David Moomo. 2005. Translating YHWH into African languages. Scriptura 88:151–160.
  24. ↑ Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition Bible. Preface, V. "No translation has accurately restored the Name Yahweh to the New Testament text where it undoubtedly appeared when the apostolic authors produced their works, nor is there a translation that has faithfully restored the Saviour's true Name, Yahshua the Messiah, to the text of the Bible", Jacob O. Meyer
  25. ↑ Restoration of Original Sacred Name Bible.
  26. ↑ BibleCollectors.org review
  27. ↑ MCT Bible, a precise and unabridged translation (precisely and contextually denoting the Sacred Name as "Yahweh" in both the Old and New Testaments), with contextual dictionaries and concordances.
  28. ↑ Hebraic Roots Bible by Esposito.
  29. ↑ published by Yahweh's Restoration Ministry and using the King James Version. Available online at The Restoration Study Bible
  30. ↑ edited by Ann Spangler and published by Baker Publishing Group. Names of God Archived 6 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine , accessed 12 December 2015. The core text uses the God's Word translation. The print edition has divine names printed in brown and includes a commentary. The text is available at BibleGateway.com.
  31. ↑ Blog review by Richard Shields, The Names of God Bible (GW), accessed 12 December 2015, reports that this version has been praised for its "attention to detail", but the translation only presents "the most significant names and titles of God" in their original forms and therefore some 'names of God' are not treated in the same way: for example, “Mighty One” (Avir) which appears in Psalms 132:2 and 132:5 and a total of 23 times (most referring to God) in the Old Testament is not highlighted.
  32. ↑ Uses "Yahweh" explaining and defending this practice pp. 759-771. Source
  33. ↑ It is not clear if this is the same translation as "The Scriptures" by the Institute for Scripture Research
  34. ↑
  35. ↑ "New Living Translation Foreword" (PDF). 2009.
  36. ↑ Chouraqui's French translation online
  37. ↑ Magandang Balita Biblia, copyright Philippine Bible Society 1980. {{IS BN|971-29-0102-5}}

Bibliography

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