a reply to:
Locoman8
JEHOVAH NAME,
MEANS:
When translated from the HebrewTetragrammaton, ( יהוה ), which means [“HE CAUSES TO BECOME.”] These four Hebrew letters are represented in
many languages by the letters [ JHVH or YHWH ].
Where is God’s name found in Bible translations that are commonly used today?
The New English Bible:
The name Jehovah appears at Exodus 3:15;6:3. See also Genesis 22:14; Exodus 17:15; Judges 6:24; Ezekiel 48:35. (But if this and other
translations use “Jehovah” in several places, why not be consistent in using it at every place where the,Tetragrammaton appears in the Hebrew
text?)
Revised Standard Version:
A footnote on Exodus 3:15 says: “The word LORD when spelled with capital letters, stands for the divine name, YHWH.”
Today’s English Version:
A footnote on Exodus 6:3 states: “THE LORD: . . . Where the Hebrew text has Yahweh, traditionally transliterated as Jehovah, this translation
employs LORD with capital letters, following a usage which is widespread in English versions.”
King James Version:
The name Jehovah is found at Exodus 6:3;Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; 26:4. See also Genesis 22:14; Exodus 17:15;Judges 6:24.
American Standard Version:
The name Jehovah is used consistently in the Hebrew Scriptures in this translation, beginning with Genesis 2:4.
Douay Version: A footnote on Exodus 6:3 says: “My name Adonai. The name, which is in the Hebrew text, is that most proper name of God,
which signifieth his eternal, self-existing being, (Exod. 3, 14,) which the Jews out of reverence never pronounce; but, instead of it, whenever it
occurs in the Bible, they read Adonai, which signifies the Lord; and, therefore, they put thepoints or vowels, which belong
tothe name Adonai, to the four letters of that other ineffable name, Jod, He, Vau, He. Hence some moderns have framed the name of
Jehovah, unknown to all theancients, whether Jews or Christians; for the true pronunciation of the name, which is in the Hebrew text, by long
disuse is now quite lost.” (It is interesting that The Catholic Encyclopedia[1913, Vol. VIII, p. 329] states:“Jehovah, the proper name of
God in the Old Testament; hence the Jews called it the name by excellence, the great name, the only name.”)
The Holy Bible translated by Ronald A. Knox: The name Yahweh is found in footnotes at Exodus 3:14 and 6:3.
The New American Bible: A footnote on Exodus 3:14 favors the form “Yahweh,” but the name does not appear in the main text of the translation.
In the Saint Joseph Edition, see also the appendix Bible Dictionary under “Lord” and “Yahweh.”
The Jerusalem Bible: The Tetragrammaton is translated Yahweh, starting with its first occurrence, at Genesis 2:4.
New World Translation:
The name JEHOVAH is used in both the Hebrew and the Christian Greek Scriptures in this translation, appearing [7,210 times].
An American Translation: At Exodus 3:15 and 6:3 the name Yahweh is used, followed by “the LORD” in brackets.
The Bible in Living English, S. T. Byington: The name Jehovah is used throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.
The ‘Holy Scriptures’ translated by J. N. Darby: The name Jehovah appears throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, also in many footnotes on
Christian Greek Scripture texts, beginning with Matthew 1:20.
The Emphatic Diaglott, Benjamin Wilson: The name Jehovah is found at Matthew 21:9 and in 17 other places in this translation ofthe Christian
Greek Scriptures.
The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text—A New Translation,Jewish Publication Society of America, Max Margolis editor-in-chief:
At Exodus 6:3 the Hebrew Tetragrammaton appears in the English text.
The Holy Bible translated by Robert Young: The name Jehovah is found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures in this literal translation.
Why do many Bible translations not use the personal name of God or use it only a few times?
The preface of the Revised Standard Version explains: “For two reasons the Committee has returned to the more familiar usage of the King
James Version: (1) theword ‘Jehovah’ does not accurately represent any form of the Nameever used in Hebrew; and (2) theuse of any
proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom he had to be distinguished, was discontinued in Judaism
before the Christian era and is entirely inappropriate for theuniversal faith of the Christian Church.” (Thus their own view of what is
appropriate has been relied on as the basis for removing fromthe Holy Bible the personal nameof its Divine Author, whose nameappears
in the original Hebrew more often than any other name or any title. They admittedly follow theexample of the adherents of Judaism, of whom
Jesus said: “You have made the word of God invalid because of your tradition.”—Matt. 15:6.)
Translators who have felt obligated to include the personal name of God at least once or perhaps a few times in the main text, though not doing so
every time it appears in Hebrew, have evidently followed the example of William Tyndale, who included the divine name in his translation of the
Pentateuch published in 1530, thus breaking with the practice of leaving the name out altogether.
Was the name Jehovah used by the inspired writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures?
Jerome, in the fourth century, wrote: “Matthew, who is also Levi, and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all composed a Gospel of
Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language and characters for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed.” (De viris inlustribus, chap.
III) This Gospel includes 11 direct quotations of portions of the Hebrew Scriptures where the Tetragrammaton is found. There is no reason to believe
that Matthew did not quote the passages as they were written in the Hebrew text from which he quoted.
Other inspired writers who contributed to the contents of the Christian Greek Scriptures quoted hundreds of passages from theSeptuagint, a
translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. Many of these passages included the Hebrew Tetragrammaton right in the Greek text of early copies of
theSeptuagint. In harmony with Jesus’ own attitude regarding his Father’s name, Jesus’ disciples would have retained that name in those
quotations.—Compare John 17:6, 26.
In Journal of Biblical Literature,George Howard of the University of Georgia wrote: “We know for a fact that Greek-speaking Jews continued to
write, ( יהוה ) within their Greek Scriptures. Moreover, it is most unlikely that early conservative Greek-speaking Jewish Christians varied from
this practice. Although in secondary references to God they probably used the words [God] and [Lord], it would have been extremely unusual for them to
have dismissed the Tetragram from the biblical text itself. . . . Since the Tetragram was still written in the copies of the Greek Bible which made
up the Scriptures of the early church, it is reasonable to believe that the N[ew] T[estament] writers, when quoting from Scripture, preserved the
Tetragram within the biblical text. . . . But when it was removed from the Greek O[ld] T[estament], it was also removed from the quotations of the
O[ld] T[estament] in the N[ew] T[estament]. Thus somewhere around the beginning of the second century the use of surrogates [substitutes] must have
crowded out the Tetragram in both Testaments.”—Vol. 96, No. 1, March 1977, pp. 76, 77.
Which form of the divine name is correct—Jehovah or Yahweh?