Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:45, 14 September 2009

This article may be unbalanced toward certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (July 15, 2009)

Sacred name Bibles are Bibles that use the Sacred Name Yahweh (Template:Hebrew), or some variation of it, in both the Old and the New Testaments. Many of these translations also use a Semitic form of the name Jesus such as "Yeshua".

Historical and linguistical evidence points towards "Yahweh" as being a close pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton into English. Most early translators rejected this evidence and substituted the Name with "LORD", or God . Some translators who chose to transliterate the Tetragrammaton, went with "Jehovah", rather than "Yahweh", such as the American Standard Version, New World Translation, and Jerusalem Bible. One popular translator expressed regret at not using the more accurate name "Yahweh" in his translation (James Moffatt, 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).

Restoring the Name

Damage to the reputation of Sacred Name Bibles is generally placed upon translators who reject the Name “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” and take up other variants which are philologically and grammatically, impossible. The rendering "Jehovah" has been called a “morphological monstrosity” and a “mispronunciation”, but Bibles that use the name Jehovah have tended to be more popular than those using "Yahweh". This may be due to several reasons, but primarily that Jehovah's Witnesses are a considerably larger group than any Sacred Name group. Scholarly groups rarely use "Jehovah" to address the Hebrew Elohim, but use "Yahweh" or sometimes the Hebrew “God” or “mighty one”.

Another hindrance to the reputation of the sacred name Bibles is that no independent publisher has printed one (excluding the ASV and Jerusalem Bibles from the category of sacred name Bibles since they do not use any Semitic forms in the New Testament). They are published by organizations that exist to promote the use of sacred names in worship.

History of Sacred Name Bibles

The translators of these versions generally believe that the New Testament, or at least significant portions of it, were originally written in a Semitic language, Hebrew or Aramaic. The present Greek text is then a translation and is seen as deficient in not having preserved the Hebraic forms of names, particularly sacred names. Therefore, they see it appropriate to use Semitic-based names in their translations of the New Testament, that the use of Hebrew-based names for God are for all people, not just Jews, and for all time (The Sacred Name 2002: 89ff). Sacred name translators that have examined the Septuagint hold that the original copies of the Septuagint spelled out the sacred names in Hebrew. Some early fragments are known to have spelled out the sacred names, using Greek, Hebrew, or Paleo-Hebrew scripts. Although Rösel (2007) gives some evidence that those manuscripts that show such forms are later versions, earlier scholars such as Kahle, J.A. Emerton, Sidney Jellicoe, and Bruce Metzger had earlier published a wide range of materials claiming to verify the existence of the Tetragrammaton in Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures. For example, Dr Sidney Jellicoe in the Septuagint and Modern Study wrote:

The Divine Name was within the ancient (palao Hebrew) scripts……LXX texts held Divine Name.

— ( Dr Sidney Jellicoe

),

C. H. Dodd disagreed, "יהזה does not appear in any form in the LXX" . Jellicoe also agrees that absence of “Adonai” from the text implies it was a later practice. In the Septuagint , or in English “Lord”, is used to substitute the Name. Jellicoe gives evidence that the name Yahweh appeared in the text, but Christians removed it. Bible scholars and translators as Eusebius and Jerome (translator of the Latin Vulgate) used the Hexapla. Both attest to the importance of the sacred Name and that the most reliable manuscripts contained the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew letters.

Sacred name Bibles are a 20th century phenomenon. The first to seriously attempt to handle the sacred names in such a manner was Rotherham's Emphasized Bible . The first whole Bible that used a Hebrew form for sacred names throughout the New Testament was by Angelo Traina in 1963. Over a dozen have followed in the decades since.

Accuracy not popularity

Sacred Names Bibles are not used frequently within Christianity or Judaism. Similarly, Bible translations that replace “Jesus” with the more phonetically accurate “Yeshua” or “Yahshua”, are few. Phonetic accuracy does not necessarily breed popularity, and this is the dilemma in which Sacred Name Bibles face. The lack of Sacred Name Bible usage suggests the translations that are available are accurate enough for usage. Unlike Bibles such as KJV, which contained literally thousands of mistakes , Sacred Name Bibles are all quite recent, allowing them to access the technologies and manuscript discoveries now so readily available. In other words, a greater level of accuracy can be obtained through Sacred Name Bibles than the earlier translations could have ever had hoped to do so. (That is, of the Sacred name Bibles that are not simply revisions of the KJV and ASV, such as Sacred Name King James Bible.)

The Memorial Name

In his book, the "Memorial Name Yahweh" , Meyer uses a wide range of scriptures and scholarly material that support the usage of Yahweh’s Name. According to his understanding of the Biblical account, no commandments prohibit the usage of the Name. He believes Jews misapplied the third commandments to mean “you should not pronounce” rather than “you shall not blaspheme” the Name . Evidence from the Mesha Stele, Khirbet Beit Lei, Lachish Ostraca, and the Elephantine Papyri prove that Yahweh was in common usage as early as 830 B.C.E and as late as 400 B.C.E . Nonetheless, since the Babylonian exile the Name was suppressed and Jewish authorities decided to prohibit it’s usage by inserting foreign vowels in the Name YHWH to create Adonai "Adonai" (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin). Jehovah is based upon the secondary substitute name Adonai, rather than the primary name YHWH (יהוה). See "Historical overview" on Yahweh.

Unity of attitude

Jehovah's Witnesses understand that “Lord” and “God” are titles, and not to be used as the personal Name of the Creator ::“Does God have a name? Many religions answer that his name is God or “ "LORD" but those are not personal names. They are titles”.
The Assemblies of Yahweh goes further saying “…and they are inferior titles at that”. Though Jehovah's Witnesses use a modern rather than ancient pronunciation, both the Assemblies of Yahweh and the Jehovah's Witnesses understand the difference between a name and a title. Elder Jacob Meyer writes in the SNB : "We as humans cannot choose the name which we personally wish to call him. He has already named himself!" The township constable affirms: “The best transliteration of this name into English is spelled "Yahweh" ”, and is so pronounced” . Jehovah's Witnesses concede that Yahweh may be the more accurate pronunciation, but choose to stick with Jehovah since it is more widely known to those fluent in English.

The Assemblies of Yahweh reject all the English titles attached to his name, since they identify most of the titles as the mighty ones of gods worshipped at various points in history. By using such titles, the Assemblies of Yahweh believe that we are actually becoming blasphemers of His Name. They claim "Lord" for example, a “bakers deity” and "god" or “(θεός)” links etymologically with the worship of fortune, good luck, and also a molten image . Jesus is said to be linked to Zeus (F.F. Bruce) , and "Christ" to the Indian deity Krishna) (though no etymological evidence has been given for this last claim). The Assemblies of Yahweh use the Hebrew Names "Yahweh" and "Yahshua", rather than "God" and "Jesus". They also use "Elohim" instead of Lord, and Messiah instead of Christ. By returning to the Hebrew titles, they believe they can please Yahweh in a pure speech, hoping to fulfill the prophesy in Revelation 14:5.

”Yeshua” or “Yahshua”

Jesus (Iēsoûs) is known to be a phonetically inaccurate pronunciation of the Messiah's human Hebrew name, but few Bibles restore the phonetically more accurate “Yeshua” (יֵשׁוּעַ) or “Yahshua” (יהושע) to the texts. These truths have been known for several centuries, but translators have been rather hesitant to conform to phonetic accuracy. Even if more translators did choose to restore the accurate pronunciation, this would not be enough to be classed as Sacred Name Bible. Sacred Name Bibles are classified by their use of the Name "Yahweh", rather than the name of the Messiah.

Various of these translations have been accepted by a variety of groups, including Messianic congregations, a variety of Sabbath-keeping Christians, etc., but they are still rejected by most Christian groups (Bivins 1991b). They are not accepted by any Jewish groups that are not Messianic.

List of Sacred name Bibles

A few translations of what some might call Sacred Name Bibles apply use the Hebraic forms for sacred names only in half of the Bible (the Old or New Testament) , or use a name which is not accepted as accurate by others.

The following is a table of the Sacred name Bibles that are available. Other translations are still being translated and therefore, incomplete (such as the Transparent English Bible). The following is a list of Sacred Name Bibles.

In addition to these English translations, there is also a Bible translation in Indonesian that uses Hebraic forms of sacred names in the Old and New Testaments: Kitab Suci (Soesilo 2001:416). This translation was done by people in the Sacred Name Movement. There is a French translation that was done using Hebraic forms in the Old and New Testaments by André Chouraqui, but it is not clear what his specific motivations were .

Notes

1. Herbert Armstrong, the New Morality, pp. 128 – 129
2. Job introduction.” Anchor Bible, Volume 15, page XIV
3. ”Jehovah”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, p 311.
4. ”Jehovah” Jewish Encyclopedia Vol. 7. p 87.
5. ”Names of God, YHWH” Jewish Encyclopedia Vol.9. pp 160-165.
6. Black, Matthew. “An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts”. Oxford Clarendon 1967.
7. Cross F.L “Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church”. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.
8. The Septuagint and Modern Study, Sidney Jellico, Oxford, 1968. (This book contains some discussion of the Tetragrammaton in the Septuagint.)
9. p. 3, 1935, The Bible and the Greeks. Hodder & B Stoughton.
10. (King James Version)
11. The Memorial Name Yahweh, the Assemblies of Yahweh (p. ) Meyer, Elder Jacob LCN-87-072550
12. ””God, Names of” Encyclopedia Judaica, keter Publishing House (Jerusalem © 1971) Vol. 7 p. 680
13. Testifying to the Name Yahweh – seven thousand witnesses, seven ancient witnesses, Assemblies of Yahweh, Elder Jacob Meyer
14. What Does the Bible Really Teach? © 2005 Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, All Rights Reserved: publishers of watch tower Bible and tract society of New York in Brooklyn, U.S.A 2006 printing. (p. 13)
15. Sacred Name Broadcaster, (4/1987), Radio Message: A Name That Endures Forever, a publication of the Assemblies of Yahweh; Meyer, Elder Jacob
16. Ibid.
17. (, )
18. Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition, A Pure Religious Vocabulary, p1-3, Meyer, Jacob
19. The Books and the Parchments, by F. F. Bruce, pages 40-41
20. Applying a variant of the Name to just the Old Testament: Young's Literal Translation, American Standard Version (1901) and the Jerusalem Bible (1966) use Yahweh and Jehovah throughout the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament).
21. A check of several passages shows no differences between The Besorah and the The Scriptures produced 10 years earlier by a different publisher (except Besoarah's occasional use of bold text and a different Hebrew script). It is not clear if the identical text is authorized or plagiarism.
22. Chouraqui's French translation online

Bibliography

• Bivin, David. 1991a. “Jehovah”—A Christian Misunderstanding. Jerusalem Perspective Vol. 4.6: 5,6.
• Bivin, David. 1991b. The Fallacy of Sacred Name Bibles. Jerusalem Perspective Vol. 4.6: 7,12.
• Neufeld, Don. 1962. An examination of the claims of the Sacred Name Movement (concluded). The Ministry 35.11: 13-16, 36.
• Pritz, Ray. 1991. The Divine Name in the Hebrew New Testament. Jerusalem Perspective, Vol. 4:2 10-12.
• Rösel, Martin. 2007. The Reading and Translation of the Divine Name in the Masoretic Tradition and the Greek Pentateuch. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 31.4: 411-428.
• Soesilo, Daud. 2001. Translating the Names of God: recent experience from Indonesia and Malaysia. The Bible Translator 52.4:414-423.
• The Sacred Name YHWH: A Scriptural Study, (3rd ed). 2002. Garden Grove, CA: Qadesh La Yahweh Press.
• The Scriptures 1998. Northriding, South Africa: Institute for Scripture Research.
• Trimm, James (translator) 2005. The Hebraic-Roots Version Scriptures. Institute for Scripture Research (publisher).

External links

• What is the Name of God? Maintained by the Assemblies of Yahweh (7th Day)

• Articles needing more viewpoints from July 15, 2009
• Bible versions and translations