HaShem - Yahweh or Jehovah?

i haven't seen any, no.the septuagint is a static document. it's the greek translation that 72 rabbis conducted (in alexandria, i believe) from about 300-200 bc. we HAVE these documents: they are the oldest text of the bible that we do in fact have.the only difference in the septuagint today is that it's 2000 years older now. it's not like someone went back in 1941 with a bottle of white out and replaced all of the yahweh references with kurios.

I know of no Hebrew scholars who would literally translate the literal word YHWH as Adonai, nor does the Hebrew to English interlinear do so. You loose all the original consonents to form a completely different word with a different meaning.The sole reason most translations render the name as "adonai" is that since the late BC centuries there was the unfounded superstition that the name of God was too holy to be written or translated, so they dropped the proper name of God from the translation and used an entirely different word, adonai, which is not a proper name but a discriptive word depicting the function of YHWH/Yahweh meaning simply lord/master. HHWH/Yahweh, on the otherhand means "the I am, or the existing one." But kurios is a completely different word. You are reading consonants in it. You are including the consonants of the Hebrew word, adonai. You are not tranlating YHWH. You are changing the Hebrew text to a completely different word. The Old 1901 American Standard version does not fall for this, but translates the 600 or so times the name exists in the manuscripts properly to say Jehovah in contemporary English.

Thanks, Arachnophilia. So, the "translation" quoted by wmscott actually incorporates the religious assumptions of the "translators". If this can happen even now, it makes my former belief in the Bible as a direct communication from God seem very naive. . .

It was the 300 to 200 bc revisionists who were more likely to have gotten into the white out and replaced all of the Yaweh references with kurios/adonai. These were the superstitious ones who took it upon themselves to remove those 600 or so references to YHWH/Yahweh which were in the older Hebrew manuscripts and add kurios in place of, in the Septuagint.

Can I interject a quick question?If the Septuagint is the oldest biblical text we have available, then how do you know references were changed from earlier manuscripts? What earlier manuscripts do you have available?

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Asgara
"Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever....but get over it"http://asgarasworld.bravepages.com
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you're grossly misunderstanding me. that's not a rebuttal to my point, or a correction: it IS my point. the people who translated the septuagint translated the name of god as "kurios" or lord, and this is the reason most modern translations have the word LORD in all caps as the name of god. six THOUSAND some references, yes.

a good question. because we ALSO have the masoretic text, about ad 600 if memory serves. it does contain the name of the lord, in consistent patterns. it is also not a translation of the text, exactly. but it is evident that the text has been updated from an original source, that is much older. the masorites were the ones with the doctrine of not changing a single letter (even though they did add vowel points).so it's a pretty good theory that the people who translated the septuagint were the one who made changes. in the hebrew tradition, none.

agreed.even my favourite printing of the bible, the jps version, does it in areas. it renders "ben'eloyhim" as "-divine beings-" instead of the literal reading "sons of god." they do this for a very theological reason. the idea of god having a family (ben does not denote son, exactly in the english sense, but more of a family idea) is downright blasphemous in modern judaism. it conflicts very harshly with the idea of there only being one god. yet, it appears in the torah. so they've chosen to remove it.similar, wmscott's translation, the nwt, replaces many instances of the world "lord" in the new testament with "jehovah," the name they've chosen for god, on the grounds that that is probably what the greek writers meant.it's a good idea to be versed in various translations, so you can weed out the religious ideas of the translators themselves, and focus on what the text actually means.

yet ask any religious orthodox jew to say the name of god outside of a classroom, and they will say "hashem" or "adonai" and not "yahweh" and certainly not "jehovah"ask most christians the name of god, and they won't say "jehovah" either. kurios, don't you think? yes. you're missing the point. "YaHoWaH" was never meant to be translated. it's a combination of two words, the consonants of "Yahweh" and the vowels of "adonai." you have to render one or the other, but not both. i'm arguing for the MORE CURRENT and correct rendering of "LORD" because it upholds the way a religious jew would read the hebrew text: only the vowels.my argument is essentially that this the current practice in translation, but nothing new. it's older than jesus.the 1901 translation was not aware of this practice, or the reason for adding the vowel points of "adonai" to "yahweh," and so INCORRECTLY transliterated it as "jehovah."

I like that link!It really has a fit when you put in slang.

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A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

When you posted the following statement, you missunderstood me, in that my post was in reference to translators who did translate YHWH rather than change the wording. There are a few places in the KJV and other prominent translations where "Jehovah" is literally translated, such as Exodus 6:3, Psalms 83:18, Isaiah 12:2, and Isaiah 26:4. ........And here (below) you totally confused me. It appeared here that you were refuting my usage of "Yahweh," and thatI did so by using incorrect vowels and adding a sylable. Then here below, I took it that you are arguing for "adonai" as the correct translation. Right. Thanks. I stand corrected.

You're very right, Archy. And why is this so?1. The still superstitious orthocox Jews still consider it a bad omen to speak God's proper name.2. Most Christians haven't a clue. Because the translators got by with altering God's words, they have had his proper name programmed out of their vocabulary.This erroneous stuff is coming home to roost nowadays with the revival of the occult, paganism, Hinduism and Buddhism, Islam and red man's Great Spirit, etc . Now when ones mentions, "god" or "lord," it can mean one of several prominant gods. It was evidently meant to be translated until the superstitious Septuagint revisionists took it upon themselves to change it. That the majority ignorantly or superstitiously follow the incorrect translation, does not mean Jehovah, the Biblical god approves of the gross ignorance of his name because of the changes most translators took it upon themselves to make.THERE IS NO SCRIPTURE FORBIDDING MEN TO SPEAK OR WRITE GOD'S NAME. If he didn't want it spoken or written, he wouldn't have had the inspired writers to use it some 6000 times. So you're not supporting my position at all. It's only older than Jesus because of groundless superstition of the Jews during a time of spiritual decline in their history, and because of that, translators of the OT have played their game for a long time to the chagrin of the almighty god, Jehovah, the supreme creator of the universe. He has declared in his word that NOTHING WAS EVER TO BE ADDED OR REMOVED FROM HIS WORDS.

no. this logic gets by for allowing "god" on the dollar bill, but generally speaking, when people say "god" they mean "the judeo-christian god of the bible." hinduism as LOTS of gods who all go by their names. buddhism does not have a god exactly. islam's god is allah. they all use names or other titles.only the judeo-christian god is called "god" no, it was NOT evidently meant to be transliterated, under any circumstances. the vowels of adonai were ADDED to the text after its writing. they were not part of the original text at all, and the first instance of a text with those vowels in "YHWH" is the masoretic text in 1000 ad.the people who translated the books 1200 years earlier translated YHWH as kurios in EVERY instance, not jehovah, not iasous, not joshua, not jesus. kurios: lord. because that's how they read it in hebrew, as lord.in 200 bc, and even today, hebrews substitute adonai in place of yahweh. the vowel points on yhwh read a-o-a, the vowels from adonai. they are there so that reader reads "adonai" instead of "yahweh." not so a translator can read "yahowah." they were added well after the tradition of substitution, not before.septuagint is not a revision, it's a greek rendering of the way hebrews read the tanakh. if i thought there was a reason not to use his name, i wouldn't. my argument is that historically it was not used, and the word "lord" was used in its place, and for that reason, the vowels of the word "lord" were added to the consonants of his REAL name. translators incorrectly rendered this as "jehovah" instead of "yahweh" because they were unaware of the practice. no, you're not understanding at all. i can't really break this down any simpler.YES, it IS a groundless superstition. i don't care about that at all.the fact of the matter is that it DID affect the translation and copying practices of the tanakh.the vowel points on YHWH are a RESULT of that very groundless superstition, and therefore INVALID. they come from the substition, NOT the actual name of god. this IS the game that translators have played. every modern translation, and most of the older ones are plainly evident of this.the 1901 american standard, nwt, etc, ignore this tradition, and WRONGLY transliterate the name as "jehovah." if they translators understood the tradition, they'd either translate the name itself or the substitution, but not the combination of the two. this is the error here.the correct name of god in modern hebrew is "Yahweh" or maybe "Yehweh" depending on the tense. if you believed that literally, you'd learn hebrew. i would call translation quite a change from the original text, wouldn't you?what do you consider appropriate additions? vowels? line breaks? punctuation? the original text had none of these.i know you're thinking of this verse:

quote:

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Rev 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

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but what about this one?

quote:

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Deu 4:2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish [ought] from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.

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that kind of rules out the revelation verse, doesn't? in fact, that sort of rules out all of the new testament. not to mention the books of the prophets and the writings (joshua onward). that closes the word of god at the torah. no additions after that.so, from now on, whenever you and i debate, and post a verse that comes after that in the bible, i'll just post that one response and say "sorry, i don't believe that part of the bible."

literally translated, in error. king james translated the masoretic text directly, and mistook the notation for "adonai" as "jahovah." while the removed footnotes and emendations, they did not remove this notation. they were not translating YHWH but the combination of YHWH and ADNY.and if you've read the thread, i've already discuss all four of those examples, three of them at great length. no, reading second (yahweh) as the first (jehovah) requires adding syllables and changing vowels. in the case before, reading the second (ya'aqob) as the first (jacob) is just a pronounciation difference. depends on what we define correct as. the most correct rendering of the name of god is Yahweh. but yes, i am arguing that we should continue to render it as "LORD" in english bibles.

This is the problem Christianity is having in America. Falwell and Scott and the guy on the 700 Club and Buz are all praying in English when it's clear God only speaks Hebrew!Buz, if you want your prayers to get evolution out of the schools and Christianity required for American citizenship, and all Satan's Buddhist and Hindus shipped out of this land that the Christians mercifully liberated from the heathen Native Americans, doing their Christian best to obliterate them like Joshua did the Caanites, you got to speak God's language. Then maybe God will pay attention and send a plague killing off all those godless scientists disrespecting what God dictated in Genesis. If he understood English he would be very jealous and wrathful and full of vengence that sinners have up and created science trying to understand this universe instead of sitting around burning meat and playing harps and singing songs of praise like he intended them to do or give them what for in the fires of Hell for disobedience.Since God like all humans want to see his name spelled and pronounced correctly it's time to go back to school. God doesn't answer to Bob or Myershyltn or even Hey You, but just to his own name that his parents gave him and he only speaks the true language of the only true book written by him though his sock puppets and to be believed and obeyed without any questions asked, and cleanse the earth of any who disagree or worse think!lfen