Translating the divine name YHWH

To illustrate simply by way of bibliography that translation of the divine name YHWH is not a simple matter, here is a quick chronological list of translation references readily available to me from four journals: The Bible Translator, Notes On Translation, Jerusalem Perspective, and Journal of Translation (IOW, this is in no way a comprehensive list, nor does it necessarily represent the best scholarship on the issue)…

J.L. Sweelengrebel, “Translating the Divine Names,” The Bible Translator. Vol 3:4 (October 1952): 171–196.

J.L Sweelengrebel, “Discussion of Translating the Divine Names,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 3:4 (October 1952): 196–199.

Noel D. Osborn, “This Is My Name Forever: ‘I AM’ or ‘YAHWEH’? The Bible Translator, Vol. 39:4 (October, 1988): 410-415.

Robert E. Smith, “By My Name YHWH, I Did Not Make Myself Known,” Notes on Translation, Vol. 4:4 (1990): 51-52.

Ray Pritz, “The Divine Name in the Hebrew New Testament,” Jerusalem Perspective, Vol. 4:2 (March/April, 1991).

David Bivin, “‘Jehovah’—A Christian Misunderstanding,” Jerusalem Perspective Vol. 4:6 (Nov./Dec., 1991).

David Bivin, “The Fallacy of Sacred Name Bibles,” Jerusalem Perspective, Vol. 4:6 (Nov./Dec., 1991).

Euan Fry, “Editorial – A special issue,” The Bible Translator. Vol 43:4 (October, 1992): 401-402

Since the above reference introduces many others that follow, I reproduce the text here and below each of the articles he introduces…

This is a special issue of Practical Papers devoted to a single topic. We visit again the topic of translating the names of God, especially in the Old Testament; and all of the articles and other contents of this issue will be on that topic.

Over all the years The Bible Translator has been published (since 1950) there have been many articles written from various perspectives about translating the names of God. Besides articles there have also been some books written about the names of God. One book which was made available to Bible translators for a time was The Lord is God by Hellmut Rosin. A more recent study is the book entitled In Search of God by Tryggve Mattinger.

Translating the names of God is a matter of great concern to many Bible translators. All translators have to deal with it almost as soon as they start translating seriously. It can be both a difficult issue and a divisive issue for a translation team. It is also an issue on which readers and hearers of the Scriptures have strong feelings. In my own experience as a Bible translator it was the hardest issue of all to work through in bringing together two different large churches in a single translation project.

It has become clear in recent years, if it wasn’t clear earlier, that no one solution to the problems we face in translating the names of God will meet all situations. There are variations and differences in the way names are used in different languages and cultures around the world; there are also wide differences in the existing names and ways of referring to deity. For this reason different approaches to translating the names of God in the Bible are necessary in different situations. And this is not to mention the variety of church usage and church teaching in different places and different Christian traditions!

It is not my place to go into the topic at length. This is just an introduction to what you will find in reading this issue of Practical Papers. However I must refer in this introduction to an important gathering which was held in May last year, which was an occasion for a number of papers and discussions on the topic of translating the names of God. This was a UBS Translations Workshop at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe; and the first item in this special issue is a statement entitled “How to Translate the Name” from the group of UBS consultants and advisers meeting there.

Following the important statement from the UBS Workshop are a number of articles, which are mostly papers or parts of papers presented during the meetings. In all cases they have been edited for publication in Practical Papers. My special thanks in this connection go to my colleague Kees de Blois who was responsible for the selection and first editing of the material which makes up this special issue. He also prepared the bibliography which is the final item.
The first of the articles is in fact written by Kees de Blois.

“How To Translate The Name,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 43:4 (October, 1992): 403-406.
[Statement by the “Names of God” Study Group, UBS Triennial Translation Workshop, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, 8-21 May 1991]

Kees F. De Blois, “Translating the Names Of God: Tryggve Mettinger’s analyses applied to Bible translation,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 43:4 (October, 1992): 406-414.

Starting from Tryggve Mattinger’s study on the names of God, he discusses its consequences for translation. He underlines the importance of the associated meaning of the “tetragrammaton” yhwh, while still recognising its function as a proper name. He then summarises the three most widely adopted approaches to the translation of yhwh hyh with arguments for and against each.

Noel D. Osborn, “The Name: When Does It Make A Difference?” The Bible Translator, Vol. 43:4 (October, 1992): 415-422.

Noel Osborn writes of his conviction that choosing just one option to deal with all occurrences of yhwh is not the best we can do in translation. He discusses a number of references where understanding yhwh as a name makes a great deal of difference to our understanding of the passage; and he then makes a good case for transliterating yhwh in those passages. An important part of his article is a classification of 129 sample references in twelve different categories, with a recommendation as to how the name yhwh should be handled in each type of context.

Donald J. Slager, “The Use Of Divine Names In Genesis,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 43:4 (October, 1992): 423-429.

In the next article Donald Slager studies the occurrence and use of the two terms yhwh and ‘élOhîm ‘lh in Genesis from a literary perspective. He compares the source critical approach with that of more recent literary analysts; and he presents some explanations from a literary perspective for the name switching that is found in some well-known stories.

Ernst R. Wendland, “yhwh- The Case For Chauta ‘Great-[God]-of-the-Bow’,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 43:4 (October, 1992): 430-438.

Ernst Wendland gives a very revealing discussion of the translation of the term yhwh in the Chichewa Bible. He refers to the way the name was transliterated in the older translations, and then describes the approach of the most recent Chewa translation team to the problems of rendering it meaningfully.

Nitoy Achumi, “Translation of ‘God’ and ‘Lord’ in Some Naga Bibles,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 43:4 (October, 1992): 438-443.

The two final articles are both studies of the way the terms yhwh and ‘élOhîm have been translated in some of the languages of North India. Nitoy Achumi presents a study of translation in three of the Naga languages. He studies in particular the key terms in those languages for spirits or deities, and discusses how some of those terms have been taken and used in Bible translation. He notes a wide variation between the three languages studied in the way the name yhwh has been treated.

Benjamin Rai, “What Is His Name? Translation of Divine Names in Some Major North Indian Languages,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 43:4 (October, 1992): 443-446.

Benjamin Rai focuses on four major languages which are all derived from Sanskrit: Bengali, Hindi, Nepali, and Assamese. At the end of his discussion he concludes “that the last word has not been said on the question of rendering … yhwh in North Indian (and other) languages.”

On that note I will end my comments. We hope that the contents of the statement “How to Translate the Name” and the articles, along with the bibliography of previous TBT articles and other references, will be a useful resource for translators who face the issue of translating the names of God now and in the future.

Howard Hatton, “Notes: Translating yhwh: Experience In Thailand And Micronesia,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 43:4 (October, 1992): 446-448.

David Thomas, “A Further Note on YHWH,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 44:4 (October, 1993): 444-445.

Jørgen Larsen, “Still More on YHWH,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 45:2 (April, 1994): 243-244.

Marcelo Epstein, “On The “Original” Septuagint,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 45:3 (July, 1995): 322-329.

Daud H. Soesilo, “Sir, Teacher, Master, Lord,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 47:3 (July, 1996): 335-340.

Mary Steele, “Translating the Tetragrammaton YHWH In Konkomba,” Notes on Translation, Vol. 11:4 (1997): 28-31.

Katharine Barnwell, “Translating the Tetragrammaton YHWH,” Notes on Translation, Vol. 11:4 (1997): 24-27.

David DeGraaf, “Translating ‘God’ and ‘Sacrifice’ into Nyarafolo,” Notes on Translation, Vol. 13:3 (1999): 34–49.

Daud Soesilo, “Translating the Names of God: recent experience from Indonesia and Malaysia,” The Bible Translator, Vol. 52:4 (October, 2001): 414-423.

Norm Mundhenk, “Who is God in Papua New Guinea?” The Bible Translator, Vol. 55:2 (April, 2004): 215-227.

John David K. Ekem, “The Rendering of the Divine Name YHWH in Some Ghanaian Bible Translation Projects,”
The Bible Translator, Vol. 56:2 (April, 2005): 71-76.

Vitaly Voinov, “Pronominal Apostasy? Or: Whose God Do You Mean?” The Bible Translator, Vol. 56:4 (October, 2005): 239-245.

Nico Daams, “Translating YHWH,” Journal of Translation, Vol. 1:1 (2005): 47-55.

Why can’t Catholics say Y@#W&H!?

I was wondering if anything strange or wonderful was going to happen on 8/8/08. Well, it seems that something strange AND wonderful did happen, and it touches directly on Bible translation.

A letter dated 8 August 2008 was sent from Bishop Serratelli (Chairman of the U.S. Bishop’s Committee on Divine Worship) to U.S. Catholic bishops introducing directives from the Vatican in a statement from Cardinal Arinze on the pronunciation and translation of the divine name.

The divine name was revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14 and written as יהוה (YHWH — ‘Yahweh’), also known as the tetragrammaton (“4 letters”). The divine name appears 6877 times in the Hebrew Torah (according to the masoretic text published in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia), but it is normally read as ‘Adonai’ (meaning ‘Lord’) by Jews–but also by many Christians, especially students of the Hebrew scriptures–in order to respect God’s name “and keep it holy.” More recent trends have seen the use of ‘Yahweh’ appear in songs, prayers, and even some translations (e.g. the Catholic New Jerusalem Bible), and it’s wider use is evident the popular song ‘Yahweh’, written and recorded by Bono of the band U2.

Here is the letter introducing the Vatican’s directives…

Your Eminence / Your Excellency,

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has sent the attached
letter containing several directives on the use of “the Name of God” in the Sacred Liturgy.

We welcome this guidance on the use of particular terminology for the Divine Name, as it helps
to emphasize the theological accuracy of our language and appropriate reverence for the Name of God so consistent in our tradition. While the directives contained here do not force any changes to official liturgical texts, including our continuing work of the translation of the Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia, which already follow the spirit of the directives, there may be some impact on the use of particular pieces of liturgical music in our country as well as in the composition of variable texts such as the General Intercessions for the celebration of the Mass and the other sacraments.

This instruction from the Congregation provides also an opportunity to offer catechesis for the
faithful as an encouragement to show reverence for the Name of God in daily life, emphasizing
the power of language as an act of devotion and worship.

Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Rev. Arthur J. Serratelli
Bishop of Paterson
Chairman

This letter, including the other letter with the directives from the Vatican, can be viewed here. Basically, what this all means is that the Catholic Church is instructed to…

1. no longer vocalize the divine name YHWH with such pronunciations as ‘Yahweh’, ‘Yahwè’, ‘Jahweh’, ‘Jahwè’, ‘Jave’, ‘Yehovah’, etc. in the liturgy, songs and prayers
2. render the divine name in modern language translations of the Bible with the equivalent of Adonai/Kyrios: ‘Lord’, ‘Signore’, ‘Seigneur’, ‘Herr’, ‘Señor’, etc.
3. in translating biblical texts that include both the Hebrew term Adonai as well as the tetragrammaton YHWH one after the other, Adonai is to be translated as ‘Lord’, and the tetragrammaton is to be translated as ‘God’.

So what’s so STRANGE about all of this?

First of all, it’s a bit strange that the issue of present day Jewish-Christian dialogue has come almost to the forefront in much of the discussion about this. See Fritz Voll here, Iyov here and here. Some of the best ideas concerning issues related to pronunciation appear in these posts and the discussions among the comments…

Charles Halton: “Yahweh or Adonai?”

John Hobbins: “The Pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton in Christian Worship: Unanswered Questions”

Kevin Edgecomb: “The Four-Letter Word”

In truth, the directives from the Vatican do not mention “Jewish” relations at all, although one of the bases for these directives was explained in the ancient pre-Christian tradition…

The venerable biblical tradition of Sacred Scripture, known as the Old Testament, displays a series of divine appellations, among which is the sacred name of God, revealed in the tetragrammaton YHWH (יהוה). As an expression of the infinite greatness and majesty of God, it was held to be unpronounceable and hence was replaced during the reading of Sacred Scripture by means of the use of an alternate name: ‘Adonai’, which means ‘Lord’.

The Greek translation of the Old Testament, the so-called Septuagint, dating back to the last centuries prior to the Christian era, had regularly rendered the Hebrew tetragrammaton with the Greek word Kyrios, which means ‘Lord’. Since the text of the Septuagint constituted the Bible of the first generation of Greek-speaking Christians, in which language all the books of the New Testament were also written, these Christians, too, from the beginning never pronounced the divine tetragrammaton.

Comment: Nowhere does this letter refer to present day Jewish-Christian relations. In fact, it seems that Cardinal Arinze and Archbishop Secretary Ranjith went out of their way NOT to include explicit reference to the “Jewish” people—ancient or contemporary—in this letter. Even the above reference to pre-Christian tradition is not mentioned out of sensitivity to Jewish tradition, but for the express purpose of tying these directives from the Vatican to the tradition of the early Church that was inherited from ancient practice. This comes out very clearly at the very end of the first part of the letter that explains the bases for the directives…

Avoiding pronouncing the tetragrammaton of the name of God on the part of the Church has therefore its own grounds. Apart from a motive of a purely philological order, there is also that of remaining faithful to the Church’s tradition, from the beginning, that the sacred tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context nor translated into any of the languages into which the Bible was translated.

Certainly, Jewish-Christian dialogue must proceed on the basis of appropriate principles of humility and respect for differing traditions. But outside of Jewish-Christian dialogue (which the Vatican’s letter is), it is certainly appropriate for the Christian community to ask if the divine name can be spoken with due reverence.

So what’s so WONDERFUL about all this?

The most wonderful thing I have seen in this is something that has received hardly any attention at all, and some may feel that it actually flies in the face of Jewish sensitivities. One of the longest parts of the Vatican’s letter relates the ancient practice of translating the divine name as “Lord” in the Septuagint and the early Church to New Testament Christology…

This fact has had important implications for New Testament Christology itself. When in fact St. Paul, with regard to the Crucifixion, writes that “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name” (Phil 2:9), he does not mean any other name than “Lord,” for he continues by saying, “and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil 2:11; cf. Is 42:8: “I am the Lord; that is my name”). The attribution of this title to the Risen Christ corresponds exactly to the proclamation of his divinity. The title in fact becomes interchangeable between the God of Israel and the Messiah of the Christian faith, even though it is not in fact one of the titles used for the Messiah of Israel. In the strictly theological sense, this title is found, for example, already in the first canonical Gospel (cf. Mt 1:20: “The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.”) and one sees it as a rule in Old Testament citations in the New Testament (cf. Acts 2:20: “The sun shall be turned into darkness… before the day of the Lord comes (Joel 3:4); 1 Peter 1:25: “The word of the Lord abides for ever” (Is 40:8)). However in the properly Christological sense, apart from the text cited of Philippians 2:9-11, one can remember Romans 10:9 (“If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”), 1 Corinthians 2:8 (“they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”), 1 Corinthians 12:3 (“No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit”) and the frequent formula concerning the Christian who lives “in the Lord” (Rm 16:2; 1 Cor 7:22; I Thess 3:8; etc.).

It is also a bit strange that…

Most online discussion has centered around the pronunciation of the divine name and have paid little attention to what this means for translation. Some have even said that this does not apply to Bible translation. Doug Chaplin here raises an interesting possibility: “The instruction does not target biblical translation per se, only liturgical use.”

Well, actually, in the three directives at the end of the letter, one is about pronouncing the name, and two are about translation. The very beginning of the letter begins by introducing the main topic…

…to communicate to the Bishops’ Conferences the following as regards the translation and the pronunciation, in a liturgical setting, of the Divine Name signified in the sacred tetragrammaton, along with a number of directives.

Can the phrase “in a liturgical setting” be understood to modify ‘translation’ as well as ‘pronunciation’? Does translation occur in a liturgical setting? Perhaps this refers to the use of the Jerusalem Bible–which frequently spells out Yahweh–in the liturgy. Doug Chaplin explains, “Although the lectionary is based on the Jerusalem Bible, the readings printed out in lectionaries and missals use the convention of replacing the divine name with ‘Lord’.” On the other hand, the end of the Vatican’s letter is clear…

For the translation of the Biblical text in modern languages, destined for the liturgical usage of
the Church, what is already prescribed by n. 41 of the Liturgiam authenticam is to be followed; that is, the divine tetragrammaton is to be rendered by the equivalent of Adonai/Kyrios: “Lord”, “Signore”, “Seigneur”, “Herr”, “Señor“, etc.

This can only mean the process of translating the Bible that happens prior to liturgical usage.

The letter continues with an explication of Bible translation philosophy…

The words of Sacred Scripture contained in the Old and New Testament express truth which transcends the limits imposed by time and place. They are the Word of God expressed in human words and, by means of these words of life, the Holy Spirit introduces the faithful to knowledge of the truth whole and entire and thus the Word of Christ comes to dwell in the faithful in all its richness (cf. Jn 14:26; 16:12-15). In order that the Word of God, written in the sacred texts, may be conserved and transmitted in an integral and faithful manner, every modern translation of the books of the Bible aims at being a faithful and accurate transposition of the original texts. Such a literary effort requires that the original text be translated with the maximum integrity and accuracy, without omissions or additions with regard to the contents, and without introducing explanatory glosses or paraphrases which do not belong to the sacred text itself.

As regards the sacred name of God himself, translators must use the greatest faithfulness and respect.

Comment: On the whole, this is a worthy translation philosophy to attain to, but it really is an impossible task. Any linguist is aware of the vast differences between languages and understands that no translation can truly be made “without omissions or additions with regard to the contents, and without introducing explanatory glosses or paraphrases which do not belong to the sacred text itself.” Obviously, translation teams must try to minimize these elements, but that this goal might actually be attained seems a bit overstated. It is this overstatement of translation philosophy that makes the directive to render the divine name always as the equivalent of Adonai / Kyrios / ‘Lord’ a bit simplistic for a more complex translation problem.

Question: How do directives like this and the Liturgiam authenticam relate to the Guidelines for Interconfessional Cooperation in Translating the Bible, the New Revised Version, Rome (1987). In these guidelines, “The clear goal of this interconfessional effort is to produce editions of the Holy Scriptures which provide all speakers of the language with a common text.”