Tyler Williams has a post up discussing the Vatican’s recent declaration that the name Yahweh not be spoken as part of their liturgy. I agree with many of his thoughts.
In my undergraduate career (at a Christian college), we pronounced the name as “Adonai,” aside from one student who decided to pronounce it “Hashem,” (ie, “the name”). This has always been what I’m most comfortable with. Not that I have any problem with vocalizing the tetragrammaton as Yahweh, but I’m most comfortable with a healthy distance between myself and an enraged deity. When I came to GCTS I was rather abashed that everyone vocalized יהוה as Yahweh. To date I think Mandy and I are the only ones who regularly insert Adonai when reading from the Hebrew Bible.
I, like Tyler, think that by translating the Name as “LORD” we lose something. It’s the difference between a title and a name. God implies a certain relationship with Israel when he reveals his name to Moses. To simply use “LORD” lacks the same connotations of relationship. I’d love to see modern translations simply use something akin to YHWH. That way each individual/church/denomination/etc can decide how they feel most comfortable dealing with the tetragrammaton. At the same time, it make obvious what is not always obvious in English translations–יהוה is a proper name, not a title.
Shema Yisrael HaShem Eloheinu HaShem Echad
That’s how I roll!
Good post. I always read “Adonai” in class and was very surprised when I heard the GCTS profs allowing students to vocalize it. It totally caught me off guard actually.
Art…how well I remember that. I’ll stick with Adonai though.
Eric, I understand completely.
Interesting thoughts. I do tend more towards pronouncing the name as adonai, I hadn’t heard of Ha-shem before. I remember seeing a translation that did actually use YHWH instead of “The LORD”. Unfortunately I forget which one it was…
There is the English language printing convention of rendering the sacred Tetragrammaton as LORD i.e. all in capital letters with the “L” in large capitals and the “ORD” in smaller caps (if possible — it is not possible in regular computer ASCII text!). This is used in many, even most, English translations including the Jewish Publication Society’s TANAKH. The major exceptions, besides the obvious Jehovah Witnesses’ NEW WORLD TRANSLATION and the old 1901 AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION which use “Jehovah”, are the English JERUSALEM BIBLE and the NEW JERUSALEM BIBLE which use “Yahweh”.
This use of the capital letters LORD] to indicate the divine name is, of course, only useful in direct visual reading of the text and not in speaking/hearing or in reading to others.
I find it slightly amusing (OK, I’m amused by little things) that LORD is an English four-lettered word (tetragrammaton) counting the vowel (as we do in English!), while YHWH is a four-lettered Hebrew one (vowels not counted).