Sacred Name Bibles

Historical background

The tetragrammation (YHWH) occurs in the Hebrew Bible, and also (written in Hebrew within the Greek text) in a few of the manuscripts of the Greek translation, found at Qumran among the Dead Sea Scrolls. It does not occur in early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. Although the Greek forms Iao and Iave do occur in magical inscriptions, generally Hellenistic Jewish texts, such as the works of Philo, Josephus and the New Testament, use the word Kyrios ("Lord") when citing verses where YHWH occurs in the Hebrew.

For centuries, Bible translators around the world did not transliterate or copy the tetragrammaton in their translations. For example, English Bible translators (Christian and Jewish) used LORD to represent it. Many authors on Bible translation have explicitly called for translating it with a vernacular word or phrase that would be locally meaningful. The Catholic Church has formally called for translating the tetragrammaton into other languages rather than attempting to preserve the sounds of the Hebrew.

A few other Bible translators, with varying theological motivations, have taken a different approach to translating the tetragrammaton. In the 1800s–1900s at least three English translations contained a variation of the Name. Some of these translations were of only a portion of the New Testament; they did not represent a stated effort to restore the Name throughout the body of the New Testament.

In the twentieth century, the first translation to employ a full transliteration of the tetragrammaton was the Rotherham's Emphasized Bible, but his translation only does so in the Old Testament. Angelo Traina's translation, The New Testament of our Messiah and Saviour Yahshua in 1950 and The Holy Name Bible containing the Holy Name Version of the Old and New Testaments in 1963 were the first to systematically use a Hebrew form for sacred names throughout the New Testament, the first complete Sacred Name Bible. The Jerusalem Bible in 1966 and over a dozen other translations in the years since used the name "Yahweh" in the Old Testament.

Aramaic primacy

Some translators of Sacred Name Bibles hold to the view that the New Testament, or at least significant portions of it, were originally written in a Semitic language, Hebrew or Aramaic, from which the Greek text is a translation. This view is colloquially known as "Aramaic primacy", and is also taken by some academics, such as Matthew Black.

Therefore, translators of Sacred Name Bibles consider it appropriate to use Semitic names in their translations of the New Testament, which they regard as being intended for use by all people, not just Jews Although no early manuscripts of the New Testament contain these names, some Hebrew translations from the Latin did use the tetragrammaton in part of the Hebrew New Testament. Sidney Jellicoe in The Septuagint and Modern Study (Oxford, 1968) states that the name YHWH appeared in Greek Old Testament texts written for Jews by Jews, often in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet to indicate that it was not to be pronounced, or in Aramaic, or using the four Greek letters PIPI (Π Ι Π Ι that physically imitate the appearance of Hebrew YHWH), and that Kyrios was a Christian introduction. Bible scholars and translators such as Eusebius and Jerome (translator of the Latin Vulgate) consulted the Hexapla, but did not attempt to preserve sacred names in Semitic forms. Justin Martyr (second century) argued that YHWH is not a personal name, writing of the "namelessness of God".

George Lamsa, the translator of The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts: Containing the Old and New Testaments (1957) believed the New Testament was originally written in a Semitic language (the terms Syriac and Aramaic are not always clearly differentiated by some). However, despite his adherence to a Semitic original of the New Testament, Lamsa translated using the English word "Lord" instead of some Hebraic form of the divine name.

Accuracy or popularity

Sacred Name Bibles are not used frequently within Christianity, even less (if at all) in Judaism. Similarly, only a few translations replace Jesus with Semitic forms such as Yeshua or Yahshua. Most English Bible translations translate the tetragrammaton with LORD where it occurs in the Old Testament rather than use a transliteration into English. These same patterns are found in languages around the world, as translators have translated sacred names without striving to preserve the Hebraic forms, often using local names for the creator or highest deity, conceptualizing accuracy as semantic rather than phonetic.

The limited number of Sacred Name Bibles suggests that phonetic accuracy is not considered to be of importance by mainstream Bible translators. The translator Joseph Bryant Rotherham lamented not making his work into a Sacred Name Bible by using the more accurate name Yahweh in his translation (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).

Transliterated Sacred Name Bibles

The following versions are Bibles which systematically use some transliteration of the Tetragrammaton (usually "Yahweh") in both the Old and New Testament, as well as a Semitic form of the name of Jesus such as Yahshua or Yeshua. These Bibles apply this to both the names of the Father and Son, both of which are considered to be sacred.

Tetragrammaton Sacred Name Bibles

The following versions of Sacred Name Bibles present the Tetragrammaton without any vowels. They follow this practice in both the Old and New Testaments (though some translations are not complete).

Limited Sacred Name Bibles

Some translations use a form of "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" only sporadically:

A few translations use either "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" in the Old and New Testaments, but are not generally considered Sacred Name Bibles:

The following versions use either "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" only in the Old Testament:

Non-English