Posted by YahKhanan on April 18, 1998 at 12:46:35:
In Reply to: Could someone inform me? posted by Tiffany on April 17, 1998 at 12:47:45:
Shalom, sister Tiffany!
May the blessings of our LORD be upon you.
Most Bibles (e.g., KJV, RSV, NIV) do not have the Name Yahweh because of a number of reasons. Beginning after the exile, but culminating later, some Jews saw the sacred name "Yahweh" (short form YAH, see my post on the pronunciation of the Name below) as too holy to say, so they substituted the term "Adonai" (which means "Lord" or "Sovereign", hence the titles of "Sovereign Lord" and "the LORD" in most Bibles today. Yahshua (Greek "Iasoue", but usually rendered "Iêsous" - hence "Jesus") preached the sacred name, but many eariy Christians saw that either the Name was too holy to say, or that the God of the universe doesn't need the name, so over time Christians began using "Adonai" or its Greek equivalent, "Kurios", instead of Yahweh. Many Christian writers, however, testify that YAHWEH was the true pronunciation of the Hebrew Yod-He-Waw-He (Y-H-W-H) [e.g., Clement of Alexandria)
When Jews added vowel signs to the texts around 1000 A.D.(before then, there were no separate vowels, although Alef, He, Waw, Yod, and Ayin doubled as vowels), they put the vowels of "Adonai" (and, sometimes, "Elohim" [Mighty one(s) or "God"]) in the word YHWH, and the hybrid Y'howah was mistakenly read by the church (but Jews would see "YHWH" or "Y'HoWaH" and read "Adonai") and written in Latin as IEHOVAH (V was the same as W), later JEHOVAH (when a tail was added to the I). Instead of carrying this over into English as Iehowah, it was read Jehovah. (Coincidentally, Hebrews today pronounce W as V because of German influence - W was the original)
Most Bibles, however, used the equivalent of "Adonai" when rendering YHWH (Grk "Kurios", Lat "Dominus", Eng "Lord"), but the english capitalized LORD(YHWH) o distinguish from Lord (Adonai).
[[Notable exceptions that use YAHWEH:
The Emphasized Bible
The Anchor Bible
The Jerusalem Bible
The New Jerusalem Bible
The Sacred Scriptures, Bethel Edition
It is sad that most Bibles do not recognize God's Name AS a name instead of a title. I hope I cleared some stuff up.
See "Pronunciation of the Name 'or, Yahweh, Yahveh . . .'" posted on this page.