Which Bible translation is the best?

[historia]

Which English translation of the Bible do you like the best?

Why do you like it better than other translations?

And which one do you like second best?

[historia]

Okay my use of the word "unacceptable" (withdrawn). Please ignore. I made some other points will you address them ?

Sure. But it seems evident to me that what you really want to debate is whether the term Jehovah is accurate or acceptable. The arguments and evidence I've offered above are in support of a tangential point, and so don't directly address the issues you want to discuss.

Your last few posts have tried to reframe my arguments and evidence as if they were in regard to these other issues, and, in so doing, have inadvertently misconstrued my argument. To that end, it would be far simpler for us to simply address the points you want to debate afresh rather than continue to go at those issues sideways through my earlier, tangentially-related comments.

So the date of a transliteration's introduction into the vernacular is, in itself irrelevant in terms of accuracy; it neither invalidates nor validates a usage, would you not agree?

Agreed. My point about the date is that it makes Jehovah different from other Latinized Hebrew names. Nowhere have I said that that, in itself, makes the word "inaccurate" or "invalid."

Can you understand some may see this as smacking of double standards ie :

"1518 "No! too modern" ....
2018 "No problem! ... got nothing against modern renditions appearing thousands of years after more established ones!"

Had I said that the date makes it "too modern" I could maybe see this point. But, again, since my point about the date is that it makes Jehovah different from other Latinized Hebrew names, I don't see any double standard in my argument.

NOTE You did not originally make any mention of date "into Latin" you simply stated

Rather, the criticism of 'Jehovah' is that it is most likely ... late Medieval .

Duly noted. Since I had at several points in my original post mentioned we were discussing the Latinized forms of these names, I assumed, from context, readers would understand that we were discussing words that have come into English by way of Latin, and thus the date reflects its first appearance in Latin. If that was not originally clear, hopefully it is now.

Are you suggesting a name must first be transliterated into Latin to be valid and any transliteration directly from the HEBREW invalidates it?

Not at all. The reason why we're discussing Latinized Hebrew names was because that is integral to onewithhim's argument -- the argument my earlier posts were in reply to. This is what I mean when I say my comments are about a tangential issue, and why trying to reframe them as if they are making a different point leads to confusion.

If the vowel choices were not merely tranplants from another word but rather influenced by academic considerations, then JEHOVAH would not be considered a "misconstruction and would in fact be as equally valid an English transliteration as any other English equivalent"

I wouldn't go so far as to say that "academic considerations" alone would make a word equally valid, as there may be better arguments and evidence for another transliteration. And you can always find the odd scholar or two who will support even far-fetched theories.

But, yes -- if there was strong academic support for Jehovah (or Yehowah) as being an accurate transliteration and not the conflation of YHWH and adonai, then it would not be accurate to call it a misconstruction.

Jehovah has a unique etymology that makes it different from all other Latinized biblical names.

ETYMOLOGY

The study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.

Are you here arguing that JEHOVAH Is not merely an English transliteration but has changed its meaning ?

No. Etymology simply means the history of a word. Or, more fully, per Merriam Webster:

etymology

the history of a linguistic form (such as a word) shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing it into its component parts, by identifying its cognates in other languages, or by tracing it and its cognates to a common ancestral form in an ancestral language.

While sometimes that involves tracing the changing meaning of a word, that is not always the case.

Jehovah has a unique etymology that makes it different from all other Latinized biblical names.

So? So what?

So onewithhim's argument that we should accept Jehovah because it is similar to other Latinized biblical names (such as Jesus) is invalid and unpersuasive because it overlooks these important differences.

Since YHWH itself has a very unique history, and since English is, if not unque, a somewhat curious and certainly relatively young language, it is normal that all ENGLISH transliterations of the Divine Name (including YAHWEH/ Yehowah ... ect which are English transliterations from the HEBREW - written in Roman letters which will conform to modern day English pronunciation) have a unique history.

I couldn't have said it better myself. This is why any argument that rests on the premise that we should accept Jehovah simply because it has superficial similarities with other categories of transliterations is invalid and unpersuasive.

Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't valid or persuasive reasons to accept Jehovah or perhaps even to think it is accurate. It seems that you want to discuss those instead, so let's do that.

[JehovahsWitness]

Since YHWH itself has a very unique history, and since English is, if not unque, a somewhat curious and certainly relatively young language, it is normal that all ENGLISH transliterations of the Divine Name (including YAHWEH/ Yehowah ... ect which are English transliterations from the HEBREW - written in Roman letters which will conform to modern day English pronunciation) have a unique history.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

So it seems that your point that JEHOVAH is a "misconsturction" is based solely on the assumption that the vowel choices, in your opinion, lack an academically sound basis; Is that a fair and accurate statement?


In other words, you are saying...

JEHOVAH is not a "misconstruction" because its late medieval.

JEHOVAH not is a "misconstruction" because it has a unique history (as if YAHWEH doesnt)

JEHOVAH is not a "misconstruction" because its was translitered directly from the Hebrew (as if YAHWEH isnt)

JEHOVAH is not a "misconstruction" because its its modern ENGLISH (as if YAHWEH isnt)

I call it a misconstruction because it is a mistaken conflation of two different words.

Ok. I thought there was more to your argument that that. My bad.



JW

[JehovahsWitness]

I call it a misconstruction because it is a mistaken conflation of two different words.

Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't valid or persuasive reasons to accept Jehovah or perhaps even to think it is accurate..

If by "valid" .... reasons you mean valid academic reasons, then there are no more reason to accept Jehovah as {quote} " accurate" than there are to accept YAHWEH as "accurate". I take it you mean by accurate you mean "an accurate representation of how the TETRAGRAMMATON was originally pronounced". That pronuciation has been long lost, pure and simple.

All anyone can do is make educated guesses as to which vowels went where.

-- if there was strong academic support for Jehovah (or Yehowah) as being an accurate transliteration and not the conflation of YHWH and adonai, then it would not be accurate to call it a misconstruction.

Okey-dokey....

CONCLUSION: So the question is:

Can an academically sound case be made for a three-syllable (Yehowah) transliteration of the Tetragramaton with an e-o-a vowel configuration ?

JW

[historia]

Have I looked at "Adonai" and "YHWH" in the Hebrew? Just "YHWH." Can you demonstrate what you are referring to, please?

Sure. Here is adonai in its original Hebrew script:

�ֲדֹנָי

Those little dots below and above some of the letters are the vowels. They are, in order from right to left, shewa (e), holam (o), and kamatz (a).

This is less clear if you are just looking at the English transliteration. Since adonai begins with a (guttural) aleph, the shewa beneath it necessarily becomes a compound shewa, in this case being pronounced (and therefore transliterated) as 'a'. The 'i' at the end just represents the yod, and is for that reason sometimes transliterated as 'y'.

But the actual vowel letters are e-o-a. When you transpose those into YHWH, you get Yehowah, or Jehovah. This is how it appears in the Masoretic text:

יְהֹוָה

although that is often simplified to יְהוָה at several places, and sometimes the vowels from elohim appear instead when the actual word adonai proceeds YHWH in the text.

The Masoretes placed the vowels there, not to indicate how the name was to be pronounced, but as a convention to signal to the reader that they were to say adonai or elohim, respectively, in place of the divine name. Christians in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance period apparently didn't realize this, and mistakenly thought the word should be pronounced Yehovah.

The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia article on Jehovah does a good job of explaining this, and gives further evidence from the Masoretic text that adonai must have been said in place of the divine name.

People say that the consonants YHWH are supplanted with the vowels from ADONAI to create "Jehovah." Yet I don't see the vowels from Adonai in the name "Jehovah" or "Yahweh." That doesn't make sense.

Hopefully that now makes sense to you.

This is, of course, only true of Jehovah, not Yahweh.

[historia]

But "LORD" is a substitution for "YHWH."

Yes, that's what I just said in my previous response.

Why was that done? Because it is part of the "Christian tradition" doesn't make it right.

It also doesn't make it wrong.

Was it because no one knew the exact pronunciation?

Nope. We have a couple of early Church Fathers that record the likely pronunciation for us.

"YHWH" would be much more acceptable than "LORD."

You are entitled to your opinion.

For Pete's sake, even the Jews who don't pronounce it leave the Tetragrammaton in the text.

Christians also leave the Tetragrammaton in the Hebrew text. They just render it as LORD when translating into other languages.

So do Jews. Jewish English translations, like the one from the JPS, render the divine name as LORD.

[historia]

I call it a misconstruction because it is a mistaken conflation of two different words.

Ok. I thought there was more to your argument that that. My bad.

No worries. I appreciate your efforts to clarify.

Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't valid or persuasive reasons to accept Jehovah or perhaps even to think it is accurate.

If by "valid" .... reasons you mean valid academic reasons

It depends.

If we are talking about acceptability -- especially in a non-academic context, like a church service or a message board discussion -- then I think an argument from tradition is perfectly sufficient. You essentially made an argument from tradition in post 45, which has merit, in my opinion. I have no objection to others using Jehovah if that is their tradition.

If we are talking about accuracy, then I do think we need valid academic reasons.

[T]here are no more reason to accept Jehovah as {quote} " accurate" than there are to accept YAHWEH as "accurate". I take it you mean by accurate you mean "an accurate representation of how the TETRAGRAMMATON was originally pronounced". That pronuciation has been long lost, pure and simple.

All anyone can do is make educated guesses as to which vowels went where.

I agree we can't be certain what the original pronunciation was, but that doesn't entail that all "educated guesses" are equally valid.

In history generally, and with ancient history in particular, we can never "prove" what happened. We can only assess which hypothesis best explains the available data. Or, in this case, which transliteration best accounts for the available evidence.

It seems to me that Yahweh is the best (most accurate) transliteration, as it best accounts for the available evidence. That is the scholarly consensus as well. Do you not agree?

Since Jehovah appears, by all accounts, to be a mistaken conflation of two words, if it is accurate at all, it would only be coincidentally so.

So the question is: Can an academically sound case be made for a three-syllable (Yehowah) transliteration of the Tetragramaton with an e-o-a vowel configuration?

Yeah, sounds like a fun topic. I know a handful of academics in the early part of the 20th century tried to make that case, but I'd like to hear what you think. And, in particular, if you think those arguments are better than the arguments and evidence for Yahweh.

[brianbbs67]

Nope. We have a couple of early Church Fathers that record the likely pronunciation for us.

I would like to hear who they are, if you may?

[JehovahsWitness]

All anyone can do is make educated guesses as to which vowels went where.

I agree we can't be certain what the original pronunciation was, but that doesn't entail that all "educated guesses" are equally valid .

Emphasis MINE


Sure, but I did not mention "equality" (a rather subjective assessment when it comes to what is closer to an unknown), I said "can an academic case be made? "

If you'd have said, you consider JEHOVAH a less valid academic guess and explained that by "academic guess" you mean a guess as to which is closer to the completely lost and unknown original pronunciation of the Tetragramaton, we would have had no dispute whatsoever. I would have accepted that as your opinion, one which in no way excludes the form JEHOVAH from being *an* alternative in the same category as YAHWEH and all its variants.

You brought up the label "a miscontruction" by which (please correct me if I'm wrong to avoid further misunderstandings) you are suggesting there is an absence of sound valid academic reasons to accept it as a transliteration at all. Whether presently the academic consensus favors one form over the other has no bearing on my question, which was (and I chose my words very carefully) ....

Can an academically sound case be made for a three-syllable (Yehowah) transliteration of the Tetragramaton with an e-o-a vowel configuration?

If yes, then it's a valid transliteration (regardless of whether it's a popular one or not). If no, then it is not a transliteration and might justifiably considered a "misconstruction".

...if it is accurate at all, it would only be coincidentally so.

Could you explain this statement please? Are you proposing that if a case were made for the present vowels in Jehovah, and it happened to correspond in any way to any of the 5 vowels in "adonai" or "elohim", it should therefor disqualified from being a academically sound transliteration of YHWH and classified as a "misconstruction"?

NOTE : I would think carefully before responding in the affirmative to the above since the first vowel choice in YAHWEH is "coincidentally" the same as the "a" of a-donai. I'm sure you are not suggestion that if YAHWEH has a vowel ( or vowels) which "coincidentally" correspond to the Masoritic vowel system its insignificant and does not distract from value as an academically sound transliteration, but if Yehowah does, why well that's another matter!

[Do] you think those arguments are better than the arguments and evidence for Yahweh.

Irrelevant, see above.






JW

[JehovahsWitness]

Duplicate sorry.

[historia]

We have a couple of early Church Fathers that record the likely pronunciation for us.

I would like to hear who they are, if you may?

Sure. The three most commonly cited examples are:

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.6:

Further, the mystic name of four letters which was affixed to those alone to whom the adytum was accessible, is called Jave [Ιαουε], which is interpreted, Who is and shall be.

Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion 1.3.8:

Already in the previous Sects I have dealt at length with the translation of Sabaoth and other names -— Eli and Elohim, El and Shaddai, Elyon, Rabboni, Jah, Adonai and Jahveh [Ιαβε]

Theodoret, Questions on the Octateuch 1.16.15:

Among the Hebrews this is known as the unspoken name; they are forbidden to utter it aloud. It is written in four consonants, and so they speak of it as the "Tetragrammaton" . . . The Samaritans call it "Iabe" [Ιαβε], the Jews "Ia."

The Greek in these examples is Ιαουε or Ιαβε, pronounced like Yah-weh or Yah-veh. A couple of early Coptic and Ethiopian sources give a similar pronunciation.