that is my
name.
(Isaiah 42:8 ASV)
Dear Owen,
Still in chapter one of God has a Name. I am wondering if the author, John Mark Comer. has a point about how we should translate the tetragrammaton Y-H-W-H as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” rather than “Lord.” Should we?
The 1901 American Standard Version of the Bible did that by translating the Divine Name as “Jehovah” in all 6,800 occurrences of Y-H-W-H. Yet, seventy years later, when the New American Standard translation was first published in 1971, the translation of the Divine Name was changed back to the 1611 King James Version as “Lord”. You don’t mess with King James.
I don’t recall why the change—what was their reasoning? I’m guessing it has to do with the relentless effort of the 1901 ASV to provide a consistently literal translation. Which it did. However, such a literal translation turned out to be unusable in public life and worship. The church stuck with its venerable 400-year-old King James Version and left the ASV for scholars. The NASV was an attempt to make the old ASV readable. So, they went back to “Lord.” That’s my guess.
As for our author’s argument that “we need to get back to calling God by his name” (p 053); let me save that for another blog. This wares me out.
Love, Papa
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