One of the important questions we had to answer before we could move forward with The Voice was this: how do we translate the divine name?
While many titles are attributed to God in the Scripture (e.g., “Lord,” “God,” “God-All-Powerful,” “Commander of heavenly armies”), there is only one name by which God is to be most clearly known; the name is revealed to Moses at Mt. Sinai. It is used about 6000 times in the Old Testament to refer to the One, True God of Israel.
The transliteration of the God’s name from the Hebrew is YHWH. Although we don’t know which vowels would have been pronounced with these four consonants, we think the name may best be brought over into English as Yahweh. Some translations today call God Yahweh, but what if that is not the right spelling or pronunciation? Imagine, misspelling and misspeaking God’s name over and over again. As the first President Bush was fond of saying: “wouldn’t be prudent.” I know many scholars today who either refuse to speak the name as Yahweh or they do so with the utmost care.
In the past some translators rendered the divine name Jehovah; but this is actually a made-up name combining the consonants of YHWH (latinized to JHVH) with the vowels of Adonai, one of the Hebrew titles for God, often translated “Lord.”
Today most Bible translations render the divine name as LORD (note: the word is in all caps). The capitalization of each letter signals the reader that the word refers to God’s name and is not just a title of reverence and honor. In The Voice we have taken special care to translate the divine name as “the Eternal One” or “the Eternal,” depending on the context.
This decision is based upon a number of factors. In the next two posts, I’ll begin to explain why.
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