It would gratify me much if most readers do not need to be given the following preliminary information!
The Jewish God has a name, and always has had. It is written YHWH, because the Hebrew alphabet in its primitive state has no vowels. The Catholic Latin Church, happily, now forbids attempts to articulate and to utter this word: there was a gruesome period during which callow youths and youthesses used to prattle cheerily on, encouraged by a gruesome "Catholic" "translation" of the Bible, about yarway. I hope this vile nastiness is now completely dead.
Those charged with reading the Scripture aloud in Jewish worship ... however ... needed to say something when they got to the YHWH word (known sometimes nowadays as the Tetragrammaton). So what they neatly and craftily did was to utter instead the entirely different Hebrew word which means 'lord'.
When Jews found themselves in the exciting Hellenophone cosmopolis created by the conquests of Alexander the Great, they wanted, needed, Greek (and other) translations of Scripture. But what to do about the Tetragrammaton ... remember, they were not allowed to say yarway.
So they developed the custom of uttering it as the word in their own languages which means 'lord': Kyrios in Greek and Dominus in Latin. And, in the written forms of those languages, Kyrios and Dominus entered the written texts as stand-ins for YHWH.
And then, at the Reformation, Anglican Scripture translators translating the Hebrew Old Testament, when they got to YHWH, inserted "the lord". But, to show that they were stepping aside from the actual real Hebrew, they wrote 'lord' in capitals: "the LORD".
This usage continues in Anglican-based modern English Bible translations; it is highly useful because it makes clear to readers without much Hebrew, where, in the genuine Hebrew originals, YHWH is the real text.
"the LORD" = "YHWH".
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A comment on Orthodox adaptation of Anglican translations: The ROCOR edition of the BCP Psalter (A Psalter for Prayer, Jordanville NY, 2011) omits "Jehovah" at Ps 33:12 (numbered here 32:12), and replaces "Jehovah" by "the LORD" at Ps 83:18 (here numbered 82:18).
Somewhere in the pentateuch, the God of the Hebrews is asked, how He is called. However, He refused to tell His name, for people at that time superstitiously believed, that by knowing a god's name, they could manipulate Him into doing their bidding. Eventually God did give them a name: I am Who I am. Whuch is not truly a name at all! For the only true God needs no name to distinguish Himself from others, who do not exist. Thus the Most August Trinity is JHWH, He Who Is. And the Incarnate Lord is Jesus, JWHW saves.
I am afraid the vile nastiness about yarway is not confined to that gruesome Catholic translation of the Bible. It survives in three places in the Catholic translation used in the US, one of which is Genesis 22:14, the second reading at the Easter Vigil, where the reader is obliged to say (G-d forbid), "Abraham named the site yarway-yireh".
Citing Pope Benedict (whose memory is a blessing), I wrote to the American Bishops' conference suggesting that the translation be changed, but in the Newsletter that followed, we were told that there was no need to change the translation, since Genesis 22:14 is a place name, only the first part of which was the Tetragrammaton.
Whereupon I made a local adaptation so that our lectionary now reads "Abraham named the site Adonai-yireh".
I used to wonder why the word LORD was in the KJV. You were (some time ago) the first and only person that I have read to point this out. I sometimes think both the post-conciliare Catholic Church as well as the mainline Protestant Churches in the USA, at least, don’t want their members to know anything about their churches as they existed prior to 1960.
I hate to correct you Father, but your assertion about the Hebrew language having no vowels in its “ primitive” state is wrong on two counts. First, there is no such thing as a “ primitive” state. Second, there are long but not short vowels in Hebrew as in Arabic. To be accurate, the Jew will say “ Adonai”…my Lord..in place of the Holy Name.
@El Codi: Father wrote that the "Hebrew alphabet" or writing system originally had no vowels, not the spoken Hebrew language.
Señor Codo: I take it Father means the Hebrew alphabet in its earlier stage indicated only the consonants, and (optionally) the long vowels ã, ē, ī, õ and ū, using the consonants He (H), Yod (Y), and Vav/Waw, (V,W) until the Masoretes in the Middle Ages devised signs to be written above and below the consonants, indicating both long and short vowels.
El Codo, you are mistaken and Father, as usual, is correct. First, Father referred to the Hebrew "alphabet," not the Hebrew "language." Second, there certainly was an early or primitive state of the Hebrew alphabet (and language, for that matter) -- or do you really contend that Hebrew letters are they are written/printed in modern Jewish Bibles are identical to the way Hebrew was written in the time of Jesus, of Jeremiah and Baruch, of David, or of Moses?
Finally, ancient, primitive Hebrew certainly was not written with vowels -- consonants only. Aleph and Yod are consonants, not vowels.
My Bible app offers me numerous versions of the Scriptures. I'm intrigued that the French "Bible catholique Crampon 1923" renders the Tetragrammaton as Yahweh throughout, but in the associated audio files, the reader always substitutes "Le Seigneur." So it matches my experience reading and listening to the Masoretic Text, where I read Yod He Vav He but hear ADONAI.
Sorrry… no short vowels in writen Hebrew. Of course in vocalisation they exist.
Going against the grain...
the Name of God was important enough to the Jews that the High Priest once a year invoked it with special solemnity in Temple worship. And some say, so did the priest in the daily or so blessing when at the temple (while certainly at the synagogue, Adonai would be used). I do not know what is correct.
Pace Pope Benedict, I cannot help but think that what is acceptable to a Jewish High Priest cannot be utterly inacceptible in a Christian priest, and perhaps not even in a Christian layman; and the facts that due to a lack of a temple the Jews today do not say the Name at all is of no relevance here.
However, there is still the need of solemnity, rareness and the like - I'd think of occasions like "when Matins of Laetare Sunday" (that is the Sunday in which the passage from Holy Writ where the Name is revealed is read) "is solemnly sung presided over by a priest; but the lector must take a step back and the presider must take over", so in practice it will amount to the same thing. Just in principle... we are not less apt for the job than a Jewish High Priest.
Anyway, some preachers include the name in sermons (and that certainly should not be). My practice is to bow and make a sign of the Cross. I feel I've got to do something. (The Divine Praises, coming to think of it, might also be an idea. I don't, of course, intend to say that such a use, however inadvisable, were actually blasphemous, - the usual use for the Divine Praises -; but still.)
On 8 August 2008, the CDW pubished a "Letter to the Bishops' Conferences on the 'Name of God'" (Prot. N. 213/08/L). The directives are clear:
1.In liturgical celebrations, in songs and prayers the name of God in the form of the tetragrammaton YHWH is neither to be used nor pronounced.
2.For the translation of the Biblical text in modern languages, destined for liturgical usage of the Church, what is already prescribed by n. 41 of the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam is to be followed; that is, the divine tetragrammaton is to be rendered by the equivalent of Adonai/Kyrios: "Lord", "Signore", "Seigneur", "Herr", "Señor", etc.
3.In translating, in the liturgical context, texts in which are present, one after the other, either the Hebrew term Adonai or the tetragrammaton YHWH, Adonai is to be translated "Lord" and the form "God" is to be used for the tetragrammaton YHWH, similar to what happens in the Greek translation of the Septuagint and in the Latin translation of the Vulgate.
The final paragraph of the document reads: "Avoiding pronouncing the tetragrammaton of the name of God on the part of the Church has therefore its own grounds. Apart from a motive of a purely philological order, there is also that of remaining faithful to the Church's tradition, from the beginning, that the sacred tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context nor translated into any of the languages into which the Bible was translated."
I was shocked and upset to discover that YHWH was part of the Cannanite pantheon. He was a lesser known storm/war god. The general historical consensus is that Moses chose this name to give the mission of invading and conquering the promised land legitimacy and moral virtue.
This explains why BXVI ordered the name never to be spoken or written anymore, but it has raised many serious and upsetting questions for me.
@Clare: Various Hebrew terms are used for God in the Bible. Most of these terms were employed also by the Canaanites, to designate their gods. This is not surprising, since the early Israelites arose in Canaan and spoke “the language of Canaan” (Isa. 19:18).
It must be noted, however, that in the Bible these various terms, when used by the Israelites to designate their own deity, refer to one and the same god, the God of Israel, and were not to be confused with some other god. When Joshua told the tribes of Israel, assembled at Shechem, that their ancestors had “served other gods” (Josh. 24:2), he was referring to the ancestors of Abraham, as is clear from the context.
Moses did not choose the name - the God who identified Himself to Moses as YHWH said He was “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3:6).
Pope Benedict did not say the name was not to be spoken or written. He was referring only to liturgical celebrations, in which the name YHWH is neither to be used nor pronounced.
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