2001 Translation

‘[Yahweh] is my true judge’ —1 Corinthians 4:4

You may know that God’s Name is written as YHWH in Hebrew, and that it appears throughout the Old Testament. It’s often translated as Jehovah or Yahweh. However, our translation also uses God’s Name 144 times in our New Testament, as well as in certain other early Christian texts, even though it’s never written in any Christian manuscript.

What’s going on? Why do we do this?

We do it for a very good reason, one that most people have overlooked: God’s Name appears as a circumlocution.

What’s a circumlocution?

A circumlocution is a way of saying something without saying it directly. It’s a bit like a euphemism, but for holy things.

Jews began using them to avoid saying God’s Name centuries before the New Testament was written. It began after the exile to Babylon, when they started to refrain from saying God’s Name aloud, either due to deep reverence or out of shame over being exiled.

They used various tactics that you, the reader (or listener) was supposed to notice:

• In the Greek Septuagint (the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), they used the circumlocution ‘Lord’ without ‘the’ beforehand. You were meant to notice this ‘grammar error’ and understand it was indicating where God’s Name appeared in the original Hebrew.
• The Aramaic Targums (paraphrased retellings of the Old Testament) would use ‘Lord’ or ‘Divine Presence’ or just ‘YY’ to substitute God’s Name.
• The Peshitta (the Aramaic translation of the Bible) used MarYah, a special formal spelling of ‘Lord’ mostly reserved just for replacing YHWH, but literally means something like ‘Highest Lord’.

These exact same tactics were used to ‘include’ God’s Name in the New Testament and other early Christian texts.

Christian writers, like Paul, used the circumlocutions to:

• Quote the Old Testament.
• Refer to the actions of YHWH in the Old Testament.
• Use expressions from the Old Testament which contain YHWH in Hebrew.
• Refer to God.

To learn more, see our article on Circumlocutions for God’s Name.

Common ancient knowledge

Ancient readers would have easily recognized the circumlocutions; they’d been in use for centuries.

Even Moses and King David used circumlocutions to refer to ‘BaAl’. Yes, ‘BaAl’ was not the name of a God. That word also meant ‘Lord’, and was used to avoid saying the actual name of the local false God. The Mosaic Law forbade Jews from saying the name of false gods, like Molech or Ashtoreth:

‘…don’t mention the names of other gods or speak of them in any way.’ —Exodus 23:13

So by the start of the Christian era, Jews had seen and heard this tactic for roughly 1,500 years.

Jews in the 1^st century AD were also used to seeing and hearing circumlocutions for Yahweh in Hebrew. When reading the Hebrew Bible aloud, they would say ‘Lord’ or ‘God’ instead of God’s actual Name. This was seen as a sign of respect.

They also saw it in the Greek Septuagint, the Aramaic Targums, and the Peshitta.

Yes, they’d seen and heard it all their lives… It was common knowledge.

Modern readers, in contrast, need a little help! They are not used to this, so us Bible translators have to decide how to help readers understand what’s happening. We generally choose to translate the circumlocutions to simply say what it means, as ‘[Jehovah]’.

We put it in [square brackets] to show that its an editorial correction and not a literal translation of the manuscript.

• See our translator note for BaAl

Did the early Christians know God’s Name?

Yes. This fact isn’t in dispute because most early Christians were Jews, and God’s Name still appeared in their Hebrew scrolls; they just never read it aloud. Also, God’s Name is mentioned in many sources from around the 1^st and 2^nd centuries AD.

First, there’s the Greek Septuagint. In addition to the circumlocution, it occasionally contained the real, full name:

• Septuagint fragment 4Q120 turns YHWH into the Greek ΙΑΩ, which probably sounded like ‘ya-ho.’
• Septuagint fragment Papyrus Fouad 266 uses the original Hebrew letters (יהוה).
• Septuagint fragments 943, 3522, and 5101 have the name in the Paleo-Hebrew script (𐤉𐤄𐤉𐤄).

Early Christian writers talked about God’s Name:

• Clement of Alexandria commented: ‘For human speech is by nature feeble, and incapable of uttering God. I do not say His name. For to name it is common, not to philosophers only, but also to poets.’
• He also said: ‘The mystic name of four letters which was affixed to those alone to whom the [Most Holy of the Temple] was accessible, is called Jave (Greek: Ιαουε), which is interpreted, ‘Who is and shall be.’ The name of God, too, among the Greeks contains four letters.’

That latter reference to God’s Name having four letters in Greek is very interesting. The only one that’s survived to today uses three letters (ΙΑΩ). So it suggests that a four-letter version was also in use, but records of it were lost.

Jewish writers and philosophers also discussed God’s Name:

• Josephus described how the Name ‘is not lawful for me to say anymore’.
• The 1^st century AD Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria said that the names of God ‘may only be mentioned or heard by holy men having their ears and their tongues purified by wisdom, and by no one else at all in any place whatever’.

We also have later Rabbinic writings looking back on the era before the Temple’s destruction in AD 70:

• Some state that it could only be spoken once a year by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement.
• Others contradict this and say that priests said it once per day in the daily sacrifices.

So the 1^st century Jews and Christians were certainly aware of God’s Name. However, the evidence shows that it was not normal to use it in everyday speech. Therefore, all the evidence suggests that the Christian writers just used the same circumlocutions that everyone else had used for centuries, and put those in their writings.

And that’s what we see there today.

Where did Christians use circumlocutions for God’s Name?

We have to make educated guesses by looking for six things:

• Category A: Where Lord has the Greek ‘grammar error’ (the Septuagint’s method for replacing YHWH), treating ‘Lord’ as a proper noun rather than a title.

• Category B: Where Lord is written in Aramaic using MarYah.

• Category C: Where the verse quotes an Old Testament verse which uses YHWH in Hebrew.

• Category D: Where the passage describes the actions of YHWH in the Old Testament.

• Category E: Where the verse uses an Old Testament expression which contains YHWH in Hebrew.

• Category F: Where the context only refers to the Father, Almighty God.

If a verse fits into one these categories, we will suspect it as a possible place where God’s Name is alluded to in a circumlocution. Then we can decide whether to translate it as ‘[Jehovah]’ or not.

We put it in [square brackets] to show that it’s not the same as the rest of the text; that it’s an editorial correction.

Our New Testament totals

Our translation of New Testament books uses God’s Name 144 times across 142 verses.

• All are linked to a translator note to explain the reason(s) for it.
• We are not dogmatic about any particular occurrence. Some of these will likely change in the future.
• No other English Bible is so transparent, detailed, and open to change in this matter.

Each occurrence is listed below.

Note: Our New Testament also includes God’s Name in Matthew 1:21, Luke 1:13, and Luke 1:31 as translator [insertions] to explain the meaning of names; they are not part of the original text and are not listed above.

In other early Christian writings

Additionally, some other early Christian writings appear to contain circumlocutions for God’s Name, such as the Didache where it appears multiple times.

However, when the same wording appears in later Christian writings, the authors may or may not have intended to refer to God’s Name. As time progressed, people began to forget God’s Name and the old customs of alluding to it, and therefore likely had no intention or knowledge of what they were saying when quoting the Septuagint.

FAQ

Why translate the circumlocution as God’s Name, why not just leave it as ‘Lord’?

That would be a mistranslation.

The original meaning was not just ‘Lord’, but ‘Lord’ with a wink — either indicated with grammar in Greek, or special spelling in Aramaic (learn more).

Readers have a right to know, and it is wrong to hide this information from them.

However, we do three things to make it clear what’s happening:

• We add [square brackets] around the circumlocutions to indicate that they are partially editorial.
• We link each one to a translator note explaining why it’s there.
• We allow you to view the original circumlocution by changing your settings.

Translation is not a mere word-for-word transcription. Good translation conveys the full meaning that the original writer intended and the meaning that the audience was meant to understand. If a word is supposed to be understood as something more than what is written, then that meaning should be conveyed to modern readers, if possible.

Since English has no expression that means ‘insert God’s Name here’, we just translate the circumlocution to say what it means, Jehovah/Yahweh (with brackets and linked translator notes).

Please understand that we’re not dogmatic about using God’s Name in the New Testament. We feel that the 2001 Translation is doing a public service by exploring this issue and making it clear where this happens in the text — as nobody else seems to be bothered about circumlocutions in the New Testament.

We also do something similar in Matthew when it says ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ instead of ‘Kingdom of God’ (yet another circumlocution, but only found in Matthew).

Why pay any attention to the Aramaic MarYah circumlocution, when the New Testament was written in Greek?

The Aramaic text of the New Testament (excluding the Western Five books) is widely regarded as a very early translation from around the 2^nd century AD. It may have even descended from earlier contemporary translations, making it extremely ancient. Some even argue that the Aramaic text is the original version of many New Testament books (although this is controversial).

Whatever the case, the Aramaic text is a valuable early second witness to the Greek text; it matters and should be considered.

It’s very possible that the Aramaic preserves earlier readings of certain Greek verses, such as where later Greek copyists may have accidentally (or deliberately) ‘corrected’ the grammar to say ‘the Lord’ — erasing the circumlocution.

So we pay attention to where the Aramaic text says MarYah, but not in the Western Five books, as they were likely translated from Greek far too late to be very authoritative.

• Read more: Our Aramaic Sources

Why use ‘Jehovah’ and not ‘Yahweh’ or some other spelling?

‘Jehovah’ is our default spelling because it’s the most widely known, most widely used, and the most common one people enter into search engines.

If you look at the estimates for Bible publishing, the number of printed English Bibles which contain ‘Jehovah’ at least once, is probably around 1.3 billion. People also overlook the fact that most other languages use a local variant of ‘Jehovah’, so that adds hundreds of millions more to the total.

So the total number of Bibles using ‘Jehovah’ or a localized noun based upon it, could be around 2 billion+. Obviously, this is not the case for ‘Yahweh’.

Additionally, the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic names for ‘Jesus’ were all very different, yet there is no record of any ancient Christian having any problem with that. Also, there is no Biblical command to use a specific spelling or pronunciation of God’s Name. So we see no reason to worry about using the ‘correct’ one. Besides, nobody knows what the correct one is.

Those who don’t like the ‘Jehovah’ spelling are welcome to change it to ‘Yahweh’ in the settings panel.

How does this compare to the New World Translation (NWT) published by Jehovah’s Witnesses?

There are two big differences:

• The number of times it appears.
• The reason for including it.

The NWT uses Jehovah 237 times in its New Testament, and ours says it 144 times.

The NWT includes God’s Name because their official doctrine states that it was once in the text but was removed shortly after the NT was written. Thus, they believe they’re correcting some previous censorship.

While this could be true (we have very few New Testament fragments from the 1^st and 2^nd centuries), so far, nobody has found any primary or secondary evidence to support this position (e.g. manuscripts or quotes by other ancient writers).

We believe it’s far more likely that God’s Name was always present as a respectful circumlocution, marked with unique grammar in Greek, and a special spelling in Aramaic. Indeed, this was a centuries-old Jewish custom present in the Greek Septuagint, Aramaic Targums, the Peshitta, and other texts. It was not really a superstition; it was more like an act of caution, deep respect, and shame over the reproach that their ancestors had brought upon God’s Name.

This is why the NWT’s New Testament features the Name about 100 times more than ours; they use the text and the context to guess where the Name may have been removed, sometimes using the circumlocutions as clues, but often just by interpreting the context. We, however, only include the Name where a circumlocution is present, with the sole exception of Matthew 22:44.

There are other large differences between our translations. Our translation of key verses contradicts the Witnesses’ core doctrines, such as:

• Jesus’ ‘invisible presence’.
• The ‘generation that will not pass away’.
• We would argue that the NWT mistranslates several key verses used by their leadership to support their authority.

So despite both translations using God’s Name in the New Testament, our translation is at odds with the NWT in many ways, although it does concur with it on some things, such as:

• Putting ‘the Word was [a] God’ in John 1:1 as that agrees with the earliest ancient translation of the verse (the translation into Ethiopic), writings by the Apostolic Fathers (e.g. Justin Martyr), and also fits the historical context (see note).
• Putting the comma after ’today' to say ’truly I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise' (Luke 23:43), because that agrees with the oldest manuscript of the Greek text which contains that same punctuation (see note).

So our translation both agrees and disagrees with the NWT in many ways.

Does MarYah support the Trinity Doctrine?

People ask this question because a small number of uses of MarYah clearly apply to Jesus, not his Father. Therefore, they say, this is some kind of clue that Jesus and Jehovah/Yahweh are the same, united in a Trinity. However, we feel that Trinitarians have good reason to reject this idea.

Firstly, it makes some verses heretical. To give just one example, if we always translated MarYah as YHWH, Acts 2:36 would say:

‘So let the entire House of IsraEl know for sure that God appointed this Jesus whom you impaled to be the YHWH and His Anointed One!’

In Trinitarian doctrine, the Son is supposed to be co-eternal and co-equal with the Father, so to say that the Son was ‘appointed’ to be YHWH would be heresy.

Secondly, as translators, we can tell you that MarYah is never used as a proper noun when applied to Jesus, but only as a title. So when MarYah applies to Jesus, it probably just means Highest Lord. Besides, the Trinity did not develop until centuries after the New Testament was written.

• See our discussion of every use of MarYah for Jesus
• See our timeline of the Trinity doctrine

God’s Name

• God’s Name
• Circumlocutions for God’s Name
• God’s Name in Christian Texts
• MarYah: An Aramaic Replacement for God's Name
• Was God’s Name Restored Incorrectly in Hebrew?
• Timeline of God's Name

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