Formal equivalency; italicized words of "clarity"

The Public Square
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One of the admirable qualities of many formal equivalency translations is the way they often italicize English words which are added for clarity, but lack an explicit textual basis. While many of these additions end up succeeding in their attempt to offer clarity, every now and then I am struck by one which seems to create a meaningful interpretive implication.

One such case I encountered recently in 1 Peter 3:3 with the addition of the word “merely.”

LSB - Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on garments;
NASB77 - And let not your adornment be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses;
NKJV - Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel—

Meanwhile, the KJV and ESV leave this out:

ESV - Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—
KJV - Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;

I’m hardly an expert on Greek, but I can’t seem to find any textual basis for the addition of the word “merely” in the TR or the NA28. I am therefore inclined to prefer the KJV and ESV here.

To my ears, the addition of the word “merely” conveys the understanding that the apostle means to infer that women ought be engaging in these forms of external of adorning in addition to the adorning of a quiet and gentle spirit. By contrast, when the word “merely” is left out, the understanding becomes that the apostle means to juxtapose two forms of adorning. The latter seems to be the sense that our fathers understood, and seems to align with Paul (1 Tim. 2:9-10).

This latter understanding does not necessitate that the apostle is explicitly prohibiting all braiding of hair, wearing of jewelry, and the putting on of garments, while the former understanding infers a sense of obligation to engage in such things.

Question: What motivated the addition of the word “merely” into this text? Was this a cowardly nod to the women who would not suffer the Bible to challenge their vanity? What “clarity” is it really offering? Why was the Greek found wanting here? Or is there a realistic interpretive basis for this addition that I am missing?

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Today, my reading was in Ezekiel, and as I do each time, I looked at the footnotes recording the “literal” words for chapter 33. Do it yourself. Click on each of the footnotes and ask yourself why? Why can’t our esteemed Bible translators with the terminal degree who say they confess the plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture give us the text of what God inspired? (And the NASB95 is commonly agreed to be the most accurate translation.)

Why “message” instead of “word?”

Why “survive” instead of “live?”

Why “God” instead of “Yahweh?”

Why “your fellow citizens” instead of “sons of your people?”

Then again, why “your fellow citizens” instead of “sons of your people?”

Why “taken” instead of “smitten?”

Why “open field” instead of “surface of the field?”

Then again, why “your fellow citizens” instead of “sons of your people?”

Then again, why “message” instead of “word?”

And why “as surely it will” instead of “behold, it is coming?”

Then, move on to chapter 34 and ask yourself the same questions. Why “feed” instead of “pasture?” Why “rich pasture” instead of “fat pasture?” Why “weak” instead of “sick?”

Now you may not mind any particular I have mentioned, but take the whole. It is inexcusable. We need a new Bible translation whose purpose is to give us what the Holy Spirit gave us, rather than what the translators gave us wanting to justify their existence. Love,

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You keep throwing this exhortation out to the void, but who is going to heed the call? :slight_smile:

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Tangent: Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall that we’ve ever had a thread here on Sanityville that really dove into arguments for the LORD vs. Yahweh in English translations. I’d be interested in hearing your take on that. Worth a thread to discuss?

There is a contingent among my elders and churchmen who, left to their own devices, would favor moving from the ESV to the LSB. I’ve been resistant to that notion primarily because I don’t think the LSB does nearly enough to solve any real problems with modern translations. It seems that for every text where I appreciate the LSB over the ESV, I can just as easily find texts where I think the ESV gets it done better (like the example I’ve cited in this thread). While the ESV is neutered, at least it’s an “old friend” at this point, where I can spot and call out most of the landmines as we would preach or teach with it. Why go through the trouble of pivoting to another translation if all we’re doing is trading one set of problems for another, without really fixing an underlying problem?

Secondarily, however, I retain a serious level of discomfort about the hermeneutical implications involved in abandoning the use of LORD/kyrios when translating the Old Testament. It’s one of those cases where I don’t want to move a fence until I am very, very confident I understand how it got there. Considering that Jesus and the apostles appeared content to use κύριος when referring to Psalm 110:1 (Matt. 22:44 cf. Acts 2:34), I am very slow to want to deviate from what they did, lest I be found presuming to be wiser than Scripture.

I understand that some argue the practice to be rooted in Jewish superstition. I suppose someone could posit the view that Jesus and the apostles simply weren’t interested in offending their superstitious Jewish audience needlessly, and argue that the church 2,000 years later need not bother with such a scruple, and instead ought reclaim the use of YHWH in rejection of the ancient superstition. In this vein, I once read someone make the argument that the Jews’ superstition concerning the Tetragrammaton was a manifestation of God’s judgment as prophesied in Jer. 44:26, and that we, the church, are not bound to such a practice. This view seemed fascinating, but novel.

The bottom line, for me, is that such arguments require a lot of conjecture, and a moving of a fence that neither Jesus nor the apostles moved. I can’t get there, and so I’m content to stick with the LORD.

Worth a separate thread?

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Dear Jason, I grew up on Dad reading our portion of Scripture for family devotions from the Jerusalem Bible, which uses “Yahweh.” So it’s normal for me, and not a fence I’ve thought I was removing. But this is a minor concern of mine with respect to Bible translations. Reading the NASB95 though, I do get irritated with their constant explanations such as Ezekiel 34:2 translated, "‘Thus says the Lord [fn]GOD…

Then the footnote: “Hebrew: YHWH, usually rendered LORD , and so throughout the chapter.”

Each time, I think to myself that people reading the Bible won’t ever get it that this is God’s personal Name revealed to His people. I don’t want to argue about it, but believe that’s important. Love,

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That’s funny. My experience of the Jerusalem Bible is the opposite. Not that one is right or wrong.

I’m reading my grandfather’s Jerusalem Bible in my personal Bible reading this year, and I’ve found their use of ‘Yahweh’ irritating because 1) while it’s probably closer than any other vocalisation we have, we don’t actually know that that’s how it’s pronounced (and ultimately I’m not persuaded it really matters), and 2) the New Testament consistently chooses to use ‘Lord’ in place of a specific Hebraic vocalisation of the Divine Name. Jesus and the apostles had no problem going after Jewish superstition when they thought it was a problem, so I have a hard time believing their using ‘Lord’ was just a nod to preconceived notions.

Maybe that’s really just my irritation with Evangelicalism’s overfamiliarity with and near-incantatory use of ‘Yahweh’, as though saying God’s name a specific way shows how close we are to God or how comfortable we are with God.

Your point about God’s personal or covenant name revealed to his people is certainly important.

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What’s really irritating about the JB is the constant drumbeat of footnotes informing us that the translators have corrected the text!

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Never ever heard any Evangelical do that. Weird that you say the opposite. What I appreciated about using the Jerusalem Bible was that it was not the NIV universally used by Evangelicals at the time. For the same reason I used Robert Alter’s translation of the Pentateuch and Historical Books in our family devotions. Bad with adam, but so literal which was so helpful. Love

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I have experienced this a few times but mainly from those on the charismatic side who would pray using Adonai, El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rapha, etc. Those are wonderful names of God, but only if you know what they mean. The rest of us are left wondering, which is not good: 1 Cor 14:1-5.

Tim’s point on Ezek 34:2 is important. There are different names for God that add richness to knowing who He is, so it ought to be conveyed in translation somehow. Interestingly the LXX translates Ezek 34:2 “Lord GOD” [adonai, YHWH] as κύριος κύριος dropping the distinction. NLT has “Sovereign LORD.”

As for YHWH:
My main discomfort with using YHWH is that it can have the effect of forcing a foreign tongue upon a people. The most popular Bible translations in the US do not use YHWH. It is more uncommon than common. WLC 1.8 is pertinent here:

But, because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who have right unto and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear of God, to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come (1 Cor. 14:6,9,11–12,24,27–28).

(This is also why man is a sufficient translation of adam / anthropos, the transliteration is not necessary).

I’m perplexed by the LSB’s translation philosophy. From the preface:

The NT uses the term “Lord” (Kurios ) to translate Yahweh. The LSB maintains the translation “Lord” and does not change those instances to Yahweh. In cases when “Lord” explicitly translates Yahweh in a quotation of the OT, a footnote is provided stating such. Nevertheless, the LSB maintains the translation of “Lord” in the NT for the same reason it upholds Yahweh in the OT: because that is what is written in the original text. Just as translations preserve the distinct wording between an OT passage and its quotation in the NT, so this distinction is preserved.

Why would they not transliterate kyrios in the NT as they do YHWH in the OT? “that is what was written in the original text.” No, kyrios is what was written, not Lord. This completely undermines their use of YHWH in the OT. They are willing to translate the Greek but not the Hebrew. Why? Sorry, but this probably stems from their dispensationalism.

On another note, I came across this yesterday:

And He *said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, 19 because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.) – Mark 7:18-19

“eliminated” is not the correct translation. NASB95 footnote: goes out into the latrine.

The Greek word is ἀφεδρών:

a place where the human waste discharges are dumped
a privy, sink, toilet

ἀφεδρών, -ῶνος, ὁ, apparently a word of Macedonian origin, which Suidas calls ‘barbarous’; the place into which the alvine discharges are voided; a privy, sink; found only in Matthew 15:17; Mark 7:19. It appears to be derived not from ἀφ’ ἑδρων, a podicibus, but from ἄφεδρος, the same Macedonian word which in Leviticus 12:5; Leviticus 15:19ff answers to the Hebrew נִדָּה sordes menstruorum. Cf. Fischer’s full discussion of the word in his De vitiis lexx. N. T., p. 698ff

Apparently we are ok with our Lord saying fornications, adulteries, sensualities (Mark 7:20-23), but not outhouse or toilet. Make it make sense…

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But always keep in mind that it is the purpose of reading God’s Word to force the difference between God’s thoughts and our thoughts upon us. In other words, the same argument can be used to remove usages that have become or are foreign to us, and that’s the main justification of the Bible neutering men. Add to this that the Bibles first translated into English used very many transliterations and you will understand, not my disagreement over this specific Name of God, but generally. Love,

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So helpful – I will memorize this.

In other words, a faithful Bible translation teaches the people (Matt 28:20)

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Although I tend to prefer LORD to Yahweh, this does not seem a fair criticism:

Lord is a translation of kyrios, whereas LORD is not a translation of YHWH. All, or nearly all, proper names are transliterated in the LSB, both old and new testament, as well as most other translations. Kyrios, to the best of my understanding, is a title.

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This is a very helpful thought worth rallying to.

Anecdote: While I have a level of discomfort with the notion of translating YHWH as anything but LORD, I have found myself experiencing a reciprocal discomfort with reading through Exodus 3-10 with my young children recently and without vocalizing “Yahweh” in place of LORD.

I’m working through my inconsistency, but there it is.

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Do you feel the same way about other foreign tongue names in the Bible like Jeremiah, Joseph or Timothy?

I think Jason’s point that Jesus’ use of kyrios after the Septuagint makes this a point not worthy of dividing over. But I think the LSB translators have the right end of this one: When we translate the OT today, we’re not translating the Septuagint (useful though referencing it might be), we are translating the Hebrew and the Aramaic. In Hebrew, the Tetragrammaton is a name, not a common noun.

Passages like Exodus 15:3, (“The Lord is a warrior; The Lord is His name.” NASB95) make very little sense when rendered LORD instead of as a name.

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I guess I wouldn’t have thought to pin it on dispensationalism, but you may be on to something. Can you elaborate on this? At face value, their explanation that they are just translating the OT as the OT and the NT as the NT seems sensible enough. But I think I can see how a dispensationalist, being on the “radical” end of drawing distinctions between the Old and New Covenants, would be the quickest to abandon the traditional translation of the Tetragrammaton.

Yes, this is my experience as well. Those who insist on using “Yahweh” all the time are either signaling some kind of stuck up elitism (“We know better than those other Christians”), or else it’s just a dog whistle to show they are into Hebrew Roots nonsense.

I am sympathetic, but it remains hermeneutically meaningful to me that Matt. 22:44 and Acts 2:34 show Jesus and Peter explicitly quoting kyrios when they could have transliterated YHWH. At the very least, I glean from this that it will forever be acceptable to God that we translate YHWH as LORD. Evidence encouraging us to do otherwise is, by comparison, thinner.

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Brothers,

Instead of replying to each of your questions/objections I will sum up my thoughts with this:

I’m not opposed to transliterating YHWH in the OT, but I believe LORD is a sufficient, legitimate, and useful translation simply because the NT uses kurios (of course, what was spoken by Christ and the apostles may have been Hebrew at times, and they may have used adonai or YHWH, but what was recorded was kurios). This shows us God’s gracious condescension to us. To use YHWH in the OT has the potential to push against His condescension causing the weaker brother to stumble, so to speak. By saying this I do not mean that it is sinful to use YHWH. By no means! Just that we must not lose sight of the fact that LORD is a legitimate translation (or if you prefer substitute / re-titling) and none of us is required to call Him YHWH.

This is a different point that has not been brought up yet, but while I’m not opposed to using the LSB privately, I personally would be uncomfortable using it in the pulpit, for the reasons just given (Not to mention, using YHWH in our Bibles would push the use of YHWH in our liturgy: songs would need re-written, etc. for consistency).

I feel the contradictions, but I silence them in my own heart by embracing God’s condescension. We are free to call Him YHWH, and we are free to call Him Lord. “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”

Blessings,

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@MattShiff,

I agree with nearly everything you’ve written here, and your point about liturgy is particularly important. All actions have consequences, and it is important to think them through. To often, we get excited about something and push for change, without consideration of all the interconnected effects.

There are two reasons I pushed back on what you said regarding the LSB translation, despite my overall agreement with you.

  1. Your comment was obviously wrong. The idea that transliterating a proper name (just like most/all other proper names), and translating a title (just like most other titles), is somehow inconsistent due to the fact that they are referring to the same Person, is rather ridiculous. As is the idea that it somehow fails to show that there are different underlying words in the original languages. Then, blaming “Dispensationalist" theology smacks of Reformed snobbery.
  2. Even more importantly, it was not truthful about God, His Name, and His Word. Your last comment suffers from this as well. LORD is not a translation of YWHW, full stop. It is at best misleading to call it a translation. It is a substitution. This isn’t just me being pedantic, as I think you probably know what an actual translation of YHWH is. If we are not willing and able to be honest and clear about what we are doing when we substitute LORD for YWHW, perhaps we should think long and hard about whether or not we should be doing it.
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This is the reason that I read out Yahweh for LORD in family devotions or other public readings. In particular, Psalm 73 seems to turn on this, as Asaph refrains from using God’s covenant name until the very end of the psalm. In this way, he shows how he started far from God but has now drawn near to the One Who keeps covenant with us.

(Psalm 73 is probably my favorite psalm, so this is a point that really jazzes me. :smiley: )

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

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Dear Elder Jesse,

For the sake of clarity, here again is the portion of their preface I took issue with:

The NT uses the term “Lord” (Kurios ) to translate Yahweh. The LSB maintains the translation “Lord” and does not change those instances to Yahweh. In cases when “Lord” explicitly translates Yahweh in a quotation of the OT, a footnote is provided stating such. Nevertheless, the LSB maintains the translation of “Lord” in the NT for the same reason it upholds Yahweh in the OT: because that is what is written in the original text. Just as translations preserve the distinct wording between an OT passage and its quotation in the NT, so this distinction is preserved.

My point was since the NT uses Kurios in place of (to “translate” as the LSB preface says) Yahweh, why would they not transliterate Kurios when it is being used for Yahweh in OT quotations? For instance, Acts 2:34 quotes Psalm 110:1. In my mind, to be consistent, their translation of Acts 2:34 ought to read:

For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says:
‘The Kurios said to my Kurio,
“Sit at My right hand,

Yes, this is ridiculous. But that’s my point. Since the NT uses Kurios in place of Yahweh it only makes since to transliterate it. You may argue that Kurios is a title and not a name. But the NT uses Kurios in the place of His Name. Why not reflect that? “That is what is written in the original text” as they argued.

I believe this to be an inconsistency on their part and I was trying to it point out.

Perhaps I am wrong, and that’s fine. This is by no means a hill I want to die on.

The entire LSB translation committee are more than likely dispensational given they are “from the Master’s University and Seminary.” Transliterating YHWH in the OT but keeping Lord in the NT emphasizes discontinuity (whether that is intentional or not), and discontinuity is a hallmark of dispensationalism. I believe it is fair to point out that it is possible this translation decision stemmed from their dispensationalism. By saying this, I don’t mean to be snobbish. One of my dear mentors is dispensational.

But perhaps I am wrong here as well, and I am happy to be wrong. The Jerusalem Bible uses YHWH and they were Roman Catholic.

I agree, it is not a direct translation, but this also opens up the deeper question of What do we mean by “translation”? I don’t care to dive down that rabbit-hole which is way above my pay-grade. But even the LSB preface says “The NT uses the term “Lord” (Kurios ) to translate Yahweh.” Perhaps they ought to edit it to say “substitute” or “re-title”.

Yes, it is more accurate to say ‘LORD for YHWH in the OT is a substitution’, but, in common parlance, “translation” seems fair game.

I hope this clarifies what I was getting at. These are not hills I will die on. I will try to think much more carefully before speaking, especially on Sanityville.

Thank you for your interaction with what I have said.

Respectfully,

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Likewise, and I appreciate what you have said. I also don’t believe Yahweh/ LORD a hill to die on.

A few thoughts before I get to what I do think is really important:

Regarding the Reformed snobbery remark, it’s entirely possible I misread that. Dismissing an arguement as Dispensational, as though it was a synonym for wrong, is a major aggravation of mine. That said, I find the idea that this is a Dispensationalist idea to emphasize the discontinuity as opposed to the traditional substitution of LORD a bit strained. The caps are also intended to emphasize the difference.

I don’t know if this is more ridiculous than “The Lord said to my Lord,” but it does seem to imply, like the KJV’s Matt. 6:24 does to Mammon, that Kurios is a proper name. Maybe it should :person_shrugging:

As does Young’s Literal Translation and the HCSB, which are also not Dispensational.

I get it, referring to anything in a translation as a “translation” makes sense, and is certainly common as you pointed out in reference to the LSB preface, but this, I believe, is important. Exodus 3:13-15

13Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” 14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” 15God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.

If we are going to use a stand- in for that memorial name, we should be very clear about what we are doing, and what the name actually means. This article, written by a professor at Master’s, and (I believe) a member of the LSB translation committee, expressed what LORD should not be:

“There is yet another name which is particularly assigned to God as His special or proper name, that is, the four letters YHWH. This name has not been pronounced by the Jews because of reverence for the great sacredness of the divine name. Therefore, it has been consistently translated LORD. It is known that for many years YHWH has been transliterated as Yahweh, however no certainty attaches to this pronunciation.”

If you can train your mind to get over all the inaccuracies in that note (and it is bad—note the passive “assigned,” as if God was named by someone else; and how is different sized CAPS a form of translation?) you understand what the NASB editors are saying is that you are supposed to read Yahweh when you see them giving you The LORD. As if Christians have the decoder ring from The Christmas Story, and we can see through CAPS of varying fonts to the word “Yahweh.”

I disagree with the main thrust of the article (although he makes some good points and is well worth the read), but he is right that CAPS are not a form of translation, and we should not expect Christians to use a decoder ring. We should be clear that it is God’s Name, that God named Himself with a purpose, and He uses it of Himself throughout the OT. We can grant all those things, while still following the NT example of Lord.

Thanks again for discussing graciously. I’m happy to let you have the last word if you like.

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