Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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(Today’s Reading)
YHWH in the Intertestamental Period
(Essay Installment 2)
Writing the Name YHWH
This second intertestamental development initially had nothing to do with the de-vocalization of YHWH, but it was inevitable that the two developments would intersect. Let me explain the historical background and the need for a written translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek. Then we’ll see how the de-vocalization of YHWH affected the translation of YHWH.
When Israel’s northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC, and its southern kingdom was conquered by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC, many Jews were displaced from Israel and scattered throughout the surrounding world – what they call their dispersion, their “Diaspora.” In the 5th century BC, the Old Testament age quietly ended. During the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great conquered the eastern Mediterranean nations and, as a result, Greek soon became the dominant language of countries in that part of the world. By the 3rd century BC, many Diaspora Jews no longer spoke Hebrew fluently. This established the need for a Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament).
The project to get the Old Testament translated from the original Hebrew into Greek began with the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This translation was called the Septuagint because it was believed to have been produced by about 70 Jewish scholars. (“Septuagint” comes from the Latin word “septuaginta” which means seventy; for this same reason, you’ll see Septuagint abbreviated as “LXX” – the Roman numerals meaning 70.)
The rest of the Septuagint was translated in stages: the historical books in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC, the Psalms and other wisdom literature in the 2nd century BC, and the Prophets in the late 2nd to early 1st century BC. Obviously, multiple translators were involved over multiple generations.
It is at this point in time that our two intertestamental developments (re: speaking YHWH and re: writing YHWH) intersect. That is, in the time of the Septuagint’s formation, it was increasingly standard practice for temple and synagogue readers to vocalize “Adonai” when YHWH was encountered in the Hebrew. What were the LXX translators to do? Some of the earliest manuscripts from that period indicate that they initially just printed YHWH. Then, apparently, concern that some reader in a far-flung country might accidentally utter the sacred name nudged the translators to employ a different strategy. They would translate YHWH as the Greek word “kurios” (lord) which was the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word “adonai” (lord). This insured that there would be no vocalization of YHWH…just as the Jewish temple reading protocol required.
It’s important for us to recognize that the LXX translators did not want to innovate. Like any responsible translators, their goal was to accurately transfer meaning from one language to another. However, responsibility also meant respecting the context in which that meaning was being delivered. Literacy rates were low in ancient times – usually 5-10% of the population. Almost all reading was public reading – that is, out loud. Even literate people digested most of their reading material through public readers. This was all the more true with Jews and their Scriptures, given that that these texts were written on scrolls and therefore both expensive and inconvenient. (The ancients would faint if they knew individuals would one day walk around with all of that content – and more – in a handheld smartphone.) Thus, for the LXX translators, the most important aspect of translating YHWH was to preserve the reading tradition practiced by the priests and other readers in the synagogues wherever in the world they were. And the tradition that had become sacrosanct during the intertestamental period, as covered in the previous section, was that YHWH was not to be spoken. Therefore, the LXX translators, not wanting to be accused of dereliction of duty, removed any possibility of complicity in that infraction by consistently translating YHWH as KURIOS.
Thus, in the wake of gradually suppressing all vocalization of YHWH in Hebrew-speaking contexts, Jews eventually suppressed its expression in both vocal and written forms in the rest of the world through the Septuagint. Meanwhile the Hebrew text would continue to show YHWH even though it was always vocalized as Adonai. Nevertheless, because Christianity was embraced by Gentiles as well as Jews, there were soon way more Gentiles than Jews using the Old Testament. Since Gentiles were almost always using translations of the Old Testament rather than in Hebrew, the knowledge of the precise Hebrew name YHWH shrank even more. Increasingly, the world would recognize the name “YHWH” only as “LORD.”
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