THE HOLY NAME VERSION

Hugo McCord

I have never seen a copy of THE HOLY NAME VERSION of the Bible, but a copy of two pages of its preface has been sent to me for a review.

The HNV translators list four reasons why the “extant translations have failed”:

(1) THE MASORITES. “The Jewish scholars” (Masoretic scribes of the 10th century A.D.) have “made changes and modifications of many passages” of “the Old Testament Text.” The HNV translators cite one alleged example: the scholars changed a phrase in Isaiah 19:18 from the original “the city of righteousness” to “the city of the sun.”

But only in a Greek translation (the Septuagint, LXX, c. 250 B.C.), is the alleged “original” phrase found. Furthermore, the HNV translators, with no Hebrew text to sustain their accusation, fail to tell us that the Greek translation of Isaiah 19:18 has the word “lord,” a word that the HNV translators reject as not being “original.”

Moreover, the HNV translators say that the Jewish scholars “substituted in over 130 places in the Hebrew Text the name of the Canaanitish deity Adonay.” But they cite no examples, and actually “Adonay” as a proper noun appears no where in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. As a common noun, the word adonay, meaning lord, master, owner, does appear in the Hebrew text (as in Genesis 15:2; 18:27), but “exclusively applied to God” (Davidson), never to a “Canaanitish deity.”

In addition, the HNV translators say that the Jewish scholars “substituted” in “some places” the word “Elohim for the Tetragrammaton (the four letter Holy Name of the Most High),” YHWH. But the HNV translators cite no examples.

Instead of a substitution, sometimes the two words occur side by side: “YHWH Elohim” (nineteen times in Genesis 2:4-3:24). The two words are mistranslated “LORD God” (KJV, NKJV, NASV, NIV, NRSV) and “Jehovah God” (ASV).

Further, say the HNV translators, the Masorites’ rearrangement of chapters “throws the prophetic student into a confusion of date setting,” making Daniel and Revelation “difficult to understand.” But the HNV translators fail to give any evidence of a rearrangement of chapters.

Also, say the HNV translators, “the Masorites altered many texts in opposing the Messianic teachings,” but they cite no examples.

(2) CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIANS. The HNV translators contend that “Christian theologians” translate “the Scriptures” from a “non-Israelitish approach,” causing the “promises made to Israel, and to non-Israelites through Israel” to “appear of non-effect,” leaving “the believer” without “hope.” On the contrary, a positive “Israelitish approach” is seen when one reads that God “preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed,” (Galatians 3:8).

Other passages also have an “Israelitish approach”: “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22); “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29); “so all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26); “if they do not continue in unbelief” (Romans 11:23).

(3) HEBREW TRANSLATION. The translators of the HNV say their version is more accurate because it translates “whole thoughts, not words,” but their preface cites no examples.

(4) THE SACRED NAMES. The preface accuses “most of the translations” of substituting “Baal, the Babylonian deity, and Adonay, the Canaanitish deity of the Phoenicians,” for the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), but they cite no examples. On the contrary, about 70 times, beginning with Numbers 22:41 and ending with Romans 11:4, current translations condemn Baal and Baal worship.

A second time the HNV translators speak of Adonay as a “Canaanitish deity” used as a substitute for “heaven’s revealed Name of the Most High.” But the Hebrew word adonay in the Bible is never a proper name, but always a common noun, simply signifying lordship, beginning in Genesis 15:2, “O Lord YHWH,” and is “only used of God” (Gesenius). True, the rabbis, every time they see YHWH (the Tetragrammaton) in Scripture, orally they say adonay, mistakenly thinking that no human is worthy to say YHWH. But they never use it as a name of a “Canaanitish deity.”

The translators of the HNV hold that in Isaiah 65:11 YHWH “repudiated” an Assyrian deity named “Gawd, or God in English.” On the contrary, YHWH repudiated, not the worship of “God,” but of “Gad, the (god of) destiny, that is, Baal” (Benjamin Davies). YHWH also repudiated the worship of Meni, another idol coupled with Gad.

The Hebrew word elohim and the Greek word theos may be used of idols (Exodus 20:2; 1 Corinthians 8:5), but both words most often are used of the one true and living deity (Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 44:6; Romans 1:1; Philippians 4:20; Colossians 1:1). Jesus used the word theos. “God in English,” as he translated elohim (Matthew 3:7, 10; Deuteronomy 6:13, 16).

Not only do the HNV translators reject the use of the word “God,” but also the name “Jesus.” They substitute “Yahshua,” which is not a translation of the Greek word Iesous, Jesus, a name found hundreds of times in the New Testament. What the HNV translators have done is to retreat from the Spirit’s word Iesous back to the word’s Hebrew ancestry, Yehoshua, Joshua (Joshua 1:1), a name that means “Yah [is] salvation.” Then Yehoshua was contracted to Yeshua’, and then, transferred to Greek, became Iesous, for, said the angel, “he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

The HNV translators hold that “Such names as Lord, God, Jesus, and Christ ... actually ascribe the benevolent characteristics of the Mighty One of Israel to pagan deities.”

Among “THE SACRED NAMES” repudiated by the HNV there is one exception: they translate YHWH as Yahweh, and they hold that name in high honor, even entitling their translation THE HOLY NAME VERSION. Their reverence for the name “Yahweh” is the most redeeming feature of the two pages of their preface which were sent to me.

The four letters YHWH (called the Tetragrammaton) erroneously came to be regarded as too sacred for human lips, and consequently the correct pronunciation (which God used in speaking to Moses) died out of human memory: “This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations” (Exodus 3:15).

Today Bible scholars agree that “it is almost if not quite certain that the name YHWH was originally pronounced ‘Yahweh’“ (Professor Bruce M. Metzger). In the Hebrew, Yahweh means “he causes to be,” a certification of God’s creative power, without which we could not be in existence. Heavenly beings praise him:

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for you created all things, and they came to be, yes, they were created, because of your desire (Revelation 4:11).

The American Revisers in 1901, though they mistakenly used the word “Jehovah” 6823 times to translate YHWH, were not mistaken in their recognition of the rich meaning of YHWH:

This Memorial Name, explained in Exodus 3:14-15, and emphasized as such over and over in the original text of the Old Testament, designates God as the personal God, as the covenant God, the God of revelation, the Deliverer, the Friend of his people;--not merely the abstractly “Eternal One” of many French translations, but the ever living Helper of those who are in trouble.