Tetragrammaton

Michael Asser, a recent Orthodox Christian translator of the Septuagint into English, notes how that the Greek version of the Old Testament (shared by Judaism and the early Christian Church for a time) approached the name of God in a way that proved influential with English translations, including the King James Version. Asser wrote: “The Septuagint displays several very significant characteristics. Kyrios – Lord, is consistently used throughout the Septuagint without the definite article for the Divine Name Yahweh. Following its use in the Septuagint proper [the Pentateuch or Books of Moses], it was used thus throughout the other books of the Greek Old Testament. There is still some debate about whether Kyrios was the original Septuagint rendering of the Divine Name. Origen and Blessed Jerome are insistent that it was not and that the Tetragrammaton (i.e. the four consonants YHWH of the Divine Name) was used in some form or other. (As a matter of interest, there are on Internet photographs of fragmentary papyri of the Septuagint which have the Tetragrammaton.) But other Jewish writings of the time provide evidence that Kyrios was used by Greek-speaking Jews for Yahweh, and it may have been so with the Septuagint.” The Septuagint Greek rendered Elohim as a Hebrew name for God (in the plural indicating the Holy Trinity) as ὁ θεός (Theos), translated God or the God into English.

YHWH was called the Tetragrammaton, transliterating four Hebrew consonants in a written term with no vowels. YHWH was rendered Jehovah in four places in the King James Bible, Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, and Isaiah 12:2 and 26:4. Some early Christian writers identified the Tetragrammaton with the I AM THAT I AM name that God gave to Moses in Exodus, which also became translated as “I Am He Who Is,” or “He Who Is” in Greek and Eastern Christian iconographic writing. The Tetragrammaton has also been rendered Yahweh at times in English. The convention in the Septuagint of using Kyrios for Lord may have followed the Jewish strictures on taking the name of God in vain and avoiding use of the sacred name.

In the King James Bible, seemingly following the lead of the Septuagint for the most part, the translators who followed mainly the Hebrew Masoretic text rendered YHWH with LORD (all capitals) in contrast to Lord. Initial capital L followed by smaller capitals indicated Adonai as used in Hebrew. GOD (all capitals) in the KJV indicated Elohim. More recent English translations often followed the lead of the King James Bible but some have become more varied in their use of transliterated Hebrew names. In Asser’s own English translation of the Septuagint, he renders the Tetragrammaton as LORD, and other names for God with similar meaning in Hebrew and Greek texts (see below) as THE LORD.

Adonai

In English, Lord was used as a translation of the Hebrew Adonai as a name for God. (Adonai was also like “Lord” applicable to a human master.) In the King James version when Adonai accompanied the Tetragrammaton, it was rendered “Lord God” or “Lord GOD.”

Elohim

The Hebrew name Elohim, “Powers,” a plural form indicative of the Holy Trinity (as in “let Us create” in Genesis 1) is also used in parts of the Creation account, as noted by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky’s commentary on Old Testament names for God, and is translated God in the King James Version, following the Septuagint, which renders the name ὁ θεός (Theos), translated into English as God or the God.

El Shaddai and Shaddai

This name for God in Hebrew scriptures is rendered God Almighty or my God or Lord in the Septuagint, and “the God of heaven” in Psalm 90/91, Almighty being the standard English translation. The King James Bible renders El Shaddai as the Almighty God and Shaddai as the Almighty. Scholars relate its root meaning to mountains, and sometimes breasts, and connotating power and destruction as well as sufficiency.

Protopresbyter Michael Pomazanky notes:

“It is sufficient to recognize, or at least assume, that both names, Yahweh and Elohim, were current in the time of Moses, to understand the impossibility for a writer completely to ignore one name of God, as if it were unworthy of being included in the book, and use the other exclusively. Thus, in their epistles the apostles call our Saviour either Lord, or Christ, or just Jesus, or they use all three names together. We see the same thing in our prayerful appeals to God: the appellations “God” and “Lord” are constantly interchanged.

“Criticism does not seem to make any effort to pause and consider what it was that must have motivated the Prophet Moses to use two names of God in turn. The name of God “Elohim” is exalted, primordial, ancestral, and at the same time deeply mystical. Its grammatical form in the plural (the singular form is Eloah), was obviously an expression of reverence with the Hebrews, as in Russian “Bы” (you — polite form) shows respect for a person. However, on becoming part of the common speech of the people, this mystical plural form, which for Christians is a sign of the dogma of the All-holy Trinity, could then turn the thought of the Hebrew people in the direction of polytheism. It was important to make room for another name of God which would not even have a grammatical plural form. Evidently, it was not then foreign to Hebrew speech. In the revelation to Moses in the burning bush, God revealed Himself under the name of Yahweh — “I am He Who is.” And Moses records the exalted meaning of the name in his book.

“Is Yahweh presented in the Pentateuch as the national God of the Hebrews? No; for in the book of Genesis Yahweh creates man not as the ancestor of the Hebrew nation alone, but as the ancestor of all mankind. Gradually Moses introduced this name into the narrative of the book of Genesis, and from the book of Exodus on it is used predominantly; undoubtedly it was introduced into the oral speech of the people to the same extent.”