no worries mee has not missed the point
I rather think you have ... the titles are there for a reason, and usually a depth of reason.
The important thing is to use God's name according to its conventional pronunciation in our own language.
The word 'Jehovah' cannot be considered 'conventional' as it was a construct of German theologians in the 19th century, a hybrid, combining the vowels of 'Adonai' with the consonants of the Tetragrammaton.
Unless you're telling me you took the term from a couple of Catholic scholars, who used a variation of it in the Middle Ages?
+++
one cannot render a distinctive proper name by a mere title. A title can never convey the full, rich meaning of the original name of God.
Yet you do just that in your translation of Scripture! However 'accurate' (by human technical standards), mere mere transliteration "... can never convey the full, rich meaning of the original... "
And, by the way, what utter and total tosh!
What is the one name above all titles, above all names ... what is the one name that speaks volumes about God and us? What is the one name that tells us more about our relationship with Him than any other?
There's no word in the whole world that describes God's relationship, God's feelings towards humanity, and the promise of the life to come than the Name He gave us:
Abba!
To remove God's distinctive personal name from the Bible and substitute a title such as "Lord" or "God" makes the text weak and inadequate in many ways.
No, it's a mark of respect.
The Christian authors of Scripture used "kyrios" (Gk 'Lord') in the same way the Jews used "Adonai" (Hb 'Lord') — therefore a clear indication of divinity, to ignore that principle "makes the text weak and inadequate in many ways" precisely because the translation lacks "the full, rich meaning" of the term. That's how it is that you fell into the Arian error about Jesus.
For example, it can lead to meaningless combinations of words. In its foreword, The Jerusalem Bible says: "To say, 'The Lord is God' is surely a tautology [a needless, or meaningless, repetition], as to say 'Yahweh is God' is not."
So the prophets spout meaningless phrases now, do they?
It's a good thing we have you, who knows God better than He knows Himself, to clean up His text for Him
Then again, if you're making credal statements, or prayers, or acclamations, or affirmations of faith ... such as when Thomas cried out "mou kyrios kai mou theos" in the face of the Risen Christ ... then tautology is a good thing!
And although tautology implies a technical error in the Greek mind, when addressing the question of syntax and structure ... it is also and moreover a narrative device of great power, especially in the Arab languages, today as it was then.
Such substitutions can also lead to awkward phrases.
Ah! The voice of reason — "this doesn't make sense to me, so I will change it! I know better than God what He wanted to say!"
I'll try that, next time I'm reading at Mass. Have you ever read Paul out loud? His sentence structure is tortuous! But, following your rule, I'll just simplify the whole thing, to make it easier to say.
has it ever occurred that it's awkward because it's trying to put into words something that can't be put into words?
RETAINING THAT NAME IS THE THING TO DO .
Not really ... retaining the truth of Scripture is the right thing to do. Anything else is a man-made tradition.
Regardless of how the divine name is presented in a vernacular language, it is important to use it. Why? Because "everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved."—Romans 10:13.
But that's not what St Paul said, is it? If St Paul had meant Jehovah, he would have said Jehovah, but he didn't, did he, he said
kyrios.
So you have obviously decided that you know better than St Paul, better than God, what to say when it comes to Scripture.
Your version of Romans 10:13 is your own man-made tradition to imply a divine name is used where it is not — that is a bare-faced deception to promote your own agenda.
How you can bang on about 'accurate' and 'literal' translation on the one hand, and then put words into the mouths of the Apostles that they never said, on the other ... and then have the gall to suggest that it is others who 'invent' traditions, escapes me.
You want it both ways, Mee, you want it word-for-word when it suits you, and you want to change the words 'for the sake of sense' when it doesn't.
That's not scholarship, by any measure. That's propaganda.
Thomas
