Has anybody noticed ?

I don't think I qualify as a "true scholar", but "LORD" is used when the Hebrew has Yahweh (the name of God), "Lord" is used for other terms (like the Hebrew 'Adonai' or the Greek 'kurios'). Most English Bibles follow this scheme.

 

I'm not much of a Hebrew scholar, either, but I can confirm that LORD (should be small caps, i.e. the ORD should be smaller than the L, but UBB script or whatever this place has doesn't permit that) is traditional in English Bibles to represent the Hebrew YHWH (or, using Latin letter values, JHVH). Hebrew Bibles add the vowels for another word (such as Adonai or Elohim) to the consonants YHWH=JHVH, which led old Catholic scribes to create the hybrid "Jehovah". "Yahweh" on the other hand uses the vowels that modern scholars believe were most likely used in the original Hebrew speech form. In recent Hebrew (Jewish) usage, when you run into this word in the Bible you don't read the consonants at all, but substitute "Adonai" (pronounced roughly "odd oh NIGH").

I'm not sure if the small-caps "LORD" convention began in 1611 or not, but it is perpetuated in the modern versions that descend from KJV (e.g. RV, ASV, RSV, NRSV) and in the NIV.

The CRC's Psalter Hymnal, interestingly, preserves the convention in its metrical Psalm texts, giving e.g. the first stanza of Psalm 3 as

The only English Bibles I can think of that don't use "LORD" (with or without the capitalization) to translate YHWH are Moffatt (who used "the Eternal") and some recent faux-judaizing versions that give "Yahweh".

Haruo

 

at the risk of being obvious again, i was wondering if any FE advocate wld care to defend the twisting of FORM fr Hebrew to English in the "the LORD" convention.

in particular, a Yodh/Jot has been changed and a "the" in English added, neither of which has been authorized by Jesus (in Matthew 5) or John (in Revelation 22).

 

Seems like I remember seeing something about "LORD" was God and "Lord" were the kings and such.

 

Well, "LORD" is never used of kings and such, because the Hebrew is YHWH, the name of God. However, "Lord" is used of kings and such, but is also used for God when the Hebrew is not YHWH, like in Josh 7:8, Jer 32:17, and dozens of other places.

Places like Exodus 4:10 use both words for God, in the same verse.

Also keep in mind that "LORD", because it is from the Hebrew, is predominantly an Old Testament usage. It's only used in the NT in all caps when used as a title where the whole title is in all caps, like in Rev 19:6

 

In most bible the Lord verses LORD usage is explained in the preface, take a look!

 

A marvelous FREE on-line tool for where you can go check for yourself what the original Hebrew word/words were is

http://www.blueletterbible.org/

Go to the verse in question.
Of the little icons next to each verse, the C is for the Concordance.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/c/1059537730-4099.html#4
Neat,huh?

Here we can see BOTH the usage of Yehovah and Elohiym.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this website and those cool Concordance tools! Not to mention the OLD commentaries.

Hope this blesses you all!

God bless!

Princess

 

Amen, sister! The Blueletter Bible is one of my favorites, too. (Hope that doesn't scare anybody off!)

Haruo

 

And if you scroll down below the glossary it gives the Septuagint text (and in the NT it gives TR above the glossary and WH below). Very useful for checking some of the more outlandish claims one runs into in this particular forum.

Haruo