Working for the Word - a Bible translation podcast Andrew Case

Bitcoin represents a transformative tool for missionaries, offering a secure, transparent, and ethical alternative to traditional financial systems. By embracing Bitcoin, missionaries can protect themselves and those they serve from economic instability and corruption. Moreover, Bitcoin’s alignment with biblical principles of fairness and justice makes it a fitting choice for those committed to upholding these values in their work.



This single episode is not meant to convince you to invest in Bitcoin, but rather to encourage you to explore it with an open mind, especially from a biblical point of view. For that, I've compiled a curated doc of recommendations for those who are interested in learning more.

Read the doc.



The anecdotes about Wences at the beginning are from Digital Gold.


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Am I dogmatic about using "Yahweh" as opposed to other pronunciations? What about Yehovah? How do we end up with the pronunciation of "Yahweh" anyway? Doesn't the Septuagint provide conclusive evidence for how to pronounce the divine name? These are some closing thoughts and loose ends I wanted to address.

⁠⁠Read the book⁠⁠⁠⁠.



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The previous episodes in this series considered God’s desire for us to use his name, how the pronunciation was lost, and how the New Testament writers handled the matter. It remains, finally, to consider how it has been handled by translators since the Reformation. In that time there have been various departures from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, which rendered the divine name as Dominus (“Lord/Master”), while others have maintained the tradition, which goes back to the Septuagint.


Read the article⁠⁠.

⁠⁠Read the book⁠⁠⁠.

Read about Sacred Name Translations.



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We know that the inhibition for pronouncing God’s name came before Christianity, although we don’t know how widespread it was. It’s possible that rendering the divine name as “Lord” (kurios) had already been a strong tradition for centuries by the time we get to Jesus and the apostles. What’s clear is that the New Testament manuscripts we have all follow the tradition that the Septuagint set, which was to substitute the title “Lord” (kurios) for God’s name (YHWH). So, the fact that the New Testament never uses God’s personal name as revealed in the Old Testament, or even an approximation of it, is crucial.

Why did the New Testament authors choose to do this? Was it because they thought God’s name was too sacred to write out in Greek transliteration and feared that God might strike them down if they did so? Or, had its pronunciation already been forgotten to history? Were they afraid that the Jews might be angry about it? Or, was it some other reason(s)? The writers never tell us why, so everything that follows here is speculation. Nevertheless, it’s an honest attempt to grapple with the issue.

Read the article⁠.

⁠Read the book⁠⁠.



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This is part 2 of a short series on the divine name.

It’s important to recognize right up front that we simply do not know with absolute certainty how God’s name was originally pronounced. The common English pronunciation of “Yahweh” is an educated guess, but we’ll never know for sure how it sounded when God spoke it to Moses.

Two key things prevent us from knowing: (1) Hebrew was written without vowels for many centuries, so we’re left with only four consonants: YHWH, and (2) people started avoiding the pronunciation of God’s name long before Hebrew began to be written with vowels. And when the Hebrew Bible was finally written with vowels, artificial vowels were inserted into the spelling of God’s name in order to keep people from pronouncing it! So, in this article we’ll try to understand why—why did the Israelites go from swearing by Yahweh’s name, using it in prayer, song, and greetings to forbidding its use altogether?

Read the article.

Read the book⁠.

Audio clip credit: Tyrant Contra God.

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A few years ago I did a series on the pronunciation and translation of the divine name here on this podcast. It was a long series that eventually turned into a book.

Now, a while back the Text and Canon Institute asked me to do a four-part series on the divine name for their website, which forced me to significantly condense the highlights of the book into smaller, less technical articles. So as a service to anyone who may not have the time to read them, or who may not have the time to listen to the longer technical series, I’ve recorded these articles, and this will be the first. Even if you end up disagreeing with my conclusions, I guarantee that most people will learn a few new and surprising things.

Growing up, I understood that the name of God was “the Lord.” As I got older, I began to understand that when I saw the Lord in all caps, that meant that it was God’s special, divine name that he revealed to Moses. This seemed strange and confusing to me—adding a level of complexity to understanding a Bible that was already difficult enough for a teenager to understand. I don’t remember when it was that I first heard the name Yahweh pronounced, but when I went to seminary, I quickly realized that it was an accepted pronunciation and spelling for God’s name, especially in academic circles.

So how did we get to this point where nearly every English Bible uses “the Lord” (a title) in place of his personal name? Can we know how God’s name was originally pronounced? Shouldn’t we avoid using God’s name out of reverence for the sacred? Why didn’t the New Testament authors use God’s name? How do Bible translators decide whether they should render something like Yahweh or the Lord? These are all important questions that we will try to answer throughout this series. But first, we need to answer a foundational question: What is God’s revealed desire regarding the use and preservation of his name?



Read the article.

Read the book.


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