Sacred Name Bible

Although the Greek forms Iao and Iave do occur in magical inscriptions in the Hellenistic Jewish texts of Philo, Josephus and the New Testament use the word Kyrios ("Lord") when citing verses where YHWH occurs in the Hebrew.

[citation needed] This view is colloquially known as "Aramaic primacy", and is also taken by some academics, such as Matthew Black.

Sidney Jellicoe in The Septuagint and Modern Study (Oxford, 1968) states that the name YHWH appeared in Greek Old Testament texts written for Jews by Jews, often in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet to indicate that it was not to be pronounced, or in Aramaic, or using the four Greek letters PIPI (Π Ι Π Ι) that physically imitate the appearance of Hebrew יהוה, YHWH), and that Kyrios was a Christian introduction.

Justin Martyr (second century) argued that YHWH is not a personal name, writing of the "namelessness of God".

However, despite his adherence to a Semitic original of the New Testament, Lamsa translated using the English word "Lord" instead of a Hebraic form of the divine name.

This pattern is followed in languages around the world, as translators have translated sacred names without preserving the Hebraic forms, often preferring local names for the creator or highest deity,[7][17] conceptualizing accuracy as semantic rather than phonetic.

20 – 26), though he also said, "I trust that in a popular version like the present my choice will be understood even by those who may be slow to pardon it."

These Bibles systematically transliterate the tetragrammaton (usually as Yahweh) in both the Old and New Testaments, as well as a Semitic form of the name of Jesus such as Yahshua or Yeshua.