Saying "Lord" In Church

"Windermere Christian centre x 142 on 12.08.2018. plus many more during a time of personal prayer..."

On a chilly Sunday morning during our "summer" holiday in the Lake District, northern England, I attended the Windermere Christian Centre for their weekly service. The venue was fairly full, although a strong contingent of visitors helped swell the ranks - Windermere is something of a tourist Mecca in the beautiful Lake District area, filled with beautiful scenery... and unpredictable weather.

I went in, curious as ever, to discover how yet another Christian church expressed and celebrated their faith together. At the same time, I am abrim, as followers of the blog will realise, with the revelation that "Lord" language is firmly anchored in an old-fashioned form of English Christianity that derrives its precious translation underpinning "Lord" (Kyrios) so far back that it is pretty much a sacred word in its own right, despite its ambiguity. So I decided it might be of some value to see how different expressions of church use the "sacred" word, Lord. Why not start here?

I downloaded a simple counter app on my phone and happily proceeded to count every time someone said the word "Lord" from the front, prayed it in collective prayer from a pew or we sang it in worship. By the end, my total count was 142. "The Lord" seemed to permeate every aspect of the meeting, even more than the name "Jesus" itself. Interesting. The style of the meeting also seemed a bit old fashioned - while still "Charismatic evangelical" (there was even a word spoken "in tongues" and interpreted), I think it would not have shocked me too much to have sung the exact same songs and been exhorted with the same language 20 years ago in my parents' church. Copy-Paste!

At the end of the meeting, things went from interesting to almost comical. A prophetic word had been given by the pastor of the church that I decided might well concern me and so at the end of the service (the time designated to respond to this prophetic message), I made my way forward to the front.

The pastor had been chatting to a small, stout lady in her 50s, with frizzy auburn coloured hair and a ruddy complexion. In fact, while bodily appearance varied, the age of most of the stage personalities could be similarly described, folks in their 50s.

The pastor smiled at me and gestured that the lady he had been talking to should stay for this time of prayer. It seemed fitting to give a few words of why I requested this prayer and as I did so this lady seemed to have an idea deposited in her evangelical mind: just make him say Jesus is Lord.

Despite the seriousness of the time of prayer I almost gave away a smile at the irony of this situation, but I felt that there was a way through without giving up my new convictions ("Lord" cannot be our staple in a culture and language that no longer has any use for it). So I said yes, he is king of kings, reigning over the heavens and the earth: is that good enough? And that was very acceptable to the pastor who seemed keen not to ruffle the feathers of this visiting Christian and generally extend to me his trust.  However, I suspected a bit of puzzlement from the lady as to why I didn't want to repeat her special formula when she repeated the confessional requirements.

But why not just go with the flow for goodness' sake?  Am I a spiritual rebel? Do I have a problem with the authority of Jesus in my life? I don't think I have a huge personal problem here as I don't reject Jesus' kyrios-ship, but no-one says kyrios-ship. The point is that my work on the redundancy of "Lord" as an adequate one-size-fits-all translation for Kyrios, it needs trailblazers for it to fly. I don't feel like a trailblazer, but I just know I need to start applying more meaningful language to the Kyrios-ship of Jesus and God in and around me, while of course also finding ways to be faithful to my roots.

So for the sake of that lady, I could have readily said "Jesus is Lord". However, she was ministering to me, to my soul. So, yes, since I have glimpsed both culturally and textually how Lord is no longer a good translation for these ancient words, I simply can't hide that information from other more intimate parts of me like my "soul".

One week later and I found myself in a more modern yet less charismatic Evangelical Church based in Swansea known as the Cornerstone Church. It was slightly warmer, but slightly wetter than the week  before.

Once in the warm and dry and having enjoyed friendly conversation with two folk I didn't know, I sat down to an almost movie-like spectacle introduction. The tone quickly became very friendly, however, but I noticed here that the leadership were really into fasting and, as someone who struggles with being underweight myself, I was concerned even by some of the weakened demeanors that resulted from this leadership decision and emphasis. In particular, thinking of fasting in Daniel, I see a sharp contrast in that Daniel and his friends were in great physical shape as they fasted.

Anyway, that's not really the point. I decided to measure in a similar way as I had measured in the Lake District, the dependency of the meeting on Lord language.

All of the songs were new to me. One or two contained a reference to it and it was mentioned a few times during the service too but people in this church want the name of Jesus itself to resonate in people's hearts. As a result I think of this I only noted around 30 currencies throughout.

142 against 30, that's one heck of a difference and not reducible to any particular choice of songs or even leader personality. With the Message translation in hand, modern culturally adapted churches are steadily releasing themselves from old fashioned, retired language including, incredibly, "the Lord" in favour of "Jesus".

This sociological observation should be deeply significant for the church and for Bible translators Who also have a responsibility to maintain accurate translations of the Bible that actually function within the context of Modern Church.

I am encouraged because it feels like this only adds extra purpose and worth to my endeavours with the Obstacles series we are navigating, as I imagine a world of Lord-free translations that accurately represent the Kyrios themes in today's terminology.

Obstacle 5: The Lord Jesus, starting in Mark

In the endearing little love story between Tina and Archie we saw Tina is the church and Archie is the Lord Jesus Christ. The old-fashioned name "Archie" that Archie wants to change is "Lord". 

I believe a translation overhaul is needed for "Lord" in many modern Bible translations both in English and other languages. This overhaul is necessary for a relevant and yet faithful religious institution like Christianity.

The Number 1 question was how to translate the Hebrew name for God, "Yahweh". I finally arrived, after two years of researching the issue, at the idea that GOD, all caps, would be a good solution. Eugene Peterson got there first though!

This only makes the suggestion all the more palatable, as I have arrived at the same destination as Peterson but via, I am sure, a different route, bringing more grammatical substance than Peterson's work had access to.

Overcoming Hurdle 5: The Lord Jesus 

If you make this move - to switch the Yahweh translation from "The LORD" to "GOD", then there are some fresh problems to solve - I identify five of these. Overcoming the first obstacle, we established that it is more than faithful to ancient tradition to apply the lower case "g" to god, permitting the possessive "GOD, our god". Overcoming the second, we realised that often "Lord of lords" can be replaced by "king of kings", condensed or even "Commander-in-Chief". Overcoming the third, we addressed the issue of "Divine Combos" where we steered clear of the risk of redundant repetition. Overcoming the fourth was quite a task but essentially boiled down to a set of criteria for identifying unambiguous references to the Kyrios of the Old Testament (while including clear justification of two main identities traditionally both designated "the Lord").

This now leaves us excellently placed to approach the fifth and perhaps toughest hurdle: The Lord Jesus Christ. 

In the preamble to each of these treatments of the obstacles faced by any program to remove Lord language from the Bible I have referenced Eugene Peterson groundbreaking translation, The Message. In this translation there are obviously thousands fewer occurrences of "the lord" because of the translator's excellent choice of GOD for Yahweh. But I failed to mention quite what he did with Adonai, which is relevant to our current Obstacle. Peterson really is pretty consistent at avoiding lordship language and with Adonai translates (my) Master. And he does the same with Jesus. Job done? 

I'm not sure. The problem with Kyrios in Koine Greek is that packed into "Kyrios", especially for a Hellenistic Jew, you have an extraordinary breadth of potential signification, the precise meaning of which will only become apparent within the context of the dialogue, discourse, text, etc. 

So whereas in modern languages our titles of authority have mushroomed into a confusing sub-language unto itself, ancient languages had fewer choices - the important nuances were drawn from surrounding context. But let us just say for the sake of simplicity that Kyrios covers at least three important layers of authority: 

Kyrios-God, both Creator and god of the Jewish people 
Kyrios-Ruler, emperor established ruler of the people for a designated area and its inhabitants; royal family members 
Kyrios-Boss, properly addressed "Sir". Also appropriate as an address for any homeowners by their paid staff or slaves.  

In other words, it can be a catch-all for any authority figure!  

So what do we think of Peterson's "Master"? Is it a good catch-all in English?  

Peterson's assumption that Master might be applicable for all three authority levels is actually misleading (Abraham is Master of his household, Jesus is “Master of all” in Philippians 2, and Yahweh, via Adonai, is Master too).  

Let's take God first of all. Would anyone in any faith tradition we know of refer to a deity they reverence as "Master"? For me, this title Master does not work well here. I have already discussed how Adonai functions alongside Yahweh as a reference to the Divine Name in How does the Adonai cookie crumble into Greek Yoghurt?, and how when combined in Hebrew we are well within our rights in English to render these to a single “GOD”, see Obstacle 3. 

Why doesn't Master work here? Because Master is first and foremost the expression of a personal functional relationship between Master and Servant without a religious root. 

So what about the various levels of human authority in the Bible? Should Abraham's "Master-ship" be homogenised with that of Jesus? 

Actually, that is the misleading question. Can you see why? It assumes a static, flat representation of the level of authority intended by the biblical writer. Remember, the Biblical writer is drawing on the context to draw out the important nuances of the authority, not the word Kyrios itself. So this means that the authority level of Jesus can be intentionally upgraded even while maintaining the same title of Kyrios.  

But can we do that in English? I don't think we can: our politically and culturally sensitive vocabulary is rich and revised constantly to empower lower-level roles and avoid issues such as gender discrimination in the workplace. So translation into this complex world of English authority systems is far from straight forward - this should already be evident from the treatment of the first four Obstacles and Let's (at last) translate Yahweh and Kyrios into modern English!. Thus we need to proceed with Jesus with this same due care.  

The gospel writer Mark is the first New Testament writer to which we have access who is describing Jesus prior to his exaltation. He does not hide from his readers that Jesus was speaking in Aramaic and was know to his followers in their mother tongue as "Rabbi", a title still in practice among Jews today. Mark spreads these references across Peter (Mark 9:5 & 11:21), a blind man (Mark 10:51) and Judas Iscariot (Mark 14:45).  

Here is the surprising bit. Prior to Jesus' exaltation in the extended (and inauthentic) ending in Mark, Kyrios is not often applied to Jesus! As a result, we can go through them applying my more dynamic approach as a proposed methodology to measured gospel translation of the pre-exaltated Kyrios Jesus. 

(1:3 is a Yahweh reference and a direct citation from the Septuagint, and thus can be rendered GOD)   

2:28 Lord of the Sabbath is Jesus, but in a grand quasi-cosmic sense. King would suffice here although I prefer a more descriptive “the Son of Man is in charge of the Sabbath”.  

5:19 is Jesus, deliverer of the man with a legion of demons: the Great Rescuer, or the Master could maybe work here. But how does that work? A man cannot be expected to be making sense to refer to "the" Master when retelling the story to his fellow villagers, can he? Unless it is to be made into some exalted interpretation of Kyrios (which could be one shade of meaning here), then a more personal note is needed and feels more natural in this story, namely your Master: "...tell them how much your Master has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you."

7:28 is Jesus, a "Sir" address is sufficient. 

11:3 the authority needing the colt, is Jesus, but note he is unnamed for the colt-owner(s) thus probably a reference to an authority level higher than Household owner and not possible in the "Sir" address form. There is certainly nothing to suggest that those encountered by the colt were Jewish or would recognise a Jewish authority term.  

There would seem to be 2 choices:  

1. A local active authority to whom any inhabitant of Jerusalem would defer. 
2. A title tolerated and respected by locals even if they are not directly under its jurisdiction. 
Of course, historically, it is not straight forward to determine precisely what happened during Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on the back of the colt, and in particular how widespread his popularity was given the events ahead, but Mark is clearly portraying it as a triumphant entrance fit for a highly esteemed dignitary, one even commissioned by God for the establishment of his kingdom. A Jewish king. 

Either way, the owners accept the title. For 1. a local authority should be recognisable via the title used, e.g. the Ruler or the Commander or the Commanding Officer might more adequately reflect the Kyrios here than Master. But this then creates unnecessary tension with the ensuing scene, the very purpose of the colt story. In which case we should prefer a version of 2 that would likely be respected without being overly specific. I would opt for "His Excellency" or "His Royal Highness": given the forthcoming exposition of Psalm 110 in chapter 12, consistency would be best maintained via the latter. 

(11:9, 12:11, 12:29 and 12:30 are all Yahweh references, and thus can be rendered GOD - by the way, on the Shema of 12:29, my proposal would be to follow the growing awareness of the uniqueness of Yahweh summarised in this great Jewish declaration and translate simply as follows:  
‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Listen up, Israel: GOD is our god, Him alone”). 

12:36 The LORD said to my Lord. Obviously there is no space in my Lord retirement program for either of these titles as English Lords, and we have already settled on GOD for Yahweh. But how do we settle this tricky puzzle for the second lord? 

First, why is it tricky? It is tricky because someone at some point misread this Psalm. Whether it was Mark or Jesus himself is not obvious, but someone somewhere unfortunately flattened the two speakers (the prophet addressing the King and Yahweh) into a single speaker and it stuck for all three synoptic gospels, which creates some awkwardness for me as a follower of Jesus. Mark has Jesus claiming that David is the speaker throughout about someone else who is superior to him! 

That is not at all how Psalm 110 reads. 

But let's accept the situation as best we can by allowing for some "prosopological exegesis" and continue the solutions imagined for the viewing of the colt and in line with this royal Psalm: Your Royal Highness. Not only does this term clearly infer the royal lineage, it fits Mark's usage well and, critically, it remains widely understood today. A fourth advantage to "your Royal Highness" is that the Highness is an open invitation that prepares the reader for the super exaltation to come from other New Testament writers. These compositors will flesh out the Highness in directions that take Jesus into supreme levels of authority, fully occupying both the divine and terrestrial spheres. 

12:37 following on from the exposition of verse 36 above, we could now accept David himself calls him "your Highness". 

13:20 and if [the] Kyrios had not cut those days short... Here although we are not in the context of a Markan Septuagint citation, the pericope, the fact that Kyrios is anarthrous and the New Testament understanding that only the father knows the hour all point in a common direction: this Kyrios is Yahweh, much like in 2 Corinthians 3:16-18. 

16:19 and 16:20 both lie in the longer ending referenced above and whose translation interest me less for now. 

So there we have it! In the whole of Mark, Kyrios seems to be applied directly to Jesus as few as 5 times and is not astonishingly is not yet established as "the Lord Jesus" (only in 16:19 that we can discount as original). For that reason alone, that is to say an unestablished and infrequent type of lordship, has required us to reflect that aspect and tread with contextual care suggesting: 

• The Son of Man is in charge of the Sabbath 
• Tell them how much your Master has done for you 
• Sir, she replied, even the dogs.... 
• His Royal Highness needs it (the colt) 
• GOD said to Your Highness... 


Hopefully, these translations can mirror the crescendoing layers of meaning we see unfolding in the Koine New Testament.  

In subsequent gospels, Kyrios would be used more extensively. This seems to be in connection with the call to "make disciples", and Peterson's "Master" proposal increases its appeal for those actively engaged in exemplary discipleship.

In our next post, however, we can unpack the super-exalted status of the resurrected Christ as developed in some of the epistles, and explore how that might best be translated in modern English. 

Thank you for your interest! It has been a while since I received any feedback or comments. If you can, please do so - it has the effect both of challenging my thinking on these difficult issues and encouraging me that this work is worthwhile.

Two key ingredients to authentic living

Do you struggle, like me, against feelings of inauthenticity? Do you "shadow-box"? Then I think I have some good news for us. We're ok. We're normal.

What to do about that struggle?

1. "Feed" off those around you that seem to you more authentic. This isn't a comparison. It's a feeding of the soul. Being the social creatures as we are there is absolutely nothing selfish about this. Without us realising it, hundreds of people have "fed" off us to varying degrees in trying to understand their own perpetual quest of learning how to be in this world.

2. Recognise our social benefit of any given decision we have to make and feel free to do it anyway. It is utterly normal to negotiate our social position. If we bring out potential gains into our conscious view and maintain our course then we act and slowly even begin to live conscientiously.

3. ?

4. ?

Obstacle 4: New Testament references to Yahweh

In the endearing little love story between Tina and Archie we saw Tina is the church and Archie is the Lord Jesus Christ. The old-fashioned name "Archie" that Archie wants to change is "Lord". 

I believe a translation overhaul is needed for "Lord" in many modern Bible translations both in English and other languages. This overhaul is necessary for a relevant and yet faithful religious institution like Christianity.

The Number 1 question was how to translate the Hebrew name for God, "Yahweh". I finally arrived, after two years of researching the issue, at the idea that GOD, all caps, would be a good solution. Eugene Peterson got there first though!

This only makes the suggestion all the more palatable, as I have arrived at the same destination as Peterson but via, I am sure, a different route, bringing more grammatical substance than Peterson's work had access to.

Overcoming Hurdle 4: New Testament references to Yahweh 

If you make this move - to switch the Yahweh translation from "The LORD" to "GOD", then there are some fresh problems to solve - I identify five of these. Overcoming the first obstacle, we established that it is more than faithful to ancient tradition to apply the lower case "g" to god, permitting the possessive "GOD, our god". Overcoming the second, we realised that often "Lord of lords" can be replaced by "king of kings", condensed or even "Commander-in-Chief". Overcoming the third, we addressed the issue of "Divine Combos" where we steered clear of the risk of redundant repetition. 

This now leaves us excellently placed to approach the fourth and fascinating hurdle: New Testament references to Yahweh, the divine Kyrios that is distinct from the Kyrios, Jesus.

French Darby: Le *Seigneur

Back in 2016, I did my best to highlight a fascinating translation approach adopted by a well-known French translation of the even better-known English Darby translation. Although John Nelson Darby's main translation was into English, he had students who went on to translate into other languages like French and German based on his work. The French one, in particular, introduces a fascinating nuance into the New Testament that is extremely useful for our task in hand. 

The equivalent of Lord in French is Seigneur. Now, everything that I have been saying about religious antiquation of "Lord" in English is just as true for "Seigneur" in French, maybe even more so. At some point, if Christianity is going to somehow bridge its way back into modern French society, Seigneur should also be axed, in my view. So what is the connection between the French Darby translation and "Seigneur"? 

Well, Seigneur is very present in this translation. However, the translator has shown extraordinary awareness of the Greek he was translating and of the Septuagint underpinning it. Whenever he has to translate a Kyrios that is unambiguously a reference to the pre-Christian Israelite god, he added a discreet asterisk, rendering it to Le *Seigneur.

So while he still kept the article, le (even though it was frequently missing in the Greek), he still flagged a distinction between this Seigneur from the Seigneur Jésus Christ. We do not have space here to go through them all - more than a 100, but I endorsed most of them, as they fall into their four main categories (which overlap), which can serve for us as criteria:

• The birth narratives, especially Luke's
• Septuagint quotations
• "The Lord God"
• Certain other lexical units

I developed this in two ways. Firstly, as I noted a number of inconsistencies in the French Darby methodology (such as in various passages in Acts where despite satisfaction of the Septuagint quotation criterion, the asterisk went "AWOL"), I felt released to also identify other conspicuous passages, the most important of which, written by Paul, is found in 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 and is densely packed with anarthrous Lord occurrences. Here, both the content and the anarthrous usage point specifically to the Israelite god as the referent of Kyrios. Secondly, and with the translator's natural inclusion of "the Lord God" (le *Seigneur Dieu), I developed his implicit criteria to suggest certain anarthrous "lexical units" can also be used by the New Testament writers to link their readers back to a Septuagint usage, such as παρὰ κυρίου ("from the Lord") and ἡμέρα Κυρίου ("the day of the Lord"). While this overlaps with the first two categories, I do suggest that even for this translation to be consistent, further checks need to be made.

For instance, I noted in the post on the Darby asterisked Seigneur, that παρὰ κυρίου might be significant. I also wrote a specific post on this lexical unit here. Most of these occurrences take place either in a birth narrative or are located in a Septuagint citation. However, the Darby translator also caught 2 Peter 2:11 but he did not identify 2 Timothy 1:18 (although Peterson did identify it, translating Kyrios to "God" here)

Readers of this blog can consult these posts using the above links (although note at that time I had not yet hit upon the GOD solution - some posts have been updated but maybe not all). Otherwise, for our purposes, consistency is best maintained by supplying GOD to these passages (note, not quite the move we see Peterson make in The Message, even though he translates some of these occurrences to "God").

While still an incomplete response to the problem, I will consecrate the remainder of this post to two New Testament books that, combined with the treatments of the above, constitute the bulk of the methodology needed to overcome this obstacle: Jude and Revelation.

Jude

In this small and often overlooked epistle there are some interesting historical rapprochements between "the Lord Jesus" and "the Lord" of Old Testament and inter-testamental times. For our purposes, we need to ask the question of how Jude makes any (if any) clear distinction between the two via the measurable parameter of the anarthrous Kyrios tradition: Κύριος, not ὁ Κύριος (for the most part). Verse 5 reads in the NIV: I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt... The Greek says "ὅτι ὁ Κύριος". My review of every single Yahweh translation into Greek, commentated and presented on this blog, showed me that there are some prepositions in Greek which change the odds of inclusion (or dispensation) of the article. However, if you stick "ὅτι Κύριος" into a Septuagint search engine, you get plenty of Yahweh references, so Jude using "ὅτι" has nothing to do with the presence of the article. Another interesting testimony to the linking of the two lords is that there is early manuscript evidence of scribal changes to this verse, changing this Old Testament "Lord" to "Jesus" in verse 5. So is Jude actually proto-orthodox Trinitarian, thus confounding the difficulties of our Lord overhaul project?

Wonderfully, for our purposes, we move on next into an intertestamental witness via Jude's citation of a dispute between an angel and the Devil over the body of Moses, citing it in verse 9 to say "The Lord rebuke you!" In Greek we read: "Ἐπιτιμήσαι σοι Κύριος". No article! Verse 14 is from the same era, and is a citation from Enoch: "See, the Lord is coming...". The Greek here reads: "Ἰδοὺ ἦλθεν Κύριος" (actually says: "the Lord has come"). No article! All the other "Lord" occurrences (v4, v17, 21 and 25) are unambiguous references to Jesus, τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν, our Jesus, the Lord of us.

With such a small sampling of pre-Christian witnesses to assess, it is difficult to be certain that Jude is picking up a Septuagint tradition (33% Lord occurrences are arthrous), but it still seems distinctly possible despite verse 5. This renders the usage of GOD possible, wherever the pre-Christian Israelite Kyrios-named deity is apparently mentioned. Secondly, the rapprochement we discussed around verse 5 is not an original one. It is a valid one, the sort of change one might expect from scribes that did make occasional changes on a road that would lead the church to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan confessions of 381, but it is nonetheless chronologically anachronistic. If that were the purpose - permitting subsequent scribal changes to reflect a broader scope of Christian interpretation - then the massive process of Bible translation and biblical criticism is pretty much thrown to the flames as we allow back in the Johannine comma and pretty much anything that fits a particularly desired theology.

Note that Jude is synoptic with a section of 2 Peter 2, where the same comments apply.

Revelation 

It was actually some of the references to a very distinct Kyrios from Jesus in Revelation that led me to think that I might need to offer a specific solution to New Testament references to a pre-Christian Israelite Kyrios-named deity. Let's look at Revelation's Kyrios, this time from the NASB.

1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God -> no article!
4:8  “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY" -> no article!
4:11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God" -> possessive
6:10  “How long, O Lord, holy and true" -> not Kyrios!
7:14 I said to him, “My lord, you know.” -> Κύριέ μου = "Sir"!
11:4 the Lord of the earth -> Top Authority (see Obstacle 2)
11:8 their Lord was crucified -> Jesus (see Obstacle 5)
11:15 the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ
11:17  “We give You thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty..." -> vocative, OT
14:13 "...the dead who die in the Lord" -> ἐν Κυρίῳ, no article (expected), Jesus (see Obstacle 5)
15:3 "O Lord God, the Almighty" -> vocative, OT

15:4 "“Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name?" -> vocative, OT (see previous verse)

16:7 “Yes, O Lord God" -> vocative, OT

17:14 He is Lord of lords -> Jesus, Top Authority (see Obstacle 2)

18:8 for the Lord God who judges her is strong -> no article!

19:6 "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns" -> no article!
19:16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” -> Jesus, Top Authority (see Obstacle 2)
21:22 I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. -> no article!
22:5 the Lord God will illumine them -> no article!
22:6 the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets - article
22:20 Come, Lord Jesus -> Jesus
22:21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all -> Jesus

Some initial comments on these Kyrios occurrences in Revelation:

• they are nearly all citations
• Clear knowledge of the anarthrous practice
• Divine Combos are often written three times over
• A very clear distinction between the pre-Christian Israelite Kyrios deity and the Kyrios Jesus Christ (e.g. see 11:15 and 21:22)
• Jesus has clearly been ascribed the title previously held by Yahweh of "Lord of lords" (ΚΥΡΙΟΣ ΚΥΡΙΩΝ).

We need not dwell on the first point for now, but simply to acknowledge that we are in a discussion of an address and not a simple linguistic designation.

The witness to a practice of referring anarthrously to the Israelite god as Kyrios (anarthrously: without the article) is strongly maintained.

The third point is important. Up until now in the previous obstacles I have addressed, I have been keen to legitimise the practice of condensing of redundant repetition where appropriate. Fortunately, we have also been careful to ensure that alternatives are also on offer, and here we may need to appeal to those. Why? Why not suggest simply a triple-condensing of "Lord God Almighty" into GOD? I am not saying that this is impossible. I simply want to acknowledge that at the time that Revelation was written, such condensing practices were likely to already be known and were not applied here. In which case, we may wish to apply some of the additional titles already suggested. Which way to go?

"Commander-in-Chief" was an interesting suggestion before for the Old Testament "Lord of lords", ΚΥΡΙΟΣ ΚΥΡΙΩΝ, awesomely ascribed to Jesus Christ here in Revelation more than once. It makes sense, therefore, to leave that ascription as it is, unless a condensing into "King of kings" for Jesus is considered sufficient. So we cannot consider that.

I suggested appending "Almighty", "Awesome", "Ultimate" or "All-Powerful" if appropriate. I confess to some reticence about Almighty, because to me it still sounds religious and a bit antiquated to a modern ear. "Awesome" has more appeal to the modern ear and can bridge the historical gap with some fidelity. The problem with "awe" is that although the experience is somewhat overwhelming, it does not leave a secondary experience with the necessary understanding that all power emanates here. I would suggest "Awesome GOD" for a younger target readership and "Ultimate GOD" or "All-Powerful GOD" for a more formal equivalence, even if in fact all are influenced by the goals of dynamic equivalence.

On the fourth point of distinction between the two Kyrios of the Old and New Testaments, I do not have much to add except to say that Revelation seems not only to strengthen the case again for representation of that distinction but for me, personally, to reinforce the whole purpose of this blog (see banner above).

On the final comment of Jesus being the Kyrios of all the other Kyrios, we are supposed to say "wow". Allow me to join the throng: WOW. Regarding the option of condensing into a single "King of kings", I am indifferent. Of course, we have examined some of the options here in Obstacle 2. There is obviously no space in my proposal for any inclusion of the mention "Lord" given its relegation to an irrelevant religious corner of modern consciousness, which unfortunately also includes "Lord of lords". Of course, kings may go that way too eventually. So, one option, for the time being, is to say that "King of Kings" is amazing enough. If not, then the title "Commander-in-Chief" should also be added. If that is the case, then in order to carry the allusion intended by the writer of Revelation, then the Old Testament occurrences translated by the Septuagint as ΚΥΡΙΟΣ ΚΥΡΙΩΝ should also be presented as close to that as possible.

Conclusion:

The French Darby translation's distinctives on Le *Seigneur,  Paul's exposition of Kyiros in the desert in 2 Cor 3:16-18 and the textual evidence of Jude and Revelation consistently legitimise a specific designation to a pre-Christian Kyrios, best represented by GOD

In my next post I will proceed to the 5th (and I hope final) obstacle in the path of the Yahweh translation, GOD. Writing this post has, however, drawn my attention to other less significant occurrences of human lords, which I suppose may end up constituting a 6th obstacle. On verra, as the French say! 

Obstacle 3: Hebrew "Divine Combos"

In the endearing little love story between Tina and Archie we saw Tina is the church and Archie is the Lord Jesus Christ. The old-fashioned name "Archie" that Archie wants to change is "Lord". 

I believe a translation overhaul is needed for "Lord" in many modern Bible translations both in English and other languages. This overhaul is necessary for a relevant and yet faithful religious institution like Christianity.

The Number 1 question was how to translate the Hebrew name for God, "Yahweh". I finally arrived, after two years of researching the issue, at the idea that GOD, all caps, would be a good solution. Eugene Peterson got there first though!

This only makes the suggestion all the more palatable, as I have arrived at the same destination as Peterson but via, I am sure, a different route, bringing more grammatical substance than Peterson's work had access to.

Overcoming Hurdle 3: "Divine Combos"

If you make this move - to switch the Yahweh translation from "The LORD" to "GOD", then there are some fresh problems to solve - I identify five of these. Overcoming the first obstacle, we established that it is more than faithful to ancient tradition to apply the lower case "g" to god, permitting the possessive "GOD, our god". Overcoming the second, we realised that often "Lord of lords" can be replaced by "king of kings", condensed or even "Commander-in-Chief". This now leaves us excellently placed to approach the third hurdle, which I collectively refer to as "Divine Combos". What do I mean by such a wacky descriptor?

Although I counted 6,867 Yahweh occurrences reflecting by far the greatest and favoured appellation for the Israelite god, we would do well to remember that this people hung every success and failure, even the right to live, on the say-so of their supreme god who even chose *them* as his people.

This was a deep and mysterious connection, but it certainly caused a worshipful and awed response from the Israelites. The Name of Yahweh was a privilege to have and it was used extensively, especially early on before its "ultra-sanctification". But the worship context caused the priests, Levites and people generally to probe further suitable language options to expand their own perception of how great he was. 

We already saw that he was even referred to a few times as "God of gods", but also we hear of "Lord of the Heavenly Armies", The Almighty, *the* God, and so on. Another way to "magnify his holy Name" was to go ahead and group the titles or names, the clusters serving to say that one accolade is simply not enough, which presents us with my "Divine Combos".

Ok, so why does that present us with an obstacle? Simply because when we accept Peterson's suggestion of GOD, we move to a word that is already used to translate another word, which is also best translated "God", El (or Elohim, in Hebrew). Previously there was no issue with "the LORD God", but now "GOD God" is clearly a non-starter.

But before we worry too much about that, we have another affected divine combo in the form of "Adonai Yahweh". 

It makes more sense to start here because this *has* represented a challenge to English translators who have been deeply committed to the language of lordship. Here also, "Lord LORD" " would have been a non-starter, so we can learn from the solutions already developed by their insightful teams of scholars over time. Let's take an Adonai-Yahweh verse at random - Amos 1:8 - and see how it has been translated:

KJ21

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish,” saith the Lord God.

ASV

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord Jehovah.

AMP

...And the rest of the Philistines [in Gath and the towns dependent on these four Philistine cities] shall die,” Says the Lord God.

AMPC

...and the rest of the Philistines [in Gath and the towns dependent on these four Philistine cities] shall perish, says the Lord God.

BRG

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God.

CSB

....and the remainder of the Philistines will perish. The Lord God has spoken.

CEB

...and the Philistines who remain will perish, says the Lord God.

CJB

...and the rest of the P’lishtim will perish,” says Adonai, God.

CEV

...and that will be the end of the Philistines. I, the Lord, have spoken!

DARBY

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord Jehovah.

DRA

...the rest of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God.

ERV

.... Then the Philistines who are still left alive will die.” This is what the Lord God said.

ESV

... and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish,” says the Lord God.

ESVUK

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish,” says the Lord God.

EXB

...and the ·last [rest; remnant] of the Philistines will ·die [perish],” says the Lord God.

GNV

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God.

GW

...The rest of the Philistines will die. The Almighty Lord has said this.

GNT

... and all the Philistines who are left will die.”

HCSB

...and the remainder of the Philistines will perish. The Lord God has spoken.

ICB

...I will punish the Philistines until they are all dead,” says the Lord God.

ISV

... and the rest of the Philistines will die,” says the Lord God.

JUB

...and the remnant of the Palestinians shall perish, said the Lord GOD.

KJV

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God.

AKJV

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God.

LEB

...and the remnant of the Philistines will perish,” says the Lord Yahweh.

TLB

...all Philistines left will perish.” The Lord has spoken.

MSG

... and what’s left of the Philistines will die.” God’s Decree.

MEV

...and the remnant of the Philistines will perish, says the Lord God.

NOG

... The rest of the Philistines will die. Adonay Yahweh has said this.

NABRE

...and the last of the Philistines shall perish, says the Lord God.

NASB

... And the remnant of the Philistines will perish,” Says the Lord God.

NCV

...and the last of the Philistines will die,” says the Lord God.

NET

...the rest of the Philistines will also die.” The sovereign Lord has spoken!

NIRV

...Every single Philistine will die,” says the Lord and King.

NIV

....till the last of the Philistines are dead,” says the Sovereign Lord.

NIVUK

...till the last of the Philistines are dead,’ says the Sovereign Lord.

NKJV

...And the remnant of the Philistines shall perish,” Says the Lord God.

NLV

...and the rest of the Philistines will die,” says the Lord God.

NLT

...and the few Philistines still left will be killed,” says the Sovereign Lord.

NRSV

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, says the Lord God.

NRSVA

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, says the Lord God.

NRSVACE

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, says the Lord God.

NRSVCE

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, says the Lord God.

OJB

...and the she’erit Pelishtim shall perish, saith Adonoi Hashem.

RSV

....and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish,” says the Lord God.

RSVCE

...and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish,” says the Lord God.

TLV

...and the rest of the Philistines will perish. My Lord Adonai has said it.

VOICE

...and the rest of the Philistines; even those in the formerly great city of Gath will perish. So says the Eternal Lord about Philistia, Israel’s enemy in the southwest.

WEB

...and the remnant of the Philistines will perish,” says the Lord Yahweh.

WYC

...and the remnants of Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God. 

YLT

...And perished have the remnant of the Philistines, Said the Lord Jehovah.

There is a clear preponderance for "the Lord God". Sometimes LORD is all capitalised, sometimes GOD (but never both). The definite article "the" is always present before the title "Lord". However, it naturally disappears when combined with the names (and their derivatives) Adonai and Yahweh. Some translations permit a condensing approach, mirroring the methodology we have already discussed for the Septuagint translators so many centuries before.

Indeed, if we also added the LXX translation here, we would see that Amos 1:8 concludes: "λέγει κύριος". The unique characteristic that we see in the Septuagint is that the word translated "the Lord", κύριος, condenses both Adonai and Yahweh from the Hebrew (like CEV, MSG and TLB). However, it also dispenses with the article, the Greek equivalent of "the", like the many translations that choose to keep a reference to Adonai or Yahweh (or both).

Thus we see in the plethera of English translations commonly read today a diversity or even tension between the desires to:

• absolutely avoid redundancy
• transmit some of the Lordship language 
• maintain the name aspects denoted by both the Hebrew and the anarthrous Greek translation, λέγει κύριος. 

However, no-one ventures to remove the article before the antiquated title "Lord". Only Peterson in MSG realised that condensation and article dispensation could be legitimately and accurately rendered, God.

So, as I suspected, we arrive at our first solution via this second redundancy-risk scenario. There is indeed legitimate scope within the biblical translation tradition to condense when Lord LORD occurs, thus when Adonai Yahweh occurs in the Hebrew, and if God is acceptable for Yahweh and anarthrous κύριος, then it is also acceptable for Adonai Yahweh and, by inference, for Yahweh Elohim. 

However, as with my proposed solutions for "Lord of lords", I would also like to provide some other possibilities based on this rich translation tradition that do not lean on antiquated Lord.

• Almighty GOD
• Awesome GOD
• All-Powerful GOD
• GOD our King

There is at least one other common divine combo to consider, curiously rendered "the Lord Sabaoth" in the NETS translation. I don't want to overextend this post with another full examination of the English renderings, but you can consult a sample verse of Isaiah 1:9 here. The classic idea is "the LORD of hosts", but "hosts" is vague. The Old Testament, however, is filled with allusions to a whole "host" (please excuse the pun) of heavenly action and agents that do not fit well with our modern ideas of monotheism (and maybe a splattering of angels and demons for the more "spiritual" Christians and churches). I have also discussed this in more length in response to Michael Heiser's work on the Divine Council worldview, clearly held and developed by the Israelites in the ancient Middle East.

Since this combo includes the proper Name "Yahweh", it is also a problem for our GOD rendering. Here, however, we can legitimately ask the question: to what extent does the English translation in question want to restore that worldview? Let's first assume that some representation is necessary. Although "host" is not as antiquated as Lord, it sure is outdated in this sense of "host". Worse, in fact. So it has to go. Options we can see emerging through the biblical translation tradition that I see as helpful and also relatively faithful to the Divine Council worldview, are "GOD of Heaven's Forces" (or Armies or Contingents). If context requires the subject to be the armies, GOD's Heavenly Forces (or Heaven Forces).

However, if the answer to the question is uncertain, then God's ultimacy over the Heavenly powers (also a possibility) is certainly included by the rendering provided in the all-caps GOD.

Conclusion:

"GOD" is sufficient to render most divine title combinations involving Yahweh, Adonai, El and Sabaoth

In my next post I will proceed to the 4th obstacle in the path of the Yahweh translation, GOD.