Why do today's translations of the Bible omit the name of God-Jehovah when it was there before?

Answer 1

It's not omitted; it's a question of how it is best translated. There are different valid points of view.

The Bible is roughly translated from older texts. As each company does it's own translation of the christian Bible, it can interpret the language differently than companies which have come before it. The name of the God of Israel, according to the Hebrew Version, is THE ETERNAL; the Protestant (King James) Version, JEHOVAH; and the Catholic (Douay) Version, ADONAl; but the significant fact is that it is neither THE ETERNAL nor JEHOVAH nor ADONAI. The leading Biblical authorities today are forced to admit that because of the taboo placed upon mentioning the name of the Bible God they do not know the letters that compose, or the proper pronunciation of his name. [*81] Because of the fear attached to mentioning the name of the God of Israel, its actual pronunciation has been completely lost in a cloud of mystery. Rabbi Isaac Landman, former editor of the American Hebrew, and one of the leading Hebrew authorities of the present day, states: "In obedience to the Third Commandment, the name of God was never spoken in Biblical times.... We do not know how to read the word. Its pronunciation is lost." [*82] Professor Louis Finkelstein says: "The precise form of the original pronunciation has been forgotten." source; see link on left "The Third Commandment" == == Due to an ancient superstition that claimed that God's personal name, Jehovah or Yahweh, was too sacred to be uttered, many substituted the titles "Lord" and "God" when speaking. The personal name of God fell out of common use, and influenced Bible translators to follow suit by substiting Elohim (Lord) and Adonai (God) for the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, יהוה, which is transliterated Yahweh or the English form Jehovah, and means "He Causes to Become." Research of ancient manuscripts of the Bible reveal that the personal name of God , יהוה, appears over 7000 times. It is actually the most frequent name used anywhere in the Bible, yet most translations have removed the name and substituted the titles Lord and God. In the preface to the Revised Standard Version, they explain their reasoning for the substition by saying, "...the use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom he had to be distinguished, was discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is entirely inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church." In other words, they assert that there are no other Gods that Jehovah would have to be distiguished from. But the Bible says that, "...there are many "gods" and many "lords." Even Satan is called a "god" in the Bible.-(2 Corinthians 4:4) Also consider the confusion that leaving the name of God out of the Bible when considering passages such as Psalms 110:1, where it says, "The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.." If you didn't realize that this is one of the places where God's name, Jehovah(English) had been left out and substituted with the title LORD, then it may take a while to realize that here Jehovah was speaking to his son Jesus.('The LORD[Jehovah] said unto my Lord[Jesus]....') Today, a number of Bible translations have resumed the use of God's personal name, though most do not use it in all 7000 places where it was origionally found.