Why Update a Beloved Translation? An Interview with Tom Schreiner [LINK]
Dr. Thomas Schreiner is the James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Co-Chair of the Translation Oversight Committee for the CSB.
One of the most discussed changes has been the replacement of “Yahweh” with “Lord” in the Old Testament. Can you speak to why the committee opted to make this change?
Traditionally, English Bible translations have chosen not to supply vowels in order to make the name of God (
YHWH) pronounceable; they simply render this name as a title (LORD). The CSB Translation Oversight Committee chose to come into alignment with other English translations, departing from the HCSB practice of utilizing “Yahweh” in the text. The HCSB was inconsistent, rendering
YHWH as “Yahweh” in only 656 of 6,000+ occurrences of
YHWH, because full consistency would be overwhelming to the reader. Yet feedback from readers also showed that the unfamiliarity of “Yahweh” was an obstacle to reading the HCSB. In addition, when quoting Old Testament texts that include an occurrence of
YHWH, the New Testament renders
YHWH with the word
kurios, which is a title (Lord) rather than a personal name. This supports the direction of bringing the CSB is in line with most English translations, rendering
YHWH as LORD.
Are there any other translation differences with the HCSB?
We no longer capitalize pronouns referring to God. The original text of Scripture does not distinguish pronouns referring to God by capitalization. Most Bible translations (including the King James Version) have followed this example and do not capitalize pronouns that refer to God. The Christian Standard Bible (CSB) adopts the traditional approach of not capitalizing pronouns and referents for two primary reasons. First, the original text of Scripture is not always clear about to whom a particular pronoun may be referring; translations that capitalize any reference to a divine person are often forced into making unnecessary judgment calls in passages where the interpretation is debatable. Second, since Scripture sometimes includes prophecies that have double fulfillment, the choice to capitalize a pronoun can have the unintended outcome of erasing the additional, non-divine meaning.