NY Times: "Thou shalt not capitalize the LORD's name
Posted November 22, 2006
The New York Times has a nice front page story on Marshall Wittmann, the witty, well-spoken spokesman for U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman. The story mentions Wittman's Jewish mother and his stint as spokesman for the Christian Coalition. But it sticks to lower case letters when referring to the Almighty:
"The good lord has made me a contrarian," Mr. Wittmann said. The good lord has also blessed him with the gift of speaking in punchy and irresistible sound bites.
My question: Should Lord be capitalized here? If so, should it be the good Lord, the Good Lord or (for those of you with King James Bibles) the good LORD?
(These capitalization questions come up on the religion beat from time to time -- and usually the lower-case wins.)
Update: I tracked down my (1992) Associated Press stylebook. It says that names and titles of the deity should be capitalized, although pronouns referring to the deity are lower-case. For example, If Jesus is referred to as the Redeemer, the "R" should be upper-case. In addition, it instruct's reporters to capitalize "Lord" when referring to the "Lord's Supper."
Archived Comments
On the question of the King James Version's use of "LORD" entirely in upper case, unless I am very badly mistaken, that was the way William Tyndale translated and wrote out the Old Testament "Yahwist" writer's use of God's name, or YHWH. (I've also read that Tyndale actually coined the English word Jehovah from this Hebrew rendering, as well; is this true?) I cannot recall a specific instance in the old King James New Testament where this complete uppercase rendering of "LORD" was used, the title being only capitalized as "Lord." It seems to me that in the particular case you cite, the title should at least have been capitalized. Certainly, though, if your example shows a mistake, the authors of a myriad of early nineteenth-century Baptist association "circular letters" I've combed through, have erred as well. In those, spelling, capitalization and punctuation were used equally indiscriminately.
Seems like there are three concerns here, with the first two being closely related:
1. Historical
2. Theological
3. Grammatical
Historically, the use of the English the LORD to refer to God comes from a Hebrew practice. As I'm sure you know, in the Hebrew language the proper name for God (if it makes any sense to speak of such a thing) is an unpronounced and unpronounceable tetra-consonant. Vowels are left because
a.) in the earliest forms of Hebrew there are no vowels; vowel marks, which rather than letters in and of themselves are marks added to the consonants, were added much later, and
b.) as vowel marks were being added to the Hebrew language they were intentionally not applied to the name of God. This was for at least two reasons:
1.) the vowel markers themselves were seen as quasi symbols of the divine, representing the breath, connected to the breath of God, and
2.) the name of God was intentionally kept unpronouncable, to assert, among other things, the mysterious nature of God, which cannot be reduced to a human name or concept.
As such, when the Torah was/is read aloud for worship, the proper name for God (which is not the only term used for God in then text - for example, in Exodus 3 when God reveals the divine name to Moses, the Hebrew phrase commonly rendered I AM is Eheyeh Asher Eheyeh, and not the tetra-consonant which serves in the text as God's proper name) is left unpronounced both because it cannot be pronounced grammatically (no vowels) and because it cannot be pronounced theologically. Instead the word Adonai, or, in English, the LORD, is substituted.
The use of the phrase "the Lord" to refer to God, then, comes from our Judaic heritage. In this case the phrase is capitalized because:
1. it is used reverantly, to refer to God, and
2. because it is used to replace a proper noun, and thus, though it is not the name for God, still functions as a proper noun in the sentence; as a way of defining God without defining God.
More later. I've run out of time.
John, I think you're right about Tyndale. I have read that originally the Hebrew word YHWH was presented with no vowel markings, and at some point the scribe began to add vowel markings, but used the vowel markings that went with the word Adonai, not to provide a prononunciation guide, but to remind the reader NOT to pronounce YHWH at all, but rather to say Adonai instead.
Apparently Tyndale took the markings at face value and therefore took the consonants from Yahweh and the vowel sounds from Adonai and formed the word Jehovah (or originally, Iehoua).
First letters of references to the Almighty, such as Jesus, Redeemer, Lord, God, are ALWAYS capitalized, not only because they are nouns but out of reverence. And I use the KJV of the Bible.
Now if I only had a Wyclif translation to see how the word first looked in English, before Tyndale ever got to it:/ I just imagine it had to be something close to what Jerome used when he translated the Latin Vulgate--especially since Wyclif translated directly from Jerome. Anybody out there ever seen a Wyclif or an old-style Latin Vulgate, and if so how did the either or both of the two translators handle that word?
Well, Elder John, I don't have a Vulgate or an edition of Wyclif handy either, but once again the internet comes to our aid.
Wyclif's translation is online at:
http://sbible.boom.ru/wyc/wycle.htm
The Vulgate, in a useful form, side by side with the old Douay-Rheims translation, is online at:
http://www.latinvulgate.com/
Comparing them, it appears that the word routinely translated as LORD in small caps in the RSV is rendered as "Dominus" in Latin, and as "Lord" in Wyclif. It appears that the word routinely translated as "LORD God" in the RSV was rendered as "Dominus Deus" in Latin, and by Wyclif as "Lord God."
In Exodus 6:3, though, the KJV says: "And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them."
The word rendered as Jehovah here is rendered "Adonai" in the Vulgate and in Wyclif. The RSV renders the word as "the LORD," the same word it uses everywhere else.
In my catholic living Bible, KJV, only the L is upper case when referring to the Lord.
Keep in mind there are no distinctions between lower and upper case in Koine (New Testament) Greek.
Capitalization of proper names is the English norm, so that's why it should be done. No one's going to translate iesou as "jesus", unless you're an e.e. cummings fan.
Capitalizations are also used for honorific titles (like Senator McConnel or Judge Phelps), so the capitalization of Lord should be done. There was a non-religious use of kurios common in Jesus' time, referring to nobility or people of high rank.
Whether words like "he" or "you" as referring to God should always be capitalized is a bit murkier. It can be defended as symbolically signifying the additional respect one shows to the Supreme Being, above and beyond what one would show to a merely human senator or judge.
I think capitalization should be a function of what we believe about God, and not based on style guides. If He is your Lord, then say so and capitalize His Name. There is so much emphasis on grammar and style and politics and "not offending others", etc. that we forget Who we are talking about here. We need to treat God with reverence and awe. For believers, capitalization is one way of doing this and bears witness to what is believed. Not capitalizing kind of throws God in the ring with "everyone else," in my opinion, and He's not everyone else. That's my two cents as a Christian.
I would think capitalization would upper case since your talking a bout a specific noun and a name, but I;m not an English Teacher