Helt siden jeg studerte hebraisk i Israel (for veldig lengen siden) i 1977, har jeg unngått å uttale gudsnavnet JHVH. (I Israel, og på hebraisk, var dette nemlig helt utenkelig.) I katolske kretser, spesielt på engelsk (ikke på norsk), er dette likevel vanlig. Men nå har Vatikanet nylig gjentatt at det skal man ikke gjøre:
«Avoiding pronouncing the tetragrammaton of the name of God on the part of the Church has therefore its own grounds. Apart from a motive of purely philological order [NB: No one actually knows how to pronounce YHWH], there is also that of remaining faithful to the Church’s tradition, from the beginning, that the sacred tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context nor translated into any of the languages into which the Bible was translated.
Her har de gitt en klar begrunnelsen; 1) slik har de kristne alltid gjort det, og 2) vi vet ikke sikkert hvordan JHVH skal uttales. Og de nye reglene sier følgende – og her er lenka til hele dokumentet:
1. In liturgical celebrations, in songs and prayers the name of God in the form of the tetragrammaton YHWH is neither to be used or pronounced.
2. For the translation of the Biblical text in modern languages, destined for liturgical usage of the Church, what is already prescribed by n. 41 of the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam is to be followed; that is, the divine tetragrammaton is to be rendered by the equivalent of Adonai/Kyrios: «Lord», «Signore», «Seigneur», «Herr», «Señor», etc.
3. In translating, in the liturgical context, texts in which are present, one after the other, either the Hebrew term Adonai or the tetragrammaton YHWH, Adonai is to be translated «Lord» and the form God» is to be used for the tetragrammaton YHWH, similar to what happens in the Greek translation of the Septuagint and in the Latin translation of the Vulgate.
Jeg vet ikke hvorfor denne bestemmelsen nå er blitt gjentatt. Vel, det er vel sikkert noen som ikke har brydd seg om den klare bestemmelsen i Liturgiam authenticam fra år 2001, som sier i paragraf 41, c:
c) in accordance with immemorial tradition, which indeed is already evident in the above-mentioned “Septuagint” version, the name of almighty God expressed by the Hebrew tetragrammaton (YHWH) and rendered in Latin by the word Dominus, is to be rendered into any given vernacular by a word equivalent in meaning.