The American Standard Version of 1901 is the English Bible that uses “Jehovah” most consistently. Wherever the four Hebrew letters of God’s personal name stand in the Old Testament, it prints “Jehovah” rather than LORD. It was the American edition of the Revised Version, prepared by the American scholars who had worked alongside the British revisers in the 1870s and 1880s. The English Revised Version, completed in 1885, largely kept the King James pattern of LORD. The Americans preferred the name, and when they published their own edition they explained why in its preface: in their judgement a Jewish reading custom should not govern an English version, and a personal name conveys a meaning and a closeness that a title cannot. The ASV was admired for its accuracy, though its English was often thought stiff, and later revisions returned to LORD. It remains the most accessible Bible in which an English reader sees the name on nearly every page of the Old Testament.
An American edition of the Revised Version
In 1870 the Church of England’s Convocation of Canterbury set in motion a revision of the King James Version, and scholars in the United States were invited to form a committee to take part. The two companies corresponded over many years, exchanging proposals. Where the British revisers declined an American suggestion, it was recorded in an appendix to the Revised Version, and the Americans agreed to wait an interval before issuing an edition of their own. The New Testament of the Revised Version appeared in 1881 and the Old Testament in 1885.
One of the American preferences listed in that appendix concerned the divine name. The American committee wished to print “Jehovah” wherever the Hebrew has the four letters. The British edition kept LORD in almost every place, printing the name in only a few verses, much as the King James Version had done. When the American Standard Version appeared in 1901, the American preference was carried through the whole Old Testament.
Why the revisers chose the name
The preface to the ASV sets out the committee’s reasoning briefly, and it can be summarised fairly in two points, followed by an observation about the form they used.
First, the revisers believed that the practice of substituting a title for the name arose from a Jewish reading custom, born of reverence, which was not binding on an English translation. They respected its origin but did not think it should decide how Christians render the Hebrew text.
Second, they held that the name is a proper name with a meaning of its own, the personal and covenant name of the God of Israel, and that a title such as “Lord” cannot carry that meaning. Replacing it, in their view, flattened the text and hid from English readers the way the Old Testament speaks of God as the one who revealed himself by name.
The form itself deserves a word. The revisers’ concern was to restore the name to its place in the text, not to settle the question of its ancient vowels, and the form they printed was the one long familiar to English readers from the King James Version and from Christian hymns. Scholars today generally regard “Yahweh” as closer to the ancient sound, but the ASV’s “Jehovah” still shows the reader, at every occurrence, exactly where the Hebrew has the name.
The effect is felt at once in the opening chapters of Genesis, where the ASV reads:
These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.
— Genesis 2:4 (ASV)
Reading the ASV with the name in view
For a reader used to LORD, the ASV can be startling at first, and then illuminating. Passages that sound like general statements about God become statements about a particular God with a name. The great confession of Israel, the Shema, reads this way:
Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah: and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
— Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (ASV)
The Psalms, which the entry The name in the Psalms (ASV) explores more fully, take on the tone of personal address:
Oh give thanks unto Jehovah; for he is good; For his lovingkindness endureth for ever.
— Psalm 118:1 (ASV)
And the prophets’ insistence that the God of Israel is unique becomes a claim about his name:
I am Jehovah, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise unto graven images.
— Isaiah 42:8 (ASV)
The same is true of the passage where the name is itself the subject. In Exodus 6 the ASV begins God’s words to Moses with the plain declaration “I am Jehovah”, which the King James Version renders “I am the LORD”. Readers who compare the two can see the choice each version made, and the entry The seven places the KJV prints JEHOVAH shows where the older version made an exception.
Reception and the later return to LORD
The ASV was widely respected, especially in American seminaries and among serious students of the Bible, who valued its closeness to the Hebrew and Greek and its consistency. Its critics, while granting its accuracy, found its English less natural than the King James Version for reading aloud, and it never displaced the older version in most churches.
When its successors were prepared, the name was the first thing to change. The Revised Standard Version of 1952, an authorised revision of the ASV, returned to LORD, and another major revision of the ASV later in the century did the same. Their prefaces gave reasons which the entry Why most English Bibles print “LORD” sets out. The ASV itself has passed into the public domain and remains in use, which is why this site quotes it wherever the name appears in a verse.
Where Christians differ
Some readers regard the ASV’s choice as its great strength, since it keeps the personal name of God before the reader. Others think LORD the wiser convention, both because “Jehovah” is a reconstruction and because the New Testament writers themselves used Kyrios. Both views are held by faithful Christians. This site values the ASV for showing where the name stands, while respecting the reasons most modern translations print LORD.
For reflection
Take one familiar passage, such as Psalm 23 or Psalm 100, and read it in the version you normally use and then in the ASV. Notice where LORD becomes a name, and let that lead you into prayer to the God who has made himself known. Keep reading Scripture with your church, where the name is read, preached and honoured together.
References
- The Preface to the American Standard Version (1901).
- The Holy Bible, Revised Version (1881–1885), with its appendix of readings preferred by the American committee.
- Philip Schaff, A Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (1883).
- The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version (1611).
- Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906).
Lexicon answers from the Bible and public-domain reference works. It is a study aid and is not affiliated with any organisation.