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Lord In The Bible Capitalized

When To Capitalize Religious Terms

Well Walk With The Lord (Daniels friends in the fiery furnace) – Bible Songs

Knowing when to capitalize religious terms can be hell. Or should that be Hell? And there we get to the crux of the matter. Are words from religions always capitalized? Is it only when you use these terms in a religious context? Or should you just say to heck with it and stop caring?

Well, before you do that, check out our guide to capitalizing religious terms.

What Is The Difference Between The Old And New Testament

The New Testament focuses more on the life and teachings of Jesus and the Christian church. The Old Testament explains the history of the creation of the World, the exodus of Israelites, and the Ten Commandments given to Moses by God. The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian Bible.

Other Words That Refer To God And To The Bible

In general, Gordon’s style is to lowercase words that refer to God and the Bible, and are not used as “names.”

apocryphabiblical, biblically, biblically-based/ biblically basedthe divine

scriptural

A special case:

  • capitalize Gospel when you refer to a specific book of the Bible or to the four-book division of the New Testament
  • lowercase gospel in general references to the Christian message
  • capitalize Kingdom as in Kingdom of God

Acts, the Acts, Acts of the Apostles

the Biblethe Gospels gospel in general references to the Christian messagethe Holy BibleKing James Version, New International Version New TestamentOld Testamentthe Prophets the prophets Psalms a psalm Psalm 23 Psalms 23:2ScriptureWord of God

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Is The Word Jehovah Unscriptural

Some object to the use of Jehovah because it is an artificially constructed word and thus does not reflect the original precisely.

But neither does LORD accurately represent the original term. The best approximation of yhwh would be yahweh. But since that term is mostly alien to the vocabulary and understanding of the average person today, some prefer to maintain at least some distinction between yhwh and adonai. They therefore retain the American Standard Versions Jehovah.

Incidentally, the use of varying names for God in the Old Testament does not hint of different authors, as commonly claimed by radical, destructive critics. (See Destructive Criticism and the Old Testament.

EDITORS NOTE: A word that is invented in English to convey the meaning or thought of a Hebrew word when there is no available equivalent is as legitimate as any other word that has developed in language to convey thought. An exact transliteration of all Hebrew words into English would be impossible and impractical.

What Is The Difference Between Lord Lord And Lord

The pronouns referring to God should be capitalized... But I still love ...

If you have noticed, when you are reading your Bible in the King James Version , you may have frequently come across the word lord, but you may not have noticed that this word is written three different ways: all lower-case letters , all upper-case letters and only the first letter in upper-case . Each of these styles of writing the word lord identifies different Hebrew words.

Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day

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Association With Shouting Or Yelling

Messages typed completely in capital letters are often equated on social media to shouting and other impolite or argumentative behaviors. This became a mainstream interpretation with the advent of networked computers, from the 1980s onward. However, a similar interpretation was already evidenced by written sources that predated the computing era, in some cases by at least a century, and the textual display of shouting or emphasis was still not a settled matter by 1984. The following sources may be relevant to the history of all caps:

Why Do Jews Refer To God As G

Referring to God as G-d is a recent occurrence in the United States. The purpose is to respect the name of God and avoid writing it .

Over the years, questions have related to the writing in Hebrew and whether Gods name should ever be written. Some circles find it permissible, not matter the form, while others believe it shouldnt be written in Hebrew.

This still leaves it permissible in English and through typed word, although some people prefer not to write the name of God.

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Why Is Lord Capitalized In Some Bibles

The first thing to know about the word lord in the Bible is that its not just one word in the original language. The three varying presentations of the word are to differentiate between them.

When reading the Bible, the word lord can be found in three different forms: LORD, Lord, and lord. The complete capitalization, standard capitalization, and non-capitalization isnt consistent within all the various translations either. One could easily become confused by these seeming discrepancies.

Why is Lord capitalized sometimes and sometimes not? Why is it in all capitals in some translations and not in others? Why is there such a difference in the capitalization of the single word lord?

How Do You Cite The Bible In Genesis

Yahweh – LORD

Creating In-Text Citations for the Bible For example, abbreviate the book of Genesis as Gen. Shorter books can be completely written out, such as Mark. You need to include the italicized title of the Bible, which should match the italicized title on your reference page, at the beginning of your first in-text citation.

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God Gods Goddesses And Proper Nouns

As mentioned above, you should always capitalize the first letter in a proper noun. If you were referring to the Christian deity, for instance, you would need to capitalize the G in God:

I am here only by the grace of God.

But some words, like god, can be either proper or common nouns depending on how we use them. So if you were referring to gods and goddesses in general, or any god or goddess where god is not part of their name, you would need to use a lower case g instead:

Prior to Christianization, the Anglo Saxons worshipped the Germanic gods and goddesses, including ostre, the goddess of the dawn and spring.

Notice that we do, however, capitalize ostre in the example above, even though we use a lower case g for goddess. This is because ostre is the name of a goddess, so it is a proper noun.

Erasing The Name Of God

3 And ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods and ye shall destroy their name out of that place. 4 Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 12:34

From this it is understood by the rabbis that one should not erase or blot out the name of God. The general halachic opinion is that this only applies to the sacred Hebrew names of God, not to other euphemistic references there is a dispute as to whether the word “God” in English or other languages may be erased or whether Jewish law and/or Jewish custom forbids doing so, directly or as a precautionary “fence” about the law.

The words “God” and “Lord” are written by some Jews as “G-d” and “L-rd” as a way of avoiding writing any name of God in full out. The hyphenated version of the English name can be destroyed, so by writing that form, religious Jews prevent documents in their possession with the unhyphenated form from being destroyed later. Alternatively, a euphemistic English reference such as Hashem may be substituted, or an abbreviation thereof, such as B”H .

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English Translation: God/lord + Associated Pronouns Are Usually In Capital

GLOSSARY ENTRY
English term or phrase:
God/Lord + associated pronouns are usually in capital…
Entered by:
Art/Literary – Religion / use of capitals
English term or phrase:you vs. You
I’m reviewing some subtitles about a religious institution. I’ve come across phrases like “My life is in *Your* hands, oh Lord” “Without *You* I have nothing” “God is our *father*” “Jesus Christ *Our* Lord. Amen.” “He takes care of all *his* children” “those *He* cares for” Now, while I’d definitely put “Father” with a capital F and “our ” with a small o, I’m not sure about “You/Your”. At the same time, though, I’d capitalise “He/His”. Should I capitalise everything to be on the safe side? Wouldn’t it look a bit much? Thanks a million.

Denominations And The Church

2 Samuel 1:1 http://www.biblestudytools.com/kjv/2

Capitalize the major words in the names of denominations, their individual members, and organizations and general categories that include multiple denominations and whose names share a widely-recognized word or phrase. Capitalize the word Church only if it is part of the denomination’s formal name.

the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. Baptists Holiness churches

evangelical Lowercase evangelical when it refers to a system of beliefs in the Protestant framework, and also when using it as an adjective in reference to the act of evangelizing, as in evangelical outreach.

Church / church Capitalize when referring to the universal body of believers, and in the official name of a church or denomination. Lowercase it in general references, second shortened references to a particular church or when referring to the early church.

We are the ChurchGod’s instruments on Earth.

We’re going to church this morning at the State Street Baptist Church.

Please spell and capitalize as shown below.

Catacombs

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Christian Publishing Standards: Part 2

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Last time, we discussed how to quote the Scriptures and compared modern vs. archaic language when writing on Christian topics.

In this blog, well dig deeper into matters of formatting in Christian publishing, paying particular attention to the complicated issue of capitalization.

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Reverential Capitalization

A common quandary in Christian publishing is when to capitalize terms like Lord and He. Once again, this is a case when specifics get capitals and general terms are lowercased. When referencing God, therefore, such terms are usually capitalized

So you have:

Praise the Lord!and He said unto Adam. . .

This is called reverential capitalization. It shows that the author considers the concept being discussed worthy of special treatment or attention.Note, however, that reverential capitalization isnt universal. Many older biblical texts and more traditional writers prefer this style, but many modern style guides, including the Chicago Manual of Style and Associated Press style, state that he, him, his, and so on shouldnt be capitalized even when referring to God.

Lets look at the differences between the old-school reverential capitalization and modern preferences:

Formatting Religious Terms

Here are some examples:

the true lightthe Bible

Why Aren’t Pronouns Referring To God Capitalized In Some Bibles

Some Bibles do not capitalize certain pronouns because their translators felt that doing so was not an accurate translation of the original language. The decision to capitalize or not capitalize pronouns is a question of translation and is not a statement of disrespect. For example, heres a note from a translation consultant for the NIV that addresses this question:

The NIV and some other contemporary translations do not capitalize these pronouns for a very good reason: they are not capitalized in the original. The Greek does not use upper case in employing these pronouns, and Hebrew uses only capital letters and has no lowercase letters.

The translators had to face a difficult issue and thought about it long and hard. On the one hand was the practice of showing reverence for God in keeping with the common English usage, and on the other hand was their commitment to providing a precise rendering of the original with no bowing to what was not in the original text. In the end they decided that fidelity to the original was their highest criterion.

While we may not like the absence of those uppercase letters, we can respect their total commitment to the precise rendering of the original.

–Biblica, Publisher of the NIV

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The New Oxford Style Manual

The New Oxford Style Manual is one of the major UK style manuals and incorporates New Harts Rules . The NOSM grew out of the need for the Oxford University Press to have a consistent view on style for their publishing business.

NOSM says :

Use lower case for pronouns referring to God where the reference is clear, unless the author specifies otherwise.

Thats another vote for lowercasing deity pronouns unless the author prefers capitalization.

The Christian Writers Manual Of Style

The Three Most Mysterious Deaths In The Bible.

Zondervan recognize that the major style guides dont address many of the style issues raised by those writing for a Christian audience, so they publish their own style guide . Many Christian publishers use CWMS, either alone or in conjunction with another style guide such as CMOS.

The Christian Writers Manual of Style says :

Most publishers, religious and general, use the lowercase style to conform to the two most popular versions of the Bible .

Thats another vote for telling us what people do. Helpful. Not.

It might be worth pointing out that Zondervan publish the NIV. Zondervan are owned by HarperCollins, who also publish the New King James Version, which also lowercases these deity pronouns.

CWMS points out that we dont capitalize as a way to show respect or honour. After all, we capitalize God and Satan, yet only one deserves our honour.

In addition, there is no true historical precedent for capitalizing. Capitalization became trendy when lots of Nouns were being Capitalized for Emphasis . William Tyndale didnt consistently capitalize God, let alone He or Him , and neither Hebrew nor Greek distinguishes between lowercase and capital letters the way English does, so the original Scriptures provide no guidance.

What CWMS does say is this:

gives a book, at best, a dated, Victorian feel, and at worst, an aura of irrelevance to modern readers.

Thats worth thinking aboutno one wants to their work to be considered dated or irrelevant.

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Why Is Lord Capitalized Differently

Why is the word Lord capitalized completely at one time then the next time it is just the letter L only? Thank you, Doug T.

When the Hebrew word Adonai is used in the Hebrew Bible, it is written as Lord in the English Bible. When Yahweh is used it is translated as LORD to avoid over-using Gods name. Is it possible Egyptians knew of Yahweh as far back as 1400 BC?

The Amazing Bible Timeline

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What Is A Style Guide

Most publishers have a style guide: a set of rules governing how they treat a range of editing questions including spelling, grammar, punctuation, and word usage. Editors will follow the guidelines of one of these style guides in editing or proofreading a manuscript and may also create a style sheet explaining the spelling or treatment of words specific to that manuscript to ensure correctness and consistency.

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Who Was The Angel Of The Lord

The following question was submitted:

In Zechariah 3:6, it says The Angel of the LORD . Why is it that the a in Angel is capitalized? Ive noticed it in others parts of the O.T. as well. In Zechariah 4:1, it is a lowercase a. In the ESV, angel is not capitalized in Zechariah 3:6 but all letters of LORD are. So, why all the differences?

The Old Testament was originally written in the Hebrew language, which does not have capital letters therefore, it was the prerogative of the translators to capitalize or not capitalize a word. An example of this is seen in the above citation, which mirrors a translations choice to capitalize pronouns referring to deity. While many translations do not capitalize pronouns as they refer to deity, some other translators chose to capitalize any pronoun that they believed was a reference to deity. Thus, when a Bible reader of a NKJV or NASB comes across the Angel of the LORD, those translators capitalized Angel, because they believed the Angel of the LORD was a representation of deity, but they did not capitalize angel when they believed it was not a reference to deity. In the early chapters of Zechariah specifically, whether capitalized or not, the prophet did make a distinction between the Angel of the LORD and the angel who talked with me. Now, was the Angel of the LORD deity?

Other Names And Titles

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Baal , properly Baal, meant “owner” and, by extension, “lord”, “master“, and “husband” in Hebrew and the other Northwest Semitic languages. In some early contexts and theophoric names, it and Baali were treated as synonyms of Adon and Adonai. After the time of Solomon and particularly after Jezebel‘s attempt to promote the worship of the Lord of TyreMelqart, however, the name became particularly associated with the Canaanitestorm godBaal Haddu and was gradually avoided as a title for Yahweh. Several names that included it were rewritten as bosheth . The prophetHosea in particular reproached the Israelites for continuing to use the term:

“It will come about in that day,” declares the Lord, “That you will call Me Ishi And will no longer call Me Baali.”

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