Sacred Name Bibles

 Sacred Name Bibles systematically transliterate the Tetragrammaton YHWH (usually as Yahweh) in both the Old and New Testaments, as well as a Semitic form of the Hebrew name of Jesus such as Yahshua or Yeshua. They consider the names of both Almighty Elohim (God) Yahweh and his Messiah Yahshua (Jesus) as Sacred names.

Sacred Name Bible Translations in English 
(Click to open PDF of Research Paper by Peter Unseth)


Transliterated Sacred Name Bibles

These Bibles systematically transliterate the tetragrammaton (usually as Yahweh) in both the Old and New Testaments, as well as a Semitic form of the name of Jesus such as Yahshua or Yeshua. They consider the names of both God the Father, and God the Son, to be sacred.

  • The New Testament of our Messiah and Savior Yahshua (1950)
  • Holy Name Bible (1963)
  • Restoration of Original Sacred Name Bible (1970)
  • The Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition (1981)
  • The Book of Yahweh: The Holy Scriptures (1987)
  • Sacred Scriptures, Family of Yah Edition (2000)
  • The Holy Bible – Urim-Thummim Version (2001)
  • The Word of Yahweh (2003)
  • Hebraic Roots Bible (2009, 2012)
  • The Restoration Study Bible (2011)
  • Names of God Bible (2011, 2014)

    Tetragrammaton Sacred Name Bibles

    These Sacred Name Bibles use the tetragrammaton without vowels. They follow this practice in both the Old and New Testaments (though some translations are not complete).

    • The Scriptures (ISR) Version (1993, 1998, 2009)
    • Hebraic-Roots Version (2001, 2004)
    • Restoration Scriptures: True Name Edition (2004)
    • Zikarown Say'fer Memorial Scroll (2004)
    • Sacred Name King James Bible (2005)
    • The Seventh Millennium Version (2007)
    • The Aramaic English New Testament (2008)
    • HalleluYah Scriptures (2009, 2015)
    • Abrahamic Faith Nazarene Hebraic Study Scriptures (2010)
    • The Restored Name King James Version (2012?)
    • Shem Qadosh Version (2014)
    • His Name Tanakh (In Progress)
    • Neno La Yahweh Swahili version (2014)
    • NJV Bible - New Jerusalem Version (2019)
    Limited Sacred Name Bibles

    Some translations use a form of "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" only sporadically:

    The Complete Bible: An American Translation by John Merlin Powis Smith (1939), e.g. Exodus 3:156:317:15

    Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004, 2010), the tetragrammaton is transliterated "Yahweh" in 495 places in its 2010 revision [654 times in the 2009 edition]. In Psalm 29:12 Chron. 30:8Isaiah 24:5, and Jeremiah 26:9 it translates the tetragrammaton once as "Yahweh" and once as LORD. In 2 Chronicles 14:11, it translates the tetragrammaton three times as LORD and once as "Yahweh". In Job 1:21, it translates the tetragrammaton twice as LORD and one as "Yahweh". In Psalm 135, it translates the tetragrammaton 14 times as Yahweh and twice as LORD. 

    The Emphatic Diaglott (1864), a translation of the New Testament by Benjamin Wilson, the name Jehovah appears eighteen times. 

    King James Version (1611), renders Jehovah in Exodus 6:3Psalm 83:18Isaiah 12:2Isaiah 26:4, and three times in compound place names at Genesis 22:14Exodus 17:15 and Judges 6:24

    Webster's Bible Translation (1833), by Noah Webster, a revision of the King James Bible, contains the form Jehovah in all cases where it appears in the original King James Version, as well as another seven times in Isaiah 51:21Jeremiah 16:2123:632:1833:16Amos 5:8, and Micah 4:13

    The English Revised Version (1885), renders the tetragrammaton as Jehovah where it appears in the King James Version, and another eight times in Exodus 6:2,6–8Psalm 68:20Isaiah 49:14Jeremiah 16:21, and Habakkuk 3:19

    Amplified Bible (1954, 1987), generally uses LORD, but translates Exodus 6:3 as: "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty [El- Shaddai], but by My name the LORD [Yahweh—the redemptive name of God] I did not make Myself known to them [in acts and great miracles]." 

    New English Bible (NT 1961, OT 1970), published by Oxford University Press uses Jehovah in Exodus 3:15 and 6:3, and in four place names at Genesis 22:14Exodus 17:15Judges 6:24 and Ezekiel 48:35

    New Living Translation (1996, 2004), produced by Tyndale House Publishers as a successor to the Living Bible, generally uses LORD, but uses literal names whenever the text compares it to another divine name, such as its use of Yahweh in Exodus 3:15 and 6:3.

    Bible in Basic English (1949, 1964), uses "Yahweh" eight times, including Exodus 6:2–3

    The American King James Version (1999) by Michael Engelbrite renders Jehovah in all the places where it appears in the original King James Version.

    A few translations use either "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" in the Old and New Testaments, but are not generally considered Sacred Name Bibles:

    New World Translation (1961, 1984, 2013), uses ”Jehovah” or variations thereof 7216 times. 

    The Original Aramaic Bible in Plain English (2010) by David Bauscher, a self-published English translation of the New Testament, from the Aramaic of the Peshitta New Testament with a translation of the ancient Aramaic Peshitta version of Psalms & Proverbs, contains the word "JEHOVAH" over 200 times in the New Testament, where the Peshitta itself does not. 

    Divine Name King James Bible (2011) - Uses JEHOVAH 6,973 times throughout the OT, and LORD with Jehovah in parentheses 128 times in the NT.

    These versions use either "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" only in the Old Testament:

    • An Indonesian translation produced by the Sacred Name Movement, Kitab Suci, uses Hebraic forms of sacred names in the Old and New Testaments (Soesilo 2001:416), based on Shellabear's translation. 
    • A French translation, by André Chouraqui, uses Hebraic forms in the Old and New Testaments.
    • The Spanish language Reina-Valera Bible and most of its subsequent revisions uses the Sacred Name in the Old Testament as "Jehová" starting in Genesis 2:4, with the notable exception of the Reina Valera Contemporánea, a 2011 revision which replaces "Jehová" (Spanish for Jehovah) with "El Señor" (Spanish for The Lord).