I am talking about the right to make fun or get annoyed by the beliefs as portrayed by a certain artist, because he is a human just like us, and no 'supernatural' being because he is 'popular'.

Why doesn't Prince read the Bible in Hebrew? It's a lot more accurate than the New World translation (or whatever it's called) - coz it's the original. BTW, there ae quite a lot of direct and accurate translations of the OT. The New is another matter...

Anyway, as to the God v Lord thing: it has to do with (at least) two different divine names which predominate in the Hebrew:

Elohim is usually translated as God, since it is related to the word El or Elil which mean "god" in general.

Y-H-W-H (incorrectly transliterated as "Jehova" is the other common divine name, known as the "tetragrammaton" (or "4 letters") it is traditionally unvocalised, i.e. has no vowels and therefore no pronunciation. Traditionally (that is, for at least 2000 years) it has usually been read by replacing the Hebrew word "Adonay" which means "my Lord/s". This is why it is usually translated that way into English.

(Prince may also be interested to know that this is also the reason for the mistaken pronunciation -"Jehova". The letters are traditionally given the vowels of the word "Adonay" to signal that pronunciation. If read with the letters of the tetragrammaton this comes out as something close to Jehova).

The real meaning of the Y-H-W-H is actually (drum-roll) more or less "the everlasting now." In Hebrew there is no present tense of the verb "to be." The closest is the word for "present": "HOWEH." The spelling of the tetragrammaton could be understood to mean "it will be present" or "it will always be being" or, if you like, "the everlasting now"!!!!

I rather see Prince threatening the bible for what it is: yet another religious book, assembled like 2000 years ago, and using some common sense.

wasitgood4u said:

The real meaning of the Y-H-W-H is actually (drum-roll) more or less "the everlasting now." In Hebrew there is no present tense of the verb "to be." The closest is the word for "present": "HOWEH." The spelling of the tetragrammaton could be understood to mean "it will be present" or "it will always be being" or, if you like, "the everlasting now"!!!!

Others have translated this as:

'It will cause to become' or 'He causes to become', the latter being the message (or rather 'HE CAUSES 2 BECOME') which appears on the 'hidden' video on the CD, 'N.E.W.S.'