When you write "he" referring to God in Christianity, Jesus, and Mohammad, which need to be capitalized?

Question

i.e. "When Jesus spoke to Gabriel, He(?) was struck with awe.
Muhammad told His(?) followers that there is no God but God.

Answer 1

I have been an English professor at a Christian liberal arts university for 28 years. I myself am a professing Christian. (Believe me, at these salaries, it's almost mission work.) This particular question comes up often, especially with freshmen.

The important thing to realize is that you are asking a question about English mechanics, not religion. With that in mind, let me quote to you from the 16th edition of Hodges' Harbrace Handbook: "[Capitalize] names of religions, their adherents, holy days, titles of holy books, and words denoting the Supreme Being" (p. 174). So don't use capitalization (or lack thereof) in an attempt to make a religious statement of some sort. You only end up looking ignorant about language.

Answer 2

In each of your sample sentences, the "he" is not capitalized. In the first, "When Jesus spoke to Gabriel, he was struck with awe"--the "he" refers to Gabriel, not Jesus.
And the second, "Muhammad told his followers that there is no God but God"--Muhammad never claimed to be, nor does Islam call him, God. Surely you have heard the expression "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His prophet"?

Answer 3

Only God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit merit a capital H in He. Mohammed may be venerated by he was not holy like the others.

Answer 4

Of course you are going to get different answers on this. I am a Christian and my opinion is that only God should be capitalized. And followers of other religions are going to say the opposite.

Answer 5

First of all, it is not strictly necessary to capitalize ANY pronouns--divine or otherwise--except at the beginning of a sentence. I'll explain that point in the second section below

If you DO wish to treat the pronouns differently, the standard practice is to capitalize ALL singular subject, object and possessive pronouns referring to God (He/Him/His, Thou/Thee/Thy-Thine [You/Your(s)). This means pronouns referring to God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit ('the Triune God') are capitalized, but not those for ANY mere human, no matter how highly regarded. It also omits relative particles/pronouns ("whom" or "which") or plural forms("we", "us") that may include others besides God.

(Since Muslims do not believe Mohamed is God they would not capitalize it either. And frankly, the practice of never using capitalized pronouns, not even for God [or Jesus] may help us to avoid unnecessary disputes. The evidence that Jesus is divine comes from the full record of Scripture, hardly from whether the pronouns referring to him are capitalized!)

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The other option, already suggested, is simply to follow "normal" rules of capitlizing, not adopting any special ones for certain 'divine pronouns'

On the idea that you don't need to capitalize ANY of them, except at the beginning of sentences --which is once again becoming the norm-- consider the following.

It is true that many people through the years HAVE capitalized them. But I'm not sure how old that practice is... certainly not as old as many think.

1) NONE of the early Modern English translations of the Bible (such as Tyndale [1520s], Geneva Bible and King James] capitalized divine pronouns other than at the beginning of sentences. Here are pictures from three pages of a first edition of the King James (1611) which illustrate the point:
http://www.greatsite.com/ancient-rare-bible-leaves/king-james-1611-picture.html
http://www.greatsite.com/ancient-rare-bible-leaves/king-james-1611-picture2.html
http://www.greatsite.com/ancient-rare-bible-leaves/king-james-1611-picture3.html

2) Some have even thought the practice somehow goes back to the original languages. Big problem here -- when the Bible was written 'lower case' letters had not even been invented yet (those did not come about till the 7th century AD), so EVERY letter was 'capitalized'!

3) Capitalization and non-capitalization in Christian literature of the past few centuries -- very mixed.

So far as I can see, there was a no time a uniform custom agreed on by all. Scripture translations, commentaries, sermons, devotional literature. .. in all cases you will find some that DO, others that don't.

BUT there do seem to be tendencies -- special capitalization is especially common in DEVOTIONAL literature, and perhaps especially in poetry and HYMN texts. (Since poetry is not always as clear as prose, I wonder if the desire to make it clear to the reader that a particular "he", etc. referred to GOD, played a significant role in this. Another possible influence I would like to explore is the habit of capitalizing pronouns and other terms in TITLES... referring to HUMAN authorities, e.g., "His/Your Majesty", and whether perhaps the capitalizing of divine pronouns to refer to "the King of all" followed by analogy.)

As noted aboved, the early Scripture translations did not do this. In fact, this seems only to have become an issue in the 20th century, with a handful of translations that made the decision to capitlize. These were basically the more 'literal' translations, esp. from 1960 to 1980 (including the NASB, NKJV). Older versions (such as the ASV and RSV), and more recent versions --even of the most 'literal' and most conservative (such as the English Standard Version)-- do not do so, nor do many other 20th century translations, including for example, the conservative and popular New International Version (1978). And even those versions that do capitalize, when explaining the practice (e.g., in introductions) do not appeal to any special tradition of doing so, nor to it showing 'greater respect'

Answer 6

God and Jesus needs to be capitalized.

Answer 7

From what I understand, when "he" is God, you should capitalize the word "He". If you are referring to Jesus or Mohammad, the word "he" is not capitalized.

Answer 8

All must be capitalized, because of grammar, not religion. You should capitalize He when referring to Satan, Bhudda, Shiva, Ganesh, Humbabha, etc. Any deity or religious icon should be treated this way. The same should apply for the names of the saints but Christians are touchy about thier monotheism so they don't use the capital.

Answer 9

certain. A capital letter letter is used to reveal a acceptance of particular magnitude. even although he's a pronoun extremely than a perfect noun, the inference is that He can basically be touching on God or Jesus. subsequently, a capital letter might want to be utilized.

Answer 10

I would capitalize the name of any diety whether it was my religion or not. I also believe that whenever a Muslim writes the name of Mohammed it is followed by PBUH meaning "peace be unto Him".