Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Raymond de Hoop <rdehoop AT keyaccess.nl>]

At 09-02-2003 22:12 furuli AT online.no <furuli AT online.no> wrote:

> One important fact regarding the DSS is for the most part neglected
> in discussions about the name, namely, that the substitute used in
> Qumran manuscripts is *not* )DNWNY but )L. Thus the KURIOS of NT and
> LXX manuscripts of the 2nd century C.E. have no antecedent!  The
> argument is that at the beginning of C.E. the name was no longer
> pronounced, but was substituted by )DNWNY. Because of this the LXX
> translators and the NT writers translated  )DNWNY with KURIOS. And
> that is the reason why KURIOS with reference to God is found both
> places. But the problem is the the most important link, the first one
> is lacking. There is no indication that )DNWNY  (or Aramaic MR)/MRY)
> was used as a substitute for YHWH in B.C.E.!  And there is no
> evidence that i generally was substituted in the days of Jesus. Thus
> the pointing of YHWH by the Masoretes cannot be traced back longer
> than to the days of Jehuda hannasi and Mishnaic times.

Shalom Rolf,

Thank you for your interesting mails on this subject. Yet I do have my
doubts on some issues and for that reason some questions/remarks:

First, in a former mail you wrote that

> it was not a particular interpretation of Scripture that
> caused people to stop pronouncing YHWH, but rather
> foreign influence.

which you related to hellinism. I have some doubts on that. From the texts
of Ugarit it is apparent that in religious texts the Name of the deity was
"handled with care". It is remarkable for example that Ba`lu - "lord,
master" - functioned as an epithet for the god Haddu, a name which is used
only a few times in the religious texts from Ugarit. On the other hand there
is in Hebrew scriptures a clear tendency that Adonai is used as an epithet
for Yhwh, and used instead of YHWH or )ELOHIM. However, this is not to say
that in biblical times or B.C.E. Adonai was used as a substitute for reading
YHWH. It just indicates that Adonai was a wellknown epithet, while the use
of epithets instead of the name of the Deity involved itself is a very
ancient ANE practice, which is related to the hypostatization of divine
names.


Second, you suggest that in Qumran YHWH was substituted by )L, and
consequently the KURIOS in the LXX-mss of the second century C.E. have no
antecedent. However, next to the fact that LXX uses KURIOS for YHWH, it
occurs rather frequently that THEOS is substituted for YHWH, but also KURIOS
for )ELOHIM. This can be related to the practice in Qumran to read )L for
YHWH, although (as far as I am aware) YHWH is not substituted in the
biblical texts from Qumran. Moreover, even if it does occur it may be asked
whether we are dealing in such a case with substitution, because in other
biblical mss we also find the interchange of YHWH and )ELOHIM (both
directions!).  
On the other hand it does occur quite often that the name is written in
so-called paleo-Hebrew script (as also happens in the Gr. mss from
NachalChever), or that instead four dots are put in the text where the
tetragrammaton is to be found. Especially this latter fact points in my view
in the direction of substitution, but: what is in that case the substitute?
We do not know for sure, of course, but if I remember well in 1QIs-a (3:16
or 17?), you'll find )DNY for MT's YHWH.

In conclussion, I have my doubts whether the facts from the ANE and from
Qumran do substantiate your case (nor that they contradict it decisively).
However (to be clear), even if the name was substituted by )ADONAI/KURIOS in
the time of Jesus, or even B.C.E., this does not prove that KURIOS for Jesus
in the NT is meant to equal him to the YHWH/)ADONAI from the Hebrew Bible
and thus a prove for the Trinity. Like Ba`al/Ba`lu and )adonai, the word
KURIOS is a secular word, that is applied in religious language, and its use
for Jesus does not prove his supposed divine provenance.

Kol tuv,
Raymond