Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Schmuel <schmuel AT nyc.rr.com>]

Hi b-hebrew,

James C Read wrote:
>The vast majority of renderings of Jehovah in the NWT NT are as a
>result of the fact that the text is quoting directly from the OT

Schmuel
This is simply incorrect.  
Not the vast majority, not any majority.

http://www.tetragrammaton.org/tetrapdxo.htm
... a total of 144 references (from the 237 total) to Jehovah in the NWT 
Greek Scriptures (NT) which have no Hebrew Scripture precedent of any kind. 
The remaining 93 are quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures which use in the 
Hebrew Scripture text but (Lord) in the Greek text 

And in terms of the consistency issue I do not mind if we consider only the 
verses 
that are NOT quotations from Tanach, where the Tanach has the Tetragrammaton. 

Those verses are clearly less tinged and charged in the discussion, and can 
be 
simply put aside.  (I do not believe it is right to translated them as 
Jehovah, however
it is clearly understandable.)

Here is a discussion of their inconsistency.

http://www.tetragrammaton.org/nwtandhvs.htm
According to their own grammatical rule, haAdohn [] is translated as Jehovah 
at 1 Corinthians 4:19 and 1 Corinthians 7:17. .....the New World Bible 
Translation Committee did not follow their own rule at 1 Corinthians 11:23, 
Philippians 2:11, or Luke 24:34. From the appendix information given at the 
end of this book, we see that from just 1 Corinthians alone, haAdohn appears 
19 times. Of these 19 occurrences, however, it is translated as Lord 16 times 
in the New World Translation, and as Jehovah 3 times. 


1 Corinthians 12:3 
Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God 
calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is Jehovah, but by 
the Holy Ghost. 

Philippians 2:11 
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Jehovah, to the 
glory of God the Father. 

Luke 24:34
Saying, Jehovah is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. 

Note also the following --

John 20:28 - 
And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Jehovah and my God. 

James Read
>....Also fragments of the LXX show that it was commonly practised to
>transliterate the name YHWH into the text up until some revolutionary point 
>in time.

Schmuel
No, that shows us nothing about a text that was originally written in Greek

It only shows insight on some issues about translation methodologies from
Hebrew to Greek, under Jewish provenance.  Those are two totally different 
issues.

James Read
>I find it highly likely that at some point in time the use of the name YHWH 
>was 
>banned and kurios was used as a subsititute in both the NT and the LXX.

Schmuel
There is no indication whatsoever, in any book or text in any language that 
the Hebrew
YHWH was ever used in the NT, which was most assuredly entirely or almost 
entirely
written in Greek.  

Therefore there is no issue of kurios being a "substitute" for something that 
never was.

James Read
>However, there are examples of inconsistency with the NWT NT and Matthew 5:3
>which is a highly idomatic translation with the obvious intention of 
>enforcing a particular doctrine.

Schmuel
The inconsistencies are humongous.  They simply chose to put in Jehovah where
it fits their doctrine, and not put it in where it does not fit.

Selective unsupported translation with a doctrinal motive, tampering of this 
sort,
is the very worst type of inconsistent translation.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic