Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Yigal,

I wrote a thesis about the use of divine names in 
the Second Temple Period 15 years ago, and since 
then I have kept myself updated on the subject. 
What I have found is that the almost universal 
view that in the mentioned period the name was 
viewed as being too holy to be pronounced is 
nothing but extrapolation! The Masoretes held 
this view, and we find it in the rabbinic 
literature, and therefore it is granted 
(extrapolated backward) that this was the case in 
B.C.E. as well. But where is the evidence??? We 
know that the religious people living at Qumran 
did not use the name. But many of the DSS are 
written other places and imported to Qumran, and 
their witness is that the name was used by some.

I have two questions:
1) Where do we find original evidence (not later 
traditions) that YHWH was substituted by )DNY in 
B.C.E.?

Please note that it is not enough to find 
examples where God is referred to as )DNY; God is 
referred to by )LHYM and other epithets as 
well-we need evidence of substitution.

2) I do not claim that YHWH was in general use by 
ordinary people in the first part of the 1st 
century C.E., but where is the original evidence 
(not later traditions) that it was not used by 
ordinary people in their everyday life in this 
time?

It is true as you say that the pronunciation of 
the name in time was lost, and that  Yahweh is a 
modern reconstruction; Jehovah is a 
reconstruction from the Middle Ages. However, If 
we look at personal names from the Second Temple 
Period it is very likely that YHWH had three 
syllables, and not two as in Yahweh. As a matter 
of fact, there is absolutely no evidence in the 
favor of Yahweh in old Hebrew sources.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



> One more thing that should be taken into account here: the Jewish tradition
> that during the Second Temple Period, the Name of God was considered to be
> too holy to actually ever pronounce. This is why the name YHWH was vocalized
> "Adonai" in the first place. According to (later) rabbinic sources, the
> Tetragramaton was said aloud by the high priest only once a year, during the
> Yom Kippur service. After the destruction of the Temple, the true
> pronunciation was lost. (Remember - such vocalizations such as Yahweh,
> Jehovah etc. are modern reconstructions, not ancient traditions.) So it
> stands to reason that the transcribers of the Septuagint and the
> (post-Destruction) authors of the NT, not having a "pronounceable" name,
> simply translated the accepted Hebrew vocalization - Adonai.
>
> Yigal Levin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Rolf Furuli
> Sent: Friday, December 18, 2009 10:51 AM
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] adonai "my Lord" or "the Lord"
>
>
> Dear Stephen,
>
> When we discuss translation, we need to apply the
> rules of translation. The rule which relates to
> the rendering of YHWH in English translation, is
> that a proper name in Hebrew which refers to a
> particular person or place should be transcribed
> into English in accordance with the stock of
> phonemes of English and not substituted with
> anothr word. The only situation where translators
> can consider deviating from this, is where there
> is a play of words in connection with the name,
> and this is more important that the reference.
> Tthis is not the case with  YHWH, so to
> substitute this name with "the Lord" is a blatant
> violation of a fundamental rule of translation.
>
> I have recently completed a study of the use of
> divine names in *all* the Dead Sea Scrolls, both
> in biblical and- non-biblical manuscripts. The
> substitute for YHWH that was used at Qumran was
> )EL and not )DNY. The word )DNY  was used in the
> non-biblical scrolls 71 times while )EL occurs
> 667 times. Only in  one or two instances *may*
> )DNY be used as a substitute for YHWH. But this
> is absolutely not certain, because in the
> biblical manuscripts we sometimes find YHWH where
> MT has )DNY and we find )DNY where the MT has
> YHWH.  There is absolutely no clear evidence that
> YHWH was substituted by )DONY in writing or in
> pronunciation in the 1st and 2nd century B.C.E.,
> or even in the 1st century C.E.
>
> On the basis of this there is an acute problem
> regarding KURIOS in the NT. If )DNY (=KURIOS) was
> not used as a substitute for YHWH when Jesus was
> on earth, then it must have been the NT writers
> who invented the use of KURIOS instead of YHWH.
> And why should they, when the Tanakh several
> places (e.g. Exodus 3:15) says that YHWH should
> be used as a reference to God for ever. And, when
> Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth  according to
> Luke 4:17, 18 read from the prophet Isaiah where
> YHWH is found, why should he substitute the
> proper name of God with something else? Even if
> this was the custom, for which there is no clear
> evidence, why should he, who condemned the
> commandments made by men that violated the law,
> follow such a superstitious custom?
>
> The writers of the NT often quoted from the LXX,
> and interestingly the few fragments of the LXX
> that we have from the 2nd and 1st centuries
> B.C.E. and the 1st century C.E. all contain the
> name in some form- either in archaic Hebrew or
> Aramaic script or as the Greek phonetic
> transcription IAO.  So no KURIOS in this version
> either.
>
> Then we come to a very interesting point.  In the
> UBS and other Greek texts of the NT we never find
> YHWH but only KURIOS. However, we do not have the
> autographs of the NT manuscripts, and there is
> strong evidence that , as far as the writing of
> God´s name is concerned, the NT text was tampered
> with between 75 and 125 C.E. How so? As already
> mentioned, the text of the LXX, as late as the
> 1st century C.E. contains YHWH and not the
> substitute KURIOS. But in the oldest C.E. LXX
> manuscripts that we have (from the middle of the
> 2nd century C.E. or a little later) we find the
> substitute KS (or, a few times QS) with a
> horizontal bar above where YHWH previously was
> written. This shows that the LXX text was
> tampered with in the period I have mentioned, and
> the name of God was substituted by something
> else. In the oldest NT manuscrips from the same
> period ( the middle of the 2nd century ) we also
> fin KS in quotes from the OT (and in other
> instances) where YHWH is found in Hebrew. The
> same tampering pattern is evident both regarding
> the LXX and the NT, And it is obvious that KS, QS
> and several other nomina sacra were not found in
> the NT autographs. Thus, the NT text has been
> tampered with as well!  And because the LXX
> originally had YHWH and this was changed to KS,
> it can be argued that the substitution KS in the
> NT also is a substitution of YHWH. When we also
> keep in mind that there is no evidence that YHWH
> was substituted by )DNY among the people in the
> days of Jesus, a good case can be made for YHWH
> being found in the NT autographs, at least in the
> quotes from the OT.
>
> A discussion of this is found in the article
> "Divine names" in "The Anchor Bible Dictionary."
> A different view can be found in M. Rösel. The
> Reading and Translation of the Divine Name in the
> Masoretic Tradition and the Greek Pentateuch."
> JSOT 31, 2007: 411-428. For those who Read
> German, I refer to  M. Rösel's doctoral
> dissertation: "Warum Gott "Herr" genannt wird?"
> 2000. Tübingen.  The intersting thing here are
> the great problems he has to find evidence for
> his main theory, that YHWH was substituted by
> another word.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo
>
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