Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stephen Shead <srshead+bh AT gmail.com>]

Dear Rolf and James,

I know I wasn't going to respond, but given the double-whammy rebuttal, I
felt compelled to try to clear a couple of things up.

There are several issues here - some more relevant to this list, others not
relevant.

1. Did the substitution of KURIOS (and/or the nomen sacrum KS) for YHWH in
Greek sacred texts originate with early Christians? This question is perhaps
relevant to the list, with the question of (as James said) "when and why
people stopped pronouncing the name YHWH in the tanakh".

This is a possibility, given the evidence. I have no problem with that.
However, it must be said that the textual evidence on which the argument is
based is scant: there are only a handful of manuscripts from BCE which bear
on the issue (i.e. the tetragrammaton appears in them). Even then, one BCE
manuscript may well (though it's not certain) use a form of KURIOS for the
divine Name (4Q126 - http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak//lxxjewpap/4Q126.jpg).

And beyond the evidence of the LXX manuscripts, I'm certainly no expert, but
I do know that it is by far from simple or certain. There are many
considerations to be weighed - see, for example, the second post in
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/174104/4/Nehemia-Gordon-and-the-pronunciation-of-the-tetragrammaton.
(I am not endorsing this as "the answer", but it is a good illustration of
some of the complexities.)

2. If it originated with Christians, when did the substitution happen? Did
the NT autographs themselves use KURIOS, or did they originally contain the
tetragrammaton? (This seems to be what motivated Rolf's original reply to my
simple point.) This question is less relevant to this list, but is crucial
to the Jehovah's Witness argument against the mainstream Christian
understanding of Jesus. And on this point I repeat that, in my opinion, the
argument is extremely weak.

Rolf, you seem either confused on what "concrete / manuscript evidence" is,
or you present things in a very confusing way. You claim that: "we have no
manuscript evidence showing how the name of God was written in the original
NT". Of course we do!!!! We have several thousand manuscripts (copied
fragments / codices) which provide evidence for a variety of names/forms
(QEOS, QS, KURIOS, KS, etc.). These are not the original autographs -
obviously! - but early copies do count as "concrete evidence" for the form
of the autographs.

By contrast, we have exactly zero NT fragments / copies / manuscripts which
use the tetragrammaton, so any argument for the tetragrammaton in the
original autographs must be entirely inferred using logical means, without
direct manuscript support. That is, the actual extant copies must be
"explained away". This is a valid enterprise to attempt - but given the huge
number of extant manuscripts, and the fact that not a single MS with the
tetragrammaton "slipped through" in any of the NT textual traditions (at
least in the MSS we've found), the argument has to be a very strong one!

And this is where my "utterly unconvinced" comes in. Far from being very
strong, I consider the argument to be practically impossible. Rolf, you
didn't interact with anything I said on the "tampered with" theory (or
changed, modified, replaced, or whatever word you'd prefer). James, at least
you tried to interact with the question of the transmission of texts -
though your argument doesn't change anything. All you've shown is that
various books were considered inspired Scripture from very early on -
something with which I agree wholeheartedly!

But you've also reaffirmed my point: that the whole thing was chaotic,
non-centralised and diverse. There simply was no universally agreed "NT
Canon" for several centuries, though there were arguments about it.
Different groups began with different collections of apostolic writings. Not
only that, but there were hot disagreements over the status of various
books, and also over central theological issues. This gets back to my
unconvincedness: If YHWH was originally in the NT texts and KURIOS was not
an already established vocalized substitute, then I simply can't believe
that all elements of the disparate early church would have been happy with a
blurring of the distinction between YHWH and Jesus through a change to
inspired Scripture - especially given the persistent strength of Arianism
for many centuries! Nor do we have any whiff of a dispute over it from the
early Christian writers - they tell us all about the controversies with
Marcion and others, but nothing about changing the divine Name?

You have both also raised the nomen sacrum KS for KURIOS - and have done so
in a way which gives the impression that the use of KS supports the
replacement theory of the tetragrammaton. For this to be the case, KS would
have to be used always and only for YHWH, and never for other "lords" (like
Jesus - i.e. Jesus would have to be referred to with the full form, KURIOS).
My understanding, from the literature I have seen, is that this is simply
not the case. That is, KS was used both for YHWH and for Jesus. It therefore
does not constitute evidence for a special replacement of the tetragrammaton
with the nomen sacrum KS.

Apologies to the moderators for a long post, which I didn't want to have to
write, on a tangential issue. Rolf and/or James, feel free to have the last
word, but I will try this time to leave it at that.

Regards,
Stephen Shead
Sydney, Australia