Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 4:54 PM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>wrote:

> …, I think the main issue here for people like me is how to come to
> terms with the following massive contradiction in terms:
>
> 1) Jesus openly opposed the traditions of men
> 2) Jesus superstitiously refused to use the name of his father (or his own
> name if we are to believe he is God)
>
>
> Upon further reflection, I think there are a couple of things that you are
neglecting:

Your point #1, Jesus openly opposed the traditions of men. When one looks at
those traditions as listed in the NT, they consisted of traditions making
laws that people were to follow that either directly contradicted passages
found in Torah, or were additional laws not found in Torah, contradicting
Deuteronomy 4:2, 9:1. Calling YHWH “Lord”, as long as it is not made into a
law insisting on it, does not violate Torah.

Your point #2, Jesus spoke Aramaic, the New Testament was written in Greek.
With only a few exceptions, the New Testament was written for an audience
consisting of a mixture of diaspora Jews and Gentile converts. While Jesus
probably spoke Greek, almost all of his statements are translated from
Aramaic to Greek. Therefore we cannot claim “Jesus superstitiously refused
to use the name…” because, even if we had the original autographs, we still
would not have Jesus’ original words. Instead what we have is probably a
custom widespread in the diaspora where the NT makes explicit what was that
tradition. And the NT writers may have written following that tradition, not
because they were superstitious, rather because they did not want to create
offense when dealing with people who may have followed that tradition.

My conclusion is that your “massive contradiction in terms” is not so clear
upon a second look when I had a moment to think.

Karl W. Randolph.