Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

Hi Karl,

agreed. This is also a possibility. Just to make things clear that massive
contradiction in terms is that Jesus would be a teacher with such a take on
things and then refuse to use the name. Of course, as you have noted whether
the authographs contained the name or not is another issue entirely.

But then again if the NT autographs were written by first generation
Christians who tried their best to emulate Jesus example then that also
raises issues.

James Christian

2009/12/26 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.
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