Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Timothy Lawson <lostntym8 AT hotmail.com>]

Dear Stephen,
 
      I go by Scott but I see that my e-mail posts come up as Timothy Lawson. I'll start going by Timothy.
 
I'm glad for the clarification of your thoughts on the unusual word order that sometimes occurs with κύριος ὁ θεος when κύριος is taken as a predicate nominative rather than equal to the proper name YHWH.
 
There is much to consider! Thanks so much for your comments!
 
Timothy Lawson 

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From: sshead.email AT gmail.com
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:51:59 +1000
Subject: Re: G. Geroux and the Name
To: lostntym8 AT hotmail.com
CC: bjwvmw AT com-pair.net; rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Dear Scott (do you go by that or Timothy??? I'm a little confused...),

Just a small note: I wasn't entirely sure what you were trying to say here either. But I hope you weren't taking my reply to confirm that κύριος ο θεός is clunky grammar, or that we should draw certain conclusions from that! Everything I said was qualified by "IF it is awkward grammar...".

And to clarify again (at the risk of sounding like a broken record): The LXX may be relevant if you're asking a number of questions. Was there a precedent to the use of κύριος for YHWH in the NT? Assuming one influenced the other, in which direction did the influence go? etc. But nothing we observe about the LXX increases by one iota .. or alpha or omega :) ... the probability that the original NT texts originally included the Tetragrammaton - whether in Hebrew script or transliterated into Greek script. They didn't. That's what 100% of the evidence says.

Best regards,

Stephen.

On 10 June 2013 11:18, Timothy Lawson <lostntym8 AT hotmail.com> wrote:

Dear Stephen,

  Thank you for your reply!

You say: "Style (or "poor grammatical construction") is a perilous basis for this kind of argument - especially in a case like this, where we are talking about a highly special word/construction, which the author is likely to treat with particular reverence. That is, (1) how are we to know just how awkward-sounding a particular Greek phrase would have been to a Second Temple bilingual Jewish ear? and (2) Even if it was awkward grammar in certain contexts, mightn't that have been considered appropriate for such a sacred phrase?"

It is not clear to me what you mean by "perilous" but I think you help me along in my observation that there is something special going on in these clunky phrases that include κύριος ο θεός. And the fact that the Tetragrammaton appears in the MT where the hand of the scribe/translator is applied at these points should draw our attention. BDAG and other great minds intimate that κύριος seems to have the status of a personal name - יהוה. If there is truth in this, if it has such a meaning then what is wrong in translating as such?

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From: sshead.email AT gmail.com
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:32:23 +1000
Subject: Re: G. Geroux and the Name
To: lostntym8 AT hotmail.com
CC: bjwvmw AT com-pair.net; rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Dear Scott,

You said to Bryant:
>>    The information you present is interesting but seemingly not directly related to the point I made that κύριος ο θεός by its poor grammatical construction which also appears in the NT text. This may be a possible indication that YHVH has been removed from the Greek of the LXX.

Style (or "poor grammatical construction") is a perilous basis for this kind of argument - especially in a case like this, where we are talking about a highly special word/construction, which the author is likely to treat with particular reverence. That is, (1) how are we to know just how awkward-sounding a particular Greek phrase would have been to a Second Temple bilingual Jewish ear? and (2) Even if it was awkward grammar in certain contexts, mightn't that have been considered appropriate for such a sacred phrase?

The fact that the LXX is a translation makes it even more perilous. Either the original translators chose κύριος ο θεός, or a later copyist did. Either way, the person who made this choice was at least a Greek speaker (maybe native, maybe bilingual, maybe not). If it's clunky grammar, presumably they could have picked a grammatically smoother construction, but chose not to, for whatever reason. Why is it more likely that a later copyist would have made this choice, rather than an earlier translator?

Best regards,

Stephen.