Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Steven Avery <stevenavery AT verizon.net>]

Hi,

Subject was: Re: [b-hebrew] G.Gertoux and the Name...

The goal here is to go through the logical construct of Rolf, in two 
parts.  The first part is how he makes the well known contraction: 
kurios --> KS  .. proposing one special type of historical 
contraction bypassing kurios, going from YHVH --> KS

All the Philip Comfort quotes are online:

Encountering the Manuscripts (2006)
Philip Comfort
http://books.google.com/books?id=nPVHbSscCwYC&pg=PA200

Lots of similar and usually complementary material could be given 
from Larry Hurtado, Dirk Jongkind and many others. For simplicity, 
this post is working mostly with Comfort.

Rolf
> ... because we do not have the NT and LXX autographs we do not know 
> whether they contained the YHWH in some form or not.

Steven
We do not know if they might also contain five extra 
chapters.  Essentially, everything we know about the autographs comes 
from the apographa and ECW discussions of the apographa. Anything 
that claims to be autographic that is not in the copies ... must jump 
over a very high evidentiary bar.

Rolf
> Then I have presented the arguments I think would illuminate the issue. ...

> FACT
> 1: All the known LXX fragments up to 50 CE has YHWH or IAO. FACT
> 2: The LXX manuscripts from the second century CE has KS. FACT

Steven
Sounds fine. I will point out that the terminology "LXX" has multiple 
meanings, even in scholarship circles.  In a sense, GOT (Greek Old 
Testament) is much more accurate for texts that definitely do not 
have pre-Christian lineage (i.e unrelated to the Aristeas 
story).  Thus, LXX fits much better for DSS manuscripts than for the 
later Egyptian papyri that are mixed with New Testament material. Or 
for Vaticanus, Sinaiticus or Alexandrinus or the later Greek Orthodox 
manuscripts.  However, since scholarly conventions are contradictory 
(there was a paper on this) LXX is used for those materials.  This 
leads into the problem of readers thinking these texts have a 
confirmed lineage to pre-Christian-era texts because of the flawed 
nomenclature.

Rolf
> 3: Someone deleted the name of God from the LXX manuscripts between 
> 50 CE and the second century CE.

Steven
Not necessarily.  And in general a major conceptual error of improper 
extrapolation. Many new GOT translations were made by the 2nd 
century, due to the Christian movement.  New translations by those 
familiar with the NT (which can include offbeat groups like the 
ebionites.) Those new Greek texts would likely utilize the same 
conventions as in the NT conventions. (Philip Comfort covers this in 
one quote below).

btw, contra some comments, so far I do not see an real evidence for 
the idea expressed  that the OT nomina sacra must have come first. 
Since our extant earliest nomina sacra mss are about the same time 
for NT and OT and Christians would have a smidgen more emphasis 
around 75-125 AD in the NT.  If anyone has any idea why that though 
of OT first is occasionally expressed, share away.)

Rolf, you simply have not shown any copying lineage from the mss in 
(1) to those (2), thus the conclusion (3) is logically flawed.

To have any pizazz, you would have to show a specific textual lineage 
involving either Jewish copyists or Christian copyists who made the 
switch, yet the evidence tends to support a rather sharp distinction 
in the textual lineages.

Here is a quote by Robert Beckwith explaining the dual Jewish and 
Christian aspects of LXX texts, moving from the apocrypha issue to 
the textual lineage issue.

The original grounds for the Alexandrian canon hypothesis were the 
comprehensive manuscripts of the Septuagint. The Septuagint is a 
pre-Christian Jewish translation, and the larger manuscripts of it 
include various of the Apocrypha. Grabe's edition of the Septuagint, 
where the theory was first propounded, was based upon the 
fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus. However, as we have seen, 
manuscripts of anything like the capacity of Codex Alexandrinus were 
not used in the first centuries of the Christian era, and since in 
the second century AD the Jews seem largely to have discarded the 
Septuagint in favor of revisions or translations more usable in their 
controversy with the church (notably Aquila's translation) there can 
be no real doubt that the comprehensive codices of the Septuagint, 
which start appearing in the fourth century AD, are all of Christian 
origin." (Roger Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New 
Testament Church, 1985, p. 382  - also in Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 1990.)

The area of Christian and Jewish origins of GOT manuscripts is a bit 
complex.  However, for your claim #3 to even have the possibility of 
being a valid construct, you would have to show that the LXX 
manuscripts with KS were direct copying descendents of early 
pre-Christian manuscripts.

Beyond that, the 50 AD swivel date is also rather telling, since it 
would be almost exactly the beginning point of Christian copying of 
the LXX. So either what was involved (e.g. at 125 AD) is best 
understood as one or more of these three:

1) new translations of the GOT by those familiar with the NT - using 
Christian nomina sacra conventions
2) Christian conventions from the NT, including the nomina sacra, 
applied to OT manuscript copying.
3) 2-step copying .. YHVH-->Kurios--KS

In other words, in #1 your whole thesis does not apply.  In #2 your 
emphasis is wrong. You are using changing in OT copying to make 
difficult almost to absurdity claims of different original NT texts 
(see part #2 planned of these posts). When a far more Ockham-friendly 
explanation is that the NT techniques and understanding of 
abbreviations were applied to the OT.

"it could have dawned on some early Jewish-Christian scribe and/or a 
Gentile Christian scribe familiar with the special orthography, while 
making a copy of an Old Testament Greek text or putting together 
several Old Testament messianic proof texts (called "testimonial", to 
come up with a special way of writing the divine name kurios in 
Greek. The result was KC, a contracted form, using the first and last 
letters of kurios." Comfort p. 209

Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian 
Texts (1995)
Henry Y. Gamble
http://books.google.com/books?id=2aEJfsXY57cC&pg=PA77
"The contracted forms of theos and kyrios probably derive, as G. 
Howard supposes, from Gentile Christians who, lacking the support of 
the Jewish tradition for retaining the Tetragram in (Greek) Christian 
copies of Jewish texts, adopted instead clearly designated 
contractions of Greek equivalents "out of deference to the Jewish 
Christians, to mark the sacredness of the divine name which stood 
behind these surrogates."The principle, used at first with respect to 
texts of Jewish scripture, would have been extended under 
christological warrants to the further names, Jesus and Christ, in 
Christian documents." (quoted also by Comfort).

This is one of the examples where the concept is right, although I 
question the order. The contractions could easily have occurred 
simultaneously in OT and NT, or in NT first.  The only argument I can 
see for OT first, would be if the **only contraction** in a text is 
YHVH --> (Kurious) --> KS.  However my understanding is that if you 
have one contraction, you have four or more. (I am happy to be 
corrected on this from anyone super-familiar with the data.)

And Rolf, your logic attempted above basically ignores the well-known 
issue of discontinuities in the Greek GOT copying.  New copyists, new 
texts, new attempts.  Origen in his Hexapla worked with three 
distinct Greek translations that did not even exist at 50 AD.

Rolf
>  This led to a corrupted text.

Steven
No, this was a text with a different textual convention, and very 
likely represented a different lineage of translation..  English 
translations today often have LORD for the Hebrew YHVH.  You might, 
following your doctrinal position, consider those as corrupted. 
However that would be circular to your group's conventions and 
claims, which you say you are ignoring.  Origen referred to texts 
with kurios and with the Tetragram, and did not consider kurios as a 
corruption, and kurios was the form he consistently used in his own writing.

Philip Comfort points out that the abbreviations were designed 
precisely to maintain clarity (NT primarily, presumably also at times 
in the OT):

Making a name a nomen sacrum desecularized the term, lifting it to 
sacred status. For example, scribes could differentiate between "the Lord" and
"lord"/"sir"/"master" by writing KC or KTPIOC (plene), and they could 
distinguish between "Spirit" (the divine Spirit) and "spirit" (the 
human spirit) by writing the first as a nomen sacrum and any other 
kind of spirit as pneuma (in plene). The term pneuma in ordinary, 
secular Greek meant "wind," "breath," or "spirit." Writing it as a 
nomen sacrum signaled that this was the divine Spirit. Scribes also 
uplifted the ordinary terms "cross" and "crucify" by making them 
nomina sacra. In this written form, they signaled Jesus' cross and 
crucifixion, the means by which all Christians are saved from sin. - 
Comfort, p. 204

Comfort also points out that there would be clarity among the scribes 
about the usage, flattening your idea that in the NT, and only in 
kurios, and maybe theos (in the NWT and George Howard iteration of 
the theory) there was a special hidden Hebrew source for the Greek 
abbreviation.

"The inclusion of certain titles and exclusion of others is 
significant, for it shows that there was some kind of universal 
recognition among Christian scribes as to which terms were to be 
written as a nomen sacrum and which ones were not. This points to an 
early standard or what could be called an early canon for acceptable 
and non-acceptable nomina sacra. - p. 205

Rolf
> 4. The NT manuscripts from the second century CE contain KS,

Steven
All Greek NT manuscripts contain kurios or KS, there are no 
exceptions. Similarly they contain theos or QS, pneuma or PNA, etc.

Rolf
>  as do the LXX manuscripts.

Steven Avery
No surprise there. Often the same "Christian" (including gnostic 
Alexandrian) copyists would do NT and OT.  Think Vaticanus and 
Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, principle GOT manuscripts.

Rolf
> REASONING 1: The letters KS were not in the NT autographs (no one 
> has argued in favor of that),

Steven Avery
It is considered possible by writers like Larry Hurtado and :

Philip Comfort
"perhaps some of the autographs themselves" p. 202.
"A few other terms may have been written as nomina sacra in the 
original writings or, at least, in the very earliest copies the Greek" p. 204

Rolf
> and this shows that the NT text has been changed.

Steven
Actually, over time, about 15 words were changed in the NT (count by 
Larry Hurtado, The Origin of the Nomina Sacra: A Proposal 1998) , 
that were subject to abbreviation. At least four immediately, in the 
earliest NT texts.  Any theory has to look at all of these, and even 
P46 had nine contractions. A good chart is at:

Nomina Sacra in P46
http://www.lib.umich.edu/reading/Paul/nominasacra.html

Your theory would have to state why the kurios ones are so totally 
unique, and only here KS does not represent its Greek longer version 
source Kurios.. Even putting aside the weird situation that your 
progenitors in this theory, like George Howard and the NWT, can 
include theos as from a Tetragram source (you have not gone that 
route, yet, in this conversation, apparently).  And the NWT decides 
they can be selective to doctrine (euphemistically called context) in 
claims about which kurios and theos usages are utilized.  Leading to 
a number of documented major inconsistencies.

Now, since there was such a consistency of usage of Greek 
word-->abbreviation, the onus is on the person who says that one of 
the 15 is  :

not ... Greek word-->  Greek abbreviation  (true for multiple Greek words)
is  ...  Hebrew word-> Greek abbreviation  (conjectural emendation 
concept, why would the ks abbreviation for kurious not be used for kurios?)

Especially as an overbar was generally placed, specifically to show 
the Greek abbreviation.

"it is easy to spot any of the nomina sacra on the page of a Greek 
New Testament manuscript (see on pages 140 and 148) or a Christian Greek Old
Testament manuscript (see photo of Ezekiel on p. 173) by looking for 
the overbars. The special written forms of the nomina sacra would not 
be enigmatic to Christian readers; they could easily decipher them, 
in fact, these forms would heighten their importance in the text and 
prompt the readers (lectors) to give them special attention when 
reading the text aloud to the congregation." Comfort, p. 204

"The nomina sacra are also present in Greek Old Testament manuscripts 
and other Christian writings produced by Christians... One of the 
main reasons we know that the Old testament manuscripts are Christian 
manuscripts and not Jewish is the presence of nomina sacra in the 
text ... with the Greek text. Christians used KYPIOC (kurios = Lord) 
in place of ... (YHWH) and wrote it in nomen sacrum form. Many Greek 
Old Testament manuscripts produced by Christians display this nomen 
sacrum. This can be seen in all six second-century Greek Old 
Testament manuscripts noted above." Comfort, p. 200-202

Note, this distinction of Jewish and Christian manuscripts on the 
basis of the nomina sacra has been accused of being 
circular.  However, it is also sensible. The circular point only 
reduces it from a fully factual distinction to a likely theory that 
matches well the evidences.

e.g. P. Oxyrhynchus 3522 includes the Hebrew script in the Greek, it 
is 1st century, and there is no reason to consider it relevant to the 
1-2 possibilities above. Comfort gives a few examples on p.208, 
adding the Habakkuk ms from Kirbert Mird and the Greek Minor Prophets 
Scroll from Naval Hever.

These are the no-contraction manuscripts.  And since they do not have 
KS as a contraction, they do not have other nomina sacra 
contractions. And  in a Christian OT the nomina sacra will go far 
further than KS.

Nomina Sacra - Bob Waltz
http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn/NominaSacra.html
"Vaticanus (B) abbreviates Qeos Kurios Ihsous Cristos pneuma 
(generally only these, although the Old Testament sometimes 
abbreviates anqrwpos as well as Israhl Ierousalhm) "

Another point of interest:

"The suspended form of abbreviation was very common in both 
documentary and literary works from the first century BC on into the 
second century AD. McNamee wrote, "Methods of abbreviation throughout 
[this] period covered are the same in literary as in documentary 
papyri. The most common means was suspension, in which one or more 
letters were omitted from the end of a word." Comfort, p. 203

The point here is that there is nothing surprising about the 
phenomenon. Kathleen McNamee's work is Abbreviations in Greek 
Literary Papyri and Ostraca: Supplement, with List of Ghost 
Abbreviations and lists 450 abbreviations in Greek 
literature.  Granted, the contractions are one type of abbreviation.

On page 206 Comfort goes into depth on the kurios phenomenon, I would 
substitute Jehovah or Yehovah where Comfort has "Yahweh".

Overall, we can see that the proposed evidence from silence boils 
down to a form of special pleading by Rolf, there really is nothing 
very complex.  The fact that an event is remotely conceptually 
possible (especially if you look at evidences in a skewed manner 
designed to somehow work towards the initial goal) is far from any 
type of substantive evidence that this event did happen. (Remember, 
in this case, about seven events, representing the seven NT authors 
who are all supposed to have done this never-seen type of original 
writing in a dozen or so books.)

In the subsequent planned post, we will look a bit more at the 
back-end, which is the complete refutation of the special pleading 
Hebrew text embedded in the Greek autographs proposal, and then 
redacting and vanishing. The fact that scribal habits and textual 
transmission are totally against this idea.  (Along with auxiliary 
considerations like the total inconsistency of position of the 
variety pack of 'Hebrew text in the Greek autographs' proposals.)

Rolf
>  But we do not know what was written in quotes from the Tanakh 
> where YHWH was found in the quotes.

Steven
The normative presumption of any Greek text, letters, gospels, ECW 
writings, is that an original Greek writing is written with Greek 
letters.  Any idea against this must jump over a very high bar of 
evidence.  Such as showing apographic writings with the Hebrew text 
embedded.  Or at least showing ECW discussions of the 
phenomenon.  The classic case is Origen, who was very aware of the 
phenomenon of the Tetragram in Greek OT writings.  And Origen gives 
us a thunderous silence about any idea at all of NT writings, by even 
one author (e.g. Matthew) having a single embedded Tetragram.  That 
silence extends to Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and others. And of course 
Jerome, who worked with ancient Hebrew and Latin and Greek 
manuscripts, in consultation with the Jews in Israel and working with 
the library in Caesarea.  However, Origen is especially important 
because of his special note of the Tetragram being in OT manuscripts, 
so his evidence is not an evidence from silence, but an evidence 
relating to exposition.

Rolf
> REASONING 2: Because what was substituted by KS in the LXX was YHWH,

Steven
This was shown to be a conjectural presumption above, since the KS 
texts come from Christian lineage, and do not have any shown direct 
lineage from earlier Greek texts.  Even if they did have such a 
lineage, it would simply be common Christian writing convention 
applied to the copying process, and it would likely be a two-step, 
YHVH --> Kurios --> KS.  So we have a double fail in this claim.

Rolf Furuli
>  it is likely that what was substituted in the NT was YHWH as well.

Steven
Since the base logic is flawed, this is GIGO.

Rolf
> Corroborating this likeliness is that the Tanakh says that YHWH 
> should be used as God's name for ever. If there still is something 
> to which I have not responded regarding manuscript data, please tell 
> me what it is.

Steven
You have refused to discuss scribal habits, the seven or so distinct 
individuals all doing this unique and unheard of process in the 
ancient NT autographic literature. Unheard of in the ECW and 
apocryphal writings as well as NT writings.

Rolf, you have consistently refused to discuss the redaction process 
that then weeded out your proposed NT emendation.  Which is totally 
unscholarly, since your theory demands the redaction process, so you 
must related to the humongous difficulties. And you have not 
discussed the thunderous ECW silence about your proposed phenomenon.

As to the manuscript data, in the NT you have none, the data is 1000s 
to 0.  You also do not discuss the missing groups of variants in the 
NT manuscript data when your proposed emendations were redacted out 
of the textlines, completely and fully, vanishing with a trace or 
even a mention. ie. This should have created a rather wild variant situation.

You do not discuss the NT manuscript data, you only discuss a 
proposed emendation to the text by discussing OT data, and even that 
is based on flawed logic, as shown above.

The theories are so cumbersome and at base unscholarly that they 
clearly have to be largely influenced by your own doctrinal 
considerations.  A group you support printed a text with hundreds of 
New Testament emendations of Jehovah into the NT text. We understand 
that you are not defending their emendations here.  In this venue, 
you try to cherry-pick what might be considered the lesser absurd 
group of the hundreds of emendations, a type of foot-in-door 
approach.  The group of OT quotes and references. Ironically, even 
that group is still implemented inconsistently in your group's text.

To make the proposal you still have to skew the historical OT 
process. And more significantly, you have to avoid a full-discipline 
approach that also discusses scribal habits, the fact of multiple 
authors and books, the NT proposed redactions back to the current 
text, precisely which variants are involved and why.  And what the 
manuscript evidence for those variants shows.  What would be expected 
in any sensible analysis would be a wild differentiation of variants 
in any verse where the proposal actually occurred, as Greek and Latin 
and Syriac texts all puzzled over the phenomenon of the Hebrew 
embedded and began to redact it out.

Overall, in sum, you simply do not discuss the NT manuscript and 
textual data, which is where your proposal occurs.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Bayside, NY