Nark: :) (boy i wish this site was a little more friendly to us non-ie users)
So what IS the official JW line of argumentation here?
ackack
by ackack 13 Replies latest watchtower bible
Nark: :) (boy i wish this site was a little more friendly to us non-ie users)
So what IS the official JW line of argumentation here?
ackack
The WT claims that the use of Yhwh in paleo-Hebrew letters within the Greek text (hence not understandable to a Greek reader) was original to the Septuagint (LXX), and that kurios (or theos)was substituted to it later (which would imply a shift in copy within the Greek textual tradition).
As A. Pietersma convincingly showed ("Kyrios or Tetragram: a Renewed Quest for the Original LXX," in De Septuaginta. Studies in Honour of John William Wevers, Mississauga, Ontario, 1984, p. 85-101), the opposite is true: the Greek wording of the LXX implies the use of kurios right from the beginning, and a later revision introduced the Hebrew Tetragrammaton under the influence of Palestinian Jews. This revision is the exception and not the rule: it is still reflected in a few Greek copies down to the middle ages (cf. NWT Appendix 1C: a very surprising phenomenon if a general shift occured from Yhwh to kurios as the WT maintains). Obviously the LXX available to both Philo (see my quotation above) and Paul (Romans 10; 14) read kurios.
Removal of YHWH from Old Testament
Yes, it has been removed from where it is usualy found.
My first awareness of this fact was in reading our family's Catholic Bible back in the 70's. In the Preface it plainly stated that YHWH was replaced by LORD.
Flash, the point was removal from Hebrew->Hebrew copies, not translation of the Hebrew scriptures. The watchtower argues that greek->greek copies had the tetragrammaton removed.
ackack