"when attempting to make sense of the text."
Kyrios as Greek word makes sense to me. Not many attempts are needed to translate it correctly as "lord".
Hope you still have an example that can shed some light.
Hoffnung
2011 Watchtower publisher statistics with analysis
by jwfacts 220 Replies latest watchtower bible
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slimboyfat
Acts 20:28 is a pretty famous example where many textual critics and translators have added "son" to make sense of the text.
A more prosaic example is Acts 16:12 where "the first city of the district of Macedonia" is often changed to "a city of the first district of Macedonia" because Macedonia was not a "district" as the text as it stands would imply.
The most common OT quotation used in the NT that makes no sense without the divine name is where it says, "The Lord said to my Lord". These and other awkward passages suggest there is something wrong with the extant text, which restoring the divine name to the text helps to solve.
The book of Acts in particular is very confusing at times, when trying to work out which "Lord" is being referred to. Again that difficulty is removed if we suppose the distinction was clear in the original text because the divine name stood where "Lord" refers to God rather than Jesus.
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Hoffnung
No problems with the examples you gave. Some extra clarifications are not a luxury to understand these verses.
However that does not take away it is an interpretation, and even more important, it does not justify ALL the instances where "Jehovah" is inserted in the NWT (Greek scriptures).
When you write: "Again that difficulty is removed if we suppose the distinction was clear in the original text because the divine name stood where "Lord" refers to God rather than Jesus.", it must also be stated that on many places where Lord is used, it clearly points out to Jesus. So it is incorrect too to uniformly change every verse where Lord is used directly into Jehovah. It would definitely be more correct, in case of doubt, to leave the original word in its place, and let the reader decide. It is still possible to put the other options in a footnote.
I would like to refer to my post in the middle of the previous page where I demonstrated with quite a few verses where it is not OK to replace Lord with Jehovah.
Hoffnung
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slimboyfat
So it is incorrect too to uniformly change every verse where Lord is used to directly change this into Jehovah.
Of course, not every instance of kyrios refers to God, that is the whole point: confusion arose when the divine name was removed from the text, because in many places readers could no longer tell which Lord was intended when the same word was used for both. Most instances of kyrios refer to Jesus of course. It is those cases where the referent is ambiguous that point to an early corruption of the text involving the replacement of the divine name with nomina sacra.
Incidentally I do not imagine that the NWT always got it right when restoring the divine name. They probably included it in places where it never was, and they may have neglected to restore it to passages where it once stood. I am defending the idea that the NT originally contained the divine name. I am not defending the NWT in every uncertain passage.
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Hoffnung
So I believe you have no problem that in case of doubt, it is better to leave the original word in its place, and let the reader decide.
With regards to Acts 20:28, I have to protest though, the inclusion of "Son" is an unnecessary alteration of the text. There is no need to add "Son" to make sense of the text. An acceptable and even better translation is also: "to feed the congregation (Gr: Ecclesia) of the lord, which he purchased with his own blood."
Sorry that I have to disagree with you on this point
Hoffnung
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slimboyfat
I think the text makes better sense in many places if the divine name is presumed to have stood in the original and is restored in translation.
I wasn't necessarily saying that "son" must be accepted in Acts 20:28. I was making the point that many respectable textual critics and translators use conjectural emendation to restore presumed original readings where they see fit. As a matter of fact Acts 20:28 arguably makes the most sense if one supposes that the divine name stood in the original, so that it read: "Be shepherds of the church of Jehovah, which he bought with the blood of his own". It would explain the high number of variants in the text and why there was so much confusion surrounding it at an early stage.
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Hoffnung
"As a matter of fact Acts 20:28 arguably makes the most sense if one supposes that the divine name stood in the original, so that it read: "Be shepherds of the church of Jehovah, which he bought with the blood of his own""
??????
I think you just proved that it is incorrect to insert Jehovah here, as you need another addition so that the text makes sense.
So that everybody can check: Literal text from the Emphatic Diaglott - printed by the WTBTS (spaces indicate a separate greek word is used):
"to feed the congregation of the Lord which he purchased through the blood of the own"
Hoffnung
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slimboyfat
Many scholars take the view that the word for "the own" means "the beloved", meaning Jesus. No extra words required in that case.
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Phizzy
Slimboy, it was long my heartfelt hope that someday a manuscript would be discovered that put this question to bed. That was when I was an active JW, and I just so much wanted their postion to be vindicated, as I had an appreciation that their argument was pretty thin.
I see where you are coming from, and maybe you will be proved right, but the JW position seems to be based on the idea that "Satan" was determined to have the divine name removed, it was a conspiracy of evil.
The reality is much more prosaic, but I have a suspicion, with no more proof than your conjecture, that the Name may have been left out for reasons of doctrine and dogma rather than anything else, that even in early days there was an incipient desire to establish the divinity of Christ , and by obfuscating the clear meaning of O.T passages by leaving out the name this cause was easier to promote.
I may be reading back into the past what has obviously occured since, but I do wonder if it was not so much a "Satanic" conspiracy but one of people who wished to promote the cult of Jesus in opposition to that of Mithras and the other contenders of the time.
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slimboyfat
Interesting perspective Phizzy. A book that really influenced how I look at things is Bart Ehrman's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. He argues that the text of the NT was continually revised in the early centuries of its transmission and almost always in a direction that resulted in a higher Christology. He also argues that the further back you go the more fluid the text becomes and the more willing scribes were to make alterations. I deduce from those two facts that the very earliest period in the NT's transmission, from which we unfortunately have no extant manuscripts, must have been a period in which the text of the NT was altered in significant ways that elevated the position of Jesus. If that included the removal of the divine name and the transfer of divine prerogatives from Jehovah to Jesus then it would make sense of the passages that present a lower 'primitive' Christology than a strict identification of Jesus and Jehovah would imply, as well as the considerable textual variation that surrounds the nomina sacra in particular.
Jehovah's Witnesses may believe that Satan conspired to remove the divine name from the NT (have they actually gone so far as to state that in publications?), but you don't need to accept that narrative in order to view the originality of the divine name in the NT as a historical possibility. George Howard argued for the view and he was a Jew. David Trobisch also argued for the position and he is very liberal in outlook, if he still considers himself to be a believer at all. There are good secular arguments to be made for the originality of the divine name in the NT.