Divine name debate - Greg Stafford v Paul Lundquist etc

by yadda yadda 2 32 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  yadda yadda 2

  I'm sure this has been discussed in depth before by the scholarly minded on here. I'd be interested in seeing any former threads.

  What are we to make of Greg Stafford's theory (and the Watchtower Society's) that the Hellenized philosophy of the early NT copyists caused them to remove the divine name (tetragrammaton or variants of) from the NT writings? Have any scholars offered a rebuttal?

  The Watchtower has been somewhat vindicated in this through the relatively recent discoveries of copies of the LXX that contain the divine name, and that it now seems to be generally accepted that the NT writers may well have had available and used versions of the Septuagint that contained the divine name. The manuscript evidence for the LXX shows a pattern of the earliest copies containing the divine name but disappearing after the first century. There are various theories for why this happened, but we do know it happened.

  Stafford and George Howard et al extrapolate this fact about the LXX to infer that the same process seems to have occurred with the NT in the space of only about 100-150 years between the original NT writings and the oldest found MSS. Yet, unlike manuscript evidence existing to prove this happened with the Septuagint, there is not a shred of direct ancient MSS to corroborate this claim insofar as the NT goes. So its an ad hoc theory.

  Lundquist on his website tetragrammaton.org raises a number of objections to the theory, two of which are:

  1. If we have confirmed manuscripts showing the gradual erasure of the divine name from the LXX, why don't we have the same evidence for easure of the name from the NT?

  2. If something as important as the divine name was removed from the original NT writings (but without any MSS to prove it), it raises the accusation that the NT writings cannot be trusted at all, for what else could have been removed that we don't know about?

  Although I think George Howard and Greg Stafford's theories seem very plausible, particularly in attempting to justify having the divine name in those places in the NT that quote or paraphras directly from the OT where the divine name occurs, overall I feel inclined to agree with Lundquist's objections for the two reasons above. At the end of the day, if the NT is inspired of God (taking the Christian perspective) then we must trust that God would have preserved the divine name in later copies if it was actually written under inspiration in the original autographs, or he would have at least ensured some manuscript evidence of the divine name's replacement existed and was discovered. It just seems inexplicable that God would have allowed his name to be removed without a trace if it was originally there and it was so important that Christians use it.

  yadda
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  Phizzy

  My default position is if the WT are arguing a certain way, then that way is wrong.

  The argument against theirs (and Greg's) position is strong, and I feel is stronger than theirs, but you takes your choice, as no definitive proof exists at present.

  Another aspect to consider is, although the Tet. in Hebrew characters, or marks showing it was there, originally appear in the early versions of the Septuagint, and other early texts, was it ever spoken aloud, pronounced, or did the reader substitute "Lord" ?

  This is important, as the N.T writers probably quoted the Sep. from memory, and if they were used to hearing "Lord" would probably have written Kyrios themselves.

  There is an argument from some scholars that the divine name was actually pronounced during the 1st Century, in certain areas, but the proof offered for that is not convincing.

  We only have fragments of the N.T earlier than around 300 AD, so we do not have early texts to compare, but no NT fragment, not even the oldest, contains the Tetragrammaton as far as I am aware.

  So, I am only an armchair scholar, but I go for the argument that says it was never in there, apart from in the expression Hallelujah.

  The WT certainly have no mandate for inserting "Jehovah" anywhere that is not a direct quote from the Sep. and even then it is a dodgy argument, but to put "Jehovah" several times in Revelation, where to add to it is forbidden within the book, is tantamount to blasphemy.
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  jwfacts

  Stafford and George Howard et al extrapolate this fact about the LXX to infer that the same process seems to have occurred with the NT

  From what I've read, they hypothesize that it may have occurred, not that it seems to have occurred. I don't find it plausible. If the divine name was in the original documents, with the amount of fragments we have it is likely to have been found.
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  Recovery

  Isnt the divine name found in shortened form in Revelation?
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  Jaime l de Aragon

  Who is Jehovah?

  The term “Jehovah” was the invention of a Catholic monk (Raymundus Martini) in AD 1202, That name may not appear in Scripture, because there existed not until the 12th century, so the JW can not say that appears 7,000 times in Scripture, de hecho, In fact, this name is linked with that of demologia and Illuminati,

  If Jehovah is the brainchild of a Catholic monk in 1200, how will be in Scripture 7.000 times, but there was that name before 1200?

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/235520/1/Who-is-Jehovah

  
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  slimboyfat

  I find the idea that the divine name was in the NT plausible. Trobisch is a another who argues for this.

  I thought this thread was saying that Stafford and Lundquist had debated each other. That would be interesting!
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  james_woods

  I find the idea that the divine name was in the NT plausible. Trobisch is a another who argues for this.

  Possibly, but I somehow doubt that this Trobisch would just sprinkle it all through the NT without any physical, historical evidence.

  That is what Freddy Franz and the other NWT translators did - simply because they were mesmerized by the name "Jehovah".
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  slimboyfat

  Trobisch argues that the evidence suggests the original NT contained the divine name, there is no need for doubt about what he thinks.
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  glenster

  The JWs leaders replace Lord with Jehovah in NT verses that quote the OT, but
  their obvious motive is to replace Lord with Jehovah, whom they define as the
  Father, in certain phrases so the reader won't think Lord could mean Jesus in
  them.
  http://gtw6437.tripod.com/id22.html

  In the page of translation differences at my GTJ Brooklyn site, I give the
  links to sites that argue the JWs leaders' preferred translations against the
  common ones. They just add possibilities to a case shown stronger for the common
  case in other ways, so it doesn't make much difference at the end of the day.

  It's like the JWs leaders' dodgy policies on the medical use of blood--where
  normal evidence doesn't support the idea, followers are supposed to adhere to the
  policy as provided by the chosen spokespeople of a literal 144,000. This chosen
  status is defined by the distinctive policies or relatively distinctive policies
  taught distinctively.

  
  
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  james_woods

  Trobisch argues that the evidence suggests the original NT contained the divine name, there is no need for doubt about what he thinks.

  What I said was that I doubted if he would have just put the divine name all over the NT the way the Watchtower Translators did - without evidence.