Fascinating. No time now to absorb all this, but I'll do so later.
Currently up to my eyes in Sellotape and paper!
OK, spill the beans, which one of us wrote into Biblical Archaeology Review this month about the pronunciation of YHWH?
by dropoffyourkeylee 21 Replies latest jw friends
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MrFreeze
I remember a CO telling us during the pioneer school that it wasn't a big deal that the NWT writing committee put Jehovah in instead of just God. I didn't even think about that until just now.
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snare&racket
Knowledge that leads to everlasting life..... but isnt that accurate
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Phizzy
Unashamed bump for this, I think Lurking JW's need to address this aspect.
Their beloved "Jehovah" is not what they have been told.
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dropoffyourkeylee
For the benefit of many of the viewers of JWN who may not be aware of the issues, here are a few of my comments. I'm sure this has been discussed here before, but for a scholar to address the issue in a recent issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review it is time to bring it up again.
The name represented by the tetragrammaton YHWH is, as JWs are fond of pointing out, found in the Old Testament (OT) over 7000 times, and the New World Translation (NWT) places the divine name, spelled 'Jehovah', in each of those 7000+ places. However in the New Testament (NT), the original language Greek contains the divine name ..... how many times? --ZERO-- that's right the name YHWH, Yahweh, Jehovah has NEVER been found in any Greek NT manuscript. Yet you will find the name Jehovah in the NWT Greek Scriptures over 240 times, where the WT translator has taken it upon himself to guess where he could put it. The insertion of 'Jehovah' in the NWT Greek Scriptures is one of the most blatently dishonest things the WT has ever done.
The WT argument has been that Jesus used the divine name in everyday speech. This is their belief, but no reputable scholar has ever supported them in this. The WT had the nerve to quote George Howard of the University of Georgia (now deceased) to support their decision, in the appendix to the study edition of the NWT. Mr Howard later went on camera and lambasted the WT for quoting him out of context. He was pissed.
The point of the original post is that a recent scholar, Mr. Tigay, also does not support the WT view, and although he leaves it open for more discussion, he believes that the divine name was not uttered by first century Jews such as Jesus.
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jgnat
Charilko, here's a simple test you can do yourself, that works for the New Testament. Go to a Greek Interlinear bible to a bible text where the NWT has transposed "Jehovah". See what the Greek says.
For example,
Romans 14:11 "For it is written: "'As I live,' says Jehovah, 'to me every knee shall bend down, and every tongue will make open acknowledgment to God.'""(NWT)
kurios, translated Master, or Lord
More:
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Leolaia
The evidence is quite clear that Adonai was a frequent reading substitute for the Tetragrammaton by the first century BC. We find it replacing YHWH in quotations from the OT in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and as a favored divine epithet in some of the hymns. Most telling is the Great Isaiah Scroll in the Dead Sea Scrolls, where the scribe sometimes accidentally writes Adonai instead of YHWH and sometimes vice versa. Clearly the scribe mentally pronounced YHWH as "Adonai". This reflects the ketib-qere principle where one thing is written but it is read a different way.
Adonai wasn't the first substitution. Earlier on, Elohim was a common substitute for YHWH, as one can see in the Elohistic Psalter (Psalm 42-83), where Elohim replaces YHWH in the same passages elsewhere in the Psalter. This Elohistic redaction possibly dates to around the same time when Ecclesiastes was written (fourth or third century BC), where Elohim is the preferred DN.
We can also see that Paul in reading the OT pronounced YHWH as kurios "Lord" (cf. Romans 10:9-13 citing Joel 2:32, 14:6-11 citing Isaiah 45:23). This brings up a point that is usually ignored in these discussions, which tend to focus too much on the graphemic representation of the Tetragrammaton in the LXX. It isn't simply a matter of YHWH appearing in the LXX, and therefore it was "used", but rather how those characters were pronounced (remember, biblical texts were usually read aloud). Regardless of whether YHWH was written in Hebrew characters in Paul's Bible or replaced by kurios, the name was pronounced kurios by Paul. And the tendency to represent the Tetragrammaton in archaic (and often incomprensible) paleo-Hebrew characters in the midst of Greek lettering is a clue that probably it wasn't read letter for letter but rather recognized in toto as the ineffable name and handled however that name was handled by readers.
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dropoffyourkeylee
Leolaia, I agree completely. The WT society maintains that the occasional use of the archaic YHWH (if I could produce the Hebrew letters here I would but it would be: 'pipi' ) in the LXX does NOT mean that the Greek speaking readers would have spoken the name Yahweh. It means that they held the word sacred and were afraid/unable to change it to a Greek equivalent. So the appearance of 'YHWH' in the Greek LXX is evidence AGAINST the WT position. Incredibly they have twisted it around and claim that it supports their view and the typical JW is clueless
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Newly Enlightened
Interesting quick history lesson on where the name Jehovah came from:
http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/is-gods-name-yahweh-or-jehovah
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Bobcat
Dropoff:
Interesting thread. I wonder if Jesus' use of the 'divine passive' in many places (compare Luke 6:38 e. g.), as well as sayings that effectively euphamized God, such as "kingdom of the heavens" versus "kingdom of God" etc, if these also fit into this discussion?
Take Care