Regarding Phil 2 Jesus, name or title?
Jesus Christ, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the J-Documents (split 2 for 1)
by [email protected] 51 Replies latest watchtower bible
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peacefulpete
Peter took up his quill and copied this line word for word from the LXX as it appears above
1 Peter is a psuedonymous work showing dependence upon Pauline material,including the patchwork and interpolated book named "Romans".
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Narkissos
Beside the repeatedly noted absence of any material evidence (no NT manuscript bearing any form of the Tetragrammaton), I think Howard's reasoning and a fortiori its use by the NWT are utterly shattered by the most elementary rhetorical analysis, at least in the Pauline epistles. It would remain a possibility (though not likely at all) in other, OT-like, NT texts (such as, say, Luke 1--2), but certainly not in Paul where the very word kurios is a central theological keyword. IOW, without kurios (and its use in OT allusions and quotations) the text simply could not have been written as it is.
Let's take Romans 10 and 14 (NWT) as examples:
9For if you publicly declare that ?word in your own mouth,? that Jesus is Lord (kurios), and exercise faith in your heart that God raised him up from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For (gar) with the heart one exercises faith for righteousness, but with the mouth one makes public declaration for salvation.
11 For (gar) the Scripture says: "None that rests his faith on him will be disappointed." 12 For (gar) there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for (gar) there is the same Lord (kurios) over all, who is rich to all those calling upon him. 13 For (gar) "everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah (kuriou) will be saved." 14 However, how will they call on him in whom they have not put faith? How, in turn, will they put faith in him of whom they have not heard? How, in turn, will they hear without someone to preach? 15 How, in turn, will they preach unless they have been sent forth? Just as it is written: "How comely are the feet of those who declare good news of good things!"
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Nevertheless, they did not all obey the good news. For (gar) Isaiah says: "Jehovah (kurios), who put faith in the thing heard from us (lit. of us) ?" 17 So (ara) faith follows the thing heard. In turn (de) the thing heard is through the word about Christ (Khristou, litt. of Christ).5One [man] judges one day as above another; another [man] judges one day as all others; let each [man] be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who observes the day observes it to Jehovah (tô kuriô). Also, he who eats, eats to Jehovah (tô kuriô), for he gives thanks to God; and he who does not eat does not eat to Jehovah (tô kuriô), and yet gives thanks to God. 7 None of us, in fact, lives with regard to himself only, and no one dies with regard to himself only; 8 for both if we live, we live to Jehovah (tô kuriô), and if we die, we die to Jehovah (tô kuriô). Therefore (oun) both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah (tou kuriou). 9 For (gar) to this end Christ died and came to life again, that he might be Lord (kurieusè) over both the dead and the living.
10 But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you also look down on your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God; 11 for it is written: "?As I live,? says Jehovah (kurios), ?to me every knee will bend down, and every tongue will make open acknowledgment to God.?" 12 So, then, each of us will render an account for himself to God.
An even moderately careful reading of the argument, trying to understand how it works, shows that the OT quotations as used by the author (probably from memory or some testimonia rather than a full OT ms) necesarily used kurios as a substitute for the original (OT) Tetragrammaton. With the Tetragrammaton itself the argument (for what it is worth) wouldn't work at all.
Edited again to add: sorry after several attempts I cannot put Romans 14:5-9 out of exponent mode. This passage is particularly interesting in that its conclusion uses not the noun kurios but the verb kurieuô ("to be lord over", not "to jehove"!) in a pun which would be completely meaningless without the previous occurrences of kurios...
More generally, any reader (I think) can see that every occurrence of "Jehovah" in those texts is totally out of place.
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Earnest
NWTetc : When I first read it in Furuli's book I couldn't help but think how stupid [the illustration of an ancient aqueduct of which only part is still standing] was. The world is so full of unfinished major building projects. Some of the pyramids were never finished. Do a little research and you will discover that some of the Roman aqueducts were never finished.
For the purpose of the illustration it doesn't matter if some were unfinished. Are you suggesting the majority of aqueducts were unfinished by the Romans ? Or that the majority of freeways in the United States run off to the middle of nowhere and end there ? Hmm. Maybe that's why Furuli didn't use American freeways as an example. So if the majority of LXX copies prior to the 2nd century C.E. contained the divine name it is a logical conclusion that Christian literature written in that period, quoting from the LXX, would also contain God's name. Maybe none of the original writers of the NT did use God's name. But that would be the equivalent of none of the Roman aqueducts being finished.
NWTetc : I know of a few scraps of fragments of LXX written long before the NT writings; I know of not written "in the same period."
The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXIIgr) contains the tetragram a number of times and is dated between 50 B.C.E. and 50 C.E.
NWTetc : Interestingly, in the few scraps of fragments of the LXX that you mentioned, the tetragram is written in ancient Hebrew letters inserted in the Greek text...Shouldn't a modern translator put in the tetragram...at those places where the name appears in the OT?
You have already observed in my post above (09-Jul-04 03:40 GMT) a scan of 4QLXXLev\b with the divine name written in Greek characters, so this use of ancient Hebrew letters was not universal. And why should it be ? There is no scriptural injunction to use palaeo-Hebrew characters when writing God's name. As there is no reason to suppose that the early Christians shared the rabbinic superstition of avoiding God's name (if that is why it was written in palaeo-Hebrew), they most likely wrote it as IAW, as can be observed in the scan above.
Your comments on Romans 10:16,17; Romans 14:10,11; 1 Corinthians 2:16 and 1 Peter 3:14,15 are quite irrelevant to the point. These were all examples by George Howard of instances where the textual tradition was undecided whether theos or kyrios is the correct reading. And he shows how the proposed use of God's name in the original Christian writings would explain how this confusion arose in subsequent copies (which confusion is self-evident in the manuscripts). You have explained which reading is correct according to your theology but you have not addressed the cause of the many textual variations between theos and kyrios in the first place. That is what Howard is writing about.
peacefulpete :
I do have the book you recommended, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture - The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament, by Bart Ehrman, and have found it a fascinating and sobering read. It most certainly convinced me that the idea that the divine name was intentionally replaced by kyrios in all copies of the Christian scriptures was not as far-fetched as I first considered it.
It also has an alternative suggestion to Howard's for the textual variation of Romans 14:10. In the chapter on Anti-Adoptionistic Corruptions of Scripture (pp.90,91), it says :
A number of witnesses have changed the text of Romans 14:10 from "the judgement seat of God" to read "the judgement seat of Christ". That the change is not a sheer accident is evident from its occurrence in several scribal corrections. The reading may, of course, simply represent a harmonization to 2 Corinthians 5:10, which also speaks of the judgement seat of Christ. But what gives the change an added significance is its context, for the next verse provides a scriptural warrant for this notion of judgement through an appeal to Isaiah 49:18: "As I live, says the Lord, to me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess to God." The two clauses of the verse stand in parallel relationship, so that the bowing knees correspond to the confessing tongues, and in both cases the object of worship is the same ("to me" / "to God"). In fact, the confession that is made is precisely a confession that this one before whom we appear for judgement is God. By changing verse 9 to "the judgement seat of Christ," scribes have done far more than effect a harmonization to another Pauline epistle, although the availability of the parallel may have suggested the change in the first place. For now the text speaks of Christ to whom every knee will bow in worship, whose deity every tongue will confess. In making this change, scribes have actually gone one step further than Paul's preliterary source of Philippians 2:9-10, which also attributes Isaiah 49:18 to the exalted Christ. Now there is little ambiguity: Christ himself is God.
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peacefulpete
Earnest, Erhmans book, as you know, demonstrates that the presence of textual varients reveals theological motives as well as simple scribal corruption. Obviously the presence of varients in 1 pete 3:15 may have a theological motive. However neither attested form supports the idea of Yahweh in the Peter passage. The author was either deliberatly assigning then OT verse to Christ as he does in other passages or he paraphrased the verse as he recalled it in Isaiah.
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Narkissos
For the purpose of the illustration it doesn't matter if some were unfinished. Are you suggesting the majority of aqueducts were unfinished by the Romans ? Or that the majority of freeways in the United States run off to the middle of nowhere and end there ? Hmm. Maybe that's why Furuli didn't use American freeways as an example. So if the majority of LXX copies prior to the 2nd century C.E. contained the divine name it is a logical conclusion that Christian literature written in that period, quoting from the LXX, would also contain God's name. Maybe none of the original writers of the NT did use God's name. But that would be the equivalent of none of the Roman aqueducts being finished.
This comparison interestingly reveals the unwarranted teleology in your thinking. Aqueducts are not useful at all if not finished, whereas only a Christian can imagine (retrospectively) that the only purpose of translating and copying the LXX was to "prepare" the NT!
Greek-speaking judaism in the 1st century BC and AD was very widespread, and very different according to schools and places. To argue for an influence as you do one would have to show evidence that some early Christians (which ones?) were in contact with THE schools of Jewish scribes which had a practice of using the Tetragrammaton or a Greek transliteration in the Greek text.
(You don't need to bother answering, I'm getting used to being transparent)
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Earnest
This comparison interestingly reveals the unwarranted teleology in your thinking. Aqueducts are not useful at all if not finished, whereas only a Christian can imagine (retrospectively) that the only purpose of translating and copying the LXX was to "prepare" the NT!
And that is exactly the contention held by some of the early Christians. They argued, for example, that the LXX translation of Isaiah 7:14 was so written to point forward to the virgin birth. Their wholesale adoption of the LXX for Christological purposes resulted in the Jews making other Greek translations (e.g. Aquila) which they then used leaving the LXX to the Christians.
Greek-speaking judaism in the 1st century BC and AD was very widespread, and very different according to schools and places. To argue for an influence as you do one would have to show evidence that some early Christians (which ones?) were in contact with THE schools of Jewish scribes which had a practice of using the Tetragrammaton or a Greek transliteration in the Greek text.
Its true that the schools of thought in first century Judaism were widespread and diverse. But that makes it all the more extraordinary that all Greek fragments prior to the second century, that include passages in the OT which have the tetragrammaton, do not replace it with kyrios but with a Hebrew or Greek form of the divine name. I would be pleased to know if there are any texts that are an exception to this rule. I know of none.
I would like to confirm publicly (as I have done privately), how helpful I found your discussion of Romans 10 & 14 above. Your argument that the conclusion of Romans 14:5-9 "uses not the noun kurios but the verb kurieuô ("to be lord over", not "to jehove"!) in a pun which would be completely meaningless without the previous occurrences of kurios..." is very convincing that Paul did use kyrios in these passages.
Earnest
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peacefulpete
This may be relevant, then maybe not. Narkissos has demostrated that the text of Romans 14 follows a logical argument playing off Lord as the key word. I earlier said that 1 Peter shows literary dependence upon Romans making the 3:15 "Christ as Lord" mss IMO the earlier form. Here is a table Ilifted from another site that illustrates the dependence.
1 Peter 2:6
idou tiqhmi en Siwn
liqon akrogwniaion
eklekton entimon
kai o pisteuwn
ep autw ou mh
kataiscunqh
Isaiah 28:16
idou egw embalw
ei ς ta qemelia
Siwn polutelh
eklekton
akrogwniaion
entimon ei ς ta
qemelia auth ς kai
o pisteuwn ep
autw ou mh
kataiscunqh
Romans 9:33
idou tiqhmi en Siwn
liqon proskommatoς
kai petran skandalou,
kai o pisteuwn
ep autw ou
kataiscunqhsetai
The preceding verses include a quote from Ps 34:8 that uses Lord (LXX) speaking of Yahweh, yet the author here clearly is identifying this "lord" with Christ. IOW the Romans pattern of identifying Christ as the OT Lord seems to be here as well.
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Augustin
Dear Earnest,
Have you read Furuli's book? If so, what do you make of his use of 8HevXIIgr as proof against Pietersma. Any real scholar knows that 8HevXIIgr is a kaige version, not an example of the LXX. Thus, Furuli's argument is not compelling. A problem with many of the so-called LXX fragments is that they are fragments of a revised version of the LXX (OG). That being the case, we still have the interesting possibility that, sday, Paul did use a kaige version of the LXX when he wrote. But evidence at hand demonstrates that he could have written Gr. "kurios" even if he saw Hebr. "YHWH" when he made his quotes from the so-called OT. Thus, having "YHWH" or "IAW" in the LXX does not demand "YHWH" or "IAW" in quotes from the OT.
Regards
- Augustin -