can anyone tell me the reason why jw.org has never mentioned this book: the obedience of a christian man, by william tyndale?
i mean, they talk and write articles about his translation of the bible, about him being against the pope, etc.
so, why didn't i ever read or hear about this interesting book?.
The Watchtower of 15 November 1995 has an article William Tyndale - a Man of Vision in which it refers to The Obedience of a Christian Man :
Between 1526 and 1528, Tyndale moved to Antwerp, where he could feel safe among the English merchants. There he wrote The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, The Obedience of a Christian Man, and The Practice of Prelates. Tyndale continued his translating work and was the first to use God’s name, Jehovah, in an English translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.
let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.
they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.
pizzahut2023 : The Watchtower accepts "MarYah" and/or "MarYa" as being equivalent to "Jehovah".
The word māryā is a transliteration of the Syriac characters into the Latin alphabet. The Syriac of Mark 12:36 is shown below.
The word māryā (meaning "the LORD") ends with an aleph which represents long ā, as I said previously. When you are transliterating it you can add an 'h' on the end but it is not there in the Syriac, so there is no basis for treating it as the word yāh simply because it is used as a substitute for God's name in the OT.
aqwsed12345 : On the one hand, this distinction exists only in Hebrew...
You will note above that it also exists in Syriac.
ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.
let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.
they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.
aqwsed12345 : A similar thing can be observed in Syriac Christianity, where the Lord is marked as "maryah" in the Peshitta. According to linguists, this is a combination of "mar" (master/lord) and "yah", and in the Peshitta NT, Jesus, the Son, is also referred to as "maryah" ("Lord Yah").
The word used in Syriac is māryā not māryāh. It ends with an aleph (a) which represents long ā, while yāh ends with he (h), which is a consonant not a vowel, so there is no linguistic reason why yāh should be a part of māryā. While one of the five primary meanings of mar is "master" or "lord", the yā ending (in māryā) represents the determined form, making it definite (i.e. the lord) and can be compared with the article ha in Hebrew. So it does not mean "Lord Yah" as you suggest, but means "the Lord" and in the Syriac OT it is exclusively used with reference to God in the same way haAdon is used in Hebrew.
The word yāh only occurs one time in the Peshitta, namely in Exodus 15:2. In the Hebrew text, yāh stands alone, but in the Syriac text it is followed by māryā, i.e. yāh māryā (Jah the Lord), which corroborates that yāh is not the last part of māryā.
In the Syriac NT it is used with reference to Jehovah, for example at Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42 and Acts 2:34 which all allude to Psalm 110:1 "The LORD (māryā) said to my lord". There are also instances where māryā is used with reference to Christ where he is referred to as "the Lord", as he often was.
In his article "The Translation of kyrios into Syriac" (Filologia Neotestamentaria, XII, 1999, p. 25–54) A-G Martin comments:
To summarize the use of māryā to render κυριος in the New Testament, it can be said that this word is found in the quotations of the Old Testament, but it can also refer to God in a more general way as the one who leads men and the Church. But Jesus Christ can also be named māryā [the Lord] to emphasize his divinity and the continuity of his action with the God of Israel.
ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.
let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.
they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.
aqwsed : Since, according to the majority of scholars, only Kyrios was in the original version of the Septuagint,...
In the T&T Clark Handbook of Septuagint Research, 2021, Patrick Skehan, Emanuel Tov and Eugene Ulrich all agree that the writing of the divine name as IAW in 4Q120 is more original than Kurios.
In Greek Biblical Texts from the Judean Desert, p.8, Tov writes regarding 4Q120 :
aqwsed12345 : I don't know why you want to go back to the era of Judeo-Christianity and reproduce its theological climate.
Because that is when the New Testament was written and where we must go to establish the most likely original text.
ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.
let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.
they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.
aqwsed : And importantly, the Talmudic text does not refer to "the divine name" but to "names of God" (plural), which does not necessarily refer to the Tetragrammaton.
Earlier you quoted Karl Georg Kuhn as arguing that
Are you seriously suggesting that these did not contain the tetragrammaton, or that "names of God" in these texts do not include THE name of God? Whether or not they pronounced it, we are talking about what was written, but there is evidence that the divine name was used by
Jews in and around the first century as discussed in this thread earlier.
aqwsed : You don't get my argument: the very fact that SO MANY readings of the text have survived, just not [those containing God's name], proves [they didn't exist].
As far as we know, NO readings of the text have survived from the time the church was primarily Jewish. Put aside your fixation of a conspiracy and consider the first audience of the gospels, particularly Matthew, and letters like Hebrews and Jude. Let us just suppose that these writers used a form of God's name when quoting or alluding to the OT. If we look at copies of the LXX from that time, they had the tetragrammaton although they were written in Greek. Other copies had the Greek form of the name, IAW. Let us suppose that the writers quoting or alluding to the OT wrote down what they read. Of course, copies of these are made and circulated. After the destruction of the temple, the nature of the church changes from a predominantly Jewish church to a predominantly Gentile one. Now that the copyists are gentiles, they do not understand what the tetragrammaton is and so do the obvious thing and replace it with a word they know fits the context, usually Lord or God. Maybe this happened, maybe it didn't. But it is not surprising that among the texts copied more than a hundred years later the use of the tetragrammaton had died out. After all, that is exactly what happened with the LXX texts of the OT. And it did not require a conspiracy or a central church authority, it only required the change of the church from Jewish to Gentile.
ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.
let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.
they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.
aqwsed : I think it follows from [textual variation] that there must have been "Jehovah" in all such places. Well, that's a pretty unscientific proposition.
Of course I never made that proposal. I was specifically addressing Jude vs 5 and was proposing 'Jehovah' as a possible cause of the variation in that verse. When addressing variation in a text there are certain common principles that can be observed but each text is different and it does not simply follow that the cause of variation will be the same. One common principle considered is whether the text contains a quotation of the Old Testament which includes God's name, and in these cases greater weight can be given to the probability that the use of God's name in some form by the writer gave rise to variation among the copyists. In the case of Jude vs 5 it alludes to Exodus 12:41 and Numbers 14:35, both of which contain God's name. When the reading ("Jesus") is "difficult to the point of impossibility" (UBS Committee) you have to consider what may have caused the variation. It is unlikely that a copyist would replace "God" or "Lord" with "Jesus" in a verse referring to God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt, which leaves you with the plausible option that the text contained God's name in a form that Greek copyists did not understand.
Regarding the passages in the Tosefta that specify that the gilyohnim and the books of the minim which contain the names of God do not have to be saved from fire, I accept that gilyohnim may not refer to the gospels specifically. You say that the books of the minim refers to the writings of the Jewish heretics (e.g. Sadducees, Nazoraeans, Samaritans etc.), but it is not clear why you exclude those Jewish heretics and their writings whose "heresy" was belief in Christ. At any rate, I am pleased to note that you now accept that the minim (whoever they were) did use the names of God in their books, which certainly included the tetragrammaton as the context shows.
ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.
let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.
they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.
aqwsed12345 : [The Samaritans, Essenes, Gnostics, etc.] were considered heterodox, heretics (minim). Of course, none of these used "Jehovah" in the manner of the Watchtower in the era of Christ, but don't let that bother you.
In the Tractate Sabbath the Tosefta lays down the rules for Jews to observe the sabbath. It makes an exception in certain instances, one of which is where sacred books are at risk of burning.
However, Shabath 13:5 says that in the case of the gospels (gilyohnim) and books of the minim, they "are not saved from fire; but one lets them burn together with the names of God written upon them. Rabbi Jose the Galilean says : On week days the names of God are cut out and hidden while the rest is burned. Rabbi Tarphon says that if they fall into my hands I shall burn them together with the names of God." It is unlikely that "names of God" does not include the most obvious name, the tetragrammaton.
Whoever the minim were, and quite likely they included Christians who had apostasized from Judaism, it does seem that they used the names of God in their writings in the era of Christ.
ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.
let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.
they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.
aqwsed : And there is no difference in the fact that according to [the Watchtower] Jesus led the Jews out of Egypt, so they can have no problem with any of the readings of Jude 5.
Perhaps I was not clear in the point I have been making since you raised the matter of the "new reading" in NA28 of the name "Jesus" in Jude vs 5 here.
It is irrelevant whether or not the Watchtower has a problem with the reading of Jude 5. It is relevant that prior to NA28, the majority of the UBS Committee held that the use of "Jesus" in this verse was "difficult to the point of impossibility" even though it was supported by a number of manuscripts.
In the field of textual criticism, biblical scholars weigh up the textual variation in available manuscripts and try to determine what original text most likely explains the variation that followed. In Jude vs 5 there is a wealth of variation as follows :
ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.
let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.
they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.
aqwsed12345
Thank you for your thoughts about first-century Judaism and nascent Christianity which was far more variable than you suggest, but you fail to address the substance of my posts which have been about the textual variation of Jude vs 5 and how we can account for it. In addition, you have made no comment on how we can account for the unique reading of Jude vs 5 in P72 which occurs nowhere else even though it supports the Athanasian heresy.
ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.
let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.
they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.
Earnest : How much more likely it is that God's name was used in some form and was subsequently replaced by whatever the copyists of various manuscripts could find to fit.
pizzahut2023 : The Tetragrammaton was certainly not in Jude 5. Nor anywhere in the NT.
Earnest : How do you know when the earliest manuscript evidence we have for Jude 5 is in the third/fourth century? And when the tetragrammaton or other forms of God's name occurs in all copies of the LXX prior to 200.
aqwsed12345 : Have you ever heard of the term "burden of proof"?
There would be a burden of proof if I had maintained that the textual variation of Jude vs 5 (regarding who saved Israel out of Egypt) proved that
the original text contained God's name in some form. Instead I said it was more likely God's name was used as this explained the subsequent variation in manuscript tradition. On the other hand, pizzahut2023 was quite certain about what was not there in the original which we simply don't know.
pizzahut2023 : If we go by the EARLIEST manuscript evidence, then it's WORSE for your position because P72 says "God Christ"!!
P72, also known as Papyrus Bodmer VII, contains vss 1-25 and is the earliest witness we have for Jude. It was written in Egypt and dated to the late 3rd or early 4th century, a time when controversy about the identity of Christ was rife. James Royse, in his book on Scribal Habits in early Greek New Testament papyri, says (p.475) that "the significant percentage of nonsense readings in P72 and the very large percentage of singulars resulting from non-standard spelling show that the scribe of P72 was extraordinarily careless", and that the scribe "can also be seen to have increased the rate of production of nonsense as he went further with his copying".
What were the theological tendencies of this scribe? Marchant King, in his Notes on the Bodmer manuscript (Bibliotheca sacra 121, 1964, p.57), commented on three unique readings in P72 "giving evidence of the fullest acceptance of the deity of Christ by the scribe (or one of his predecessors) and the church in his area". These unique readings are 1 Peter 5:1 where it reads "the sufferings of God" (instead of Christ), 2 Peter 1:2 where it omits the word "and" after "God" so that it reads "in the knowledge of God our Lord Jesus", and Jude vs 5 where it reads "God Christ" as shown below.
This reading is unknown in any other manuscripts. It shows two things. First, that scribes had no qualms about correcting manuscripts to what they thought was meant, especially if there was some confusion in what was originally written (like, for example, a Hebrew word appearing in a Greek text). Secondly, it shows that there are texts we only know of by the chance survival of one papyrus in the Egyptian climate, so the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
