From: Steven Craig Miller (scmiller@www.plantnet.com)
Date: Tue Jan 04 2000 - 17:15:31 EST
<x-flowed>To: Edgar Foster,
<< Personally I think you're being a little hard on Solomon here. I fail to
see how putting the Tetragrammaton or the word Yahweh in a text like Mt 4:4
can be classified as a "very speculative historical reconstruction." I
think it is a red herring to try and figure out what language Jesus spoke
in. The important point for me is--which version of Scripture did Jesus use? >>
I would strongly disagree. It is simply not relevant what scriptures Jesus
might have or might not have read. In fact, one need not even assume that
the historical Jesus could even read! The point which you fail to grasp is
that when one translates Matthew's gospel, one is supposed to be
translating what MATTHEW wrote! Whether or not Jesus was a "homosexual
magician" or a "Mediterranean Jewish peasant" or a "charismatic holy man"
or whatever is simply not relevant for any translation of Matthew which is
trying to be faithful to Matthew's text. The only thing important (for a
translation of Matthew's gospel) is Matthew's Greek text!
<< If Jesus did in fact use the LXX, and the early copies of the LXX had
the consonants YHWH in them, it is a travesty if a translation does NOT
include them. >>
In my opinion, you couldn't be more wrong. If one is trying to faithfully
translate Matthew's Greek text, it simply is not relevant what Jesus might
have read or what the LXX might have in its text. Show me one ancient copy
of Matthew's Greek text with YHWH in it, and assuming you want to TRANSLATE
that MSS, then translating with "Yahweh" (or whatever) would be legitimate.
But in so far as one is trying to translate Matthew's Greek text (as we now
know it), there is no justification for it.
<< I just wanted to show why I do not think including YHWH in the NT is an
example of speculative historic reconstruction. >>
Perhaps this is another case of one person's firm belief being another
person's speculation. But I have yet seen one Greek NT with the word YHWH
in its text. And I own dozens of different Greek New Testaments. Not one of
them has the word YHWH in its text, or even its apparatus. Not one! So, how
is this not an example of pure speculation? Furthermore, to my knowledge,
not one Greek MSS of the NT has ever contained the word YHWH in its text.
Can you show otherwise? The notion that the NT once contained YHWH in its
Greek text is obviously nothing more than 100% pure unmitigated
speculation, no matter what George Howard or anyone else might think.
-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller@www.plantnet.com
Disclaimer: "I'm just a simple house-husband (with no post-grad degree),
what do I know?"
--- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu</x-flowed>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:40:53 EDT