From: GregStffrd@aol.com
Date: Sat Sep 16 2000 - 11:24:41 EDT
In a message dated 09/15/2000 8:35:58 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
jan.groenveld@uq.net.au writes:
<< The WTS wishes to give the impression that the LXX used by the Christian
Church regularly contained the Tetragram. However, the LXX copies come from
Jewish sources, apart from two LXX copies that come from a source of doubtful
origin, possibly Jewish, or of a Jewish form of Christianity. >>>
What copies would the NT authors have used, if not the Jewish copies
ciruclating during their time? Unless you are going to suggest that they
created their own versoins from which to quote, departing from the copies
then in circulation and/or the Hebrew text, wihch did not use the divine
name, then the evidence points to their use of it in their quotations. By the
way, we are not discussing the Watchtowere, here. This is not a forum for
such discussions.
<<< Extant versions of the Septuagint coming to us from Jewish sources
contain the
Tetragrammaton in ancient script whereas only two Septuagint copies that
contain
the Tetragrammaton may have possibly been of a Christian source.[4] But these
"Christian" sources were of:
"a Jewish form of Christianity (that) persisted in Oxyrhynchus, and a
possible explanation of these two eccentric texts would be that they
were the work of Jewish-Christian scribes." [5]
The Codex P. Oxy. vii, 1007, referred to in the Foreword of the Kingdom
Interlinear on page 15, provides no evidence to support the WTS, since it
cannot
definitely be established that it is from a Christian source. Paul Kahle, in
his
work CAIRO GENIZA, page 247, reckons it to be Jewish, although C.R. Roberts
is a
little more conciliatory, saying that it has "a claim to be regarded either
as
Christian or Jewish". Its origin must be considered, according Roberts, to be
"puzzling". [6]
Other material mentioned in the Foreword is most definitely of Jewish and
not of
Christian origin. These include:
- P. Fouad Inv. 266 (KIT Foreword, pages 12-14, Roberts, p. 75)
- P.Oxy. iv. 656 (KIT Foreword, page 15, footnote "C". Roberts, p. 76-77
states: "The text has a number of unique readings which may point to a
revision
of the LXX".)
The WTS omits to mention "another text in the same category...P.Oxy.ix.
1166".
In this papyrus roll of Genesis "KURIOS and THEOS are abbreviated in the
usual
way It is more likely to be Christian than Jewish". [7]
From this evidence it is apparent that the Christian material exhibited
abbreviated forms of the Sacred Names, with the Tetragram being replaced by
abbreviated forms of KURIOS and THEOS, and that some Jewish renderings of the
LXX retained the Tetra gram.
Evidence of support for the WTS's case they are most definitely not. The NT
is a
product of Christian thought and practice. >>>
Again, I clearly stated that later (post-first century CE mss.) do not use
the divine name. You have not contradicted that theory, at all. To suggest
that the NT writers, all of whom were Jewish, would not have used Jewish
copies (!) of the LXX then in circulation, is something you have to
demonstrate by using the evidence.
<<<< The conclusion that must be arrived at with our state of knowledge is
that:
"We now know that the Greek Bible (or the LXX, the OT) text, as far as it was
translated by JEWS FOR JEWS did not translate the Divine name KYRIOS, but the
Tetragrammaton written with Hebrew or Greek letters was retained. ... It was
the
Christians who replaced the Tetragrammaton by KYRIOS, when the divine name
written in Hebrew letters was not understood any more". [8]
It is the action of the CHRISTIANS that is of vital significance, not the
actions of the Jews, for it was the Christians who wrote and produced the
writings now called the New Testament. >>>
No, we are concerned with what the Jewish Christians of the first century
did, and there is no evidence at all to suggest that they would not have used
the divine name in their OT quotations, departing from what is, according to
the evidence, a standard Jewish practice for using the divine name. How would
that have helped their evangelism? Where is the Jewish reaction or any early
(first century) discussion of this radical departure, for surely it would
have been controversial in light of the Jews' view and use of the divine
name, and, again, the NT writers WERE Jewish.
<<<< The evidence is that the Christians replaced the Tetragram in the LXX
(the
OT) with surrogates, and that in the writings they produced (the NT) the
Christians did not follow the Hebrew practice regarding the writing of Sacred
Names, but they developed their own forms in their very earliest years with a
technique now termed NOMINA SACRA.
>>
Yes, *later* Christians did do that, but there is no evidence at all to
suggest that this was done in the original NT docs, which, again, would have
involved a failure to convey the text of God's Word as provided in the Hebrew
and in the LXX, where the divine name was used. I see no basis for thinking
that this was done. Rather, the evidence points to a post-first century
removal of the divine name from the LXX, and so it is legitimate to ask, did
the same thing happen to the NT where it quotes the OT's use of the divine
name?
I appreciate your attempt, but you have done nothing to answer that question.
Greg
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