Temple and New world translation of holy scriptures?

Steven Craig Miller scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Tue Jan 4 12:47:16 EST 2000


To: Solomon Landers,

<< But the "authenticity" question is a tricky one. For example, is a 
translation that renders "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" at a passage like Matthew 
4:4, where Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3 which contains the 
tetragrammaton, less "authentic" than one that translates KURIOS/ "The 
Lord," here? Even some Greek copies of the LXX have been found with the 
tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew letters, if it could be assumed that Jesus 
were quoting the LXX version of Deuteronomy in his reply to Satan. So, 
which rendition is more "authentic"? That does not appear to be an easy 
question to answer, and that is just one of many such. >>

IMO the issue is not as complex as you seem to want to make it. The GOAL of 
any translation is to translate a text from one language to another. What 
you suggest in the above quotation has nothing to do with translation as 
such, but rather is an issue of imaginative historical reconstruction. It 
is most likely true that Jesus' "mother tongue" was Aramaic and not Greek. 
And so if we are to suppose that Jesus had a conversation, it is more 
likely it took place in Aramaic rather than Greek. But one could suppose, 
as many mainstream scholars do, that the story about Jesus being tempted by 
Satan is nothing more than a fiction created by some of Jesus' early 
followers. But in my opinion, issues of historical reconstruction should be 
kept separate from issues of translation.

The notion that "some Greek copies of the LXX have been found with the 
tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew letters" is simply not relevant for any 
translation of Matthew's Greek text.

It would be one thing to put in a footnote for Mt 4:4 a translation of the 
Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 8:3 which uses the term "Yahweh" (as the NJB 
translates the Hebrew). But to place the term "Yahweh" into Matthew's text 
at Mt 4:4 appears unconscionable. One is NO LONGER translating, rather one 
is doing very speculative historical reconstruction. Even if we knew for a 
fact that Jesus spoke Aramaic or Hebrew and not Greek (which we don't), we 
don't even know for a fact that Jesus would have spoken the word "Yahweh" 
(or anything similar; as opposed to using "Adonai" or something similar). 
Introducing "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" into a translation of the Greek text of 
the NT seems to me to be a gross violation of any reasonable norms of 
translation.

-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Disclaimer: "I'm just a simple house-husband (with no post-grad degree), 
what do I know?"




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