Temple and New world translation of holy scriptures?

Ilvgrammta at aol.com Ilvgrammta at aol.com
Tue Jan 4 15:37:11 EST 2000


In a message dated 00-01-04 12:45:10 EST, scmiller at www.plantnet.com writes:

<< 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.>>

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? The 
answer: IMHO Jesus probably used the Palestinian version of the LXX. I cannot 
say for sure, but there is certainly scholarly evidence that supports such a 
notion. 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. George Howard has also done work on this issue, and can 
delineate the problems and issues better than I can. I just wanted to show 
why I do not think including YHWH in the NT is an example of speculative 
historic reconstruction.

Sincerely,

Edgar Foster




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