New Testament Jehovah Quotes

GregStffrd at aol.com GregStffrd at aol.com
Sat Sep 16 11:24:41 EDT 2000


In a message dated 09/15/2000 8:35:58 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
jan.groenveld at 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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