[B-Greek] QEOS and KURIOS : a strange choice of words?
furuli at online.no
furuli at online.no
Sat Sep 13 11:39:13 EDT 2003
Dear Ted,
I looked at the quote from Youtie to which Alex H. refers. It is
correct that the meaning of the word QEOS had a different meaning for
Jews and Christians than for the nations, as Youtie writes. However,
his words about KURIOS contain an important error. There is no
evidence that LXX translators substituted YHWH with KURIOS, as
Yourie suggests. In all fragments of the LXX (or, LXX-like texts)
from the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.E.and from the 1st century C.E. we
find either YHWH in Paleo-Hebrew or square Hebrew script, or as the
Greek phonetic transcription IAW. Not before the 2nd century C.E.do
we find something else in the LXX-manuscripts, namely, the nomina
sacra TS (for QEOS) and KS (for KURIOS). These abbreviations can
hardly be original, so at some in time the LXX renderings of the
tetragrammaton were removed from the manuscripts and substituted with
KURIOS or KS. There is evidence that something similar occurred with
old Syriac translation of the Hebrew text. As to the NT, we find
exactly the same nomina sacra, KS and QS, in the oldest NT
manuscripts from the second century C.E. as in the LXX manuscripts.
These abbreviations in the NT can neither be original, so a change of
this part of the NT text must have occurred in the late 1st century
or early 2nd century C.E. Thus we cannot with certainty know what was
written in the original NT manuscripts where later manuscripts has KS.
Three lines of argument have been presented in favor of the view that
KURIOS occurred as a substitute for YHWH in the NT autographs: 1) No
NT manuscript has YHWH, 2) The LXX has KURIOS as a substitute for
YHWH, and 3) the Jews had long before Christ abandoned the use of
YHWH and used 'ADOMAY instead.
Line 1) is strong but not compelling, in view of the fact that there
are some time between the oldest NT manuscripts and their writing,
and because we know that some change in connection with the divine
epithets occurred between the oldest NT manuscripts we have and their
writing.
Line 2) is wrong,The original LXX did not substitute YHWH with another word.
Line 3) is very problematic for those who are using it. Whereas we
find the view in lexicons and text-books that the Jews had ceased to
use and pronounce YHWH in pre-Christian times and substituted it with
'ADONAY, the evidence for this is meager indeed. The Qumran people
evidently did not use or pronounce YHWH, but many of their
manuscripts were imported from other places, and YHWH is found in
many such manuscripts. There is evidence that some groups used the
name in pre-Christian times and others did not use it. It seems that
the name was no longer used by the Jews after 70 C.E. when Jerusalem
was destroyed. But we cannot say with certainty that YHWH was not
used by some individuals or groups as late as the days of Jesus. The
substitution of YHWH with KURIOS in the NT presumes a Hebrew
antecedent for KURIOS, and this can hardly be anything but 'ADONY.
The problem is, however, that the Qumran people did not substitute
YHWH with 'ADONAY, but they substituted it with 'EL (god). There is
even evidence in the DSS that the writers did *not* pronounce 'ADONAY
when YHWH was found in the text. As a matter of fact, it is extremely
difficult to demonstrate that any group of Jews in pre-Christian
times had substituted YHWH with 'ADONAY. The substitute we have is
'EL, and if the writers of the NT wanted to use a substitute for
YHWH we would expect that they uses QEOS (which is the normal
translation of 'EL) and not KURIOS.
In view of all the evidence which goes contrary to popular opinion,
it can be profitable to review the hypothesis of George Howard that
the tetragrammton originally was found in the NT and that KURIOS is a
later substitution. (See "The Tetragrammaton in the New Testament" in
"The Anchor Bible Dictionary".
Best regards
Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
>Hello,
>
>This is a post which could easily veer
>off-topic. I will try to be careful.
>
>If I am correct, the most common names in the
>Greek NT for the OT Deity are QEOS and KURIOS.
>For the most part, the NT neither translates
>nor transliterates the Hebrew names of Deity.
>That is, instead of calling the Deity
>Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, El Shaddai, etc., or
>"I am that I am", "Almighty God", etc., the
>words QEOS and KURIOS are used. (Certainly,
>some of the reasons for this go back to the
>LXX, with which I am unfamiliar.)
>
>I find this strange. The word QEOS seems
>generic -- and this for a God who demands
>exclusivity. The Greeks had used QEOS for
>centuries without referring to Yahweh. And
>KURIOS doesn't even require the concept of
>Deity: it's also used where our own English
>would use "boss" or "mister".
>
>Would anyone care to speculate about the
>reasons for these choices of terms?
>
>This topic could easily slide away from a
>linguistic discussion. If anyone wants to
>comment in a theological or devotional vein, I
>will be happy to read your thoughts. But
>please send them to me by direct email, and
>keep this list on-topic.
>
>Thank you very much,
>
>Ted Shoemaker
>shoemakerted at yahoo.com
>
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