Tetragrammaton in the New Testament

The Tetragrammaton (Greek: τετραγραμματον, "four letters") is the quadriliteral, typically unvocalized, Hebrew theonym יהוה identifying the God of Israel throughout the Hebrew Bible, composed of the Hebrew letters yodh he waw he, written Right-to-left in Hebrew, and transliterated YHWH or YHVH in English. It occurs 6,828 times in the Hebrew Masoretic Text critical editions of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.

The Tetragrammaton does not occur in any extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Extant Greek New Testament manuscripts contain the Greek word Kyrios (Lord) in Old Testament quotes where the Hebrew has the Tetragrammaton.

Greek Old Testament

The early copies of the Septuagint and other greek translations used the Tetragrammaton (e.g. Papyrus Fouad 266b, POxy 3522, 8HevXII gr, POxy 5101, P.Vindob.G.39777) or different forms (LXXP.Oxy.VII.1007, 4Q120), with the exception of the oldest manuscript (Papyrus Rylands 458), which has been used in discussions about the Tetragrammaton, although there are actually blank spaces in the places where some scholars such as C. H. Roberts believe that it contained letters.[1] According to Paul E. Kahle, the Tetragrammaton must have been written in the manuscript where these spaces appear.[2] In the first half of the second century CE, the formerly Christian Jewish proselyte Aquila of Sinope made a new translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, in which he represented God's name by the Tetragrammaton in ancient Hebrew characters ( as found in mss. AqBurkitt and AqTaylor).[3] In some earlier Greek copies of the Bible translated in the 2nd century CE by Theodotion and Symmachus the Ebionite, the Tetragrammaton also appears. Origen's Hexapla provides—among other translations—the text of the Septuagint and translations of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion; an example of this text is the mss. Ambrosiano O 39 sup. and the Taylor-Schechter 12.182. However, the vast majority of surviving copies have Kyrios, as do other Hellenistic Jewish texts such as those of Josephus and Philo, and the Greek Old Testament pseudepigrapha, Apocrypha, and the Jewish inscriptions. The tetragrammaton appears in biblical manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in Jewish magical papyri, where the name was used for magical purposes.

New Testament manuscripts

None of the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament contain the Tetragrammaton.[4]:77 The Tetragrammaton is one of the seven names of God that Jews teach can never be erased. A passage recorded in the Hebrew Tosefta, Shabbat 13:5, quoting Tarfon is sometimes cited to suggest that early Christian writings or copies contained the Tetragrammaton.[5]

Shabbat 13:5
— A. The books of the Evangelists and the books of the minim they do not save from a fire [on the Sabbath]. They are allowed to burn up where they are, they and [even] the references to the Divine Name that are in them.[6]

Laurence Schiffman[7] views this as a discussion of whether to rescue section of the sifre minim (Hebrew language texts of Jewish-Christians) containing the tetragrammata from a house fire. Another interpretation suggests this is a reference to Old Testament Torah and not the Gospels.[8]

Even so, early Christian proselytes may have retained the ineffability of the Divine Name and applied it to the Logos as the material revelation of YHWH to mankind. However, it is also possible the written rendering of the name "Jesus" would have carried the same prominence and authority to first century Jewish Christians as the Divine Name (YHWH) would have carried in ancient Judaism.[9]

Other views

Although none of the extant Greek New Testament manuscripts contain the Tetragrammaton, scholar George Howard has suggested that the Tetragrammaton appeared in the original New Testament autographs,[10] and that "the removal of the Tetragrammaton from the New Testament and its replacement with the surrogates κυριος and θεος blurred the original distinction between the Lord God and the Lord Christ."[10] In the Anchor Bible Dictionary, Howard states: "There is some evidence that the Tetragrammaton, the Divine Name, Yahweh, appeared in some or all of the OT quotations in the NT when the NT documents were first penned."[10]:392

Along with Howard, David Trobisch and Rolf Furuli both have suggested that the Tetragrammaton may have been removed from the Greek MSS.[11]:66-67[12]:179-191 In the book Archaeology and the New Testament, John McRay wrote of the possibility that the New Testament autographs may have retained the divine name in quotations from the Old Testament.[13] Robert Baker Girdlestone stated in 1871 that if the LXX had used "one Greek word for Jehovah and another for Adonai, such usage would doubtless have been retained in the discourses and arguments of the N.T. Thus our Lord in quoting the 110th Psalm,...might have said 'Jehovah said unto Adoni.'"[14] Since Girdlestone's time it has been shown that the LXX contained the Tetragrammaton, but that it was removed in later editions.[15]

Though Albert Pietersma, along with most scholars, does not accept Howard's theory, Pietersma has stated concerning the Septuagint: "It might possibly still be debated whether perhaps the Palestinian copies with which the NT authors were familiar read some form of the tetragram."[16]

Tatian's Diatessaron shows some variance in applying Kyrios to YHWH, but this may be because of dependence on the Peshitta.[17] The consistency in rendering of YHWH as Kyrios in all New Testament references would be difficult to explain if there were not already either an established tradition to read Kyrios where YHWH appears in a Greek manuscript, or an established body of texts with Kyrios already in the Greek.[18]

English versions of the New Testament

Most English Bibles, even those such as the Jerusalem Bible which has Yahweh in the Old Testament, do not use Yahweh in the New Testament. This is because the Greek New Testament manuscripts are quoting the Septuagint, where the Hebrew word YHWH is replaced by kyrios. Therefore, the New Testament uses Greek kyrios for YHWH even, for example, when Christ reads the Isaiah scroll at the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:17–19 reading Isaiah 61:1).[19]

However, a few English translations of the Bible do use "Jehovah" in the New Testament. For example, William Newcome, in what is sometimes known as "Archbishop Newcome's new translation", has the name "Jehovah" a few times where the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament, such as Matthew 22:24.[20] The first complete Bible printed in America[21] by John Eliot, although not in English, frequently uses "Jehovah" in the New Testament.[22]

The New World Translation

The rendering Jehovah appears 7,210 times—including 237 times in the New Testament—in the New World Translation (NWT) published by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and used by Jehovah's Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses say that the authors of the New Testament writings retained the Tetragrammaton in their quotations of the Old Testament without substituting it with Kurios ("Lord").[23]

Sacred Name Movement

Main article: Sacred Name Bibles

In 1993, the Institute for Scripture Research (ISR) published The Scriptures,[24] the first English translation to incorporate the Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton instead of a generic title (e.g., the LORD) or a conjectural translation (e.g., Yahweh or Jehovah). The Besorah,[25] and ISR's The Scriptures '98,[26] also incorporate the Tetragrammaton, using Paleo-Hebrew script rather than standard Hebrew script. More recently, the Restored Name King James Version (RNKJV),[27][28] an anonymous, internet-based Sacred Name translation adapted from the King James Version (KJV), transliterates the Tetragrammaton as YHWH wherever it appears in the Old Testament.

Hebrew versions of the New Testament

Over the centuries, various translators have inserted the Tetragrammaton into Hebrew versions of the New Testament. One of the earliest Rabbinical translations of Matthew is mixed in with the 1385 critical commentary of Shem-Tob. He includes the Tetragrammaton written out or abbreviated 19 times, while occasionally including the appellative HaShem (השם, meaning "The Name").[29]

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Septuagint and Modern Study, Sidney Jellicoe, 1968, pp. 271–2.
  2. ↑ Paul E. Kahle, The Cairo Geniza (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1959) p. 222.
  3. ↑ Aquila - Jewish Encyclopedia
  4. ↑ George Howard The Tetragram and the New Testament Journal of Biblical Literature Vol. 96, No. 1 (Mar., 1977), pp. 63-83
  5. ↑ Shabbat 13:5 reads: "The Gilyon[im] (i.e., gospel books) and the books of the minim (i.e., Jewish heretics) are not saved [on the Sabbath] from fire; but one lets them burn together with the names of God written upon them." The Jewish Encyclopedia (1910) defines the word Gilyonim in the Talmud as referring to the Gospels in the time of Tarfon.see Ludwig Blau, 1910 JewishEncyclopedia.com - GILYONIM
  6. ↑ Jacob Neusner Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine 2008 p99 ; Also in Neusner Persia and Rome in classical Judaism 2008 p14
  7. ↑ Jeremy Cohen Essential papers on Judaism and Christianity in conflict
  8. ↑ Daniel Boyarin: Border Lines—The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity, pg. 57
  9. ↑ Daniel Boyarin: Border Lines—The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity, pg. 57
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2
    • First published in The Tetragram and the New Testament Journal of Biblical Literature Vol. 96, No. 1 (Mar., 1977), pp. 63-83
    • Expanded in "The Name of God in the New Testament" Biblical Archeology Review Vol. 4 No. 1 March 1978.
    • Included as "Tetragrammaton in the New Testament" in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Volume 6, Edited by David Noel Freedman Anchor Bible: New York. 1992 ISBN 978-0385261906
    Journal of Biblical Literature Howard, George, Biblical Archaeology Review, March 1978
  11. ↑ David Trobisch, The First Edition of the New Testament (Oxford University Press: 2000) ISBN 9780195112405
  12. ↑ Rolf Furuli The Role of Theology and Bias in Bible Translation: With a Special Look at the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses Elihu Books, 1999 ISBN 9780965981446
  13. ↑ McCray, John, Archaeology and the New Testament Baker Academic (1 February 2008) ISBN 978-0801036088
  14. ↑ Synonyms of the Old Testament p.43
  15. ↑ The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (1984, Volume 2, page 512) says: "Recent textual discoveries cast doubt on the idea that the compilers of the LXX [Septuagint] translated the tetragrammaton YHWH by kyrios. The oldest LXX MSS (fragments) now available to us have the tetragrammaton written in Heb[rew] characters in the G[ree]k text. This custom was retained by later Jewish translators of the O[ld] T[estament] in the first centuries A.D."
  16. ↑ Al. Pietersma, "Kyrios or Tetragram: A Renewed Quest for the Original LXX", De Septuaginta. Studies in Honour of John William Wevers on this Sixty-fifth Birthday, Benben Publications, 1984, p. 87.
  17. ↑ Robert F. Shedinger Tatian and the Jewish scriptures: a textual and philological p137
  18. ↑ David B. Capes Old Testament Yahweh texts in Paul's christology, Volume 47 p41
  19. ↑ Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament,1997 p. 32 "records the episode of Christ's reading from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue of Nazareth, he quotes Is 61:1–2."
  20. ↑ An attempt toward revising our English translation of the Greek Scriptures
  21. ↑ Library of Congress
  22. ↑ Luke 1
  23. ↑ New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. pp. 1564–1566.
  24. ↑ The Scriptures, First Edition (1993) ISBN 0-620-17989-9
  25. ↑ The Besorah of Yahushua
  26. ↑ http://www.isr-messianic.org/
  27. ↑ http://www.eliyah.com/Scripture
  28. ↑ http://yahushua.net/scriptures
  29. ↑ "Questions From Readers". The Watchtower: 30. 15 August 1997.

External links