From: Wes C. Williams (71414.3647@compuserve.com)
Date: Mon Jan 29 1996 - 14:27:26 EST
Summary: The LXX copies in pre-Christian times retained the divine name.
The evidence is that the substitution of YHWH for Kyrios in LXX copies began
after the first century C.E. (or perhaps late first century).
Ken asked:
>> Now, I've noticed in 1 Sam 1 that the translator often transliterates
>> divine titles, rather than translating them like KURION SABAWQ. I'm
wondering
>> if list members think the LXX in these cases would similarly be
transliterated
>> (and this makes me doubt the Hebrew knowledge of the LXX translator, along
>> with other things he/she did) or whether it is preferable to render words
>> like ELWAI and SABAWQ with a real translation of the Hebrew word?
Carl responded:
> By "the translator" I assume you mean the LXX translator, not the KJV
> translator. Don't we often in the English versions also keep a word like
> SABAOTH or ELWAI? My guess, however (and it is only a guess; I've read a
> fair amount of LXX but not studied it), is that it is the
> by-then-established Jewish reverence for the name of God (such as even
> makes one say "ha Shem" instead of pronouncing "Yahweh") that accounts for
> the transliteration of ELWAI and SABAWQ and the conversion of YHWH to the
> Greek KURIOS which represents the Hebrew word "Adonai" which is
> _pronounced_ when the word YHWH is encountered in the Hebrew text.
Carl is right. The later LXX translators knew where the divine name occurred
and substituted Kyrios. However, this was not true of the earlier LXX
translators since the earlier LXX fragments retain the tetragrammaton (YHWH) in
the midst of the Greek. Here is some research I am happy to share on the
subject. As I understand it, the real question is: "Should we today still abide
by the Jewish "reverence" and substitute the divine name for Kyrios, or
transliterate it in translation?"
--------------------------------------------
The Fouad 266 papyri (Greek) were prepared in the second or the first century
B.C.E. Over 30 times the copyist putin the midst of the Greek writingthe
Tetragrammaton in Hebrew letters.
Dr. Paul E. Kahle of Oxford explained that these fragments contain "perhaps the
most perfect Septuagint text of Deuteronomy that has come down to us." In Studia
Patristica, he added, "We have here in a papyrus scroll a Greek text which
represents the text of the Septuagint in a more reliable form than Codex
Vaticanus and was written more than 400 years before." And it retained God's
personal name, as did the Greek fragments of the Twelve Prophets from the Judean
desert. Both agreed.
In the Journal of Biblical Literature (Vol. 79, pp. 111-118), Dr. Kahle surveyed
the accumulating evidence regarding the use of the divine name among the Jews
and concluded:
"All Greek translations of the Bible made by Jews for Jews in pre-Christian
times must have used, as the name of God, the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew
characters and not [Kyrios], or abbreviations of it, such as we find in the
Christian" copies of the Septuagint.
George Howard, associate professor of religion at the University of Georgia,
reported in the Journal of Biblical Literature. (Vol. 96, No. 1, 1977, pp.
63-83) His article begins:
"Recent discoveries in Egypt and the Judean Desert allow us to see first hand
the use of God's name in pre-Christian times."
He then discussed some recently (with respect to 1977) published Greek texts
from the pre-Christian period. Regarding the previously accepted view that in
the Septuagint the Greek title Kyrios was always substituted for God's name, we
read:
"From these findings we can now say with almost absolute certainty that the
divine name, YHWH, was not rendered by [Kyrios] in the pre-Christian Greek
Bible, as so often has been thought."
What about the general mass of Dead Sea Scrolls? Professor Howard writes:
"Perhaps the most significant observation we can draw from this pattern of
variegated usage of the divine name is that the Tetragram was held to be very
sacred. . . . In copying the biblical text itself the Tetragram was carefully
guarded. This protection of the Tetragram was extended even to the Greek
translation of the biblical text."
What about the LXX during the time of Christ and the apostles?
Professor Howard explains:
"Since the Tetragram was still written in the copies of the Greek Bible which
made up the Scriptures of the early church, it is reasonable to believe that the
N[ew] T[estament] writers, when quoting from Scripture, preserved the Tetragram
within the biblical text. On the analogy of pre-Christian Jewish practice we can
imagine that the NT text incorporated the Tetragram into its OT quotations."
"Thus somewhere around the beginning of the second century the use of surrogates
[substitutes for God's name] must have crowded out the Tetragram in both
Testaments. Before long the divine name was lost to the Gentile church
altogether except insofar as it was reflected in the contracted surrogates or
occasionally remembered by scholars."
Here are the instances in Deuteronomy where the divine name occurs in the Fouad
266 papyri:
LXXP. Fouad Inv. 266 renders the divine name by the Tetragrammaton written in
square Hebrew characters (YHWH) in the following places: De 18:5, 5, 7, 15, 16;
De 19:8, 14; De 20:4, 13, 18; De 21:1, 8; De 23:5; De 24:4, 9; De 25:15, 16; De
26:2, 7, 8, 14; De 27:2, 3, 7, 10, 15; De 28:1, 1, 7, 8, 9, 13, 61, 62, 64, 65;
De 29:4, 10, 20, 29; De 30:9, 20; De 31:3, 26, 27, 29; De 32:3, 6, 19.
Therefore, in this collection the Tetragrammaton occurs 49 times in identified
places in Deuteronomy. In addition, in this collection the Tetragrammaton occurs
three times in unidentified fragments, namely, in fragments 116, 117 and 123.
This papyrus, found in Egypt, was dated to the first century B.C.E.
In the interests of brevity, Ill stop here. Upon request, I can forward many
more examples of the divine name rendered in various LXX fragments and papyrii.
But to answer the question; since the Tetragrammaton was originally there and
substituted, and we in the list are likely not subject to the misapplied
reverence (superstition), I would move for the transliteration/ translation and
not for Kyrios.
Sincerely,
Wes Williams
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