Also, we will see, that by Lundquist's criteria of accuracy, few Bibles would pass his test of accuracy in regard to Divine Names and titles.
P. 23 After quoting Wilbur Pickering's statement on the negligence of copyists lengthening or shortening as they please, Mr. Lundquist goes on to say,
"As ones who love and respect God's written word, we would strongly denounce any attempt to alter Scripture. We would correctly demand a faithful reproduction of God's revelation by both the scribal copyists in early centuries and a translator's rendering of the text into another language today."This is one tactic Lundquist uses to undermine the addition of the Divine Name in the NWT-NT, especially as the Name does not appear in the earlier Alexandrian mss.
Choosing Pickering's statement is an interesting choice, as he is an advocate of the later Byzantine text as opposed to the earlier Alexandrian texts, and points out that most errors were introduced into the mss within the first two centuries.* (See The New Testament Text, p. 108)
Commenting on Pickering, D.A. Carson points out,
"Errors were not added one per generation, generation by generation, but wholesale, as it were." The King James Version Debate, p. 115It is this dramatic "wholesale" error/change that I will try to focus on, and the reasons, whether theological or even, anti-semitic, that I will bring up later.
P. 51 Lundquist:
"It is particularly interesting to note the variety of English words used by the New World Translation for the 714 occurences of the word Kyrios throughout the Christian Greek Scriptures."Of these, some examples are: Lord, Jehovah, master, sir, owners, and in one situation, God.
The word Kyrios and the Hebrew equivalent, adon, has always held a variety of meanings, as the following helps us to realize from Vine's Dictionary of Bible Words:
"<A-1,Noun,2962,kurios>And McKenzie's Dictionary of the Bible under the heading, "Lord:"
properly an adjective, signifying "having power" (kuros) or "authority," is used as a noun, variously translated in the NT, "'Lord,' 'master,' 'Master,' 'owner,' 'Sir,' a title of wide significance, occurring in each book of the NT save Titus and the Epistles of John. It is used (a) of an owner, as in Luke 19:33, cp. Matt. 20:8; Acts 16:16; Gal. 4:1; or of one who has the disposal of anything, as the Sabbath, Matt. 12:8; (b) of a master, i.e., one to whom service is due on any ground, Matt. 6:24; 24:50; Eph. 6:5; (c) of an Emperor or King, Acts 25:26; Rev. 17:14; (d) of idols, ironically, 1 Cor. 8:5, cp. Isa. 26:13; (e) as a title of respect addressed to a father, Matt. 21:30, a husband, 1 Pet. 3:6, a master, Matt. 13:27; Luke 13:8, a ruler, Matt. 27:63, an angel, Acts 10:4; Rev. 7:14; (f) as a title of courtesy addressed to a stranger, John 12:21; 20:15; Acts 16:30; from the outset of His ministry this was a common form of address to the Lord Jesus, alike by the people, Matt. 8:2; John 4:11, and by His disciples, Matt. 8:25; Luke 5:8; John 6:68; (g) kurios is the Sept. and NT representative of Heb. Jehovah ('Lord' in Eng. versions), see Matt. 4:7; Jas. 5:11, e.g., of adon, Lord, Matt. 22:44, and of Adonay, Lord, Matt. 1:22; it also occurs for Elohim, God, 1 Pet. 1:25."
"The use of kyrios in the Synoptic Gospels...is also a designation of God in quotations from the LXX or as a substitute for the name of God, and in the common profane sense of owner or master." p. 517Of further note is the lexical evidence pointing to Kyrios as YHWH:
"In the NT, likewise, KURIOS, when used as a name of God...most usually corresponds to hwhy Jehovah, and in this sense is applied." A Greek and English Lexicon to the New Testament, by J. Parkhurst, revised ed. of 1845, p. 347A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament by J.H. Thayer, 1889 ed., p.365 says inder Kurios: "c. This title is given a. to God, the ruler of the universe (so the Sept. for adonai, eloah, elohim, Jehovah and Jah)."This is what we should remember. When asked as to why he defends the NWT, even when it uses "Jehovah" in the NT, Professor Jason Beduhn replies that it is merely a substitute, much like most Bibles substitute "LORD" for YHWH in the OT.
A Greek-English Lexicon, by Liddel and Scott, 1968 ed., on p. 1013, under Kurios: "B....4. O KURIOS, = Hebr. Yahweh, LXX Ge. II. 5, al."
The Divine Name certainly falls within the dictionary, lexical (see above) and semantic range of Lord/Kyrios, and that is why many other versions/translations have seen fit to also include the Name in their NT's.
I have printed out about 500 pages of material from your site, Mr. Lundquist, and frankly I would have been more impressed if you had addressed your concerns against mainstream Bibles that have allowed tradition, and not the Hebrew to influence their decision in this regard. To me, the crime and focus should be on those who have removed this Name 6828 times, not on those who seek to restore it. But more on this further down.
P. 82
All Hebrew versions trace their source to ancient Greek manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures. (The only exception is J 9 which comes from the Latin Vulgate.) Inasmuch as these versions were published in the 16th century and later, we are able to verify the Greek text used as their source. In 223 instances, the Greek word Kyrios (), rather than the Tetragrammaton, is found in the Greek text. The Tetragrammaton used in these Hebrew translations was never derived from hwhy in the Greek text.The Greek texts and many modern Bible versions in circulation now are based on an eclectic text. Daniel Wallace is heavily involved with the NET Bible, and though he uses the Nestle-Aland Greek text, he disagrees with it in about 500 places. Wallace calls this position reasoned eclecticism. When the NWBTC committee deviated from their source text (W/Hort), this was not to supplant this text and neither were they saying that the Hebrew versions were consistently more accurate, just as Wallace would never say that the later Byzantine or TR text is consistently better, but there are instances where they are useful. For the NWT to include the Tetragrammaton from these versions is, based on the facts, reasoned eclecticism.
We realize that the Name does not appear in the two major Alexandrian texts, and we do not hide that fact, as seen from our production of the Westcott and Hort Text. We also know, as seen above, that the Divine Name falls within the semantic, lexical and dictionary range of Kyrios. In fact, each subsequent release of Nestle-Aland's Greek text allows for more readings from a later tradition, thus moving away from the older Alexandrian text. Most Greek manuscripts in existence are of the later Byzantine tradition (also called the Majority Text) that contain many embellishments in certain areas as opposed to the older Alexandrian text. Where do these come from? The debate rages on.
Is relying on Versions for how we translate the Divine Name solely an NWT practice. No it is not.
Take note:
"In regard to the divine name YHWH, commonly referred to as the Tetragrammaton, the translators adopted the device used in most English versions of rendering that name as "LORD".." New International Version Preface
The RSV, NRSV and the Good News Bible read much the same, along with note indicating an incorrect understanding of the ancient LXX.
Most others appeal to tradition, not on any text, for their exclusion of the Divine Name.
Yet it seems that the NWT is always unfairly singled out in its zeal to promote the name of the almighty God Jehovah.
P.86, 91 and 104
...our understanding of the limit of inspiration leads us to a single conclusion. NoI think the question that everyone SHOULD be asking, is why has the Divine Name, used in the Hebrew text 6828 times, more than all other divine titles put together, and more than any other name,... completely disappeared?
supplementary information can be added to the inspired revelation of the Christian Greek Scriptures beyond that which was written by the inspired Christian writers themselves. This is the reason why we categorically dismiss the writings of Joseph Smith, the Gnostic Gospels, or even the early non-canonical writings of the Christian congregation as being outside the limit of inspiration.To accept late Hebrew translations as a higher authority than the best preserved Greek
manuscripts from which they were translated violates our understanding of the canon of the Christian Greek Scriptures. The New World Translation cites only 12 Greek manuscripts and eight early versions in support of the Greek word Kyrios ( Kuvrio") in the 237 Jehovah passages. On the other hand, the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament actually cites 754 Greek manuscripts, 86 versions, and 149 lectionaries in support of the Kyrios passages within the Christian Greek Scriptures. In all, there are a total of over 5,000 extant Christian Greek manuscripts.
We fully acknowledge that the transmission of the Sacred Scriptures was under the careful plan and supervision of Jehovah. Nonetheless, there was an apparent randomness in the method he used to preserve these texts. The accuracy of the various texts which have been safeguarded, and their geographical location which made preservation possible, were random events. On the other hand, removal of all traces of the Tetragrammaton would, of necessity, have been a deliberate and planned undertaking. It would represent a statistically impossible series of events for t he
Tetragrammaton to have been removed from copies of the original writings, leaving no trace of that heresy today.
Regarding the Hebrew versions, one scholar writes"
"Supposing a Christian scholar were engaged in translating the Greek Testament into Hebrew, he would have to consider, each time the word Kurios occured, whether there was anything in the context to indicate its true Hebrew representative; and this is the difficulty which would arise in translating the N.T. into all languages if the title Jehovah had been allowed to stand in the [LXX]." Synonyms of the Old Testament, Girdlestone, p. 43Moving along though, any discussion on textual criticism inevitably involves including the Ante-Nicene Fathers (hereafter, ANF). How did they feel about God's name?
"God has no name, for everything that has a name is related to created things." Aristides (c. 125, E) 9.264"He has many virtues as are distinctive to a God who is called by no proper name." Justin Martyr (c. 160, E), 1.165Here, despite the fact that the Name occurs so many times in the Hebrew text, there is evident hostility towards the name. Is it because of the Name's association with the Jews the early Christians were trying to disassociate and distinguish themselves from?
"To the Father of all, there is no name given" Justin Martyr (c. 160, E), 1.190
"As to the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe,... if anyone dares to say that there is a name, he raves with hopeless madness." Justin Martyr (c. 160, E) 1.183
"God cannot be called by any proper name. For names are given to mark out and distinguish various subject matters, because these matter are many and diverse. However, no one existed before God who could give Him a name, nor did He Himself think it right to name Himself. For He is one and unique... On this account, He said to Moses, "I am the Being." By the participle *being,* He taught the difference between the God who is and the gods who are not.
Justin Martyr (c. 160, E), 1.281
"If we name Him, we do not do so properly." Clement of Alexandria (c. 195, E) 2.464
"The name of God the Father had been published to no one." Tertullian (c. 198, W) 3.682
"Neither must we ask for a name of God. God is His name. We have no need of names when a multitude are to be separated into individuals...To God, who is alone, the name "God" is the whole. Mark Minucius Felix (c. 200, W) 4.183
"We say the name Sabaoth, Adonai, and the other names treated with so much reverence among the Hebrews, do not apply to any ordinary created things. Rather, they belong to a secret theology concerning the Framer of all things." Origen (c. 248, E), 4.407
"Christians in prayer do not even use the precise names that divine scriptures applies to God." Origen, 4.653
"God's own name also cannot be declared, for He cannot be conceived....For the name is the significance of whatever thing can be comprehended from a name." Novatian, 5.615
"Neither must you ask the name of God. God is His name. Where a multitude is to be distinguished by the appropriate characteristics of names, there is a need of names. However, to God - who alone is - belongs the whole name of God." Cyprian 5.467
"the Torah is not the itself the name of God but the explication of the Name of God. To him (the Kabbalist] meant exactly what it meant for Jewish tradition, namely the tetragrammaton YHWH. And this is the true meaning of "God's Torah." on The Meaning of the Torah/On the Kaballah and Its Symbolism, by Gershom Scholem, p.42
The Jews and the Name were solidly bound together. Perhaps, this is why the ANF were not only hostile to the Name, but to the people of the Name.
"In Christian sources, the charge of Jewish hate is unrelieved. St. Justin (A.D. 100-65), in his Dialogue with Trypho, returns again and again to the point. On one occasion he confronts Trypho the simple declaration, 'You hate and (wherever you have the power), you kill us." Tertullian (c. A.D. 155-c. 222) labels Jews 'the seed-plot of all calumnies against us;' and in the early fourth century, Emperor Constantine (A.D. 306-37) said, 'Let us have nothing to do with the most hostile Jews.'What did this lead to?
Taken from many available accusations, these few samples convey the seriousness of the charge. The answer has been made that the accusers, having entertained few relations with real Jews, constructed a theological abstraction having little relation to reality."
"In steering a course between the extremes of Judaeo-Christianity and the anti-Judaism of Marcion and the Gnostics, that Church had to prove to the gentiles - and to the Jews - that it was the true Israel, that Judaism was a pretender that refused to abdicate a lost kingdom - and all this from Judaistic sources....Exegetical disputes inevitably arose between the apologists and the rabbinate. The latter accused the former of mutilating the text of the Septuagint...and replaced it with several new Hebrew translations. Christian polemicists countered with charges of textual suppressions by the Jews." Anguish of the Jews, Edward Flannery, p. 32Do you see that the fighting between the two factions initially involved allegations of textual corruption?
The move away from Judaism, the formation of a new religion and the great apostasy foretold in the NT was enough fuel to create "wholesale" changes in the text. This was helped in part by the abbreviations of divine names and titles. You recommend the Book, The Jesus Papyrus by Carston Thiede, which says:
"With the first Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament, YHWH acquired the visible form of an abbreviation - initially, because the Hebrew consonants were inserted in the Greek text wherever "God" appeared. This custom was continued into the Middle Ages and had its variations, which made the abbreviating nature of the exercise more obviousv - such as writing only the first letter of the Hebrew word yod, doubling to to look like a twinfold z and drawing a horizontal bar throught the middle of both letters. A find from Qumram dating from the period just before the 'birth' of the first Christian texts documents the use of Greek rather than Hebrew letters to abbreviate God's unpronouncable name.As we see above, in fact, as we see often, divine titles are usually abbreviated. But the Divine Name is substituted for a circumlocution. We will come back to this later.
In a fragmentary Greek papyrus scroll discovered in Cave 4 - Pap4QLXXLev b, with parts of Leviticus - "God" is written neither with the full Greek word theos nor with the Greek translation of Adonai, kyrios ('Lord'), but with the Greek vowels alone (!) iota/alpha/omega, to souund something like Ya-oh or Ya-ho. In brief, by the time the first Christians wrote their own Greek manuscripts rather than copying Old Testament texts, they were already accustomed to the concept of contracting the name and title of God. We do not know if kyrios was already contracted as this earliest stage, the period of the scrolls. It could have been abbreviated in Greek consonants (KS) or with the Hebrew tetragrammaton or with the Greek vowels IAO. But we have no direct Christian manuscript evidence of this word dating from this period. However, if the identification and reconstruction of 7Q4 as 1 Timothy 3:16 - 4:3 is any indication of standard practice, the word 'God' itself, theos, was apparently not abbreviated, nor was another extant nomen sacrum...Let us suppose then, that the first (Jewish)-Christian scribes initially did what they had always done as Jews, resisting the temptation - if temptation it was - to break with the traditional practice.
Let us continue on with Thiede, and let's take note of the following "wholesale" change:
"Suddenly, however, all of this changed.From reading your book, you seem to think the removal of the Divine Name must be a gradual change, but as we see above, by Thiede's and Carson's comments, the changes took place abruptly. Couple this anti-semitism with the neo-Platonic thought rampant amongst the ANF (Plato's trinity included a NAMELESS 'ONE') and you have enough of a push for change. The one thing that I have learned while studying textual criticism, is that corruption happened almost immediately. As you said:
Almost at a stroke, at the beginning of the second phase of transmission, the phase of the codex. 'holy names' were being abbreviated in Christian papyri....this was also the period when Jews and Christians were becoming estranged, beginning with the killing of St. James...This was the moment for the scribes to make a statement - a statement of faith. It was no longer necessary to show diplomatic or missionary consideration for Jewish sensitivities. Christian documents could begin to assert unequivocally the divinity of Jesus. It was a final step, from oral preaching via the more cautious scroll documents to the boldly unambiguous handwritten signs in the oldest codex and its successors: Jesus Christ is Lord and God." p. 143
"For a heresy of this magnitude to take place so soon after the Apostles' deaths is most difficult to believe?"Exactly how many mss do we actually have that can be dated within one generation of the Apostles? Very few, and even they are disputed.
G. D. Kilpatrick states in his Etudes de Papyrologie Tome Neuvieme that between the periods 70-135 C.E. that there were three major changes in the transmission of the text. The change from scroll to codex, the tetragrammaton was replaced by Kyrios and nomina sacra (sacred names) were abbreviated. See pp. 221, 222
You have provided a list of manuscripts, a list that is also available to anyone who has the Nestle-Aland or UBS Greek text. But even the oldest and most reliable of these are centuries removed from the autographs.
You and I can both agree that it is heresy to remove the name from the OT, but yet that did not stop later LXX copyists from removing it, and it did not prevent Jerome from removing it in his Vulgate. As we have seen above, the ANF, as representing the mindset of the post 1st century Christian, simply did not like the Name.
Again, as is your habit, you repeat:
"We fully acknowledge that the transmission of the Sacred Scriptures was under the careful plan and supervision of Jehovah. Nonetheless, there was an apparent randomness in the method he used to preserve these texts. The accuracy of the various texts which have been safeguarded, and their geographical location which made preservation possible, were random events. On the other hand, removal of all traces of the Tetragrammaton would, of necessity, have been a deliberate and planned undertaking. It would represent a statistically impossible series of events for t heWe have to look at preservation from the viewpoint of history as a whole. For over 1000 years all we have had was the divine Name-less Latin Vulgate. There were no vernacular versions or translations, and the penalty for owning one was death. Our oldest manuscripts were not even discovered until after the dark ages. It is evident that Jehovah WAITED until nearly our day to reveal his Bible in its oldest form. The message of the Bible though has not changed.
Tetragrammaton to have been removed from copies of the original writings, leaving no trace of that heresy today."
Can changes happen in a short period of time in regards to Bible translation? Yes.
In the 1400's we had no English Bible versions, yet 100 years later, there were several. In the 19th Century, Bibles containing the Divine Name Jehovah were quite common, but not so a century later. 100 years ago, Versions were largely Formal Equivalent (literal), now they are largely Dynamic Equivalent (meaning-for-meaning, thought-for-thought, paraphrase).
On pages 158-160 you address your displeasure with the New American Standard Version policy on not translating the Divine Name in the Hebrew Scriptures, yet you still end this chapter with a diatribe against the NWT.
Simply doing the math leads me to the conclusion that removing the name over 6800 times is far more serious than adding it over 200 times.
I wonder if you are equitable in your treatment of the New American Standard Version or Lockman Foundation and had spent any time writing lengthy polemics against them?
I wonder if you are equitable in your treatment of the New Revised Standard Version or the National Council of Churches or Oxford and had spent any time writing lengthy polemics against them?
I wonder if you are equitable in your treatment of the New King James Version or Nelson book publishers and had spent any time writing lengthy polemics against them?
I wonder if you are equitable in your treatment of the New International Version or Zondervan and had spent any time writing lengthy polemics against them?
I wonder if you are equitable in your treatment of the New Living Translation or Tyndale publishers and had spent any time writing lengthy polemics against them?
I wonder if you are equitable in your treatment of the New American Bible and their publishers and had spent any time writing lengthy polemics against them?
I wonder if you are equitable in your treatment of the English Standard Version or Crossway and had spent any time writing lengthy polemics against them?
I wonder if you are equitable in your treatment of the Contemporary English Version and their publishers and had spent any time writing lengthy polemics against them?
I wonder if you are equitable in your treatment of the Revised English Bible and Oxford University Press and the Churches that sponsored this in the UK and had spent any time writing lengthy polemics against them?
I wonder if you are equitable in your treatment of New Century Version and had spent any time writing lengthy polemics against them?
I wonder if you are equitable in your treatment of The Message and had spent any time writing lengthy polemics against their publishers? etc., etc., etc., ...
I think I already know the answer. According to you, the above Bible are wrong 6828 times, the NWT is wrong only 237 times, in other words, the NWT is almost 97% more correct (by your criterion) than the above versions, yet all your energy has been directed against the NWT, which leads to the inescapable conclusion that you have a devious agenda in mind, an agenda directed against Jehovah's Witnesses and the NWT. (This explains why your book is available from web-sites hostile to Jehovah's Witnesses)
There is another way of looking at the above though. The above translated as they have, for the sake of their target audience, and the same can be said for the NWT. Where the Zondervan (NIV and NASB) Study Bibles have extensive (and often helpful) footnotes, yet these same footnotes fail to even capitalize LORD where it refers to YHWH in the OT. On the other hand, the NWT has supplied its target audience with a Reference edition and an interlinear (AT NO CHARGE YET) explaining the facts in regards to the Greek text used. There is not attempt to hide our translation philosophy in this regard, quite the opposite in fact.
To top this off, the WTS also prints the KJV, ASV, Byington's Bible in Living English, and had distributed the Jerusalem, New English, Good News and New American Bibles (amongst others) in order to promote study and comparisons between various versions with differing styles and theories of translation. It has been my experience that my brothers use and own more versions and translations than any other religious group.
Then there is the fact that many of the Bibles listed above are "meaning-based" translations, and even the most literal use some form of Dynamic Equivalence. The NASB is touted as the most literal, yet it chooses the dynamic equivalent "LORD" in place of the divine name in the OT. The inclusion of the divine name in the NT certainly counts as a meaning based equivalent, especially in light of the fact that YHWH falls within the dictionary, lexical and semantic range of Kyrios.
Another note needs to be made in regards to the embellishment of Jesus' status in the NT, which has happened so much that it is now difficult to know exactly how many times the words "Jesus" and "Christ" actually appear. Take note:
NIV Jesus = 1226 Christ = 499
KJV Jesus = 943 Christ = 522
NASB Jesus = 881 Christ = 493
NRSV Jesus = 1088 Christ = 45 (the NRSV does substitute Messiah for Christ)
RSV Jesus = 926 Christ = 534
Darby Bible Jesus = 904 Christ = 507
Young's Literal Version Jesus = 932 Christ 529
Wesley N.T. Jesus = 951 Christ = 497
God's Word Jesus = 1504 Christ = 516
New Living Translation Jesus = 1404 Christ = 536
Douay Jesus = 932 Christ = 534
ASV Jesus = 883 Christ = 501
Bible in Basic English Jesus = 905 Christ = 496
Good News Bible/TEV Jesus = 1543 Christ 502
New Century Version Jesus = 1846 Christ 604
NKJV Jesus = 941 Christ = 530
How do we get from 883 occurences of the name "Jesus" (American Standard Version) to 1846 in the NCV. It seems I have already mapped out your next project, Mr. Lundquist.
This is not a recent phenomenon.
Here are a few ancient examples:
John 19:40, "They took the body of Christ" to "they took the body of God"
Luke 2:26 changed to "Christ, namely God." Old Latin ff
Luke 9:20 "the Christ of God" changed to "Christ, God" Coptic
Mark 3:11 "You are the Son of God" changed to "You are God, the Son of God." MS69
Luke 7:9 "when Jesus heard this" changed to "when God heard this" 124
Luke 8:28 "Jesus, Son of the highest God" changed to "Jesus, the highest God" 2766
Luke 20:42 "the lord said to my lord" changed to "God said to my God" Persian Diatesseron
2 Peter 1:2 changed to "in the knowledge of God, our Lord Jesus" P72
Jude 5 changed to "Jesus" or "the God Christ" who saved the people from Egypt P72
Gal 2:2 "Son of God" changed to "God the Son" MS1985
Acts 20:28 "church of God" changed to "church of the Lord" or "church of the Lord and God" various
1 Cor 10:5, "God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness" changed to "Christ" MS81
Rom 14:10, "we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God." changed to "judgment-seat of
Christ" 048, 0209 Byz etc
Matt 24:36, "But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only." The Byx mss omit "neither the Son." Interestingly, the Codex Siniaticus originally had "neither the Son", but was removed by a later scribe...and then was restored by yet another scribe.
The New Testament manuscripts were not produced impersonally by machines capable of flawless production. They were copied by hand, by living, breathing human beings who were deeply rooted in the conditions and controversies of their day. Did the scribes' polemical context influence the way they transcribed sacred Scriptures? The burden of the present study is that they did....."The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture by B. Ehrman, p. 3
In fact, the early scribes were more prone to omit than they were to add.
P45 has 28 additions, but 63 omissions.
P46 has 55 additions and 167 omissions.
P47 has 5 additions and 18 omissions.
P66 has 14 additions and 19 omissions.
P72 has 16 additions and 29 omissions.
P75 has 12 additions and 41 omissions.
These changes did not stop early on:
"When an intentional change affects the meaning of the passage, there is a demonstrable tendency to move the meaning in the direction of the orthodoxy of the time, not away from it. By 'demonstrable' I mean that even within the Byzantine tradition, the later witnesses are inclined to change things in favor of giving more titles to Christ, not fewer"It must be remembered that these intentional scribal changes were made by those in the orthodox position, not by fringe "heretical" groups.
D.A. Carson, The King James Version Debate, p. 62
But even here again, allegations went the other way.
"The number of deliberate alterations made in the interests of doctrine is difficult to assess. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Eusebius, and many other Church Fathers accused the heretics of corrupting the Scriptures in order to have support for their special views. In the mid-second century Marcion expunged his copies of the Gospel according to Luke of all references to the Jewish background of Jesus. Tatian's Harmony of the Gospels contains several textual alterations which lent support to ascetic or encratic views.The footnote reads:
Even within the pale of the Church one part often accused the another of altering the text of the Scriptures. Ambrosiaster, the fourth-century Roman commentator on the Pauline Epistles, believed that where the Greek manuscripts differed on any important points from the Latin manuscripts which he was accustomed to use, the Greeks 'with their presumptuous frivolity' had smuggled in the corrupt reading."
"Such changes prove that the autographs of the books of the New Testament were no longer in existence, otherwise an appeal would have been made directly to them. Their early loss is not surprising, for during persecutions the toll taken by imperial edicts aiming to destroy all copies of the sacred books of Christians must have been heavy. Furthermore, simply the ordinary wear and tear of the fragile papyrus, on which at least the shorter Epistles of the New Testament had been written (see the reference to CARTHS in 2 John, vs. 12), would account for their early dissolution. It is not difficult to imagine what would happen in the course of time to one much-handled manuscript, passing from reader to reader, perhaps from church to church (see Col. iv. 16), and suffering damage from the fingers of eager if devout readers as well as from climatic changes." The Text of the New Testament, 3rd Edition, by Bruce M. Metzger, p.201So here (and further above) we have allegations of corruption from all circles. Some of this even being influenced by anti-semitism. [Eldon Jay Epp follows this anti-Semitic conclusion on the book of Acts in the Western Text in his Theological Tendency, pp. 165-71; see also D.C. Parker's Codex Bezae: An Early Christian Manuscript and Its Text, pp. 189-92 and 279-86. These anti-Semitic tendencies have also been suggested for the papyri in H. Eshbaugh's Textual Variants and Theology: A Study of the Galatians Text of Papyrus 46, JSNT 3 (1979) 60-72; and Mikael C. Parsons A Christological Tendency in p75, JBL 105 (1986) 463-79].
Couple this with the fact that early Christian scribes were zealous to promote a cetain viewpoint, and you have a dangerous mixture:
The scribe of P66 made nearly five hundred corrections to his own manuscript....the early Christians did not necessarily treat the NT text as a 'sacred' text - i.e., as a fixed, written, canonized text, sacred to the very letter...By contrast, the Jews had come to regard the OT text with deep reverence and therefore copied it with extreme fidelity." p. 6, Early Manuscripts and Modern Translations of the New Testament, by Philip Wesley Comfort.
"The story of the manuscript tradition of the New Testament is the story of progression from a relatively uncontrolled tradition to a rigorously controlled tradition....The general nature of the text in the earliest period has long been recognized as 'wild,' 'uncontrolled,' 'unedited.'" Colwell, Hort Redivivus: A Plea and a Program, pp 195, 166n3
"The plain fact of the matter is that early Christians did not take nearly the pains with their Scriptures that the Jews did with theirs; and this is evidenced not only by the Christians handling of the New Testaments documents but also in their handling of the LXX." D.A. Carson, The King James Only Controversy, p.116
"In the earliest time of our tradition, one can as a scribe still deal relatively freely with the text of an author....Circumstances change fundamentally from the ninth century on. The demands on exactness and discipline become incomparably higher in a scribal tradition carried on chiefly by monks." B. Aland, "Neutestamentliche Textfortschung und Textgeschichte" NTS 36 (1990) 339-40The textual/corruptional debate continues to this day. A growing number of people feel that the later Byzantine text (Majority text) is a truer form of the autograph (pointing to the many corruptions of the Alexandrian texts), while the other side feels the older Alexandrian text is truer to the autographs, because of age. The supporters of the Byzantine text that the King James is part of, want to preserve scriptures that defend the belief that "God was manifested in the flesh" (1 Tim 3:16) and the hard-core Textus Receptus defenders want to preserve the trinitarian formula in the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7).
The supporters of the Alexandrian text realize that while there are corruptions in the older text, the above examples are cases of even clearer corruption. Again, the debate rages on. The differences between the two text-types are judged to be between 60-85%. I believe they are closer, as many involve word order and embellishments in titles belonging to Jesus. But if you are arguing for preservation, and the majority of texts preserved are of a later date, then the inescapable conclusion lies in the fact the God must have preserved and preferred the later text over the older ones, which lies at odds with your argument. Again, it should be noted to others that these difference do not affect the overall message of the Bible, and it is this message, that was preserved by God.
The Divine Name and the LXX
You repeat the statement that the LXX used the divine name, but only when it was used for Jews, not for Christians. The problem with this is, when Jesus was reading from the LXX, it was one made for Jews. There were no Christians then making copies of the LXX, as there were no Christians then, period. We also have nothing in the writings of the Apostles indicating that were members of the EKKLHSIA involved in the copying of the LXX. In fact, all copies of the LXX in the first century were made by Jews, for Jews, and were doubly enjoyed by Jewish Christians.
"My research is accomplishing just this, documenting and discussing this divine name's surprisingly frequent appearance in Christian copies of originally Jewish onomastica of the LXX, in definitely two and possibly up to four classical authors, in ecclesiatical sources, and in the Mishnah. Taken together, this evidence indicates that some Jews continued to use and indeed pronounce this Greek form of the divine name in the Greco-Roman period, and this helps provide a background for understanding the name's appearance in 4QLXX Levb." Presentation by Frank Shaw, Univ of Cincinnati at the 1999 SBL/AAR conferenceThis leads to my next question. If later copies by an apostate church can remove the Tetragrammaton from the LXX without any hint of discussion among the ANF of this heresy, then why is it so hard to admit that this could have happened with the later copies of the Christian Greek Scriptures? Is it because we don't want to see it? Is it because we are trying to promote a later teaching of the Trinity?
On a side note, there is no indication that later copies of the LXX made by Christians were better, in fact, quite the opposite seems to be the case. Origen, after discussing several Apocryphal books in the LXX, made this statement:
"And, forsooth, when we notice such things, we are forthwith to reject as spurious the copies in use in our Churches, and enjoin the brotherhood to put away the sacred books current among them, and to coax the Jews, and persuade them to give us copies which shall be untampered with, and free from forgery." The Ante-Nicene Fathers, IV, 387P. 301
"We can only assume that the New World Bible Translation Committee was aware of the Nomina Sacra, yet chose not to bring this material into their textual apparatus to establish the presence of the Tetragrammaton in a limited 237 instances within the Christian Scriptures. The great number of occurrences of Nomina Sacra (surrogates) within the text of the Christian Scripture Greek manuscripts would preclude such an attempt. Any appeal to the Nomina Sacra with the intent of establishing the presence of the divine name in the Christian Greek Scriptures would, of consequence, identify the person of Christ with Jehovah. If it were to be argued that the Nomina Sacra in the form of k—"— (for kuvrio") is a derivative of hwhy, then it could be forcefully argued—with a large number of examples of k—"— referring to Jesus—that the inspired Christian writers used hwhy of Jesus himself."There is a very big difference between Nomina Sacra (which were not really surrogates as much as they were abbreviations) and the use of actual substitutions (surrogates, circumlocutions, Paleo-Hebraic letters) in regards to the Divine Name. It is because of the use of circumlocutions for the Divine Name (which as you know was even used in Shem Tob's Matthew) that differentiates, and therefore elevates it above the abbreviated Nomina Sacra. The same Nomina Sacra that held words like "Man/human" (ANQRWPOS), Israel, David and mother also as sacred. I do not know of any occurences of the Nomina Sacra as being substituted for Hashem, Name, PIPI, or even as we have discovered, a triangle.
Your argument is what happens when we fall into the trap of partitioning the Bible into the Old and New Testaments, when we really should be arguing from within the corpus of the entire Bible. If the name "Jesus" indeed replaces "Jehovah", then why exactly the name "Jesus?" Why simply another "Joshua?" Why another Jesus Barabbas? Why another Jesus ben Sirach?
When we take the Bible as a whole, without the man-made division, the name YHWH reigns supreme, and no other name can touch it.
From "Hallelujah in the Christian Greek Scriptures:
"It is also interesting to note that the divine name [ALLHLOUIA] was not removed from these four verses [Rev 19:1, 3, 4 and 6]. To anyone familiar with the language background during the second and third centuries C.E., these four occurences of the word hallelujah were obviously a reference to Jehovah. Why then, if there had been a heresy aimed at removing his name, were these verses overlooked?"You yourself acknowledge that Jerome was aware of the Name, and that the earlier copies of the LXX contained it. Yet later copies of the LXX that had removed the Name, as had Jerome's Vulgate, still contained the word ALLHLOUIA at Psalms 135, 136, 146, 147, 147, 149, 150 and 3 Macc 7:13, Tobit 13:18. The reason for this is due to the fact that translators and copyists are generally less hostile to the Name if it is part of another word or name. This is why translators, even of English versions that do not consistently use the Name, will use it as part of a place name at Gen 22:14 [Jehovah-jireh]; Ex 17:16 [Jehovah-nissi]; Jg 6:24 [Jehovah-shalom] and Ezek 48:35 [Jehovah-shammah]. And then there are the common names of persons that contain parts of the Divine Name, like Jehoaddah, Jehoaddan, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jehohanan, Jehoiachin, Jehoiada, Jehoiakim, Jehoiarib, Jehonadab, Jehonathan, Jehoram, Jehoshabeath, Jehoshaphat, Jehosheba, Jehoshua, Jehozabad, Jehozadak etc. It would be ridiculous to have to rename these, as for example, TheLORDshaphat.
Is the NWT consistent in its use of the Hebrew Versions?
No, and why should they be? The Greek texts in use today, be it the Nestle Aland or the United Bible Societies, Von Soden's etc., construct a critical apparatus, whereby certain scriptures in, lets say, Vaticanus or Siniaticus are accepted or rejected based on what is deemed accurate or corrupted. Even the two Majority Texts in publication (Hodges-Farstad vs. Robinson-Pierpont) disagree over 200 times. Bible Translators even pick and choose what scriptures they accept or reject in those texts. As we have seen, Professor Wallace rejects the Nestle Aland text 500 times in his NET Bible. Let us take on example. Had we faithfully followed Shem Tob's Matthew, then the NWTTC could have rejected any mentioned of the Father Son and holy spirit at Matt 28:19. However, Shem Tob's reading of this text and omission of the three was rejected as inferior. One important mss, Codex Alexandrinus, reads the word "firstborn" at Revelation 1:18, thereby watering down one of your favorite chapters as a "proof-text" for the deity of Christ. This reading was rejected by the NWTTC, W/Hort, UBS etc., as an inferior reading.
The Hebrew versions simply do not have any critical apparatus, so it was necessary, and required, to accept and reject many occurences of the Divine Name, whereby creating our own apparatus, in a sense.
Westcott and Hort do not use every scripture as it is laid out in Sinaiticus or Vaticanus, and neither does the NWTTC need to use faithfully every occurence of YHWH or the varying occurences of Adon from the Hebrew versions, especially since the Hebrew versions are not the base text, but are used as exemplars for proof that it could be done in some circumstances. As we have seen above, bias can play a part as to how a translator might view a certain chapter. When a Hebrew version has, "Sanctify the Christ as Jehovah in your heart," (1 Peter 3:15) we realize that the translators bias (since some do come from the Trinitarian Bible Society) also play a part. What is commendable though is that the NWT Reference Edition does not hide this fact, and includes this reading in the margin. This leads to another question though.
Are there Scriptures used of Jehovah that apply to Jesus, and does that make them the same or equal?
This is something Yes, there certainly circumstances in the Bible where Jesus and Jehovah have scriptures applied to each other. This kind of adaption is not uncommon, and dangerous if exegeted consistently by your average "evangelical Protestant."
Let us compare 2 Samuel 24:1 with 1 Chron 21:1:
2 Sam reads, "And again the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, Go, number Israel and Judah." ASV
1 Chron reads, "And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel." ASV
Are we here to conclude, by the argument mentioned in Lynn's book, that Jehovah and Satan are the same person or equal?
In the book of Job we have the same situation ("and comforted him concerning all the evil that Jehovah had brought upon him" Job 42:11 ASV, when we know it was Satan).
The book "Alleged Discrepancies in the Bible" by John W. Haley had this comment:
"It is consistent with Hebrew modes of thought that whatever occurs in the world, under the overruling providence of God, what he suffers to take place, should be attributed to his agency."The Jews obviously understood this.
"The main point of the Jewish law of agency is expressed in the dictum, "A person's agent is regarded as the person himself." Therefore any act committed by a duly appointed agent is regarded as having been committed by the principle." The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, R.J.Z. Werblowski and Geoffrey WigoderGRB Murray (in _Gospel of Life: Theology in the Fourth Gospel_ ) cites the Jewish halachic law as follows: "One sent is as he who sent him." He then adds: "The messenger [the Shaliach] is thereby granted authority and dignity by virtue of his bearing the status of the one who sent him. This is the more remarkable when it is borne in mind that in earlier times the messenger was commonly a slave" (Murray 18).Furuli adds:
"He, therefore, can fill any position in the God's universe, and represent his Father in any purpose. This is something to keep in mind when we are looking at the various quotes that are applied to Jesus. As we consider how the NT quotes the OT, we must stress that an "ontological" identity between the persons mentioned in the quotes is not at all obvious." p. 195, Theology and Bias in Bible Translation by Rolf FuruliProfessor Furuli then goes on to point out some examples of this. In Hosea 11:1 the reference is to Israel, but the same words are later applied to Jesus at Matt 2:15. In Jeremiah Rachel is described as weeping over her sons, but this is later applied to the children of Bethlehem.(Mt 2:17, 18) Paul applied Habakkuk 1:5, 6 in his sermon at Acts 13:40, 41, but the earlier application was to the Chaldeans, the later was not.
"Then there is the identification of John the Baptist with the prophet Elijah. Malachi 4:5 prophecied that Elijah the prophet would come before the great and fear-inspiring day of YHWH. Jesus quoted these words in Matthew 17:12 and said that "Elijah has already come." Verse 13 tells us that the disciples perceived that he spoke about John the baptist. In Matthew 11:14 Jesus states the matter clearly, 'He himself is Elijah who is destined to come." There can hardly be a more way to express ontological identity that to say John the baptist is Elijah! But this is not what is meant, because John was neither the resurrected nor the re-incarnated Elijah. But John did the same work as Elijah, under circumstances which were comparable toBuchanan puts it nicely:
those of Elijah." Furuli, p 195
"Like other scholars of his time, the author was also capable of taking an Old Testament passage out of context and attributing it to the Messiah. For example in LXX Deut 32:43, in which the object of worship for the sons of God according to the Proto-Massoretic text was Israel, the author of Hebrews applied it to the first-born, namely Jesus (1:6). Since the term "first-born" could be applied either to Israel (Exod 4:22) or to the Messiah, the author made the shift. By the same logic, since the "Lord" was a title of respect used both for God and for kings, such as Jesus, he may also have made the shift here to apply to Jesus the durability of God in contrast to the temporal nature of the angels. If this were the case, then Jesus would also have been thought of as a sort of demiurge through whom God created the heaven and the earth.as well as the ages (1:2, 10). In either case it does not mean that Jesus was believed to be God or was addressed as God."A Trustworthy Greek Text, P. 140:
Hebrews 1:10 Anchor Bible/Buchanan
"We are told that the Greek text of the Christian Scriptures is trustworthy for faith. Do we accept these Scriptures as published in the Kingdom Interlinear Translation, or do we acknowledge the alternate wording of the New World Translation in these 237 instances as having precedence over the Greek text?"In my vehicle I always have a copy of the Revised Standard Version, and I often have a little pocket-size RSV in my shirt pocket. To me, the RSV is a trustworthy Bible for faith, even though, it has wrongly removed the Name from the Hebrew text 6828 times. The WTS also provides and prints other Bibles that have also removed the Name, at the same time, we acknowledge what you are unwilling to do, that YHWH falls within the dictionary, lexical and semantic range of Lord/kyrios. It seems that Jehovah's Witnesses, and others, have a healthier view of preservation and inspiration. We even print the King James Version, which, as a 50's Awake magazine points out, contains 50,000 errors. Yet we still deem this version trustworthy enough to print it.
"It should be pointed out that providential preservation is not a necessary consequence to of inspiration. Preservation of the Word of God is promised in Scripture, and inspiration and preservation are related doctrines, but they are distinct from each other, and there is a danger in making one the necessary corollary of the other. The Scriptures do not do this. God, having given the perfect revelation by verbal inspiration, was under no special obligation to see that man did not corrupt it."
The Byzantine Text-Type & New Testament Textual Criticism, by Harry A. Sturz, p. 38
Professor Alan S. Duthie once wrote that the NWT was no more "full of heresies" than any other version. It is actually quite a good Bible, and at this point in history, it is a classic. The fact that it is often provocative is part of the genius behind it. Although not produced by any Rhodes Scholars or Doctors of Divinity, the New World Translation Bible has proven to be a work far superior than many will admit. It stands as one of the greatest translations of the Bible in the past century.
Buy My Books: And the Word was a god: A New Book on the Most Disputed Text in the New Testament - John 1:1 and The Dark History of the Trinity, is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and both are only 99 cents
I enjoyed reading your well thoughtout reply to Lynn Lundquist's Book. I wonder if you ever recieve responses from those you've written about. Thanks again for the post.
ReplyDeleteCome to think about it...I don't recall getting any responses.
ReplyDelete