by dropoffyourkeylee 29 Replies latest watchtower bible
Big news from Israel, some previously undiscovered Dead Sea Scrolls have been found with portions of the OT in Greek. It says the name of God is included in Hebrew letters within the Greek text.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/world/middleeast/dead-sea-scrolls.html
"The new fragments contain verses from Zechariah 8:16-17, including part of the name of God written in ancient Hebrew, and verses from Nahum 1:5-6, both from the biblical Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets."
Another similar story:
Actually, this is an argument against the Watchtower position.
The Dead Sea scrolls were of the Old Testament.
If it was important to include the Hebrew Tetragrammaton in the Greek text, why didn't the New Testament writers do it as well?
This doesn't sound especially encouraging , bearing in mind the Society claims that there is very little change in the bible texts over the centuries.
“We found a textual difference that has no parallel with any other manuscript, either in Hebrew or in Greek,” said Oren Ableman, a Dead Sea Scroll researcher with the Israel Antiquities Authority. He referred to slight variations in the Greek rendering of the Hebrew original compared to the Septuagint — a translation of the Hebrew Bible to Greek made in Egypt in the third and second centuries B.C.
“When we think about the biblical text, we think about something very static. It wasn’t static. There are slight differences and some of those differences are important,” said Joe Uziel, head of the antiquities authority's Dead Sea Scrolls unit.
Ding : If it was important to include the Hebrew Tetragrammaton in the Greek text, why didn't the New Testament writers do it as well?
The fact that the tetragrammaton was included in the Greek text of the OT is a strong basis to accept that the New Testament writers did it as well, especially when quoting from the OT. None of the extant mss/papyri of the NT are earlier than the second/third century CE by which time the tradition of using the nomina sacra had developed.
If it was greek text, why wasn't the divine name translated into Greek? Just further proof that it was both not translated and also avoided/treated sacred.
The fact that the tetragrammaton was included in the Greek text of the OT is a strong basis to accept that the New Testament writers did it as well, especially when quoting from the OT. None of the extant mss/papyri of the NT are earlier than the second/third century CE by which time the tradition of using the nomina sacra had developed.
This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the JW's and the Jews are the one true religions.
The New Testament writers in a few verses when quoting the OT where The Name (the name of YHWH/Yahweh in the Hebrew OT, but typically "the LORD" in the Greek manuscripts of the OT) appears were equating Jesus with "the LORD" (Yahweh). See Romans 10:9 -13 in the NWT (1984) and then read the interlinear literal translation of the Greek text in the WT's Kingdom Interlinear. Look at the cross references (in the 1984 NWT) for verse 13 to Joel 2:32 and Zephaniah 3:9. Those OT verses are where The Name YHWH/Yahweh/Jehovah is used in the Hebrew Scriptures ("the LORD" in at least most copies of the Greek translation of those scriptures). Look at Acts 2:21 (NWT 1984) where it says "And everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved." Then look at the Kingdom Interlinear's literal interlinear translation and notice it says "the name of Lord" instead of Jehovah in that verse.
See also the website of https://www.tetragrammaton.org/ . Its author claims to have attended meetings at a Kingdom Hall of JWs on a weekly basis and that he has never been a JW (and thus never an apostate of the WT/JW religion). He is an evangelical Christian who has carefully examined the J (Jehovah) references in the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures.
There is evidence that the earliest Christians originally thought of the heavenly Christ as originally an emanation of Yahweh (or as part of Yahweh) and thus they thought he could be called Yahweh and "the LORD" and thus also be worshiped and be considered God and be prayed to (see John 1:1, John 20:28, Acts 7:59,60 [note footnote in 1984 NWT regarding alternate reading for "made appeal" and see the Kingdom Interlinear's literal translation of Acts 7:59, 60]). See Colossians 1:17 in the KIT and note that the Greek text for that verse has no Greek word meaning "other". Note that NWT Bible editions printed from 2006 and later exclude the brackets around the word "other" and thus obscure the fact that the word "other" in the translation of that verse does not complete the sense of that verse, but rather alters its meaning.
See also Hebrews 1:1 - 14 and note that Jesus is being contrasted with the angels and thus being considered as not an angel and thus not the Archangel Michael. Notice that verse 6 (in the 1984 NWT) says "... let all God's angels do obeisance to him." Note that the footnote for that verse in the 1984 NWT Reference Bible says 'Or, "let ... worship." '. Compare the wording of the verse to the 1970 and earlier editions of the NWT; they say in the main text for Hebrews 1:6 the following '... And let all God's angels worship him." ' [See also the ASV and KJV Bibles for that verse.] In contrast the latest revision of the NWT (the 2013 Revision) in Hebrews 1:6 in the footnote for "do obeisance" doesn't give the alternate rendering of "worship .." but says "bow down" instead. [See https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/nwt/books/hebrews/1/#fn161259120 .] Step by step the WT in the translation of their NWT has diminished the significance of sayings in the Bible which ascribe worship to Jesus Christ.
Let me make clear, I don't believe/think that Jesus is the God or a god - I'm now an atheist and a philosophical naturalist - but I now think that parts of Bible do teach that Jesus is God (in some sense - in a much greater sense than the WT interpretation of "and the Word was a god") and that the earliest Christians thought of Jesus as God (in some sense - in a much greater sense than the WT interpretation of "and the Word was a god"). See the book by Earl Doherty called The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus. See also Doherty's website at https://www.jesuspuzzle.com/jesuspuzzle/index.htm .
Regarding "nomina sacra" see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomina_sacra .
This find adds nothing new to the Divine name argument, the reason the Name was written in Hebrew letters is believed, with good reason, to be a warning to the reader to substitute "Lord", otherwise why not translate it in to Greek ?
As one of the academics quoted above observes, the Text was not static, so it could well be that by the 1st Century copies of the Septuagint which the N.T writers used did not contain the Name in Hebrew, simply one of the Greek words for Lord.
We will never know of course whether the divine name was written by N.T writers as autograph copies of N.T writings will not be found, in all probability. Of course, if a Copy were found containing it, we could not know for sure they uttered it aloud, certainly Jews did not by that time, and many early Christians were orthodox Jews , surely there would have been a furore about uttering the Name if that had suddenly become the practice among Christians ?
The debate will no doubt continue, but my default position is that JW's are wrong on everything.
dozy:
This doesn't sound especially encouraging , bearing in mind the Society claims that there is very little change in the bible texts over the centuries.
Yes, that's a bit of a myth. Though there is fair consistency between copies made by the Masoretes (5th to 10th centuries CE), there is a great deal of difference between versions closer to the original writing.
For example, look at what happens to the order when comparing the modern and Septuagint (LXX) versions of the book of Jeremiah (with the older Septuagint version likely reflecting something closer to the original version). And, yes, there are quite a few differences in the actual text apart from just the changed order too.
I scanned this he last few days ad have found little that affects anything. One point disturbing however is this seems to push the Essenes back a bit
BTW the chart of Jeremiah can be explained away as two traditions Hellenistic periods.
