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1. Copies of the Hebrew Scriptures used in the days of Jesus and his apostles contained the Tetragrammaton throughout the text.
Of course, no one ever disputed this. There is no Old Testament manuscript in Hebrew from which anyone would have removed it. But what does this prove about our topic?
"2. In the days of Jesus and his apostles, the Tetragrammaton also appeared in Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures."
Presumably, you are referring to the Greek translation that existed at the time, the Septuagint, or LXX. Indeed some manuscripts containing the Tetragrammaton in the LXX were discovered. Well, such manuscripts do exist (e.g. Papyrus Fouad 266), no one disputed that. However, this does not mean that "the Septuagint" generally contained it, scholars are more inclined to believe that it is just "an archaizing and hebraizing revision of the earlier translation κύριος". (Wurthwein, Ernst; Fischer, Alexander Achilles (2014). The Text of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Biblia Hebraica)
Emanuel Tov notes that in this manuscript a second scribe inserted the four-letter Tetragrammaton where the first scribe left spaces large enough for the six-letter word Κύριος, and that Pietersma and Hanhart say the papyrus "already contains some pre-hexaplaric corrections towards a Hebrew text (which would have had the Tetragrammaton). She also mentions Septuagint manuscripts that have Θεός and one that has παντοκράτωρ where the Hebrew text has the Tetragrammaton.
So here we are talking about the fact that the original Septuagint did not contain the Tetragrammaton, but presumably there was a Hebraizing Jewish trend that, against Hellenistic Judaism, specifically put it back where the Seventy Translators had taken it out.
Then: in these Septuagint manuscripts, the name "Jehovah"/Yahweh was not written with Greek letters or vowels, but was placed specifically in the middle of the otherwise Greek text using the Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew script. And there is no historical evidence that they tried to render the divine name phonetically (following the sound) in Greek. This also indicates that even though this trend considered it justified to insert YHWH with Hebrew letters into the Greek texts, they did not pronounce it at that time either. So this discovery just proves against you: transcribing YHWH into another language, its phonetics, its writing system was considered sacrilegious, no one did that until modern times.
And what is the point: why does it follow from this that the text writers of the New Testament originally wrote their books in such a way that YHWH was in them?
"3. The Christian Greek Scriptures themselves report that Jesus often referred to God's name and made it known to others."
Yes, but this "name" here does not mean what you think, to understand this you need to know that in Biblical Hebrew there was no such abstract word as "person(ality)", therefore. The word "name" was mostly used to describe this concept. That God "gets a people for his name" means: he gets a people for himself. Similarly, that there is "no other name under heaven" (Acts 4:12), means: there is no one else under heaven by whom we could be saved. It's no coincidence that Acts 1:15 is not usually translated literally: "And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty)" therefore, a hundred and twenty people.
Jesus' disciples, being Israelites, of course knew God's YHWH name: they knew how to write and pronounce it, as the people could hear it year after year from the mouth of the high priest presenting the sacrifices. Jesus did not "make God's name known" to his disciples in the sense that he had to disclose a sequence of sounds, and there is no biblical data suggesting that he encouraged them to freely use the name. To "make someone's name known" means to introduce someone personally or to introduce someone's personality. Thus, Jesus introduced the essence, the personality of God to his people who had drifted away from God (cf. Jn 1:18). In fact, Jesus never spoke about the Tetragrammaton, its use, and never criticized the then fully established Jewish custom of not pronouncing it.
"4. Since the Christian Greek Scriptures were an inspired addition to the sacred Hebrew Scriptures, the sudden disappearance of Jehovah's name from the text would seem inconsistent."
I have already answered this: the role of the Yahweh name has been diminishing ever since the Babylonian captivity, it's a different theological context. Since the YHWH name was not known before Moses, during the time of the patriarchs, it cannot be said that the covenant depends on God's "YHWH" name. Daniel already associates the name of God with the word "heaven" and substitutes it twice. Following this, Matthew says "kingdom of heaven" instead of "kingdom of God". Otherwise, the Tetragrammaton does not appear in the Ecclesiastes, the Book of Esther, and the Song of Songs.
So it is not "inconsistency" that the new inspired NT scriptures did not contain the divine name. The new message was not only for the Jews, but for all people, so it necessarily had to be written in the lingua franca of the time, Koine Greek. Non-Jewish people wouldn't have known what to do with the Hebrew letters YHWH. According to Jerome, there were versions of the Septuagint that tried to graphically imitate the Hebrew letters (with Greek letters: PIPI), but these were misunderstood (the word in Greek, read from left to right, sounds like "pipi"). There is no historical data suggesting attempts to phonetically reproduce the divine name in Greek.
It can almost be seen as providential that after the Babylonian captivity - when the people of Israel began to interact more frequently with various pagan nations of the world, and when the religion of Israel gained more and more centers beyond the borders of Palestine in the synagogues that were emerging everywhere, around which the salvation-thirsty pagans also gathered and began to get acquainted with the revelation - God did not become known to the pagans under the mysterious name Yahweh, understood only by the Jews, which as the specific name of Israel's covenant God, would have certainly given the impression to them that it was just another national god.
The Yahweh name, with which God revealed himself to Israel and entered into a close relationship with Israel and distinguished himself from the gods of other nations, was only appropriate as long as the divine revelation moved within the heart of a single nation, within the narrow boundaries of one nation. However, as soon as the kingdom of God moved from "the people", "the nation" to "the peoples", "the nations", the YHWH name had to be abandoned. The true God now had to appear to the nations under a name that would express the relationship of the revealed God to the world, to all the nations of the world, in a generally understandable word. This name had to convey that what the false gods falsely claim, he and only he possesses in reality, i.e. divine dignity and authority extending to all, for which he rightly demands obedience and submission from all nations of the world. To signify these, the most suitable words were undeniably the Lord, the "Adonai", the "Kyrios".
So, as humanity began to replace Israel as the object of God's saving activity, Adonai replaced Yahweh as its leader and executor. The God of Israel thus became the Lord, before whom the whole world must bow, because he is the Lord of the whole world.
Thus, as Adonai, the God of Israel has been proclaimed to the nations of the world, and as the Lord of the world, he began his triumphant journey among the nations, and it is under this name that the nations of the world have been worshiping and praying to him for centuries, and will continue to worship and pray to him through the coming centuries until the end of time.
Therefore, if the Name was not used by the inspired authors of the Christian Greek Scriptures, the New Testament, they had a reason for doing so. The Tetragrammaton simply has no role in the context of the New Testament, in the New Testament the name: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in whose name we are baptized, and the name that is above all (Philippians 2:9) is that of Jesus.
"5. The divine name appears in its abbreviated form in the Christian Greek Scriptures."
Yes, in Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6, God's YHWH name is part of the expressions "alleluia" or "hallelujah". According to this, those "apostate copyists" were not vigilant enough to root this out as well. These four examples rather weaken JW's case, because in a fixed liturgical formula it preserves the name Yah in the New Testament. Therefore, the copyists could not have been led by superstition or pagan prejudice, as JWs are prone to assume as a reason. This just proves that the copyists of the New Testament had no motive to remove it where it does actually appear.
"6. Early Jewish writings indicate that Jewish Christians used the divine name in their writings."
Well, even in relation to the Talmudic passage, Howard merely hypothesized and did not claim that the texts were Judeo-Christian. This theory of Howard's also remained what it was: a hypothesis. Moreover, Howard provided the title of the Talmud quote at least inaccurately: "Talmud Shabbat 13.5" simply does not exist. According to Ezra Bick, an Israeli Talmud scholar (email, 16-02-2001), the most probable place of the text is Shabbat 116a, which reads as follows:
"With regard to the blank folios [gilyohnim] and the Torah scrolls of heretics [minim], one does not rescue them from the fire; rather, they burn in their place, they and the names of God contained therein. What, is this not referring to the blank folios of a Torah scroll? The Gemara rejects this: No, it is referring to the blank folios of the scrolls of heretics [minim]. The Gemara is surprised at this: Now, with regard to the scrolls of heretics [minim] themselves, one does not rescue them; is it necessary to say that one does not rescue their blank folios? Rather, this is what it is saying: And the scrolls of heretics are like blank folios.
With regard to the blank folios and the Torah scrolls of the heretics, one does not rescue them from the fire. Rabbi Yosei says: During the week, one cuts the names of God contained therein and buries them, and burns the rest. Rabbi Tarfon said in the form of an oath: I will bury my sons if I fail to do the following, that if these books come into my possession I will burn them and the names contained therein."
According to the Watchtower Society, the word minim (heretic) refers to Christians, but in reality, we can speculate among three possibilities. The minim either refers to heretical Jews (Bick's opinion), or to Christians (according to the Society), or to such Judaizing Christians who were also considered heretics by the early Christian Church (for example, the Ebionites).
The Jews actually did not call Christians "minim" (heretics), but "nosri" (Nazarenes). Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 220, Against Marcion, 4:8) records that the Jews called Christians "Nazarenes" from Jesus being a man of Nazareth, though he also makes the connection with Nazarites in Lamentations 4:7. Jerome too records that, in the synagogues, the word "Nazarenes" was used to describe Christians. Eusebius, around 311 CE, records that the name "Nazarenes" had formerly been used of Christians.
So this Talmudic text is most likely about some writing of the Jewish heretics (e.g. Sadducees, Nazoraeans, Samaritans etc.) Or those labelled as "minim" by the Rabbis were Gnostics who originated in Jewish circles pre-dating Christianity, and that gilyonim were 'tablets' bearing a gnostic "Ophite diagram" as described by Celsus and Origen. This would explain the opposition from Rabbi Tarfon.
Karl Georg Kuhn (‘Judentum Urchristentum Kirche’, 1964) argues that:
- the Talmud passage (Shabbat 116a) is clearly later than the passages from the Tosefta, and too late to be used as a source for the Jamnian period;
- in the Tosefta passages citing Rabbi Tarfon, sifrei minim should be understood not as gospels but as Old Testament texts belonging to heterodox Jewish groups such as those at Qumran as well as to Jewish Christians; and gilyonim should be understood not as gospels but as Marginalia cut off from Biblical texts;
- Rabbi Tarfon is unlikely to have made a pun on books being called ‘gospels’ earlier than Christians were known to have called their books ‘gospels’;
- Rabbi Tarfon is unlikely to have punned gilyonim on merely the second half of the word ‘euangelion’, and there are other grammatical problems making it unlikely that a pun on ‘euangelion’ is in play.
Daniel Boyarin, in line with Kuhn, understands the books to which Rabbi Tarfon referred to be Torah scrolls. Marvin R. Wilson takes the term 'minim' in the Talmud as originally denoting all “dissidents, apostates and traitors” rather than Christians in particular.
I don't think it is reasonable that the Jews would have thought of the manuscripts of the New Testament here, after Gentile Christianity was completely separated from the Jewish religion, there was no passage between the two, the Jews distanced themselves from the Christians, and did not care in the least about what their in their writings and what not. In addition, the Jews were not in power, there were fewer of them than the Christians. The Jews had no jurisdiction over the Christians to order the burning of their writings that allegedly contained the name of YHWH. The word gilyonim in the plural, means several copies of a single work, not multiple different gospels.
Moreover, in Jewish understanding, not only YHWH is considered the name of God, but all of these: Adonai, El, Elohim, Shaddai, Tzevaot, Ha-Shem, Ehyeh. So, when a Jewish text speaks of the "divine name," it does not necessarily refer to the Tetragrammaton. And you can see: in text they speak in plural: "names of God".
"7. Some Bible scholars acknowledge that it seems likely that the divine name appeared in Hebrew Scripture quotations found in the Christian Greek Scriptures."
Those "some" are the camp representing a very marginal view, who also presented this view as a hypothesis based only on the argument just presented. And you can read Howard' letter clarifying his position on the first page in this topic.
"8. Recognized Bible translators have used God's name in the Christian Greek Scriptures."
"Recognized?" What would these be? As I pointed out: this is a simple "tu quoque" argument. The fact that someone else did it does not justify this practice. Those who acted in this way, just as without evidence, guided by their own theological prejudices, set aside the Greek text lying before them and wrote in it what they thought should be there.
"9. Bible translations in over one hundred languages contain the divine name in the Christian Greek Scriptures."
Same: I think that Bible translation "in over one hundred languages" is called the New World Translation translated from into the local languages. This is even funnier than the 8th "argument", it's a real circular argument. "Since we included it and translated it into other languages as well, it was justified that we included it."
