Hi slimboyfat....I was away for much of the week so I am only now turning to your very interesting comments. I think first of all I wish to distinguish the question of the originality of the kurios in the OG LXX (with the LXX Pentateuch particularly in view) from the question of tetragrammaton usage in the NT. Expert opinions diverge markedly on the first issue and the evidence can be interpreted variously whereas the evidence weighs much more decisively against the original presence of YHWH in the NT and Paul in particular (the rhetorical construction of Romans ch. 10-11 constituting one important datum). A third question related to the second is whether a translation like the NWT is justified in replacing NT kurios with a form of the tetragrammaton and what the methodology of such replacements should be. Of course, I have some rather strong opinions about that. But with respect to the first problem mentioned above, I only favor the view that kurios was as early if not earlier than the tetragrammaton in the LXX (Pentateuch); I find it better supported by a preponderance of the evidence but I do not regard it as established beyond doubt.
The early attestation of the tetragrammaton in late second century BC-1st century AD MSS of the Greek OT is of course a relevant and important fact, as is the non-attestation of kurios in these surviving fragments. But I think they tell a rather skewed story. We have only the most scanty MS evidence of the Greek text before the second century AD; the scraps of material from Qumran, Nahal Hever, Oxyrhynchus, and the few of uncertain provenance are probably not representative of the overall picture. There are no fragments from the first century of transmission and three-fourths of the oldest (i.e. dating before AD 100) MSS do not preserve portions that would have contained either the tetragrammaton or kurios (i.e. 4QDeutLXX, PRylands458, 7QExodusLXX, 4QLeviticusLXXa, 7QEpJeremiahLXX, PFouad 266a, PFouad266c, 4QpapParaExod, 4QNumbersLXX, POxy 4443). With the exception of POxy 4443, all of these would have originally contained either the tetragrammaton or a surrogate throughout the MS but because of chance and accident none of these portions survive. So there is no way of knowing whether the non-attestation of kurios (dominant in MSS dating to after AD 200) in such a tiny corpus is meaningful or not. At the very least this consideration cautions against inferring that kurios was itself absent from the OG texts that were transmitted before AD 100 — that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. I think we are going to need to have a larger corpus of early Greek MSS before we can be sure that the absence of kurios is significant. There was one Greek MS at Qumran (dating to the first century BC) that, in fact, contains kurios at least once and possibly twice. One fragment of 4Q126 has the line ]on kai ku[ and another fragment has the line ]eite kurio[. There are letter sequences in the LXX that may correspond to these lines (e.g. ouranon kai kurios in Exodus 9:23, 10:13, Esther 4:17 and eulogeite kurion in Judges 5:2, 9) but the fragments are too slight to identify them with any known text although they were closely associated with 4QpapParaExod (4Q127), so it is unknown if they came from an OG scroll, a paraphrase based on the OG like 4QpapParaExod, or some other text entirely. Nevertheless there are two features that may link it with representations of the tetragrammaton in Greek/Hebrew MSS on the one hand and kurios in the LXX on the other. There is a sizeable gap before kurio[ like there is before YHWH in certain other early scrolls and kurios in this instance is non-articular which conforms to the usage of kurios in the LXX (where it is articular mainly in the dative). So while inconclusive, this may attest the substitution of YHWH with kurios in the first century BC.
Of course, the textual witness to the presence of the tetragrammaton in the Greek OT is a conclusive fact; it proves that the name was part of the textual tradition and was probably quite common. But while the tetragrammaton was multiply-attested in pre-Christian MSS, it was also represented in a range of different ways that probably do not go back to the "original" translations. I agree with Skehan that the practice of representing YHWH with special characters (whether the Aramaic-style or the Paleo-Hebrew script) is a secondary development due to archaizing tendencies but I do not see why such modifications necessarily reflect a prior presence of the tetragrammaton (in a pronouncable form like Iaó) in the text. Such substitutions could have themselves introduced the name into text. The one attestation of Iaó extant raises the possibility of Iaó's priority but without additional evidence there are many other ways to characterize its relationship with the other forms of the tetragrammaton in Greek MSS (cf. also Pietersma 1984 on Iaó in 4QLeviticusLXX b as possibly a secondary insertion).
I disagree with Furuli's point about the LXX's dative articular kurios, which he claims has tó YHWH as its basis as attested in 8HevXIIgr. I don't know if there are any other examples of tó YHWH (or YHWH where the LXX has tó kurió instead) in 8HevXIIgr but the example he cites from Zechariah 9:1 is an apple to the LXX's orange. 8HevXIIgr is an exemplar of the kaige Theodotionic recension of the Greek OT which corrects the OG readings to the Hebrew proto-MT text and tó YHWH is part of one of these assimilations to the Hebrew text. Here is a side-by-side comparison:
Zechariah 9:1 LXX: Lémma logou kuriou, en gé Sedrakh kai Damaskou thusia autou. Dioti kurios ephora anthrópous kai pasas phulas tou Israél.
"An issue of the word of the Lord: His sacrifice is in the land of Sedrach and Damascus. For the Lord oversees man and
all the tribes of Israel."
Zechariah 9:1 8Hev: Lémma logou YHWH en [gé Adrakh] kai Damaskou katapa[usis autou. Di]oti tó YHWH ophtha[lmos an]thrópón kai pasón [phulón
tou] Israél.
"An issue of the word of YHWH is in [the land of Hadrach], and Damascus is [its] resting-pla[ce]. For the ey[e] of [m]an and of
all the t[ribes of] Israel is toward Yahweh".
Zechariah 9:1 MT: msh' dbr-yhwh b-'rts chdrk w-dmshq mnchtw, ky l-yhwh `yn 'dm w-kl shbty yshr'l.
"An oracle: The word of Yahweh is in the land of Hadrach, with Damascus as its resting-place. For the eye of man and of
all the tribes of Israel is toward Yahweh".
If anything, this example is evidence that the grammatical form of the tetragrammaton is secondary to the text since it is part of the larger pattern of corrections that the kaige scribe(s) made to the text (see thusia autou corrected to katapausis autou in the same verse, cf. Aquila's anapausis autou, and see also v. 2 which has kai altered to kaige). The LXX does not have a dative tó kurió; kurios is the subject of the clause (instead of ophthalmos, which does not occur in the LXX passage) and thus it is nominative and non-articular. The two departures from the MT indicate that the LXX does indeed attest the OG and these are explicable from Hebrew as well. The LXX reading of kurios ephora anthropous, supported by the Syriac and the Aramaic Targums, is an idiomatic rendering of `yn yhwh `l-'dm "Yahweh's eye is on man" (cf. the same expression used of Yahweh in Jeremiah 32:19); the MT version l-yhwh `yn 'dm places the lamed in front of yhwh instead of 'dm with `al- taken to be l e-. The LXX's departure from the MT in the preceding clause also reflects a different reading or Vorlage of the underlying Hebrew; thusia autou reads mnchtw as min e chotô "his sacrifice, oblation" rather than the MT's me nuchatô "his rest, repose". So the 8HevXIIgr version of Zechariah 9:1 does not necessarily indicate that tó YHWH was an early feature of the text as it is dependent on the kaige redaction; the OG probably did not even use a Hebrew text that had l-yhwh. I am a little surprised that Furuli cited this example against Pietersma when the latter wrote in his 1984 article that "it would be a patent mistake to treat it [8HevXIIgr] as a bona fide exemplar of the LXX. A hebraizing recension of the LXX it is, but a representative of the LXX itself it is not ... in a text so filled with hebraizing corrections of LXX readings what could persuade one to count its paleohebrew tetragram as original LXX?" (p. 89).
The other kind of external evidence bearing on the question of the early state of the text are quotations and allusions to the OG LXX in Hellenistic Jewish writings. These point rather uniformly to kurios as the (Pentateuchal) LXX rendering of the tetragrammaton. Aristobolus (second century BC) quotes Exodus 9:3 LXX and the Letter of Aristeas (second century BC) cites Deuteronomy 7:18-19 LXX; both citations employ kurios and both writers were Alexandrian and used theos and not kurios as their usual divine epithet. This is in accord with the general use of theos by other early Hellenistic writers (see Ezekiel the Tragedian, Demetrius, and Eupolemus). Then there are a number of slightly later works of an Alexandrian provenance that increasingly used kurios as the term for God: 3 Maccabees (from the first century BC, see 2:2, 5:7, 35, 6:15), the Wisdom of Solomon (from the first century BC, see 1:1, 7, 9, 2:13, 3:8, 10, 14, 4:14, 17, 18, 5:7, 15, 16, 6:3, 8:21, 9:1, 9:13, 10:16, 20, 11:13, 12:2, 16:12, 26, 19:9, 22), and Philo of Alexandria (from the first century AD, see 1.48, 1.53, 1.75, 1.88, 1.90, 1.95, 1.96, 2.1, 2.47, 2.51, 2.53, 2.77-78, 2.88, 2.94, 2.101, 2.106, 3.1, 3.9, 3.11-12, 3.42, 3.47, 3.49, 3.65, 3.71, 3.73,-74, 3.77, 3.81, 3.107, 3.119, 3.126, 3.129, 3.169, 3.180, 3.194, 3.198, 3.203, 3.218-219 of Legum Allegoriarum). These may reflect influence from the Alexandrian LXX, if it indeed did utilize kurios as the equivalent of the tetragrammaton. Josephus, who represents a Judean Hellenistic tradition and who does not utilize the LXX, used theos as his main term for God and rarely used kurios. The evidence from Philo in particular rather convincingly suggests that his copy of the LXX had kurios. Of course Philo was aware of the existence of the tetragrammaton (De Vita Mosis 2.115, 132) but it is inconceivable that a Jew of his learning would not know of it; his mention of it does not imply or indicate that he drew on a text that contained it. On the other hand, not only does Philo frequently use kurios as a divine title but he directly comments on the use of kurios in the biblical text and its spelling. In Legum Allegoriarum 1.95-96, he comments on the use of the expression kurios ho theos "Lord God" in the Eden narrative in Genesis 3:23 LXX:
"Very naturally does God at present address commands and recommendations to the earthly mind, which is neither bad nor good, but of an intermediate character. And recommendation is employed in the two names, in that of the Lord and of God (tou kuriou kai tou theou). For the Lord God (kurios ho theos) commanded that if man obeyed his recommendations, he should be thought worthy of receiving benefits from God; but if he rejected his warnings, he should then be cast out to destruction by the Lord (kuriou), as his Master (hós depotou) and one who had authority(exousian ekhontos) over him. On which account, when he is driven out of Paradise, Moses repeats the same appellations (tas autas kleseis pareiléphe), for he says, 'And the Lord God sent him forth out of the Paradise of happiness, to till the ground from which he had been taken (kai exapesteilen auton kurios ho theos ek tou paradeisou tés truphés, ergazesthai tén gén ex hés eléphthé)'. Since the Lord (ho kurios) had laid his commands on him as his Master (hos despotés), and God (ho theos) as his Benefactor, he might now in both (amphotera) chastise him for having disobeyed them".
His citation of Genesis 3:23 corresponds to the LXX attested later but notice that he interprets the kurios as implying God in the role of "Master" who "has authority" over man. This points to kurios as present in his Alexandrine copy of the LXX. In Quaestiones in Genesim, Philo commented on Genesis 6:3-7 which in the LXX has kurios ho theos in v. 3, 5 and ho theos in v. 7. This was a difficult passage exegetically because it implies that God can change his mind and regret his actions. Philo capitalizes on the absence of kurios in v. 7 and claimed that God "had set up his kingly and sovereign power, which is called Lord, when he brought down judgment in the form of water" (2.51). Again he explains the meaning of kurios. In Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit 22-23, Philo comments on Genesis 15:2 LXX which has another dual appellation despota kurie. Here he explains that kurios derives from Greek kuros meaning "power" and despota derives from deos "fear". This indicates clearly that kurios is original to Philo as his rhetorical argument depended on its presence in Genesis 15:2. In De Abrahamo 121, Philo alludes to Exodus 6:3 LXX in which God says that he appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but "my name Lord was not manifested to them (to onoma mou kurios ouk edélósa autois)". Philo interprets kurios in this sentence not as a noun but as an adjective maning "proper, suitable, legitimate"; he claims that Moses was saying that God's proper name ho ón was not known to Abraham, not that kurios was God's name. Rather kurios only indicates the royal power of God, such that "the royal power (basiliké) is the Lord (kurios), for it is fitting that the Creator should lord it over and govern the creature" (themis arkhein kai kratein to pepoiékos tou genomenou). Even Philo's mention of the tetragrammaton is telling. In De Vita Mosis he relates that the plate of the high priest bore the four letters in Hebrew (2.114, 132), but in De Migratione Abrahami 103 he states that the plate read Hagiasma kuriou "Holy to the Lord" (cf. Exodus 28:36 LXX).
I believe Philo is also significant because he lived in the same city where the LXX Pentateuch was produced and where some of the earliest copies were maintained at the royal library (Letter of Aristeas 9-10, 39-31, 39), at least until 48 BC when the main library was (allegedly) destroyed by Julius Caesar — although the Daughter Library which came to rival it was unharmed. This raises the possibility that Philo had access to old copies of the LXX or at least stood closer to source of the LXX textual tradition than copies of the Greek OT in Judea where they were assimilated to the Judean and proto-Masoretic text traditions. The citational evidence from Philo and earlier writers however may potentially be reconciled with the originality of the tetragrammaton in the LXX Pentateuch if one supposes that Philo read YHWH in the bibilical text and pronounced it as kurios (i.e. as a qere). Of course, this would undercut the related argument that the tetragrammaton was used in the NT when quoting or alluding to the LXX or that the use of kurios as a substitute for YHWH was a Christian innovation. It would also suggest that Iaó was not the form of the name in Philo's LXX, as Iaó would have been pronounced as Iaó and not kurios. The form would had to have been something not in Greek characters, like YHWH written in Aramaic or paleo-Hebrew script (which as discussed above are more likely secondary) or a series of dots or some other representation not readily pronounced. But it is hard to believe that Philo would have made the argument that kurios is to be read as an adjective and not a noun in Exodus 6:3 if he was referring to a tetragrammaton set apart in a special form that marked it as a name. Kurios written in Greek characters however would have been ambiguous. So I still think that Philo attests kurios as graphically written in the LXX.
I think it is also worthwhile to dwell a while more on the issue of substitution. The Society infers that presence of YHWH in early copies of the Greek OT implies its pronunciation when the text was read aloud but the stylized representation of the tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew script and a range of other forms instead implies the opposite, that it was flagged as something not to be pronounced as such but as needing a substitute. In other words, setting aside the form of Iaó which can be readily pronounced, the use of the tetragrammaton was largely a scribal phenomenon — with the various stylized forms serving as ideograms for 'El or 'Adonai or kurios or whatever the preferred substitution was in the community. This accords with Origen's references to the scribal use of the tetragrammaton; while the tetragrammaton is written, kurios is what is vocalized (Selecta in Psalmos 2.2). Similarly in the Mishnah and its later supplement, it is stated that the name was only pronounced by the high priest on the Day of Atonement (m. Yoma 7:2, Menahot 109b, Yoma 39b, Tosefta Sotah 13.8; cf. Sirach 50:20), whereas elsewhere a word would be substituted (m. Sotah 7:6, Sotah 38a), with 'Adonai being the usual substitute read for YHWH (Pesahim 50a, Rashi to Sotah 38a). But how far back does this practice go?
The avoidance of YHWH and its substitution with other titles appears to have begun in the Persian period. Works dating to the first half of the Persian period such as Proverbs, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah 1-8 (fifth century BC) prolifically use YHWH and the Elephantine papyri also attest the continued everyday use of the name. But already we see in the Chronicler (fourth century BC) frequent substitution of YHWH with 'Elohim in places where YHWH had appeared in 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings and there was also a general use of 'Elohim to the exclusion of YHWH in Qoheleth (third century BC). The Elohistic editing of Psalm 42-83 in the MT probably belongs to the same period. The substitution of 'Elohim for YHWH can especially be seen in the psalms that appear in a double recension (compare Psalm 14 and 40:13-17 with the Elohistic versions in Psalm 53 and 70) and in the frequent appearance of such awkward phrases as "Elohim my 'Elohim" in Psalm 43:4, 45:7, 50:2, etc. It was around this time that "Lord" (Aramaic Mareh, Hebrew 'Adonai) becomes prominent both as a divine name and as a substitute for YHWH, along with other titles like "Most High" (Aramaic `Elya, Hebrew `Elyon), "Great Holy One", "God of heaven", etc. The Elohistic Psalter contains two psalms (Psalm 68 and 78) where 'Adonai appears alongside 'Elohim as a substitute for YHWH (in the case of Psalm 68, 'Adonai occurs in v. 12, 18, 20, 21, 23, 33 and 'Elohim occurs in v. 1-10, 16-21, 24, 26, 28, 31, 32, 34, 35). 'Adonai also occurs interchangeably with YHWH in Psalm 86 (YHWH: v. 1, 6, 11, 17; 'Adonai: v. 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 15). The Qumran scrolls of Tobit (written in the third century BC) refer to God both as 'Elohim and 'Adonai without any use of YHWH (cf.4:5, 21, 13:4, 13:18, 14:4-7) and the third-century BC Enochic Book of Giants and Book of Watchers frequently refer to God as Mareh (4Q202 3:14, 4:8, 4Q203 10:1, 4Q204), again without any use of YHWH. The Aramaic Testament of Levi, conventionally dated to the third century BC, uses mainly Mareh (4Q213a 1 1:10, 18, 2:6; cf. Athos Greek MS vs. 5, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 48, 51, 52, 58) and the Aramaic portions of Daniel (early second century BC) use `Elya, "God of Heaven", and Mareh instead of YHWH (cf. 2:44, 47, 3:17, 26, 4:32, 34, 5:18, 23, 6:22, 26, 7:25, 27); in some places "God of Heaven" (2:18, 19, 37, 44) is attested and in other places "Lord of heaven" appears (5:23). The general use of Mareh to refer to God can also be found in the Animal Apocalypse which dates to the Maccabean crisis of 168-162 BC (cf. 4Q204 4:4, 4Q206 5 2:21, 3:19, etc.). The absence of YHWH in third century BC writings however gives way in the second century BC to a resurgence of YHWH in new works. Prominent works containing the tetragrammaton include Sirach (early second century BC), Daniel 9 (dating to the Maccabean crisis of 168-164 BC), the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of Three Children (also dating to the Maccabean crisis), Jubilees (middle of the second century BC), and the Temple Scroll (middle of the second century BC). But there is also copious evidence of the pronunciation of YHWH as 'Adonai and and its substitution by 'Adonai, 'Elohim, and other surrogates. Daniel 9 is the only chapter in the book that contains YHWH but the tetragrammaton interchanges frequently with 'Adonai in both the MT and in 4QDan e : yhwh occurs in v. 2, 13 (in 4QDan e ), 14, 'Adonai occurs in v. 4, 7, 8, 16, 19 (3x), yhwh (our) 'Elohim occurs in v. 4, 10, 13, 14, 20, and 'Adonai (our) 'Elohim occurs in v. 3, 9, 15. The free interchange of YHWH and 'Adonai suggests that the two were treated as equivalent. A little later the Damascus Document (written c. 150 BC) contained the following stipulation:
"A man must not swear either by Aleph and Lamed (i.e. 'El or 'Elohim) or by Aleph an Daleth (i.e. 'Adonai), but rather by the oath of those who enter into the covenant vows. He must not make mention of the Law of Moses because of Name of God is written out fully in it and if he wears by it, and then commits a sin, he will have defiled the Name" (CD 15:1-3).
The prohibition on swearing by 'Elohim and 'Adonai has in view the commandments in Exodus 20:7 and Leviticus 19:12, 24:10-16 on misusing and profaning God's name; these terms were prohibited from oaths because they were representations of God's name. 'Adonai and Mareh appear especially frequently in the hymns and prayers of Qumran (which expressly addressed God directly), as well as in prophetic and pseudepigraphal literature. The Thanksgiving Hymns were written c. 150-125 BC (with the oldest MS dating to 100 BC) and 'Adonai was the most common term of address for God (cf. 1QH 2:20, 31, 3:19, 37, 4:5, 5:5, 20, 7:6, 28, 34, 10:14, 11:33, 14:8, 23, 16:8), while the tetragrammaton was altogether absent. In allusions to OT passages mentioning YHWH, 'Adonai replaces YHWH:
Exodus 15:11: "Who among the gods is like you, Yahweh (my kmkh b-'lm yhwh)?
1QH 15:28 "Who among the gods is like you, Adonai (my kmwkh b-'lym 'dwny)?"
The Priestly Blessings for the Last Days (1Q28b) also has 'Adonai and 'Elohim as the main terms referring to God, with 'Adonai replacing YHWH in its allusion to the Priestly Benediction of Numbers 6:
Numbers 6:24-26: "May Yahweh bless you (ybrkk yhwh) and keep you. May Yahweh (yhwh) make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you (ychnk); may Yahweh lift his face towards you (ysh' yhwh pnyw 'lyk) and give you peace.
1Q28b 2:22, 3:1, 25: "May Adonai be gracious to you (ychwnkh 'dwny).... May Adonai lift his face towards you (ysh' 'dwny pnyw 'lykh) and smell the pleasing aroma....May Adonai bless you (ybrkkh 'dwny) from his holy habitation".
Other prayers where 'Adonai figures prominently include 4Q502 (4QDaily Prayers), 4Q504-506 (4QWords of the Luminaries), and 4Q507-509 (4QFestival Prayers). The first century BC Genesis Apocryphon mainly refers to God as 'Elaha (= Hebrew 'Elohim), "Great Holy One", and `Elya (= `Elyon) without ever employing the tetragrammaton, but it also uses Mareh in 1Q20 2:5 ("Lord of the universe"), 1QapGen 2:4 ("the great Lord"), 5:23 ("the Lord of all"), 11:12, 12:17 ("Lord of Heaven"), 20:12-13 ("Eternal Lord"), 20:14, 15 (absolute "Lord"), and 20:32 ("Lord God"). The last case is especially interesting because mry 'lh' (= Hebrew 'dny 'lhym) here alludes to 'dny YHWH in Genesis 15:2 which has this same form ("Lord God") as its perpetual qere in the MT. The Messianic Apocalypse also features a general use of 'Adonai:
"Strengthen yourselves, you who are seeking Adonai, in his service. Will you not in this encounter Adonai, all those who hope in their heart? For Adonai will consider the pious and call the righteous by name and his spirit will hover upon the poor, and he will renew the faithful with his strength. For he will honor the pious upon the throne of an eternal kingdom, freeing prisoners, giving sight to the blind, straightening out the twisted. And forever shall I cling to those who hope, and in his mercy [...] and the fruit of [...] be not delayed. And Adonai will perform marvellous acts such as have not existed, just as he said, for he will heal the badly wounded and make the dead live, he will proclaim good news to the poor.... Those who do the good before Adonai [...] like these, the accursed. And [they] shall be for death [...] he who gives life to the dead of his people. And we shall give thanks and announce to you [...] of Adonai who [...] all his anointed ones [...] and they will speak the word of Adonai and [...] to Adonai [t]hey will speak [...] " (4Q521 2:3-12, 7:4-7, 8:9-11).
The clearest evidence of 'Adonai as a substitution of YHWH can be found in the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa a ), copied in c. 125-100 BC. It presents YHWH in square Aramaic script but occasionally it represents it as four or five dots as in 40:7 and 42:6. In some places 'Adonai is written above YHWH as in 3:15, 18, 8:7, 20:15, 28:16, and 65:13, and in 3:18 YHWH is athetized by dots. In 3:17, 'Adonai is written in the main text but athetized by dots with YHWH written over it. In 50:5, the text has 'dny h-'lhym for 'dny yhwh, which corresponds to the MT qere for this expression. In 49:22, 52:4, 61:1, the scroll omits 'Adonai where the MT has 'dny yhwh and it has YHWH where the MT has 'Adonai in 6:11, 7:14, 9:7, 21:16, and 28:2. All of this suggests that the scribe pronounced YHWH in his mind as 'Adonai and sometimes wrote it that way and then corrected it to YHWH in the margin. At other times, he wrote YHWH as intended but indicated 'Adonai as its qere. At still other times, he saw 'Adonai and wrote YHWH by mistake. Sometimes he substituted YHWH with dots, the number of which corresponds to the short and plene spelling of 'dny/'dwny. Steven T. Byington after surveying these scribal details concluded that "some passages indicate that yhwh was pronounced 'dny at the time and place of the writing of 1QIsa a ; no passage indicates the contrary" (JBL, 1957). He also points out a curious notation at 49:14 where the MT has "Yahweh has forsaken me, my Lord/'Adonai ('dny) has forgotten me". The scribe did not athetize 'dny but placed above it 'lwhy ("my God") with a dot on both ends of the word. This suggests that 'lwhy was meant as a qere motivated by the prior use of 'dny in the same line as the pronunciation for yhwh.
Of course, 'Adonai was not the only substitution for YHWH in the Qumran scrolls. 1QS 8:14 and 4QTahumim, in quoting Isaiah 40:1-3, represent the tetragrammaton as a series of four dots in a manner similar to the Great Isaiah Scroll and the same device can be found in 4Q175-176 and 4QSam c . The use of 'El to substitute for YHWH was especially common in the pesharim and the Damascus Document. YHWH in Paleo-Hebrew characters occurs in the quoted portions of Habakkuk in 1QpHab and 'El occurs as its substitute in the commentary. In the Damascus Document, 'El is used within quotations of OT scripture to replace YHWH (cf. Psalm 106:40 quoted in CD 3:8-9, Zechariah 13:7 quoted in CD 19:7-8, Malachi 3:16, 18 quoted in CD 20:19-21, etc.). The same can be observed in the War Scroll (cf. Numbers 10:9 quoted in 1QM 10:7). I have seen Furuli write that 'El is the substitution that was used at Qumran but this is not quite right; 'Adonai was used as well. Sometimes 'El itself was written in Paleo-Hebrew characters, suggesting it had a qere of its own. What all this indicates at least is that the use of "Lord" for the tetragrammaton was not a Christian innovation or later than the first century AD, and that when quoting scripture, YHWH was often substituted with another word by Second Temple Jews. One other really interesting example is the first-century AD copy of Sirach found at Masada. Some very late (tenth century AD) Hebrew fragments of the book contain the tetragrammaton expressed as triple yods alongside 'El so it is possible that the tetragrammaton was original to the book (although it is also possible that archaizing tendencies led to 'Adonai's replacement with the tetragrammaton, just as the Targums later systematically replaced most instances of 'Elohim in the Hebrew OT with the tetragrammaton). The oldest MS of Sirach at Masada however does not have any instances of YHWH; it attests 'Adonai and 'El only. 'Adonai occurs five times in the brief portion of ch. 49-42, twice corresponding to YYY in the medieval Genizah fragments (42:16, 43:5); in the other three cases the Genizah MSS give 'Elohim and 'El where 'Adonai appears in the Masada MS (42:15, 17, 43:10). The unquestionably Jewish credentials of the Masada MS shows again that replacing the tetragrammaton with "Lord", if that is what indeed what occurred here, was pre-Christian.
So it is possible that like Hebrew Sirach, the LXX originally had the tetragrammaton which readers like Aristobulus and the author of the Letter of Aristeas read as kurios (= Hebrew 'Adonai), and which eventually was replaced in the text with kurios. Philo however indicates that kurios was already part of the text by his time and he although he stood closer to the base of the textual tradition than Judean recensions of the LXX, he still could have used a modified text. So the external evidence is probably inconclusive. Narkissos also has a good point about irreducible diversity; we would reasonably expect textual variation starting soon after copies were made, intermixing between different versions in contact with each other, different kinds of OG collections made in different places, and a great deal of overall fluidy in the 200+ years of transmission before the text got into Christian hands. This means that MSS could never be really representative of the complex situation, although one hopes that matters will improve as more samples are uncovered. It is the internal evidence discussed by Pietersma and Rösel (see JSOT, 2007 for the latter) that persuades me that the tetragrammaton is more likely a later intrusion into the Greek text of the Pentateuch. First of all, the LXX has a general strategy of translating the Hebrew names for God rather than transliterating them: `Elyon is rendered with hupsistos "highest", Shaddai is rendered with pantokratór "Almighty", 'Elohim is translated as theos "God", so translating yhwh as kurios would fit this pattern (although set off as a proper noun by usage). Pietersma points out that the first two books of the LXX Pentateuch use a range of strategies to render 'dny/'dnyhwh expressions that betrays an intolerance of tautology: (1) In Genesis 15:2, 8 LXX, 'dny is rendered with the uncommon expression despota (as Philo himself attests) even though elsewhere in LXX Genesis it is regularly rendered with kurios (cf. Genesis 18:3, 27, 31, 32, 19:18, 24:18, 42:10, etc.). It is translated differently probably because in 15:2, 8 it occurs with kurios (= yhwh) and the translator wants to avoid a repetition. A similar strategy is used in 1QIsa a at Isaiah 49:14 where reading 'dny as 'lhwy avoids a similar repetition. (2) In Exodus 23:17 LXX, h-'dn yhwh is rendered as kuriou tou theou sou "Lord your God" -- precisely the form that is attested for 'dny yhwh in 1QIsa a at Isaiah 50:5, in 1QapGen 20:32 (in an allusion to Genesis 15:2), and of course throughout the MT. (3) In Exodus 34:23 LXX, the same expression in the Hebrew is reduced: "Three times per year every male of yours shall appear before the Lord God of Israel (enópion kuriou tou theou Israél)". In the Hebrew text, the men were to appear before "the Lord YHWH (h-'dn yhwh), the God of Israel". This reduction is similar to the one in 1QIsa a in 49:22, 52:4, 61:1 where 'dny is deleted by the scribe, but the motivation seems to be a desire to avoid a repetition of theos that would be produced by reading h-'dn yhwh as kuriou tou theou as in Exodus 23:17 LXX. (4) On the other hand Deuteronomy 3:24, 9:26 LXX shows no discomfort for tautology and renders 'dny yhwh as kurie kurie, as is typical of the rest of the LXX; Pietersma attributes this different strategy to Deuteronomy having a different translator. However if YHWH was to be read verbally as kurios, then there could still be a concern for repetition if the tetragrammaton was used ideographically in the text (as it is in 1QIsa a ). This means that the most likely early form of the tetragrammaton, Iaó, was probably not used in the translation from Hebrew since it would not be pronounced as kurios. Since the hebraizing forms of the tetragrammaton are probably later than Iaó, the evidence from Genesis 15:2, 8, Exodus 23:17, and 34:23 better support kurios as earlier than YHWH.
Another datum is the rendering of Leviticus 24:16 in the LXX, mentioned in my last post. Again I find that this weighs against Iaó. I anticipated your suggestion that it is a later alteration associated with the removal of the tetragrammaton from the LXX, which is why I cited the statements in Philo and 1QS which attest a similar understanding of the scripture. The comment by Philo is especially noteworthy since he mentions the penalty of death which specifically points back to Leviticus 24:16. One could add later witnesses like the Syriac Peshitta which refers to "naming the name" and Targum Onkelos which paraphrases the verse as: "You shall not utter the name (l' tymy shm') of YHWH your God for no reason (l-mgn')". But it is also worth pointing out that the rendering is explicable by the underlying Hebrew. There were two different potential roots for wyqb in v. 11 — the double `ayin root qbb "curse" (cf. Numbers 23:8, 25, Job 3:8, 5:3, Proverbs 11:26, 24:24) or the regular root nqb which had a wide range of meaning ("prick", "libel", "designate", "name"). The verb is used together with wyqll "cursed" in the verse and this unambiguously means "cursed" (cf. 2 Kings 2:24). There were rabbinical debates on whether the verbs in v. 11 and 16 derive from qbb or nqb (b. Sanhedrin 56a), and it is unclear whether qbb draws its form and meaning from the more common root. Because it parallels the piel of qll in v. 11, the verb was generally understood in a negative sense (e.g. "blasphemy"); the hebraizing revisions of the OG in Aquila and Symmachus thus render nqb in v. 16 as blasphémésé "blasphemes" and loidorésé "reproaches" respectively (notice that later redactions were in a direction away from the LXX rendering). The LXX simply takes nqb in its more neutral sense of "designating, naming". A good example of this involving shm "name" can be found in Isaiah 62:2: "And the nations shall see your righteousness and all the kings your glory and shall be called by a new name (qr' shm chdsh), which the mouth of Yahweh shall name (yqbnw)". The LXX rendering is thus probably early because it is motivated by the Hebrew, it is presumed by Philo, and at least two later Greek versions drifted away from this reading and not towards it.
A third internal consideration is the observation made by Rösel on the distribution of kurios and theos in the LXX Pentateuch. He focused on exceptions to the general pattern, where theos corresponded to the tetragrammaton in the Hebrew text and where kurios appears in the place of 'Elohim. When these cases are collated and compared, they follow a theological Tendenz that has parallels to rabbinical and Philonic views on the nature of God: When kurios is used in contexts where the merciful and compassionate aspects of God were emphasized and theos where his judging and punishing character was foregrounded. Thus it is theos (= Hebrew yhwh) who rejects Cain's offering and accuses him of murder (Genesis 4:5, 9-10 LXX), who resolves to destroy mankind with a Flood (6:6-7 LXX), whom the men of Sodom sin against (Genesis 13:13 LXX), who strikes down Pharaoh with plagues (12:17 LXX), who kills Judah's sons Er and Onan (38:7, 10 LXX), against whom the Israelites in the wilderness grumble (Exodus 16:9 LXX), who punishes Korah for his disobedience (Numbers 16:6, 11 LXX), who speaks through Balaam (Numbers 23:5, 12 LXX), who condemns the exodus generation to die in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 2:14 LXX), and so forth. In all these cases the MT has yhwh but the LXX has opted to substitute it with theos — a comparatively rare rendering. Kurios however sometimes replaces cases where 'Elohim occurs in the MT, particularly where God's kindness is highlighted, such as him coming to Joseph's aid in giving him peace (Exodus 13:19 LXX). If this pattern is not coincidental, it would suggest that the translators in a manner similar to Philo and the later rabbis regarded the two main words for God as highlighting different aspects of his character. This is more than what a mechanical replacement of YHWH with kurios would involve.
In short, I favor the view that kurios is older than the tetragrammaton in the text of the LXX but this could change if new evidence or perspectives come to light. If the tetragrammaton is original to the LXX, it probably would have been read as kurios at any rate; I doubt that Iaó could have been original to the LXX but if kurios is older than Iaó could have been one of the first substitutes. The substitution of the tetragrammaton with "Lord" is definitely pre-Christian; it occurred at Qumran and possibly at Masada with respect to Sirach. Kurios was attested in Greek MSS at Qumran, although the tiny fragments cannot yet be identified. Because pre-AD 100 MSS are so rare, it is also not certain whether the nomina sacra were actually a Christian innovation. I think it is possible (purely as a speculation) that the first nomina sacra was kurios which developed its unique form to better distinguish the name of God from other uses of kurios in the text.
