Dave:
see my comments below
On Jun 18, 2013, at 11:00 AM, [email protected] wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 9:54 AM, Rolf <[email protected]> wrote:
> Dear Doug,
>
> The problem is that none of the oldest NT manuscripts, from the second,
> third, fourth, and fifth centuries contain the same word as the one that was
> written in the NT autographs where the name of God occurs.
>
> You don't know this. It's pure speculation. They abbreviate the word KURIOS,
> but it's still the same word. This is more circular reasoning.
>
What Rolf is suggesting is not speculation, it is inference. Neither is it
circular reasoning. The fact that the NT mss have KS is a bonafide conundrum.
At least as it concerns the Gospel of Matthew, and at the very least the
sayings of Jesus. If there is one clear aspect of Jesus' teaching is that he
intentionally exposed man-made traditions which were in direct violation of the
Torah. He taught his disciples to disregard them at every turn in full view of
the Pharisees. (For the moderators' sake: I am not making a faith statement
just an argument from what is commonly accepted and unambiguous). These
"traditions of the fathers" as they were so-called were well-intentioned. No
one doubts that the Rabbis had the welfare of the people in mind, but their
effect was to destroy the original intent of the Torah. This was the central
teaching of Jesus against these teachers. In this light, one can't help but
ask whether the tradition of concealing the name of God doesn't fall under
"traditions of the fathers" that supplant the law of God, and if so
>
> These manuscripts have KS, which is a later substitute for God's name. No one
> knows with certainty how God's name was written in the NT autographs, and
> therefore we must sift the evidence and find how God's name most likely
> written.
>
> But that's the problem. There's no evidence to sift. It all uniformly reads
> KS/KURIOS. The so-called earliest LXX manuscripts have nothing to do with how
> it was written in the New Testament, especially since, as I already pointed
> out, those mss aren't consistent among themselves, and even appear to use the
> archaic letter forms to further obfuscate the name and make it even less
> pronounceable. Throw in the fact that they were produced most likely by a
> very narrowly-populated, separatist group that had a major mad-on for the
> mainstream Temple cult, and the value of those mss for telling us anything
> about NT scribal practices diminishes to nothing. In other words, for
> determining what was in the NT, they're meaningless.
This part of the argument baffles me. The fact that the extant NT mss all have
KS says nothing about the first century. They just speak to the fact that in
the second century Scribes put KS for God's name. That's all. There is no
more evidence in these mss for KYRIOS than for YHWH or IAO. And it doesn't
matter if there is one MS or 5000 MSS. Until we find MSS from the first
century with KYRIOS, we cannot speak of the newer documents as evidence. The
scant evidence (OT Greek mss BCE) that Rolf has presented speaks more to the
issue than the silence of the first century autographs. The argument may be
weak, but as an inductive argument, it is cogent.
>
> Therefore, your question should be reformulated: "What is the evidence in
> favor of YHWH in the NT autographs,
>
> There is none.
>
> and what is the evidence in favor of KURIOS?
>
> All of it.
>
> Problem solved.
>
> --
> Dave Washburn
Jonathan Mohler
Baptist Bible Graduate School
Springfield, MO
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