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Monday, August 27, 2012

Using the Tetragrammaton
in the New Testament text:
The case of the New Living Translation (2004) /

Χρήση του Τετραγράμματου
στο κείμενο της Καινής Διαθήκης:
Η περίπτωση της New Living Translation (2004)










* Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT),
Tyndale House Publishers, 2004/2007,
pp./σσ. A50, A51, 735.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just had a little reading about this subject, the divine name in the NT. Even though I can understand the arguments, the NWT offers when they put the name Jehovah into NT texts, I think, as a TRANSLATION it is more honest to choose the way, the NLT did. The known NT texts have only the kyrios. To replace those with Jehovah is imho a bit over the top. All old greek manuscripts use kyrios, when they quote OT texts. To replace this word with another one cannot be called translation, but interpretation.

Just my tuppence.

B.

digiSapientia said...

Dear B.,

Thank you for your comment. I don't really disagree with you.

But if the same rule was used in the OT then the Tetragrammaton or a translated proper name should be used across the OT text--not another word as "Kyrios" is. But this is not the common practice in the more circulated Bibles.

Anonymous said...

Dear DigiSapientia,

no doubt about that, I am with you in this point! The practice to replace the Tetragrammaton with a title is a malicious one - only enemies of the bearer of the name could do such. And in my opinion they actually don't have the right anymore to use the name. From this point of view it's good and the "people for his name" (Acts 15:14 KJV) is even more obvious all over the world.

But as long as there is no found of old manuscripts of NT texts with the hebrew Tetragammaton or an equivalent as the placeholder "ΠΙΠΙ" I think it would be honest to stay with the text available.

In this connection it would be of interest how old the "Hebrew Matthew" is, which you mention in your other post. Does the book give information about its age?

Sincerely

B.

digiSapientia said...

This "Hebrew Matthew" is dated at about 12th/13th cent.

Textual criticism produces a Bible text that is not uniformly found not even at one single manuscript. The aim of this critical reconstruction is to produce a text very close to the "ideal" autographs according to a predefined set of rules.

NWT is following a long-demanded rule so as to make clear who is who concerning the Father and the Son in NT in comparison with the OT God. Of course this procedure implies a given theology. But this is true for an innumerable amount of text-critical or translational choices that are made at Bible editions and publications. The rule used by the NWT is clear cut. So it's open for everyone to agree or disagree with it. But I would not describe it as "unscientific" or sth similar.

Concerning the use of the Name, I think that everyone has the right to use it. If magical books use it freely, how much more could be used by people searching for Him.

ΠΙΠΙ is just a corruption of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, I don't think that anyone speaking Hebrew could use it seriously. I find no use for bringing back such a no-meaning form. Even forms like YHWH or the Hebrew Tetragrammaton inside a non-Hebrew text are not of real assistance for the reader as they are unreadable.

"Jehovah" is a fairly good latin-originated reconstruction, very similar to the form of names used for other Hebrew names transcribed in latin-originated languages as English. Exotic forms as "Yehowah" or similar are welcome but are not practical as they break up the uniformity that every name should have so as to be easily recognisable the person that is named after it.

Regrets,