Here's a chance to bust some myths. In certain religious circles, a story has been put round for a long time that editing the personal name of God (that's "Yahweh" in case you need to note) - editing that name out of the Bible is said to be a wicked thing to do. Only in some circles. And people who hold that kind of view also tend to think that any religion that uses any Bible with God's name edited out is a bad bad bad religion. This proposition is pretty easy to test.
The obvious way to test it is to ask this question: does the Bible itself ever edit out the name of God already, anywhere in its own pages? That's possible to check because the Bible itself quotes the Bible. That is to say, earlier parts of the Bible get quoted in later parts of the Bible. So if an earlier part of the Bible featured God's name, and it gets quoted in a later part of the Bible, we can track that and see if the name gets edited out or not. If we find the name does get edited out, then we know that the Bible doesn't see that as a wicked thing to do at all.
This begins as a Jewish story with Jewish evidence. Christian evidence comes later in the story. This is the first of three posts to see if this myth is bust or not.
About this personal name
In the original Hebrew language of the Bible, the name Yahweh shows as just four letters: YHWH. It is a Hebrew word. That is, it's written in Hebrew letters, originally written by and for Hebrew readers, found in Hebrew culture such as in the Jewish Scriptures.
This word of four letters has complex origins, arguable pronunciations, and meanings that continue to engage scholars in debate. But that name implies a meaning - usually thought to express an idea of the eternity of God—that God was, and is, and ever shall be. Also, it expresses the idea that God's presence shall never depart from the ancient people of Israel. The way the story is told, the Hebrew name for God expresses God's special covenant relationship with the Israelites.
The word ‘YHWH’ is sometimes referred to as the "Tetragrammaton" which literally means "the four-letter word." In the Middle Ages, arguably, the spelling of the name was turned into “Jehovah,” but it now tends to be pronounced as “Yahweh” (by non-Jews).
But this post is not about pronunciation. It is about where and when the divine name gets edited out or replaced in the Bible: replaced by "substitutes" is what we're really talking about. It's a surprising story.
This journey will start in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures.
Origins of the name of God in Scripture
You may ask, where might I find this unusual name appearing in the Bible anyway? Interesting origins story. We start before the time of Jesus. Much earlier: the time of Moses.
Exodus
3:14-15 seems to connect the divine name YHWH with the divine name given to
Moses as Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh.
So it's a good idea to start with what "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" means, and it's something like "I am who I am". Or "I will be who I will be."
Another translation I like is "I am he who was, and am, and will be", as this could underlie the refrain carried into the New Testament "who was, and is, and is to come".
That name is given to Moses between two promises of God that "I will be with you" (Exodus 3:11-12, Exodus 4:11-12). So the name Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, seems to affirm that "I will be with you" message.
Oddly, the name actually given - Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh - disappears after that. (It is never used as a name by Moses as far as we know, but Moses seems reassured by hearing it.) Why does that matter? Because using substitutes for the name of God is a practice that perhaps goes back even to here. Although God revealed his name to Moses as Ehyeh (meaning ‘I am’) or Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (‘I am that I am’), nevertheless God indicates to Moses that the Israelites can use the name Yahweh instead - so Yahweh wasn't the only name. (Yahweh might have a similar meaning to Ehyeh.) The name Ehyeh is never ever used again for God again in the Old Testament. Instead the name Yahweh is used, perhaps as a substitute for Ehyeh. Perhaps, anyway.
Biblical basis for substitutes for Yahweh, the divine name
What if I told you that the Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible is where substitutes become common instead of seeing "Yahweh"? It's not as a mad an idea as it may sound.
Kings and Chronicles: substitutes for
the divine name
The Old Testament has history books such as Samuel and Kings, and books written later such as Chronicles. They were all fitted into the Old Testament like a library of short books. Chronicles quotes Kings and Samuel, divine name and all. Which means we can test right here whether the Bible ever uses substitutes or not.
The books of Chronicles copied a lot of material, word for word to a large extent, from those earlier books of Samuel and Kings. But - and here's the thing - the books of Chronicles often use the word 'God' (‘Elohim’ in Hebrew) as a substitute whereas the earlier books of Samuel and Kings, had used the name 'YHWH'. This is very interesting. It's easy to compare the two.
i.e. When finding the word YHWH in Samuel and Kings, sometimes the Chronicler replaces it with the substitute word ‘Elohim’. (Other times the Chronicler doesn’t use a substitute but simply copies the word ‘YHWH’ as he finds it.)
Here then, we find the basis (in Scripture) for substituting the divine name with another word. It's done intermittently by the Chronicler who makes it look like a harmless practice. The Chronicler wasn’t superstitious about the divine name. The Chronicler was simply happy to take a scripture source with 'YHWH' and write a new version with a substitute instead: Elohim, which means God. Instead of saying the personal name of God, he just says "God." That sets quite a precedent, as we will see.
While there are too many examples of it to cite, even just from these books, the following few are instructive, taken from the crucial story of the dedication of the Temple of YHWH built by Solomon.
The earlier source for the story is 1 Kings chapters 7-8. Look below, for example, at what is written in 1 Kings 8:62-63, where the name YHWH appears twice; and then see the swap when it was later rewritten in 2 Chronicles 7:4-5. Look out for the swap because the Chronicler doesn't do it every time: so, whilst 2 Chronicles 7:4 faithfully copies ‘YHWH’ from its source, when you get to verse 5 it surprisingly substitutes ‘God’ for 'YHWH.'
Here are the two
passages to compare, Kings and Chronicles:
1
Kings 8
62
And the king and all Israel with him were offering a grand sacrifice before
Jehovah.
63
And Solomon proceeded to offer the communion sacrifices that he had to offer to
Jehovah, twenty-two thousand cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep,
that the king and all the sons of Israel might inaugurate the house of Jehovah.
2
Chronicles 7
4
And the king and all the people were offering sacrifice before Jehovah.
5
And King Solomon went on offering the sacrifice of twenty-two thousand cattle
and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. Thus the king and all the people
inaugurated the house of God.
See the swap? The main difference is in the last word there. (Actually, if you look really closely, the word Jehovah is in the quote from Kings three times. The Chronicler keeps one, drops one out, and changes the last one to "God.") So the noble practice of using substitutes for the divine name intermittently was already well underway. The name was not being completely erased. But it wasn't being treated superstitiously either. The Chronicler confirms, it was find to keep it, or drop it, or swap it.
So the Chronicler was both keeping the memory of the divine name alive whilst substituting another word for the name here and there. Other examples of substitution of the divine name, in the story of the dedication of the Temple, occur in:
2 Chronicles 5:1 (compare to the earlier 1 Kings 7:51)
2 Chronicles 5:14 (compare 1 Kings 8:11)
2 Chronicles 6:34 (compare 1 Kings 8:44)
All these use the word ‘God’ as a substitute for 'Yahweh,' except the last example which substitutes “you” for “Yahweh”. We're well into the idea of substitutes for the divine name now.
I could cite lots of other examples. But just one more for now. A notable instance is found in the rewriting of Nathan and David’s prayers by the Chronicler. Here substitutes are used for the divine name in 1 Chronicles 17:2 and 3 (compare with the earlier 2 Samuel 7:3 and 4).
And we see it again in 1 Chronicles 17:17 (compare with 2 Samuel 7:19). Again, it's intermittent - in neighbouring verses the
word ‘YHWH’ is kept or even added by the Chronicler! The writer of Chronicles was clearly free to do
this. Here is the former of those examples to compare:
2
Samuel 7
3
Upon that Nathan said to the king: “Everything that is in your heart—go, do,
because Jehovah is with you.”
4
And it came about on that night that the word of Jehovah came to Nathan, saying...
1
Chronicles 17
2
Upon that Nathan said to David: “Everything that is in your heart do, for God is with you.”
3
And it came about on that night that the word of God came to Nathan, saying...
The practice of using substitutes for the divine name, as you clearly see here, originates in the Hebrew scriptures. The honourable tradition of substitutions goes back to the biblical books of Chronicles. (It's not "apostacy" to use substitutes, as some critics have claimed!) The use of substitutes in the Hebrew scriptures undeniably legitimises the use of substitutes elsewhere, as we will see when we get to the Greek Scriptures.
Psalm 53: substitutes for the divine
name
But they go
back even earlier too.
Another example of substitution in the Hebrew scriptures may be seen in Psalm 53. Look what it does with material it takes from Psalm 14.
Psalm 53 is nearly a word-for-word copy of Psalm 14. But... a significant difference is
where Psalm 53 repeatedly substitutes "God" in place of Psalm 14’s
"Jehovah". Here are the verses in the two Psalms:
Psalm
14
2
Jehovah looked down from heaven upon the children of men,
To
see if there were any that did understand, That did seek after God.
4 Have all the workers of iniquity no
knowledge,
Who
eat up my people as they eat bread, And call not upon Jehovah?
6 Ye put to shame the counsel of the poor,
Because Jehovah is his refuge.
7a Oh that the salvation of Israel were come
out of Zion!
When
Jehovah bringeth back the captivity of his people,
Psalm
53
2 God looked down from heaven upon the
children of men,
To
see if there were any that did understand, That did seek after God.
4 Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge,
Who
eat up my people as they eat bread, And call not upon God?
5b Thou hast put them to shame, because God
hath rejected them.
6a Oh that the salvation of Israel were come
out of Zion!
When
God bringeth back the captivity of his people,
Three times it happens there: 'Yahweh' is swapped out, and 'God' is swapped in by the Hebrew psalmist. So that is yet another clear case of the biblical practice of substituting the divine name.[1]
A handful of Hebrew Scriptures:
alternatives and substitutes for the divine name
Curiously, in
the later scriptures of the Hebrew Bible, there is significantly less use of
the divine name than in its earlier scriptures.[2]
For instance, whereas in Deuteronomy, the name is used hundreds of times, in
Daniel’s twelve chapters the name YHWH is used only in chapter 9 (around
Daniel’s prayer). In Daniel generally the preferred words are 'God' (Elohim) and 'the
Most High.'
Let’s say a
little more about the absence of the name from those Old Testament books.
Esther: the name of God is famously absent
from the book of Esther. Rabbi Ibn Ezra (11th century) suggested that this was so that non-Jews reading it would not misuse knowledge of it.
Ecclesiastes: Ecclesiastes uses Elohim as God’s
name, not YHWH. Some scholars see in Ecclesiastes’ language parallels with a
scripture dated to a time after the Babylonian Captivity, Malachi, but some
prefer to believe that it was written earlier by Solomon himself. Either way,
it is another book without the divine name.
Some editions
come up with one use of Yahweh in Song of Songs, which is a contentious interpretation, but the name is otherwise absent from that book too.
That decline in use all happened before the time of Jesus.
(Oh, and the use of
the name is infrequent in Job, mainly in the prologue and epilogue.)
So, the phenomenon of scriptures that do not use the divine name directly originates in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves. If you press for a reason for the decline in use of the divine name before the time of Jesus, we must continue to look to ancient Jewish sources for explanations. Let's do a bit of history.
It has rightly been suggested that this decline goes all the way back to a sense of national disgrace lingering over Israel, due to their exile in Babylon, a land of unclean lips. And also, the idea of restoring the name is to do with the disgrace of the exile. What does that mean?
Here’s a useful comparison on the idea of restoring the name. When Chesterfield Football
Supporters Society once said “we want to restore the good name of the club” - or
when Time Magazine said that in the 1930s that the US, Britain and France “took
the view that Problem No. 1 was to restore Germany's good name” - this meant the name of each had been
associated with disgrace. And their good name needed to be re-established.
Likewise, God’s name was tarnished by the exile. Israel’s sin was judged under the Babylonian exile. The restoration of God’s name meant the name would no longer be linked with this disgrace. Israel’s sin would be forgiven, the kingdom would be restored to Israel, the whole world would see their salvation by Israel’s God. This was the restoration of God's good name they were looking for: an Israel with a good reputation in the eyes of the nations.
Knowledge of biblical substitutes, such as in the psalms, would have been of assistance in the time of the exile in Babylon, where they didn’t want to bandy the divine name around in front of their oppressors like throwing pearls before swine in their time of disgrace. This time is where the tradition of limiting utterances of the divine name seems to have come from. The issue wasn't that the Name was too holy to utter. Rather the issue was: who was holy enough to utter it? Why bandy the Name around in front of people who would only misuse it? Why should Yahweh’s name be mocked by their captors? Why should the word YHWH be appropriated by those who will only use it for mockery or, worse, as a name to use in magic spells? Safeguarding the holy name when you are strangers in a strange land of unclean lips is entirely understandable. Within private Israelite ritual settings it could be uttered without compromise. But in public, in the exposed pagan worlds of exile? So, how to be discreet in that time? The psalms and other scriptures furnish the tools for the task of discretion: substitutions and circumlocutions.
Intertestamental Jewish literature: alternatives
and substitutes for the divine name
It should be
mentioned that many non-canonical Aramaic and Hebrew texts omit the divine name
altogether. A lot of these were written in Greek, and the Greek word "Kurios" appears as a substitute for the divine name. "Kurios" translates as "Lord." This way of substituting became very influential.
There's the work of Aristobulus.
His Greek citation of Exodus 9.3 uses 'Kurios'.
Likewise, the
Letter of Aristeas uses 'Kurios' in its Greek citation of Deuteronomy
7:18-19.
Also Philo
uses 'Kurios' as an alternative to the divine name, and he was a contemporary
of Jesus.
But let’s do
some more detailed work.
We will note
three main things about this Jewish literature, focussing on the
so-called Wisdom of Solomon. And another called Ecclesiasticus (a text also
known as Ben Sirach). And also the books of Maccabees. Why do these books matter? Here's why:
1) they were an inspiration to the New
Testament writers
2) they mentioned caution about
pronouncing the divine name
3) they substituted ‘Kurios’ for ‘Yahweh’ when citing Old Testament scripture
Here is a brief
overview from this Jewish literature, showing how words are used as
alternatives and substitutes for the divine name.
2
Maccabees 2:8 (dating to
about 125 BC) has 'Kurios' for the divine name. e.g. "the glory of the
Lord (Kurios)." There are other examples, e.g. in 3.33.
In the Wisdom
of Solomon (dating to about 50 BC) 'Kurios' is used as an alternative to
the divine name. e.g. "who can comprehend the will of the Lord (Kurios)"
in 9:13. There is similar in 4:17-18. This is the sort of place where you might
expect to see Jehovah instead, but find Kurios. The Wisdom of Solomon inspired part of Paul’s
letter to the Romans, so it’s valid to take note of it. See appendix 1 below.
2
Maccabees 2:8 says:
“the
glory of the Lord (‘Kurios’) will be seen, and so will the cloud, as it was
revealed in the time of Moses and when Solomon prayed that the holy place might
be gloriously hallowed.” (NJB)
This is alluding to two passages. It uses the word Kurios where a so-called "sacred name movement" might expect to use Yahweh! Here are examples of a Bible version that keeps "Yahweh" (the New Jerusalem Bible) so you can see the difference:
Exodus
24:16: “The glory of Yahweh rested on Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it for
six days. On the seventh day Yahweh called to Moses from inside the cloud.”
(NJB)
1 Kings 8:11:12: “For the glory of Yahweh filled the Temple of Yahweh. Then Solomon said: Yahweh has chosen to dwell in thick cloud.” (NJB)
2 Maccabees 2:8: “the glory of the Lord (‘Kurios’) will be seen, and so will the cloud, as it was revealed in the time of Moses and when Solomon prayed that the holy place might be gloriously hallowed.” (NJB)
More about: when saying "YHWH" becomes a taboo
It is often said that in the intertestamental period, speaking the divine name became the prerogative of priests. This history of a priestly prerogative owes much to rabbinic writings that appeared in the third and fourth centuries AD, but tradition was based on earlier knowledge. Mishnah Sotah (m. Sot. 7.6) seems to indicate that before the time of Jesus the divine name was spoken aloud in the Temple (but not in the Jewish diaspora) when the priest speaks the blessing from Numbers 6:24-26. That would be an example of the priestly prerogative.
There is evidence of special caution about pronouncing the divine name in Jewish circles. This would not be surprising to anthropologists. The divine name is like a sacred object, and sacred objects become taboo in order to protect them from being defiled by the unclean. So, it would make complete sense that historically, the divine name became taboo while in exile in Babylon, so that it would not be used cheaply on the lips of pagan Babylonians. This is not superstition. It is not supposing any magical power in the name. Simply, communities protect their sacred objects. That's why Psalm 137:4 says "How can we sing Yahweh's song in a strange land?" Think of that verse as key to understanding this. In a land of unclean lips, who is worthy to utter the Name? You can see why it became the preserve of the high priest in the temple.
The Wisdom of Solomon 14:21 refers to ‘the ineffable name’ (NJB) or ‘the incommunicable name’ (Greek ‘to akoinoneton onoma’). It is therefore not surprising that this book does not feature the divine name and that kurios is used as an alternative to YHWH.
Ecclesiasticus 23:10 (aka ‘Ben Sirach’, about 125 BC) warned that "someone who is always swearing and uttering the Name will not be exempt from sin” (NJB). Therefore, it is not surprising that this book does not feature the divine name.
The Septuagint translation: alternatives and substitutes
for the divine name
We can also
go back to Greek versions of the Old Testament discovered from before the
time of Jesus. That is, the Septuagint translation (also known as LXX or "old Greek" translation). It's good to compare this Greek translation with the Hebrew original.
You can see substitution in the LXX Greek translation of Isaiah 40:
Isaiah 40:13 (LXX): "Who has known the mind of the Lord (Kurios)? and who has been His counsellor, to instruct Him?" (The Greek reads τίς ἔγνω νοῦν κυρίου.)
If you look at the Hebrew, you will see it says 'Yahweh,' not 'Kurios.' And Isaiah 40 is treated similarly in another intertestamental text:
Wisdom of Solomon 9:13: “What human being indeed can know the intentions of God? And who can comprehend the will of the Lord (Kurios)” (NJB)
What we do know, based on documentary evidence, briefly:
(1) Some, perhaps all, old Greek texts of the Scriptures around circa 50 BC had either "YHWH" or the Greek abbreviation "Iao". (But it is also possible that some copies would have had "kurios" (cf. "qere"), which some LXX experts, like Pietersma for example, think was already the original rendering of the Divine Name in at least some parts of the LXX.)
(2) When Jews in their own personal Greek writings quoted from the LXX they were at liberty to write Kurios, whether or not the LXX had YHWH or the abbreviation Iao.
We have seen, from literature that was an inspiration to the first generation of Christians, that the New Testament authors would have been familiar with caution about pronouncing the divine name, and familiar with the Greek practice of using Kurios, sometimes as an alternative, sometimes as a substitute.
Dead Sea Scrolls: alternatives and substitutes
for the divine name
Let’s turn to
the Dead Sea Scrolls, from before the time of Jesus. It's a library of scrolls. You can find Hebrew scrolls of parts of the Bible and Greek ones. It's a treasure trove. The Qumran community who had
the scrolls had a clear warning: "Anyone who
speaks aloud the Most Holy Name of God … while he is reading a book or praying,
is to be expelled…"[4]
There are surviving manuscripts of the Scriptures in Hebrew and in the Jewish Septuagint in the scrolls. But they don't all do
the same thing. They vary their treatment of the divine name. In
the scrolls there are interesting textual variations.
I’m talking
especially about a scroll of Isaiah (1QIsaa):
- in some verses it has four dots in place of YHWH;
- in other verses it has the divine name in Aramaic,
sometimes with and sometimes without the consonants of Adonai (ADNY) an alternative Hebrew name for God written
above it.
This is
direct evidence that there was a reminder to ancient Jewish readers to
pronounce Adonai as a substitute instead of saying Yahweh. And this is not the only
substitute evident in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Other
manuscripts in the Dead Sea Scrolls from before
the time of Jesus testify to variety. Sometimes, instead of seeing the divine name, you see a little blank space. Sometimes you see substitutions.
A space might have dots instead of the name. This could serve a variety of purposes:
to avoid a risk that extensive handling of a scroll causes damage to the ink smudging or damaging the name; or lest the
reader pronounce it - you see a cue for some readers to use a substitute such as
Adonai or Kurios if they felt they should; or a little space left blank for a more
skilled scribe to add the divine name later in perfect handwriting. You see all this variety from very careful Jewish scribes.
It's interesting that some
such manuscripts left a little blank space in a Bible passage where the word YHWH belongs.
We sometimes find the space filled in by another scribe's hand as ‘YHWH’ – this is the
case with PapyrusFouad266 (where a later scribe missed one of the spaces and
left it blank - oops!). But notably in Papyrus Oxyr. 656 a similar blank space has
been filled in as Kurios by a later scribe. (Papyrus Oxyr. 656 is from Egypt, not from the Dead Sea Scrolls, by the way.) So we see variety again. The name was
not being phased out, but alternatives were acceptable. What was spoken may
depend on who was reading the scroll. A lower ranking reader might say Adonai,
a more senior one might say Yahweh, but this is speculation.
More interesting variation: in a Greek translation of Leviticus found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (labelled 4QpapLXXLev) the sound of the name of God is represented by the Greek letters ιαω ιαω - ΙΑΩ in capitals (a transliteration pronounced ‘Iao’). This is curious, given that this scroll seems to make Lev 24:16 out to be a prohibition on pronouncing the name out loud. (By the way, centuries later, the Aramaic version of Hebrew scripture known as Targum Onqelos also seems to treat Leviticus 24:16 as prohibiting the pronunciation of the four-letter version of the name YHWH, just as in earlier times.)
The Greek transliteration ιαω is found in a number of Jewish manuscripts dated to a few centuries before Jesus.[5] So what is going on here? It's quite simple. It's because it's not the full name.
In some Qumran texts, Maryah ("Lord" in Aramaic) is substituted for YHWH.
Basically, the prohibition was only ever about saying the Tetragrammaton, the full four-letter version of the name: YHWH. The taboo was never about speaking any abbreviation. ιαω only ever represented an abbreviation. It would be silly, completely impracticable, to ban the abbreviation Yah or Iah because it appears in names such as Isaiah. That is, Isa-IAH. You can't have a taboo about that! They did have a taboo about the full name YHWH - see the difference?
That's why they were also fine with saying the Hebrew phrase "Halleluyah." Like the name "Isa-iah," this is two parts combined.
In Hebrew, the two parts are הַלְלוּיָהּ (meaning "praise ye..." and is built up from the Hebrew verb hālal which is הָלַל) plus the abbreviated name of God which is reduced to יָהּ which is shown as the Yah in Hallelu-yah.
Put it all together and the Halleluyah phrase in Hebrew is written as הַלְלוּ־יָהּ.
The Hebrew for the Yah part is י (Yod) plus ָהּ (the ah sound).
There is an
unidentified fragment in the Dead Sea Scrolls which includes 'Kurios' preceded
by a space. It suggests Jewish use of Kurios as divine name, as if a space was left, and when it came to filling it in with the divine name, it was decided that Kurios would be the right choice instead of Yahweh,
(All these
things are pre-Christian Jewish writings. So by the time the New Testament
comes along, using 'Kurios' as divine name was hardly a novelty. It was in use
as an alternative, and sometimes a substitute, for the divine name YHWH at the time when the New
Testament was being written. I’ll come back to that. So the Chronicler had plenty of followers, tradition-wise!)
So, the
Hebrew YHWH was not the universal form for conveying the divine name.
Martin Rosel makes good points about this in his 2007 paper entitled The reading and
translation of the divine name in the Masoretic tradition and the Greek
Pentateuch.
The patchy
manuscript evidence is enough to demonstrate diversity in the Septuagint’s
approach to the divine name, blank spaces, substitutes, etc. This is the case
for LXX manuscripts from before and after the time of Jesus.[6]
Later, it was
Christians who were keeping the text of the Jewish LXX alive when other people ignored it. The early
Christians received and maintained a varied manuscript tradition of the LXX,
with and without the divine name. For the avoidance of doubt, we can say that
they didn’t erase the divine name from the Septuagint. They preserved
variant readings of the Septuagint with and without the divine name, not least
in Origen’s famous Hexapla, and in Jerome’s work of the 4th-5th century. They
preserved what was there, without a doubt. They simply recorded varied
manuscript traditions.
As an aside,
it's worth making the point that this evidence of faithful Christian copying practices, completely undermines fringe speculation that the New Testament books were tampered with by naughty Christian scribes erasing the four-letter word Yahweh from every single copy, so that it's never found. This is obviously nonsense, because that's not how they behaved. We have
proof from early Christians like Origen and Jerome that they hadn’t erased the name from the
LXX tradition of the Old Testament. So it is baseless to speculate that
they would have ever erased the name from the New Testament. There is no such trajectory
in any early Christian texts. There was always variety, and they were unafraid to make
known the presence of the divine name in copies of the LXX. This is in evidence all through
those early Christian copies of the LXX going on for centuries.
So if the full divine name had ever been in the New Testament, faithful Christian writers would likewise have shown it. For further proof, we do see that, just as they preserved variant readings of the LXX, so too they faithfully preserved variant readings of the New Testament. But here's the thing - the full divine name isn't a variant in any New Testament manuscript!
All of this means the full divine name was surely never there in the New Testament - we can be confident enough saying that. We have enough evidence to say that is the surest conclusion.
And the New Testament does keep the two-letter abbreviation, against which there was no taboo. So in the New Testament, you do find "Halleluyah."
I’ve set out what happened before Jesus simply as background to understand the development. Now we can take some Jewish evidence from around the time of Jesus, and after Jesus. Two very famous Jewish authors left us plenty of evidence, and their names are Philo and Josephus.
Philo and Josephus: alternatives and
substitutes for the divine name in the first century AD
The trajectory of substitutions, from the book of Chronicles onwards, reaches the first century. We come to the primary witness of Jews who weren't Christians that they were were still cautious about the divine name in the first century AD.
This is the same century in which Jesus preached and when Jewish Christians
were writing the New Testament, so careful attention pays dividends.
Philo was writing alternatives
to YHWH, and one of his preferred alternatives was Kurios.
Josephus has another alternative to writing YHWH. Josephus’s preferred alternative
was “Despotes”. (Josephus may well have avoided “Kurios” as the emperor’s
title. Christians on the other hand, by using Kurios, were clearly not worrying
about offending the emperor!)
Philo, first century Jewish writer
Philo quotes
Leviticus 24:15-16 this way: "Whoever curses God shall be guilty of sin,
and whoever names the name of the Lord shall die.” (Philo, On the Life of
Moses, II, 37-38)[8] Strong
stuff. Obviously one could not use the name publicly amongst Jews without
serious offence being triggered, unless one had the right to do so. But if
Philo was doing this to hide the name from anyone, it was only to hide it from people he would see as barbarians. Perhaps
this was to mitigate a risk of the name being misused, whether in Jewish oaths
or in the magic spells of Gentile magicians who might get their hands on it.
Philo’s Greek
writings evidence his use of Kurios as a preferred substitute for the name Yahweh.
One other
thing about Philo is that he commented that “I am” was not a name, properly
speaking. (A question that often comes up.) Perhaps Philo
had in mind ‘Ehyeh’ or ‘YHWH’ when making this comment, but we don't know. This “I am” question is
a theme taken up later by early church writers (beginning with Justin Martyr)
to whom I will return.
Josephus
Now we come
to Josephus (born after the time of Jesus, about 37AD, and living in Jerusalem
until the war with the Roman army). He was alive throughout the time the
writings of the New Testament were written. Josephus published a self-authored
book called Antiquities of the Jews around 93AD and in it – tellingly -
he wrote that "God declared to [Moses] his holy name, which had never been
discovered to men before; concerning which it is not lawful for me to say any
more."[9]
That is,
Josephus’ Jewish religion prevented him divulging the divine name to his Greek-speaking
readership. This echoes what Philo said at the start of that century.
In summary,
usage of the full name beyond permitted Jewish holy parameters was taboo amongst first
century Jews. This is true before during and after the time of Jesus and his
first disciples. This is true whether our research is Jerusalem-centred
(Josephus), looking at the Jewish diaspora (Philo), or even a sect (the people
who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran).
Appendix 1
The Wisdom
of Solomon inspired parts of Paul’s letters, so it’s valid to
take note of it. Here are some examples showing how it inspired Paul.
Romans
Compare here:
Wisdom
of Solomon 13.5: "From the greatness and beauty of created things comes a
corresponding perception of their Creator"
Romans
1.20: “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal
power and Godhead”
And compare
here:
Wisdom
of Solomon 13.8-9: "Yet again, even they cannot be excused, for if they
had the power to know so much that they could investigate the world, how did
they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things"
Romans
1:20-21: “so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God,
they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their
imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
And compare
here:
Wisdom
of Solomon 14:24-26: "They no longer keep either their lives or their
marriages pure, but they either treacherously kill one another, or grieve one
another by adultery, and all is a raging riot of blood and murder, theft and
deceit, corruption, faithlessness, tumult, perjury, confusion over what is
good, forgetfulness of favors, pollution of souls, sex perversion, disorder in
marriage, adultery, and debauchery."
Romans
1:26-31: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their
women did change the natural use into that which is against nature… God gave
them over to a reprobate mind… filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit,
malignity…”
And compare
here:
Wisdom
of Solomon 15.7: "out of the self-same clay he models vessels intended for
a noble use and those for a contrary purpose"
Romans
9.21: “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one
vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?”
See the
pattern? There’s more there too, but let’s move on from Romans for now to
Colossians for more of the same.
Colossians
Here is more
of how Paul was influenced by relevant intertestamental literature, showing
that it’s valid to take account of them in this study. Compare here:
Wisdom
of Solomon 7:26: [Wisdom is] “a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an
image of his goodness.”
Colossians
1:15: “He is the image of the invisible God...”
Wisdom
of Solomon 1:14: "for he created all things that they might exist"
Colossians
1:16: “...by him all things were created…”
Wisdom
of Solomon 1:7: "...that which holds all things together knows what is said...”
Colossians
1:17: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
See where
Paul got some inspiration from?
You may be
interested to know that Paul’s interest in such literature also extends to
Ecclesiasticus – see Corinthians here.
Corinthians
Again, here
is more of how Paul was influenced by relevant intertestamental literature,
showing that it’s valid to take account of them in this study. Compare here:
Ecclesiasticus
1:4: “Wisdom existed before all things...”
1
Corinthians 2:7: “...wisdom that God predestined before the ages....”
Ecclesiasticus
1:6: “To whom has the root of wisdom been revealed?”
1
Corinthians 2:10: “God revealed these things to us...”.
Ecclesiasticus
1:10: “...he has given [wisdom] to those who love him.”
1
Corinthians 2:9: “...which God has prepared for those who love him.”
Ecclesiasticus
1:15: [Wisdom] “has built an eternal foundation among men...”
1
Corinthians 3:10: “...as a wise architect I laid down a foundation....”
Ecclesiasticus
2:5: “Gold is tested in the fire....”
1
Corinthians 3:12-13: “And if any man builds upon the foundation with gold or
silver or precious stones..., it is to be revealed in fire.”
In short, you can see that the Wisdom of Solomon inspired parts of Paul’s letters, so it’s valid to take note of it.
Footnotes
[1] It is interesting to note that the
Jehovah’s Witnesses Bible does not allow that this was a choice of the author
of the Psalm, and in four places changes the word “God” to “Jehovah”, to
enforce conformity with Psalm 14, as follows:
Psalm 53 (NWT)
2 As for God, he has looked down from heaven itself upon
the sons of men,
To see whether there exists anyone having insight, anyone
seeking Jehovah.
4 Have none of the practicers of what is hurtful got
knowledge,
Eating up my people as they have eaten bread? They have
not called even upon Jehovah.
5b You will certainly put [them] to shame, for Jehovah
himself has rejected them.
6 O that out of Zion there were the grand salvation of
Israel!
When Jehovah gathers back the captive ones of his people
[2] Geoffrey H. Parke-Taylor: ‘Yahweh:
The Divine Name in the Bible’ page 7-8.
[3] “Defilement of the hands,
canonization of the Bible, and the special status of Esther, Ecclesiastes, and
Song of Songs.” In Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought,
1995, Broyde: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-17155566.html
[4] Charter of a Jewish Sectarian Association,
Dead Sea Scrolls. Wise, Abegg & Cook, 135.
[5] David B. Capes. ‘YHWH texts and
Monotheism in Paul’s Christology’ in Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism
. pg 121-123.
[6] For a fascinating scholarly
discussion of this, see http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1998-09/27824.html
and http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1998-09/27823.html
[7] Philo, On the Life of Moses, II, 23. See:
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book25.html
[8] Philo, On the Life of Moses, II, 37-38.
See: http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book25.html
