indagator

OK, so JWI will hopefully return from Paris this coming week. He mentioned the BA article by Howard in his post above. That was a watered down version of his 1977 classic article in the JBL, the article that began the controversy in academic circles. I have attached it here for the reading pleasure of those who wish to imbibe. The "Christian Usage" portion begins on p. 74 with some background on the nomina sacra, and then in earnest on p. 76 with the NT. Howard JBL 96, 1977.pdf

JWI, yes, the notion that Iao is tied to mysticism is basically an anachronism. In his preface Shaw asks whether the divine name Ιαω fell down magically from the sky onto its most known appearance, the magical papyrus leaves, or whether it had a prior non-mystical Jewish history. 4Q120 shows that the latter is the case. Are you familiar with the work of Didier Fontaine? He reviews Shaw's book here: http://www.academia.edu/22707254/English_Review_of_F._Shaw_The_Earliest_Non-Mystical_Jewish_Use_of_Ιαω_2014_ Enjoy Paris!

GA and JWI: I'm glad you found that online SBL article helpful. JWI, you are certainly correct that language is primarily a spoken phenomenon and whatever writing system is applied to try and capture a given language, it (1) will have limitations and (2) can become problematic as the real, spoken, language continues to evolve. JWI said "I think we are dealing with an argument that a specific word, the Divine Name, might have become unpronounceable through edict and superstitious practice." This is true in the long run, but as Shaw brings out, both the passage in Philo's Embassy to Gaius and the one in Josephus' War show that people of Jesus' day had easy access to the pronunciation of the divine name, so at that time its pronunciation was known and recognized. GA, thanks for noting my separate posting. If one is concerned with the form of the name that Jesus and the apostles used, Shaw's book is the best thing available. As JWI has noted in substance, one of the limitations of the WTS on this issue is their heavy focus on Hebrew (in JWI's words, their failure to understand that the Hebrew tetragrammatons in LXX manuscripts show a non-pronunciation of the name by the manuscripts' producers, the opposite of what the organization officially concludes). In spirit this is the same deficiency found in the works of Furuli and Gertoux who continue to emphasize Hebrew. One needs to move beyond that and look at the evidence in Aramaic, the native language of Jesus and the apostles, as it is presented in Greek, the very thing we see so often in the pages of the New Testament itself: Mt 5:22, 27:46; Mk 5:41, 7.34, 11:9, 14:36; John 20:16; Rom 8:15; 1 Cor 16:22; Gal 4:6. As I stated in my recent OP, "the masses, among whom Jesus worked and from whom came the apostles and other disciples of him, freely used the name as Yaho in Aramaic. This then shows up as Iao in the written Greek sources," and "this form of the divine name [Ιαω], vocalized as "Ya-ho," was the active pronunciation of the divine name when Jesus and the apostles lived. There is considerable evidence for this." Again, if one really wants to understand the situation regarding the divine name as it was in Jesus' day, see here: https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/58370-the-latest-work-on-the-divine-name/ Whether JWs realize it or not, Shaw's concluding statement to his chapter 9 actually supports their use of "Jehovah" for God's name today, not because it somehow closely represents how the Hebrew name was really pronounced, say, in Isaiah’s day, but because a pronunciation of the name had come about that was related to its original one, but was different, an "unofficial" or possibly "inaccurate" one. Consider his words: "In sum, two things are evident: the God of the ancient Israelites had his more educated worshipers who during and after the [R]estoration felt that not verbalizing his name was a way to honor him. Eventually their view prevailed when it comes to the issue of the divine name in the biblical text and in Judaism in general. However, the same God also had another group, very likely less educated and unsophisticated, who felt the opposite and must have so freely expressed this, in the eyes of some, "unofficial" or perhaps "improper," form of the name—Ιαω—that the composers of the world's first Bible dictionaries could use it regularly to expound the meaning of biblical characters' names because their copies of the LXX contained it. Furthermore, pagan writers could use this name expecting their far-flung audience to understand what they were talking about. Obviously this implies there were plenty of everyday Jews still using Ιαω." BTW, JWI, I loved your "quick word" comment posted at 5:22 AM last Friday on this thread. That's the spirit. Of course, when dealing with others, it needs to be tempered with the caution expressed at Luke 17:1-2, but for those who can handle it, truth needs to be pursued.

I thought about posting this on the recent thread "Early Christians, the New Testament and the Divine Name," partly because of a question someone posed there on the earliest evidence for Jewish disuse of the name. However, the issue merits its own thread. There is a book published a few years ago on the Greek form of the tetragrammaton, iota-alpha-omega (Ιαω), that is on-topic, yet that seems to have escaped the attention of non-scholars, and for that matter, many scholars as well. It's dense reading to be sure, but worth the effort. It's written by one of the scholars who has penned reviews of Robert Wilkinson's monograph on the tetragrammaton, Frank Shaw. Its title is The Earliest Non-mystical Jewish Use of the Iao (the last word in Greek script Ιαω), volume 70 of Peeters Press's series Biblical Exegesis and Theology (Leuven 2014). In fact, Shaw's expertise on the name is no doubt why the editors of Oxford's Journal of Theological Studies asked him to review Wilkinson's book. Shaw's point of departure is the finding among the Qumran documents of a LXX manuscript of Leviticus that has Iao for the Hebrew text's Yhwh. What he attempts to do is gather together all known evidence for this Greek form of the name not used in magic or among Gnostics. His findings are surprising to most people who know something about the issue, whether a layperson or a scholar. It seems that this form of the divine name, vocalized as "Ya-ho," was the active pronunciation of the divine name when Jesus and the apostles lived. There is considerable evidence for this, a point that had been briefly made some years earlier in Sean McDonough's book, YHWH at Patmos: Rev. 1:4 in its Hellenistic and Early Jewish Setting (Mohr Siebeck 1999). Indeed, Shaw corrects some of McDonough's errors. Among other things addressed is the question of when the name began to be disused by Jews in the BCE period, and how use and non-use coexisted for many centuries until some time into the Christian era when disuse totally won out. Shaw offers a strong rebuttal of some Evangelical scholars, notably Albert Pietersma and Martin Rösel, who continue to contend against the mounting evidence that kyrios was originally used by the LXX's translators instead of a real form of the name. He also brings up a point made at this forum by JW Insider that "a problem with the JW position is that the use of a Hebrew YHWH in the middle of a Greek manuscript is an indication that it was not to be pronou[n]ced." What Shaw proposes is that within the Judaism into which Jesus and the apostles were born, there was diversity among the people regarding using the name. The upper class who provide most of our existing documentation of that society, and who are responsible for the LXX manuscripts that have come down to us that have the Hebrew tetragrammaton amid the Greek text, did not want to vocalize the name for multiple reasons, but the masses, among whom Jesus worked and from whom came the apostles and other disciples of him, freely used the name as Yaho in Aramaic. This then shows up as Iao in the written Greek sources. Shaw also calls out NT textual critics for largely ignoring the findings of, and theory of, George Howard regarding the many textual problems of dozens of NT passages where the Father is referred to. This is also one place where he criticizes McDonough who seems again, like Pietersma and Rösel for the LXX, to have represented Evangelicals who want to downplay these NT textual variants. Shaw modifies Howard's notion that the original NT documents likely did not have mainly Yhwh/יהוה in them, but instances of Iao/Ιαω instead. Another noteworthy thing he does is date just when this Greek form of the name began to appear in mystical sources. Scholarship had never before done this, and there have been very sloppy and erroneous assumptions made regarding this matter, including again McDonough. As it turns out, the evidence points to the use of Iao/Ιαω among magicians and mystics dating to the beginning of the second century CE. Shaw even proposes that these types picked up on this form of the name due to the earliest Christians using it in their preaching work. Later Christians then had reason to remove the name from their documents (LXX and NT) because the "pernicious heretics" and magicians were using it with more and more frequency. There are many other interesting points in the book, but this post has already gotten longer than I'd planned on. For those who have the stamina to work through it, the book is well worth what you will learn from it.

GA, perhaps by your ref. to Mt 5:18 you have in mind the well traveled—on the net anyway—article by Thomas Ross. But you request something more tangible. You might try looking at the article here and consider the works mentioned in notes 9 and 10. https://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?ArticleId=675 I hope this helps.

alvi languore insanabili, "with an incurable disease of the belly" (2 Chron. 21:18, Vulgate) posted on his/her response to the OP a pic of the cover of Robert Wilkinson's 2015 book on the Tetragrammaton. Readers here might be interested in Shaw's review of that book. It appeared in the Journal of Theological Studies in Oct. 2016. It's uploaded here: jts-shaw-rev.-wilkinson.pdf Another by Resnick appeared in the Medieval Review of 2016, here: resnick-rev.-of-wilkinson.pdf A third by Soulen in the Journal of Jesuit Studies in 2015, here: soulen-review-wilkinson.pdf Happy reading, all!

A conservative Protestant (Evangelical) religious studies professor from Canada, Michael Gilmour, who studies Jehovah's Witnesses and usually writes fairly balanced material about them, contributed the article on them in The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in America (2017). One point he makes, however, seems biased and unfair. Someone has written a rebuttal, rather deep and detailed, but worth working through if a person is interested in one passage in 1 Peter. It's been circulating on various forums, so why not here too? 1_peter_1.11.pdf For those who like to dig deeply, happy reading. It's four pages long.