avi

That's very interesting to me, snm.

It raises a whole host of questions.

First, most obvious, if you sought to avoid confusion, in 2010, by writing "theos/kyrios", instead of "ks/ko", why would you suppose that the Greek speaking Jews of Alexandria, 2200 years ago, were any less dedicated to presenting an authentic, unambiguous, unabridged, unredacted, unaltered, exact, literal translation of the written Hebrew text?

Second, gosh, snm, I don't wish to interject any sort of psychobabble into the discussion, but, isn't it just a tad arrogant for us to assume that we are so intelligent, that we know enough to write correctly, to ensure absence of ambiguity on the part of our readers, but those dummies working back then, 2200 years ago, in dusty Alexandria, without proper air-conditioning, and undoubtedly toiling in an un-hygienic workplace environment, were so stupid, and so exhausted, that they carelessly penned "ks/ko", instead of "theos/kyrios", i.e. those 70 scholars were writing the Septuagint exclusively for the benefit of the Greek speaking Jewish community, (all of whom already knew that "ks" corresponded to yahweh's title), not for Greeks in general. This is another way of writing that 2200 years ago, Judaism was not particularly interested in proselytizing. Hmm. Didn't I just recently read an article in Archaeology about Jews in the Horn of Africa, racing about with unquestioned missionary zeal?

Third, if "everyone" today knows, without being told by us, that yahweh, el's name, is a theos, but is referred to, deferentially, rather, as a kyrios, representing some kind of honorific title, (though, how can a title applied to both humans and Gods be more honorific than a title applied uniquely to Gods?) then, why would it be less ambiguous for you to specifically write theos/kyrios?

In my opinion, very few people understand these issues, so I applaud your decision, snm, to write "theos/kyrios". My guess is, back then, people were not a whole lot better educated that we are here today, so that the need for clarity and lack of ambiguity would have been as important for them, as it is for us today. I think those 70 scholars knew that, and did write theos/kyrios. I have no way to prove such an idea, obviously.

avi