Magdlyn

Who can help with info or a website?

Did the Greek speaking Jews who translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek 4th century BCE translate YHWH into Kyrios or leave it in Hebrew as YHWH or just phonetically spell YHWH in Greek?

TIA

Cubeless Academian

The Septuagint (3rd century BCE) uses "Kyrios" for YHWH. See http://septuagint.org/LXX/ for the Greek text.

Magdlyn

When I click on that link, CA, I do not get Greek, just vowels and squiggles. What should I do?

Amlodhi

Hi C.A.,

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Your link simply provides a modern LXX translation. My copy of the LXX [The Septuagint with Apocrypha, Sir Lancelot Brenton, Hendrickson, pub.] also translates "Kyrios".

However, to the best of my knowledge, all of the earliest known fragments translate either the Greek phonetic form "IAW" or retain the tetragrammaton in either paleo- or block Hebrew (or, on occasion, just a blank space). Sometimes, such as in a known palimpsest of Origen's Hexapla, this retention of the Hebrew T. has been followed by the Greek nomina sacra (basically, an abbreviation of the Greek "Kurios").

Some of the early (including c. 1st & 2nd century b.c.) Jewish/Greek fragments which retain the Hebrew Tetragrammaton are:


Also, IIRC, 4QLXXLevb was described in the journal DJD, Discoveries in the
Judean Desert, as also retaining 'ha-Shem'.

Thus, there is some very reasonable argument to be made that the 'original' LXX translation retained the tetragrammaton (or the Greek phonetic) and that the translation to the Greek 'Kyrios' was the result of later custom.


It is an interesting argument,

Amlodhi

Rick Sumner

Bibleworks 5.0 gives me kyrios across the board for every version of the LXX.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Toto

I cannot get to that website, but it sounds like you need some fonts.

There is also an online copy here:

http://bibledatabase.net/html/septuagint/

The question of the translation of YHWH seems to be a point of contention for those who take the Divine Name seriously as an article of religious faith.

Is "Lord" (Kyrios) the name of God in the Greek Scriptures?

ibiblio note

Magdlyn

Thank all of you very much. If anyone has more to add, I'm all ears.