4. There is strong evidence
that Matthew (and possibly other NT writers) wrote his Gospel in Hebrew
(Aramaic). If this is so, the inspired Bible writer would surely have used the
personal name of God! The Hebrew manuscripts at that time (and for many
hundreds of years thereafter) contained the Name nearly 7000 times. Whenever
Matthew (and the Hebrew-speaking Jesus and his Apostles) quoted from the Hebrew
scriptures, he would have used the Name just as it is found in the Hebrew
scriptures.
The WT Society also
believes Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew (Aramaic):
"In the fourth
century, Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate, reported: `Matthew,
who is also Levi, and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all
composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language....
Who translated it after that in Greek is not sufficiently ascertained.
Moreover, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at
Caesarea.' Since Matthew wrote in Hebrew, it is inconceivable that he did not
use God's name, especially when quoting from parts of the `Old Testament' that
contained the name." - p. 24, The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever,
WTBTS, 1984.
Noted trinitarian
scholar F. F. Bruce agrees that the Gospel of Matthew (at least) was originally
written in Hebrew (Aramaic) and cites another source as
evidence:
"Aramaic is
known to have been the common language of Palestine, and especially of
Galilee,
in the time of Christ, and was in all probability the language which He and his
Apostles habitually spoke. The New Testament writers usually call it `Hebrew,'
thus not distinguishing between it and its sister language in which most of the
Old Testament was written. Now, we have evidence of an early Aramaic document
in another fragment of Papias [c. 60-130 A. D.]: `Matthew compiled the Logia
[literally, "the collection" - Thayer] in the `Hebrew' speech
[i.e. Aramaic], and everyone translated them [into Greek] as best he
could.' " - p. 38, The New Testament Documents, Eerdmans Publ., 1992
printing.
So, whether
originally written in Greek or "Hebrew," the writings of the New Testament
should have used the Name of God, especially in quotes from the Old
Testament.
And when we restore
the name of God to the NT, we eliminate the confusing contradiction of Matt.
22:43-45 and its parallels (Mk 12:36-37; Lk. 20:42-44) where Jesus quoted Ps.
110:1.
"How does David in the
Spirit call him `Lord,' [kurios] saying, `The Lord [kurios]
said to my Lord [kurios], "sit at my right hand, until I put thine
enemies beneath thy feet." ' If David then calls him `Lord,' [kurios]
how is he his son?" - Matt. 22:43-45, NASB.
Literally this says
in the NT Greek:
"How therefore David
in spirit is calling him Lord [kurios] saying Said `Lord [kurios]
to the Lord [kurios] of me Be sitting out of right hand of me
until likely I should put the enemies of you beneath the feet of you'? If
therefore David is calling him Lord [kurios], how son of him is
he?"- The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures,
WTB&TS, 1985.
First, of course, it
doesn't say "The Lord said..."; it actually says "Lord said..."
because the original was "Jehovah" (without "the," of course) and "Lord" was
substituted for this name later (still without "the").
Second, in
this version there are two uses of "Lord" [kurios], but
Jesus speaks as though there is only one (because there really was
only one "Lord" [kurios in the Greek here] at the time he spoke it! The
other word that later copyists changed to kurios was
originally "Jehovah" as can be seen by actually looking at the OT
manuscripts that have the scripture Jesus was quoting!).
Third, not only is
it confusing to have two uses of kurios here, but, if we insist on
this version, it would be grammatically much more accurate to select the
first use of this word (the substitute for "Jehovah") as the one
Jesus was referring to. Since he said, "If David calls him
`Lord'..." but not "David calls him `the Lord' (or
`my Lord')...", it would be proper to say that Jesus was referring
to the first `Lord' (which is without the word "the") in that quote from
the OT. In reality, of course, he was actually referring to the "second" use of
kurios as found in modern texts! All this would be smoothed out if the
name were simply restored to the NT where it obviously was originally:
"Jehovah said to my Lord" as found in the original Hebrew Old Testament
Scripture at Ps. 110:1 which Jesus was quoting -
ASV.
"Since confession
of Jesus as Lord was the mark of the Christian and since for Christians there
was no other Lord, it was natural for Paul to speak of `the Lord' when he wished
to refer to Jesus. It is true that the same title was used to refer to God the
Father, and that this can lead to a certain ambiguity as to whether God
or Jesus is meant (this is especially the case in Acts; ...); generally,
however, `Lord' is used for God by Paul almost exclusively in quotations from
the OT" - p. 590, New Bible Dictionary, Tyndale House Publ.,
1982.
Again, if the name
of God were restored, there would not be so much "ambiguity" because these uses
of `Lord' in quotations from the OT were originally `Jehovah' and hence
there was no ambiguity or risk of confusion at all until later copyists
changed that divine name in the NT manuscripts to
kurios!
5.
Of
course Jesus used the name "Jehovah" in such places. He was a speaker of Hebrew
who was quoting (or reading) scripture to other speakers of Hebrew. Of course
he would use the Hebrew scriptures rather than the Greek Septuagint scriptures
when quoting to these people. It would have been ludicrous for Jesus to have
quoted from the Septuagint to these people when most of them would not have
understood the Greek language of the Septuagint in the first place.
The native-born Jews
in Israel spoke, of course, Hebrew. The Roman conquerors and
administrators of the Empire spoke Latin. And the many businessmen and
commercial travelers who visited and resided in Israel understood, in addition
to their own languages, the common language of commerce in the Mediterranean
world: Greek.
Of course there were
some Jews who could speak Latin and/or Greek. There were some Romans who could
speak Greek (and probably even a very few who could speak Hebrew also). And
there were undoubtedly some foreigners there who could speak Latin (and probably
a very few who could speak Hebrew also). But, by and large, if you wished to
communicate with the majority of the Jews, you would have to do it in
Hebrew (or the closely-related Aramaic). And if you wished to
communicate with the Romans, you would have to do it in Latin, and so
on.
So when Jesus was
teaching the Jews from the holy scriptures, he was doing so in
Hebrew.
If we should doubt
such an obvious conclusion that the majority of Jews did not understand Greek
(and therefore Jesus would not have taught them by quoting or reading from the
Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint), we only need to look at John 19:19,
20.
"And Pilate wrote an
inscription also .... Therefore this inscription many of the Jews read, for the
place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in
Hebrew, Latin, and in Greek." -
NASB
Obviously the Latin
was so the Romans could read the information about Jesus, and the Greek was so
the foreign merchants and travelers could read about Jesus. But Pilate
certainly would not have gone to the trouble of writing 1/3 of the sign in
Hebrew if most of the Jews could already read one of the other two languages on
that sign! It is obvious from this passage alone that many of them could not
understand Greek and needed to read Hebrew to understand what Pilate
wanted them to know!
Therefore, Jesus
must have quoted from the Hebrew Bible when reading to the Jews. And the
Hebrew Bible which he quoted at
Mt 21:42 actually says:
"This is
Jehovah's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes" (Ps. 118:23)
Mt 22:37 - "And you shall love
Jehovah your God with all your heart..." (Deut. 6:5)
Mt 22:44 - "Jehovah said
to my Lord: `Sit at my right hand...'" (Ps. 110:1)
Jn 12:38 - "... to whom has the
arm of Jehovah been revealed?" (Is. 53:1)
6.
"Rabbi Yohanan and
Rabbi Meir [`Second century rabbi who prepared a systematic edition of
traditional Jewish law and doctrine, which paved the way for the final edition
of the Mishnah' - p. 479, An Encyclopedia of Religion] are said to have
made unfriendly puns on the word Euangelion [`the Greek word for
"Gospel"' - p. 102] by altering its vowels to make it read
'Awen-gillayon or
`Awon-gillayon, meaning [in Hebrew/Aramaic]
something like `Iniquity of the Margin' ...." - p. 102, The New
Testament Documents - Are they Reliable?, F. F. Bruce, Eerdmans Publ., 1992
printing.
So the word `margin'
(gillayon) was used in a derogatory way for a Gospel ("most probably ...
the Gospel according to Matthew" as first written in Hebrew or Aramaic - p. 102)
of the Christians by these two very early Rabbis.
And when this word
is made plural (`margins') it becomes gillayonim (or
gilyohnim). Therefore, it is probable that this word was used
derogatorily to denote copies of a Christian Gospel written in Hebrew (or
Aramaic).
7.
"From
the middle of the 2nd century AD [around 150
AD] Christians who had some
training in Greek philosophy began to feel the need to express their
faith in its terms [instead of the original traditional Jewish terms]" – The
New Encyclopaedia Britannica.
8.
We can see
that the source of Halleluia in existing copies of the Septuagint is
really two words in the original Hebrew. For example the Hahlayloo
Yah of Psalm 146:1 is
obviously two separate Hebrew words: Hahlayloo [`praise ye'] and
Yah [`Jehovah']. And yet, our
oldest existing copies of the ancient Septuagint show these two words combined
into one `new' word in Greek: Halleluia. And the same Greek word,
Halleluia [ JAllhlouia], which was found in the
earliest copies of John's Revelation, was likewise treated by copyists of
the 2nd century. Whether John himself had combined the two words into one for
the benefit of those Hellenic Jews to whom he wrote (who were familiar with the
term as it was found in the Septuagint) or whether early copyists had done it to
conform with the Septuagint is not the point here.
9. And, of course, it was
passed along from its Septuagint use to other early Christian
writings:
"The
more diligent in prayer are wont to subjoin in their prayers the
`Hallelujah,' and such kind of psalms, in the closes of which the company
respond. And, of course, every institution is excellent which, for the
extolling and honoring of God, aims unitedly to bring Him enriched prayer as a
choice victim." - Tertullian (3rd cent. A.D.), ch.
27, `On Prayer,' The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3, Eerdmans Publ., 1993
printing.
"And afterwards the
deacon holding the mingled cup of the oblation shall say the Psalm from those in
which is written `Hallelujah' [in the Septuagint].... And afterwards the
bishop having offered the cup as is proper for the cup, he shall say the Psalm
`Hallelujah.' And all of them as he recites the Psalms shall say
`Hallelujah,' which is to say: We praise Him who is God most high" -
Hippolytus (c. 160-235 A.D.), `The Apostolic Tradition,' 26:29-30 as quoted from
The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus of Rome, The
Alban Press, London, 1992 ed.
10. Dr. F. F. Bruce
correctly points out that, strictly speaking, the LXX deals only with the Law
and not the whole Old Testament. Bruce writes, "The Jews might have gone on at a
later time to authorize a standard text of the rest of the Septuagint, but . . .
lost interest in the Septuagint altogether. With but few
exceptions, every manuscript of the Septuagint which has come down to our day
was copied and preserved in Christian, not Jewish, circles." (The
Books and the Parchments, p.150). This is important to note because the
manuscripts which consist of our LXX today date to the third century AD.
Although there are fragments which pre-date Christianity and some of the Hebrew
DSS agree with the LXX, the majority of manuscripts we have of the LXX date well
into the Christian era. And, not all of these agree. - http://www.purewords.org/kjb1611/html/septuag.htm
- RDB.
