Names and titles of God in the New Testament

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The tetragrammaton (YHWH) or trigrammaton (YHW) do not occur in any extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Extant Greek New Testament manuscripts contain the Greek word Kyrios (Lord) in Old Testament quotes where the Hebrew manuscripts contain the tetragrammaton. Some translations insert the tetragrammaton or another name of God into the New Testament where Kyrios appears in the available manuscripts.

Video Names and titles of God in the New Testament

Manuscripts

None of the extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament contain the tetragrammaton, The oldest extant fragments of New Testament manuscripts--${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$⁵², ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$⁹⁰, ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$⁹⁸ and ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$¹⁰⁴--do not include any verses that quote Old Testament verses that contained the tetragrammaton. The Septuagint manuscript P Oxy 1007, dated to 3rd century CE contains a double yohd to represent the name of God. Fragments that do contain quotations of Old Testament verses containing the tetragrammaton are from the 3rd century CE onward (${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$⁴⁶, ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$⁶⁶, ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$⁷⁵), almost two centuries after the originals.

Extant New Testament manuscripts are from the late Ante-Nicene Period rather than the Apostolic Age. Scholar George Howard has suggested that the tetragrammaton appeared in the original New Testament autographs, and that "the removal of the Tetragrammaton from the New Testament and its replacement with the surrogates ?????? and ???? blurred the original distinction between the Lord God and the Lord Christ." In the Anchor Bible Dictionary, Howard states: "There is some evidence that the Tetragrammaton, the Divine Name, Yahweh, appeared in some or all of the OT quotations in the NT when the NT documents were first penned."

Along with Howard, David Trobisch and Rolf Furuli both have suggested that the tetragrammaton may have been removed from the Greek manuscripts. In the book Archaeology and the New Testament, John McRay wrote that the New Testament autographs "may have preserved the Jewish custom and retained the divine name in Aramaic script in quotations from the Old Testament." Robert Baker Girdlestone stated in 1871 that if the Septuagint had used "one Greek word for Jehovah and another for Adonai, such usage would doubtless have been retained in the discourses and arguments of the N.T. Thus our Lord in quoting the 110th Psalm, ... might have said 'Jehovah said unto Adoni.'" Since Girdlestone's time it has been shown that the Septuagint contained the tetragrammaton, but that it was removed in later editions. For example, the 8HevXII gr manuscript dated to the 1st century CE contains the tetragrammaton in Hebrew or paleo-Hebrew script.

Wolfgang Feneberg comments in the Jesuit magazine Entschluss/Offen (April 1985): "He [Jesus] did not withhold his father's name YHWH from us, but he entrusted us with it. It is otherwise inexplicable why the first petition of the Lord's Prayer should read: 'May your name be sanctified!'" Feneberg further notes that "in pre-Christian manuscripts for Greek-speaking Jews, God's name was not paraphrased with kýrios [Lord], but was written in the tetragram form in Hebrew or archaic Hebrew characters. ... We find recollections of the name in the writings of the Church Fathers".

Professor Christopher R. Matthews states:

"In pre-Christian Greek [manuscripts] of the OT, the divine name was not rendered by 'kyrios' as has often been thought. Usually the Tetragram was written out in Aramaic or in paleo-Hebrew letters... At a later time, surrogates such as 'theos' [God] and 'kyrios' replaced the Tetragram... There is good reason to believe that a similar pattern evolved in the NT, i.e. the divine name was originally written in the NT quotations of and allusions to the OT, but in the course of time it was replaced by surrogates".

No Jewish manuscript of the Septuagint has been found with ?????? representing the tetragrammaton, and it has been argued, but not widely accepted, that the use of ?????? shows that later copies of the Septuagint were of Christian character, and even that the composition of the New Testament preceded the change to ?????? in the Septuagint. The consistent use of ?????? to represent the tetragrammaton has been called "a distinguishing mark for any Christian LXX manuscript", Alan Mugridge states regarding Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1007 and Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 656:

"It has been suggested that two OT papyri, listed here as Christian, are actually Jewish. In 3 [ie, P. Oxy. VII 1007] (2nd half III AD) two yodhs (...) appear for the Divine Name. A second hand wrote the Divine Name as ?????? with a differente 'pen' from the rest of the text in 9 [ie, P. Oxy. IV 656] (II/III AD), perhaps a second writer assigned to insert the Divine Name. This is not sufficient reason, however, to conclude that these two papyri are Jewish, since Jewish strands within early Christianity existed throughout the period under review, as we noted earlier. Hence, this practice may just reflect current practice in Jewish-Christian groups, which did not fade away as rarly or as completely as is often thought. (...) If 3 [ie, P. Oxy. VII 1007] is a Christian papyrus - and the use of the nomen sacrum ?? would seem to support this - it is the only example of an attempt to write something resembling Hebrew characters in a Christian manuscript.".

Mugridge concludes that early Gentile Christians could use the tetragrammaton, but that later Christians "replaced the Tetragrammaton by Kyrios, when the divine name written in Hebrew letters was not understood any more." Professor Robert J. Wilkinson suggests that Jews in mixed communities would not tolerate articulations of the tetragrammaton, and that Gentiles would have trouble pronouncing it if it were not ??? or ??????. Some Jews may have continued to pronounce YHWH in one form or another, (e.g., ??? in Greek) until the late of Second Temple Period. According to Pavlos Vasileiadis, a Doctor of Theology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, "The indications denote that it was 'still being pronounced by some Hellenistic Jews' and also by non-Jews as late as the third century C.E." Jerome wrote that by 384CE, some ignorant readers of the LXX assumed the tetragrammaton to be a Greek word, ???? (pipi), suggesting its pronunciation had been forgotten, but affirming its existence at the end of the 4th century. According to Edmon Gallagher, a faculty member of Heritage Christian University, some Christian scribes "would have produced a paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton", concluding that "if the scribe copied poorly the paleo-Hebrew script... as ????, which can be a corruption only of the Tetragrammaton in square script."

Sidney Jellicoe concluded, "Kahle is right in holding that LXX [Septuagint] texts, written by Jews for Jews, retained the divine name in Hebrew Letters (paleo-Hebrew or Aramaic) or in the Greek-letters imitative form ????, and that its replacement by ?????? was a Christian innovation". Jellicoe cites various scholars (B. J. Roberts, Baudissin, Kahle and C. H. Roberts) and various segments of the Septuagint, concluding that the absence of Adonai from the text suggests that the insertion of the term ?????? was a later practice; that the Septuagint ?????? is used to substitute YHWH; and that the tetragrammaton appeared in the original text, but Christian copyists removed it.

Tatian's Diatessaron shows some variance in applying ?????? to YHWH, but this may be because of dependence on the Peshitta. Robert Shedinger wrote that Diatessaron may provide additional confirmation of Howard's hypothesis:

It is at least possible that the regular use of "God" in the Diatessaron is further confirmation of Howard's thesis. However, it must be stressed that Howard's thesis is somewhat speculative, and the textual evidence he cites from the New Testament in support of it is far from overwhelming. But if Howard is wrong, and ?????? was the original reading of the New Testament, some other plausible explanation must be found for the use of "God" in both the Diatessaron and the other textual and patristic witnesses cited above that for the most part have no connection to the Diatessaron tradition. If nothing else, this phenomenon of the regular use of "God" in place of "Lord" in the Diatessaron is further evidence of Tatian's independence of the OTP.

Kyrios appears over 700 times in the New Testament, and in a few instances some Greek manuscripts also use the term in place of Theos. The consistency in rendering YHWH as ?????? in all New Testament references would be difficult to explain if there were not already either an established tradition to read ?????? where YHWH appears in a Greek manuscript, or an established body of texts with ?????? already in the Greek. ?????? is not an exact synonym of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton.

Rabbinical sources

A passage recorded in the Hebrew Tosefta, Shabbat 13:5 (c. 300 CE), quoting Tarfon is sometimes cited to suggest that early Christian writings or copies contained the tetragrammaton.

Shabbat 13:5

Shabbat 13:5

This same source quotes Jose the Galilean (who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE): "one cuts out the references to the Divine Name which are in them [the Christian writings] and stores them away, and the rest burns".

Shabbat 13:5

Shabbat 13:5

The Hebrew word guilyonim comes from the Greek euaggelion "Gospel". Lawrence Schiffman views this as a discussion of whether to rescue section of the sifre minim (Hebrew language texts of Jewish Christians) containing the tetragrammata from a house fire. Daniel Boyarin includes "even their books of Torah" in this quote.

Maps Names and titles of God in the New Testament

Presence in Old Testament quotes

The New Testament contains statements attributed to individuals quoting the Old Testament. George Howard concludes, because extant copies of the Septuagint from as late as the 3rd century CE contain the tetragrammaton or related forms (e.g. 4Q120 (1st century BCE), P Oxy. 3522 (1st century CE), P Oxy 5101 (50 and 150 CE), P Oxy 1007 (3rd century CE), Q (6th century CE)), that New Testament writers would also reasonably use the tetragrammaton.

Though Albert Pietersma, along with most scholars, does not accept Howard's theory, Pietersma has stated about other revisions of the Septuagint: "It might possibly still be debated whether perhaps the Palestinian copies with which the NT authors were familiar read some form of the tetragram."

From the third century CE onward, kyrios appears (e.g. P.Oxy656, P.Oxy1075) in Septuagint manuscripts. Extant New Testament manuscripts from the same period use the Greek form kyrios in place of the Tetragrammaton, even when quoting the Old Testament. For example, at Luke 4:17 Jesus reads the Isaiah scroll (Isaiah 61:1) at the synagogue in Nazareth.

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Nomina Sacra

The early Christians in the 1st century CE believed Yahweh to be the only true God, the god of Israel, and considered Jesus to be the messiah (Christ) prophesied in the Jewish scriptures. In pre-Nicene times "the Christian understanding of God carries the fundamental notion that He is the one and same in both the H[ebrew] O[ld] T[estament] and the NT texts." George Howard states that ?????? and ???? were the initial nomina sacra when later Gentiles Christians did not copy the tetragrammaton once they "found no traditional reasons to preserve the tetragrammaton." Larry Hurtado claims the innovation of nomina sacra favored the introduction of the doctrine of the Holy trinity in Christianity. Vasileiadis states that "the subsequent use of the contracted forms of the original nomina sacra ?[????]? [(??)] and ?[??]? [(??)] within Christian manuscripts probably reflects the Jewish practice of replacing the Tetragrammaton by ?[??]?.", transliterated in koine Greek as ??.

Hallelujah

Hallelujah (Tiberian hall?lûy?h, literally praise Jah or praise Yah), appears four times at Revelation 19:1-6. It is represented in Greek as ????????? wherein ?? (Hebrew ??) is an abbreviated form of the tetragrammaton.

Usage in New Testament translations

Most English Bibles, including those which contain Yahweh (such as the Jerusalem Bible) or a related form in the Old Testament, do not use the same form in the New Testament because it does not appear in the available Greek New Testament manuscripts. However, a few English translations of the Bible use the forms Jehovah or Yahweh in the New Testament.

Yahweh

• The Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition (1981) renders the tetragrammaton as Yahweh in both the Old and New Testaments.

Jehovah

• Edward Harwood, (1768), A Liberal Translation of the New Testament, Vol. 1.
• The Family Expositor or, a Paraphrase and Version of the New Testament; with Critical Notes, and a Practical Improvement of Each Section, by Philip Doddridge, 1808.
• William Newcome, in what is sometimes known as "Archbishop Newcome's new translation" (1809), uses the name Jehovah a few times where the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament, such as Matthew 22:24.
• The New Testament; Being the English Only of the Greek and English Testament, by Abner Kneeland, 1823.
• Lancelot Shadwell, (1861) The Gospels of Matthew, and of Mark, Newly Rendered Into English; With Notes on the Greek Text.
• A Literal Translation of the New Testament ... From the Text of the Vatican Manuscript, by Herman Heinfetter (1863)
• The Emphatic Diaglott (1864), by Benjamin Wilson, employs Jehovah eighteen times in the New Testament.
• Hiram Bingham II, (1890), Te Baibara.
• The Epistles of Paul in Modern English, by George Barker Stevens (1898).
• St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, by W. G. Rutherford (1900).
• Thomas Cuming Hall, (1901), The Messages of Jesus According to the Synoptists, (The Discourses of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke).
• Pablo Besson, (1919), El Nuevo Testamento de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo.
• Edward Grimes, (1923), The Apocalypse: A Revised Version in English of the Revelation with Notes, Historical and Explanatory.
• George N. LeFevre, (1928), The Christian's Bible--New Testament, (Strasburg, PA).
• Wilfrid H. Isaacs, (1933), The Epistle to the Hebrews with some interpretative suggestions.
• The Gospel of the Hellenists, by Benjamin W. Bacon and edited by Carl H. Kraeling, 1933.
• The New Testament Letters, by J.W.C. Wand, Bishop of London (1946).
• The rendering Jehovah appears 237 times in the New World Translation (NWT) of the New Testament published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and used by Jehovah's Witnesses.
• The Indoniseian Batak (Toba) version (1989) uses Jahowa 110 times.
• Rotuman Bible (1999), which uses Jihova 51 times in 48 verses.
• The Original Aramaic Bible in Plain English (2010) by David Bauscher, a self-published English translation of the New Testament, from the Aramaic of The Peshitta New Testament with a translation of the ancient Aramaic Peshitta version of Psalms & Proverbs, uses JEHOVAH approximately 239 times in the New Testament, where the Peshitta itself does not.
• The Divine Name King James Bible, published in 2011, uses Jehovah and Jah in 7,023 places where the capitalized LORD and GOD appear in the Authorized King James Version. Jehovah appears in parentheses in the New Testament portion of this Bible where Old Testament quotes are cross-referenced.

Sacred Name Bibles

Sacred Name Bibles are editions of the Bible that "consistently use Hebraic forms of God's name... in New Testament".

• In 1993, the Institute for Scripture Research (ISR) published The Scriptures, the first English translation to incorporate the Hebrew letters of the tetragrammaton instead of a generic title (e.g., the LORD) or a conjectural transliteration (e.g., Yahweh or Jehovah). The Besorah and ISR's The Scriptures '98 also incorporate the tetragrammaton, using Paleo-Hebrew script rather than Hebrew square script.

Only in notes

• John Nelson Darby, (1920), The Holy Scriptures

See also

• Assemblies of Yahweh
• Names of God in Christianity
• Names of God in Judaism
• Papyrus Fouad 266
• Papyrus Rylands 458

References

External links

• The divine name in the New Testament Le nom divin dans le Nouveau Testament
• Greek text - Complete Greek text of the Septuagint hyperlinked to Strong's concordance.
• Brenton's - The standard English translation of the Septuagint (hard copy has Greek in column)
• The New Testament and the Septuagint - Instances where the New Testament quotes the LXX against the Masoretic Hebrew
• The New Testament and the Hebrew OT - Instances where the New Testament agrees with the Masoretic Hebrew meaning
• Names in the Septuagint and Masoretic - A table of the older Greek names with the newer Masoretic renditions, in the Old Testament
• The Septuagint Online - Comprehensive site with scholarly discussion and extensive links to texts and translations
• Article for the thesis by Matteo Pierro in a Catholic Magazine: "Rivista Biblica", n. 2, April-June 1997, p. 183-186. Bologna, Italy
• Article against the thesis by Carmelo Savasta in a Catholic Magazine: "Rivista Biblica", n. 1, 1998, p. 89-92. Bologna, Italy
• The Tetragrammaton and the Christian Greek Scriptures, a downloadable book.
• George Howard (March 1977). "The Tetragram and the New Testament" (PDF). 96 (1). Journal of Biblical Literature: 63-83. 

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