WHY is the Tetragrammaton used so seldom

[Elijah John]

Why is the Tetragrammaton (YHVH), the Divine name, used so seldom in the New Testament?

It is used almost 7000 times in the OT/Hebrew Bible, but is absent or almost totally absent from the NT.

A few possible reasons are suggested.

1) Greek speaking NT writers honoring the Rabbinic prohibition against pronouncing (or writing?) the name of God.

2) The omission serves the agenda of NT writers in promoting Jesus as the "new" Lord, and redirecting honor in worship to Jesus instead of to YHVH.

Could it be either of these two reasons, or is there some other reason the Divine Name YHVH has been overlooked in the New Testament?

[onewithhim]

The Tetragrammaton is not used so often because there are those that want people to forget God's name so as to serve another god.

The OP asked why the Tetragrammaton is used to seldomly in the New Testament. Are you suggesting the authors of the New Testament wanted people to serve another god?

Not the authors of the NT but church lackeys that later changed things around in the NT text. Jesus called THE FATHER the only true God, yet copyists bowing to a tradition that was firming up in the church failed to copy down the NT as it was originally written. The Father's name was deleted and "the Lord" became Jesus in everyone's mind. He thus became "God" to parishioners of the church. This was singularly important to church leaders, because Constantine had decided that Jesus was God and thus to be politically correct, the church supported his decision. They weren't concerned with truth....they were concerned with their relationship with Caesar.

[onewithhim]

There is also evidence that the Tetragrammaton was used in early manuscripts of the N.T. where verses from the O.T. were quoted.

Concerning this, an article in the Journal of Biblical Literature says: "Recent discoveries in Egypt and the Judean Desert allow us to see first hand the use of God's name in pre-Christian times. These discoveries are significant for New Testament studies in that they form a literary analogy with the earliest Christian documents and may explain how NT authors used the divine name. In the following pages we will set forth a theory that the divine name, YHWH (and possibly abbreviations of it), was originally written in the NT quotations of and allusions to the O.T. and that in the course of time it was replaced mainly with the surrogate [abbreviation for Kyrios, 'Lord']. This removal of the Tetragrammaton, in our view, created a confusion in the minds of early Gentile Christians about the relationship between the 'Lord God' and the 'Lord Christ' which is reflected in the MS tradition of the NT text itself." (Journal of Biblical Literature, George Howard, Vol. 96, 1977, p.63)

[JP Cusick]

There is also evidence that the Tetragrammaton was used in early manuscripts of the N.T. where verses from the O.T. were quoted.

A book I read about scholarly criticism pointed out this text was peculiar by using the name = Yahweh Elohim:

Luke 1:32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:

According to the scholar criticism the birth story of Jesus (Luke 1:1 - 2:52) was written by a different author than whoever wrote the Gospel of Luke, and so using the old sacred name is very distinctive.

[DBSmith]

[Replying to post 43 by JP Cusick]

Consider what's in the New Testament, Luke 4:18 & 19 when Jesus quotes the Old Testament Isaiah 61:1 & 2, ...and how it is translated:
vs 1
OT uses the Lord GOD [adonai YHWH] and the LORD [Yahweh}
NT (Jesus) uses only 1 of them and chooses Lord [kurios,kyrios]

vs 2
OT uses LORD [Yahweh]
NT (Jesus) uses Lord [kuriou] (Yahweh) /the Jubilee for the God of the OT/

similarly for Matt 4:7 (Deut 6:16) & Matt 4:10 (Deut 6:13 & 10:20)
OT uses the LORD thy God [Yahweh Elohim]
NT (Jesus) uses the Lord thy God [kuriou theos] /Messiah Yahweh/

Jesus also used worship instead of fear in quoting the OT

also Ps 118:26 and Matt 23:29

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 43 by JP Cusick]

Consider what's in the New Testament, Luke 4:18 & 19 when Jesus quotes the Old Testament Isaiah 61:1 & 2, ...and how it is translated:
vs 1
OT uses the Lord GOD [adonai YHWH] and the LORD [Yahweh}
NT (Jesus) uses only 1 of them and chooses Lord [kurios,kyrios]

vs 2
OT uses LORD [Yahweh]
NT (Jesus) uses Lord [kuriou] (Yahweh) /the Jubilee for the God of the OT/

similarly for Matt 4:7 (Deut 6:16) & Matt 4:10 (Deut 6:13 & 10:20)
OT uses the LORD thy God [Yahweh Elohim]
NT (Jesus) uses the Lord thy God [kuriou theos] /Messiah Yahweh/

Jesus also used worship instead of fear in quoting the OT

also Ps 118:26 and Matt 23:29

Jesus didn't choose the words that we see in our English versions of the Bible today. He spoke in (some scholars say Greek, some say Aramaic)...not in English, as you undoubtedly realize. He also would not take his Father's name out of the original text and put "Lord" in its place. This has been done by clerics and copyists. Perhaps it would be informative if you took the time to go over the previous posts in this thread. Good to have your input.

[DBSmith]

I’m sorry if my post led you to believe I hadn’t read the previous posts, not sure why….clearly states “…how it is translated:� The verses noted should add to the previous comments, esp post 42. They are commonly used in the literature to make the points of this thread, but are not present.

From these verses we can discover Jesus’ use of the Old Testament…and his choice for the/a word for God, though, perhaps, clouded by corruption in the text as noted in the thread. If one tracks the usage of kurios, it is present more than 700 times in the New Testament as mentioned in an earlier post in this thread. And more than enough times it is used to represent the YHWH. The term has more than one meaning, hence, its use; but is basically the universal choice for translating LORD in the New Testament with consistency. In the Septuagint, for the Jews, they typically spoke Adonai (word for LORD) when reading the scriptures when YHWH was in the verse….the Greeks used kurios, again with consistency.

Some scholars do believe that the insertion of other words in the New Testament where the original was YHWH was intentionally done to disconnect Jesus and Yahweh. The verses referenced (and others), thusly, delineated points of reference, hence kurios or derivatives for Yahweh. But, the fingerprints are there to see through it if one does one’s homework.

Margret Barker (and others) does a nice job of explaining this with excellent references in several of her books. She even goes into wonderful detail on a similar occurrence in the scriptures with El and Yahweh and the corruption in individual verses to hide or change the original verse which have them as separate entities, even Father and Son Gods.

[onewithhim]

I’m sorry if my post led you to believe I hadn’t read the previous posts, not sure why….clearly states “…how it is translated:� The verses noted should add to the previous comments, esp post 42. They are commonly used in the literature to make the points of this thread, but are not present.

From these verses we can discover Jesus’ use of the Old Testament…and his choice for the/a word for God, though, perhaps, clouded by corruption in the text as noted in the thread. If one tracks the usage of kurios, it is present more than 700 times in the New Testament as mentioned in an earlier post in this thread. And more than enough times it is used to represent the YHWH. The term has more than one meaning, hence, its use; but is basically the universal choice for translating LORD in the New Testament with consistency. In the Septuagint, for the Jews, they typically spoke Adonai (word for LORD) when reading the scriptures when YHWH was in the verse….the Greeks used kurios, again with consistency.

Some scholars do believe that the insertion of other words in the New Testament where the original was YHWH was intentionally done to disconnect Jesus and Yahweh. The verses referenced (and others), thusly, delineated points of reference, hence kurios or derivatives for Yahweh. But, the fingerprints are there to see through it if one does one’s homework.

Margret Barker (and others) does a nice job of explaining this with excellent references in several of her books. She even goes into wonderful detail on a similar occurrence in the scriptures with El and Yahweh and the corruption in individual verses to hide or change the original verse which have them as separate entities, even Father and Son Gods.

The homework has been done, and it has been determined that "Lord" has been substituted for YHWH and thus YHWH and Jesus Christ are confused. Most versions don't leave any way to delineate the difference between the two.

[JehovahsWitness]

Some scholars do believe that the insertion of other words in the New Testament where the original was YHWH was intentionally done to disconnect Jesus and Yahweh.

On this we can agree; the tetragrammaton oritinally appears many thousands of times in the bible. The available evidence is that when Christian writers quoted and referred to the "OT" they used the Divine Name (YHWH) as well. Subsequently then, it seems that there were (and are) people that have attempted to change the bible by taking words out of the original and replacing them with a completely different word that has a different meaning.

Jehovah's Witnesses are against such tampering with the word of God; we believe if YHWH (Jehovah) did not want his personal name in scripture, He would not have inspired bible writers to write that name in there thousands and thousands of timesWe view it as part of our personal mission to educate people as to what God's name is, why it's important and what place it should have in both the Old and the New Testament.



JW

RELATED THREADS

Did the Hebrew bible that Jesus (and first century writers) use, contain the Name of God?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 585#822585

Is there evidence that the Divine name was removed from the New Testament?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 272#822272

Are there bible translations with the Divine Name in the New Testament?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 460#858460

God's own name: Banned by the Pope!
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 429#828429

[Elijah John]

Some scholars do believe that the insertion of other words in the New Testament where the original was YHWH was intentionally done to disconnect Jesus and Yahweh.

On this we can agree; the tetragrammaton oritinally appears many thousands of times in the bible. The available evidence is that when Christian writers quoted and referred to the "OT" they used the Divine Name (YHWH) as well. Subsequently then, it seems that there were (and are) people that have attempted to change the bible by taking words out of the original and replacing them with a completely different word that has a different meaning.

Jehovah's Witnesses are against such tampering with the word of God; we believe if YHWH (Jehovah) did not want his personal name in scripture, He would not have inspired bible writers to write that name in there thousands and thousands of timesWe view it as part of our personal mission to educate people as to what God's name is, why it's important and what place it should have in both the Old and the New Testament.



JW

RELATED THREADS

Did the Hebrew bible that Jesus (and first century writers) use, contain the Name of God?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 585#822585

Is there evidence that the Divine name was removed from the New Testament?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 272#822272

Are there bible translations with the Divine Name in the New Testament?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 460#858460

God's own name: Banned by the Pope!
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 429#828429

It is not the Tetragrammaton's replacement in the OT/Hebrew Bible that is in dispute here. Most of us know that the capital "LORD" in the Old Testament (including in the the Psalms), was originally written as "YHVH", or "YHWH", the Tetragrammaton.

But what the OP is trying to establish is why the Tetragrammaton was so seldom used in the New Testament in the first place.

[onewithhim]

And I think that that question has been answered. It was deleted by copyists who then substituted "Lord" in place of it.