YHWH rendered in oldest LXX?

[Theophilus]

I heard a claim that I'm hoping to verify. Is it correct that the oldest Greek Septuagint manuscripts use Hebrew letters, not Greek here YHWH appears in the Hebrew text and wonder if this is correct and can this be confirmed either way?

Thank you,
-Theo

[TWTY-Admin]

It is certainly true that Yahuweh is rendered as YHWH in the Oldest Greek Manuscripts - not only in Hebrew letters, but Paleo-Hebrew letters!

See the transcription of Nahal Hever Greek Minor Prophets Scroll (8HevXIIgr) on the downloads page: Download Link

[Theophilus]

Wow, it is very good to see this text.

I see that I posted so late and in haste that I somehow erred in using YWHW rather than the correct YHWH.

Could you comment as to why it was likely rendered in the Paleo-Hebrew letters rather than the Babylonian Hebrew?

Also do you find the early LXX texts to be of good quality or much suspect? If they were rendered even late BCE and not tampered with, I'd like to think that they have value, much like the DSS in not shading either towards Christian or Rabbinic Jewish religious preferences.

Respectfully,
-Theo

[TWTY-Admin]

Well several of the manuscripts from the Dead Sea have YHWH in Paleo-Hebrew letters in the midst of Babylonian Hebrew text (although I can't remember which ones exactly from the top of my head), and the curious manuscript 4QSam c (4Q53 Samuel) uses four large dots • • • • in place of YHWH in its text.

My guess would be the importance attached to YHWH's name, and that the idea of "preserving" it was high on the minds of the Dead Sea Sect.

As for the early (and even later) LXX manuscripts: I would not suspect them of anything other than being Greek translations of a different Hebrew "text-type" compared to that seen in the Masoretic Hebrew.

As I've quoted before in an update post, here's what the scholars who produced the "Dead Sea Scrolls Bible" had to say concerning the LXX/Septuagint (in the summary to the text of Samuel):

"These manuscripts have also helped to realign scholars’ assessments of the value of the ancient Septuagint translation. Traditionally, when the Septuagint differed from the Masoretic Text (which had been considered the Hebrew original), the Septuagint was routinely thought to be a “free” translation (or even a paraphrase, or just plain wrong). The Hebrew manuscripts of Samuel found at Qumran, however, very often agree with the Septuagint when it differs from the Masoretic Text. This demonstrates that the Septuagint was translated from a Hebrew text form similar to that of the Qumran manuscripts. The problem in assessing the Septuagint, as with so many historical documents, had been with scholars’ vision and criteria, not with the data. The Septuagint, of course, just like the Masoretic Text, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and every other ancient manuscript tradition, does have its share of errors. But the important lesson here is that the Septuagint is not a free or false rendering, but rather a generally faithful translation of its Hebrew source."

There's a reason why one of the new parts of my Septuagint page is Reconstruction of the original Hebrew underlying the LXX - it's time the world knows that there was a different Hebrew textual tradition that was translated by ancient Israeli's into Greek, demonstrating that the Greek exhibits an older, and more faithful, rendition of Yahuweh's word to His people.

The problem has never been with the Septuagint on the Greek translations and/or manuscripts: it's been with other peoples biases

[willbrinsonferguson]

I heard a claim that I'm hoping to verify. Is it correct that the oldest Greek Septuagint manuscripts use Hebrew letters, not Greek here YHWH appears in the Hebrew text and wonder if this is correct and can this be confirmed either way?

Thank you,
-Theo

See pages three and four of the document @:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/110591778/d05 ... t-Obsolete" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;