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Wednesday, March 30, 2016

In the LXX OT,
the Tetragrammaton sometimes is rendered
as "God".
In the NT,
George LeFevre sometimes rendered "God"
using the Tetragrammaton /

Στην ΠΔ των Εβδομήκοντα,
ενίοτε το Τετραγράμματο αποδίδεται
ως «Θεός».
Στην ΚΔ,
ο George LeFevre ενίοτε απέδωσε το «Θεός»
χρησιμοποιώντας το Τετραγράμματο







George N. LeFevre,
The Christian's Bible--New Testament: The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus, the Christ.
A Translation from the Greek, Chiefly of the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus
.
Strasburg, PA, 1929, p. 53.












1In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with Jehovah,
and the Word was God.
2The same was in the beginning with Jehovah.
3All things were made by him;
and without him was not even one thing made that hath been made.
4In him is life, and the life was the light of men.
5
And the light shineth in the darkness,

and the darkness overcame it not.

—John 1:1-5.


1Στην αρχή ήταν ο Λόγος,
και ο Λόγος ήταν με τον Ιεχωβά,
και ο Λόγος ήταν Θεός.
2Ο ίδιος ήταν στην αρχή με τον Ιεχωβά.
3Όλα τα πράγματα έγιναν από αυτόν·
και χωρίς αυτόν δεν έγινε ούτε ένα από τα πράγματα που έχουν γίνει.
4Σε αυτόν είναι ζωή, και η ζωή ήταν το φως των ανθρώπων.
5
Και το φως έλαμψε στο σκοτάδι,

και το σκοτάδι δεν το υπερνίκησε.

—Ιωάννης 1:1-5.


*

5 comments:

Unknown said...

This is an acceptable translation since it does not change the meaning of the verse or the bible as a whole, unless your trinitarian.

digiSapientia said...

True.

Michael Legg said...

Yes, it's simply using God's personal name rather his title. It's like saying "I had dinner with Jane" instead of "I had dinner with my wife.".
The only problem is that if you want to translate the Bible accurately, you shouldn't just use God's name where ever you feel like it. That's just as bad as the translators that took it upon themselves to substitute God's name with a title in the first place.
When restoring the divine name correctly in the NT , we have to work out which occurrences of "God" and/or "Lord" are the inspired originals and which are the substitutions of the Divine name. There are at least 4 ways to determine this.
1) When the NT writer directly quotes a portion of the OT where the divine name appears. e.g. Matthew 4:4.
2) When the NT writer uses a Hebrew idiom or expression that normally includes the Divine Name e.g. Matthew 1:20
3) When the Divine Name appears in the context surrounding a quotation from the OT. e.g. Matthew 2:15.
4) When the definite article in the Greek text is missing before "God" or "Lord" in places where it would normally be expected grammatically. e.g. Mark 13:20

To illustrate this last point, imagine a newspaper headline that read "Last night man was killed in car accident". It's not grammatically correct is it? But if you put the man's name in that sentence instead of his title, you get "Last night John Smith was killed in car accident". So using this method in the NT texts we can find verses where the Divine would have originally appeared but was subsequently replaced by a title.

Michael Legg said...

Sorry there was a typo in those last two example sentences. They should have read:
Last night man was killed in a car accident
Last night John Smith was killed in a car accident

digiSapientia said...

Dear Michael, I totally agree with you. Surely the best "originals" we have in our hands should be our guides on this issue.
But LeFevre followed the reverse pattern of what the LXX copiers/translators did.