Re: Fw: IAO--How's it said?

From: David Hindley (DHindley@compuserve.com)
Date: Tue Nov 16 1999 - 23:54:43 EST


Joe Friberg said:

>>Do you have a reference for which manuscripts? I am aware that some
utilize the tetragrammaton, but have not tried to track down which ones.<<

I know of P. Fouad Inv. No. 266 (Deut 31:29-32:7 LXX), which reproduces the
Hebrew YHWH in the square script instead of translating it as KURIOS or
QEOS, as do most mss. It's script hand is similar to 2nd century BCE mss P.
Rylands iii.458.

P. Onxyrhynchus vii. 1007 used a doubled Yod to represent Hebrew YHWH. P.
Oxy. iv. 656 leaves a blank where the tetragrammaton or the word
KURIOS/QEOS should be.

Origen, in column two of his Hexapla, reportedly had the Hebrew text
transliterated into Greek characters, except for the tetragrammatin. In the
columns which represented the translations of Aquila, Symmachus and the old
LXX, the tetragrammaton was transliterated into Greek characters instead of
translated (as in the column for Theodotion's translation).

Jerome (Epistola 25, Ad Marcellum) complained that "certain ignorant ones"
would mispronounce the tetragrammaton they found in Hebrew square script
characters, saying "Pi pi".

I recall that some of the Hebrew DSS biblical scrolls written in square
script represent the tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew script, but that would
be completely off the top of my head.

In all these cases, the idea seems to be to prevent the reader from
accidently pronouncing the tetragrammaton, by making it distinctive enough
to warn the reader to use a circumlocution.

Regards,

Dave Hindley

---
B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:40:45 EDT