God's Holy Name in the Septuagint

Many believe that Jesus and the apostles used the Septuagint when quoting the Old Testament. Based on this assumption, they claim that Jesus and the apostles followed the Septuagint changing God's Holy Name to other words, such as forms of the Greek word often transliterated as KURIOS or KYRIOS (meaning, Lord). This is offered as proof that Jesus and his apostles joined in with the Jews in changing the Holy Name to other words.  Thus, it is further claimed that the original autographs of the New Testament also changed the Holy Name to other words.

We should, however, understand that the Septuagint as we have it today did not exist in the days of Jesus. What is often called the Septuagint is actually what some have called the “Christianized Septuagint”. This version of the Septuagint did not exist in the days of Jesus and the apostles, and thus they could not have been quoting from it.

We should also understand that we do not have the original autographs of the New Testament. All we have are later copies that may, or may not, fully be what was originally written. We can only trust, by faith, that God preserved the writings and allowed errors to creep in as He permitted.

We do know that the Christianized Septuagint does have God's Holy Name changed to other words. Additionally, but we do not have a full manuscript of the earlier Jewish Septuagint, but we do have fragments of manuscripts that are thought to be from the earlier Jewish Septuagint. Do these fragments show that they changed God's Holy Name to other words? Actually, no, they do not. In fact, they show that they presented the Holy Name in some Hebrew form.

Papyrus Fouad 266 and the Nahal Hever manuscripts are two examples of ancient fragments that provide evidence of the Holy Name's original existence before the Christianized version was created, evidently in the second century AD. These fragments reveal the Holy Name inscribed in Paleo-Hebrew script (𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄). The conclusion is that the earlier Jewish Septuagint did contain the Holy Name retained in Hebrew form; it did not replace the Holy Name with forms of Kyrios or Theos. Thus, this evidence suggests that if Jesus and the apostles were quoting from the Septuagint of that time, they would not have changed the Holy Name to forms of Kyrios or Theos.

ADDENDUM

Evidently, due to Hellenistic influence, the Jewish leaders did, even before Christ came, advocate changing the Holy Name to other words, ostensibly to avoid pronouncing the Holy Name. Actually, the result was to have readers mispronounce the Holy Name as being whatever word was used to replace the Holy Name.

Pronouncing the Holy Name with some form that sounded similar to Adonis certainly could be seen as a form of appeasing the Hellenistic conquerors.

In Papyrus Fouad 266, God's name appears as the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (יהוה - YHWH) written in ancient “square” Hebrew script directly within what is often believed to be the Greek Septuagint text of Deuteronomy. This fragment does not change the Holy Name to other words that do not mean the same.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls fragment 4Q120 (a Greek version of Leviticus), God's name, the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), appears as ΙΑΩ (IAO), a phonetic rendering of the Holy Name, indicating some scribes preserved the Holy Name in Greek texts. Again, this is not like the Christianized LXX, which changes the Holy Name to other words that do not have the same meaning as the Holy Name. 

2Q18 (Fragment of the Book of Genesis): This fragment from the Qumran Cave 2 is very small and contains only a few words from Genesis 31:28-29. It is difficult to ascertain the full context, but the name of God as YHWH would have been in the source text. The general practice in Qumran scrolls was to use the Tetragrammaton, sometimes in the distinctive Paleo-Hebrew script.

4Q200 (Fragment of the book of Tobit): This Aramaic fragment is definitely not a fragment of any earlier LXX. It contains parts of the apocryphal Book of Tobit. The Holy Name does not appear directly in the book of Tobit, as it is obviously replaced by titles like “God” ('El, 'Elohim) or “Lord” ('Adonai). 

The retention of some actual form of the Holy Name in the Dead Sea Scrolls was typically limited to biblical texts (like Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah). Nevertheless, this fragment does appear to reflect a general custom of mispronouncing the Holy Name with other words, based on a false claim that the Holy Name is too sacred to be pronounced.

Nonetheless, across the many biblical Dead Sea Scrolls, the name of God is predominantly written as the four Hebrew consonants (Yod-He-Waw-He), often in a specific Paleo-Hebrew script, possibly to signify its sacredness. The surrounding text frequently appears in the more modern square Aramaic script. It is claimed, however, that when reading the text, the Jewish leaders would orally replace the eternal Holy Name with other words that do not mean the same, something which God never commanded anyone to do. -- Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:9; Mark 7:7; Titus 1:14.

The apocryphal book called Wisdom was evidently not originally written in Hebrew, but in Greek. The earliest texts of the Book of Wisdom refer to God primarily through Greek terms like Kurios (Lord) and Theos (God), reflecting its Hellenistic influence, and, hence, its mixing of God's Word with false teaching. 

We do not, however, consider the book of Wisdom nor the book of Tobit to be part of the inspired Word of God.

Papyrus Rylands 458, often attributed to the earlier Jewish LXX, doesn't clearly show God's name (the Tetragrammaton, YHWH) but has a notable blank space where it would have appeared. It has been suggested that this was a scribal practice of either omitting it or leaving room for a later Hebrew insertion. This manuscript, however, does not replace the Holy Name with other words that do not mean the same, as does the Christianized LXX.