Reply to Nincsnevem Concerning the Holy Spirit and Tetragrammaton in the GNT

For some reason, the combox didn't like this response:

Dear Nincsnevem,

You said: "I think I am responding to your suggestion on the merits, however, I do not consider it irrelevant to MENTION that your denomination does indeed rely on medieval Jewish sources in connection with the alleged Tetragrammaton in the NT. By the way, what do you think proves that the autographs of NT books contained the Tetragrammaton or some form of it instead of the Kyrios?"

EF: You work with the assumption that every JW thinks in lockstep or that we're robots. It's insulting to me and I would feel the same way if someone suggested that all Catholics are mindless automata. I stand by my earlier statement that OT/NT lexical and exegetical scholarship is done with the operating assumption that synchrony takes precedence over diachrony. My focus in graduate school was theology and religious studies (church history) and I've tried to read more widely than my specialty since then. In so many words, I'm stating that there is a difference between a person's professional and private life. Be that as it may, I feel no obligation to prove that YHWH appeared in the NT MSS. I think it's a reasonable assumption and it mystifies me why NT writers would not have used it even when quoting OT texts that included the name. But if one follows the methodology of current NT studies, can one really prove that YHWH was in the NT? On the other hand, some scholars have suggested that it might have been. But whether it was or not, I do not accept that Jesus is Almighty God.

EF: "You confuse the purpose of this blog's existence with the reason for the NWT existing and being in its current form."

Nincsnevem: "This wording is telling anyway. I assumed that you are open to discussing your own solutions to the NWT on your blog, given that it is the official translation of your denomination."

EF: I don't mind discussing the NWT and how it's been translated, but normally when I talk to someone, I reply to what they say/write; not what they did not write. I can't assume that just because someone is Catholic, they'll believe Acts 5:3-4 calls the holy spirit, "God." E.g., Karl Rahner. It's the same thing with Jehovah's Witnesses. We want to submit to those taking the lead among us but we also have minds.

Nincsnevem: "Of course, the Jews do not accept the Holy Spirit as a person and God, since they consider plurality within God to be 'Shituf', but at the same time the rabbinical understanding of the Holy Spirit has a certain degree of personification. Nevertheless, this is less relevant from the point of view of our present discussion, after all, according to the mainstream Christian interpretation, the Trinity of God (and thus also the personhood of the Holy Spirit) was not revealed in the Old Testament, at best somewhat foreshadowed. At the same time, even in the OT, the Spirit is distinguished from the strength/power/force of God (koach, chayil), see Micah 3:8, Zechariah 4:6."

EF: Yep, I know the Bible distinguishes between God's spirit and his power. For some thoughts on Zechariah 4:6, please see https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2021/05/zechariah-46-by-spirit-not-by-might.html

I distinguish between the power and spirit of God here too: https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-link-between-gods-power-and-spirit.html

Carol and Eric Meyers note the use of hendiadys in Zechariah 4:6 like George Klein does: they point out that hayil "often means army or military force" (page 244). So the prophetic utterance strongly decries the use of human force or ingenuity; total dependence must be on the spirit of Jehovah: "God's 'spirit' is his involvement in and control over human events" (Meyers, ibid.).

Nincsnevem: "For now, let's stick with what term you think the NT should use for the Holy Spirit in order for it to be a person. Since there is no abstract expression for this in the NT, it is not stated that either the Father or the Son should be a person. Perhaps the expression 'onoma' (= "name") is closest to the concept of person, which is used in the NT in a similar sense as the OT often uses nephesh."

EF: You're asking me to comment on a hypothetical, which I'm not wont to do, but I suggested theos earlier. Besides that word, other factors could be used to determine personhood like the activities or characteristics of X. I just think it's clear that the use of onoma alone does not prove the spirit is a person even if I concede that onoma at times stands for the person.

Nincsnevem: "Thus before the modern era, there have been no Christian movement at all that would have denied that the Holy Spirit was a person, there is no trace of this in church history. Groups with Unitarian theology such as Polish Socinians, the 18th-19th Century Unitarian Church, and Christadelphians conceive of the Holy Spirit not as a person but an aspect of God's power."

See the first paragraph at https://bible.org/seriespage/1-holy-spirit-s-personhood

I'm gonna bid you goodnight, sir.