Buettner С. A.

Cyrill Andreevich von Buettner PhD in philology, assosiate professor, Faculty of Philology Saint-Petersburg State University (Universitetskaya nabereuzhnaya, 11, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 199034) , kirvonbuettner@gmail.com

Buettner С., von. On the issue of rendering the Four-Letter Name of God in Russian translations of the Old Testament texts, Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], Saint-Petersburg, 2017, vol. 6, pp. 374–386.

doi: 10.24411/2308-0698-2017-00018

Language: Russian

The article discusses the issue of rendering the four-letter name of God (YHWH) when translating the Old Testament texts into Russian. The work includes a short overview of the existing translations of the Old Testament or its particular books. The author underlines that Russian translations tend to render the name YHWH by using the equivalent of «Lord» (Gospod›). In particular, such approach is prevailing in the two full translations of the Bible: Synodal and the modern translation published by the Russian Bible Society. However, there is a special group of translations, where one can find an attempt to preserve the name YHWH in Russian as Jehovah or Yahweh. The article gives several arguments in support of the later. The use of Yahweh as rendering of God^,s name is more in accord with the cultural and historical realities of the Old Testament time than the pious «Lord» substitution. Despite the fact that the word Gospod^, («Lord») in the modern Russian is a given name, all of the native speakers are aware that it is connected to the common noun gospodin («master»). The Ancient Hebrew text of the Old Testament did not give the name Yahweh the meaning of «master»; the etymology of this name is not quite clear. In addition, the translations, which preserve the name Yahweh make it possible to show the reader which particular Biblical texts use this name and which ones use ˀăḏonåy «My Lord». Moreover, preservation of the name Yahweh in the text allows to also preserve the differences in rendering the combination of divine names: ˀDNY YHWH («My Lord Yahweh») and YHWH ˀLHYM («Yahweh the God»). The article includes several examples of texts, in which preservation of the name Yahweh is needed for correct interpretation (Ps 110.1; Deut 6:4–9; Ex 3:13–15).

Key words: Bible, divine names, Bible translations, Russian Bible translations, Book of Isaiah, Servant Songs

URL: http://rcs-almanac.ru/buettner-2017-en/

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Cyrill Andreevich von Buettner Senior lecturer, Faculty of Philology Saint-Petersburg State University (Universitetskaya nabereuzhnaya, dom 11, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 199034), kirvonbuettner@gmail.com

Buettner С. A., von. Servant Songs: Textual Witnesses, Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], Saint-Petersburg, 2015, vol. 4, pp. 314–320.

doi: 10.24411/2308-0698-2015-00016

Language: Russian

The following article looks over the textual witnesses from the co-called Servant songs. This name is used in Bible studies to refer to four texts from the Book of Isaiah (Isa 42:1–4; 49:1–6; 50:4–9; 52:13–53:12), which according to researchers was written in the Neo-Babylonian or early Persian era (6^th or 5^th centuries BCE). These texts are important for the Christian tradition since theologians saw them as prophecies about the death and resurrection of Jesus (especially in the case of Isa 53). The article particularly examines the textual witnesses written in Hebrew: scrolls that were found in the 1^st (1QIsa^a and 1QIsa^b) and the 4^th (4QIsa^b, 4QIsa^c, 4QIsa^dand 4QIsa^h) Qumran caves as well as the text of the medieval Masoretic Bible (MT). Furthermore, the ancient translations of the Bible from Hebrew, i. e. the Greek translation of the Septuagint, Theodotion, Aquila and Symmachus, the Aramaic translation of Targum Jonathan, the Syriac translation of the Peshitta and the Latin translation of the Vulgate are also studied. The article gives a basic description of their texts. Information about the dating of the textual witnesses, the level of preservation, most important manuscripts, critical editions of the text as well as a list of the major publications regarding the description of these sources are also given in the article.

Key words: Bible, Book of Isaiah, Servant Songs

URL: http://rcs-almanac.ru/buettner-2015-en/