https://ejournals.lib.auth.

gr/vteh/article/view/6108

The god Iao

and his connection with the Biblical God,
with special emphasis
on the manuscript 4QpapLXXLevb
Pavlos D. Vasileiadis
(Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)

Abstract: The personality of the Biblical God spans through all over the
writings that comprise the Jewish Hebrew Scriptures and respectively the
core of the Christian Old Testament. Despite the absence of an explicit
theological exposition, the qualities of the supreme deity sketch a quite
distinct profile for Him. On the other side, the god named Iao is found in
Greek and Latin sources of the Hellenistic period already since the 1st
century BCE. It mainly appears in writings displaying marks of religious
syncretism, used as one of the names designating either the highest God
or one of his emanations. In the following is examined the possibility that
the use of the name Iao, instead of another form of the Tetragrammaton,
in the manuscript 4QpapLXXLevb (4Q120; Rahlfs 802) may be the result
of a Hellenizing rather than a re-Hebraizing tendency, a view that tends
to prevail in the Septuagint studies. Evidence coming from Christian
writers shows that for few centuries CE Bible manuscripts that contained
the theonym Iao were circulating among them and even possibly
produced by them.

Keywords: Iao, Tetragrammaton, Biblical theonyms, divine name

Introduction

The earliest Septuagint copies (LXX or 𝔖)—either close to

the “original” Greek translation (OG, “Old Greek”) or relics
of its subsequent revisions and recensions, dated from the pre-
Christian to the Christian era and discovered in Palestine and
Egypt—provide ample evidence for the continuous produc-
tion and use of manuscripts that included Hebrew forms of
the Tetragrammaton within the Greek sacred text. Aston-

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 21

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

ishingly, 4QpapLXXLevb, known also as 4Q1201, is the only

surviving LXX manuscript that uses a Greek rendering of the
Biblical name of God. The object of this presentation is to po-
se the question whether the use of Iao (Gr. Ιαω/Ἰαώ) in place
of the sacred Tetragrammaton within this manuscript is part
of the primary, original translators’ activity (that is, part of a
more general Hellenizing process) or rather part of a seconda-
ry, correcting Hebraizing tendency.
Our working hypothesis is that the utilization of the divi-
ne name Ιαω within the sacred text of the Greek Torah may
have been primarily motivated by Hellenistic theological con-
ceptions adopted by certain Jewish circles, especially in E-
gypt. The Maccabean Revolt was an uprising against foreign
oppression but also a civil conflict between the orthodox and
the reformist parties within the Jewish people. This was a
struggle of Hebrew self-identification against the flood of
Hellenistic culture. This article investigates some aspects of
the consequent implications.

The God of the Bible

Within the Biblical texts the God of Israel is depicted as

zealous and demanding exclusive devotion—no other God is
tolerated. The Decalogue, the ten precepts that constituted
“unconditional community policy,” commence with these
words:

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out
of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before/besides me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything
that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the
iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who
reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of
those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:2–6,
NRSV translation and notes)

1
For the sake of simplicity, the symbol “4Q120” will be used in the
body of the article.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 22

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

For subsequent generations of Israelites it became clear

that both “the worship of the "wrong gods" (i.e. alien deities
and the divine images associated with them)” and “the wor-
ship of the "right God" in the wrong way (i.e. the worship of
YHWH via divine images)” were equally condemned2. The
God of the Bible would not accept any worship that included
veneration of other gods or any kind of religious representa-
tions. Only his name was to be called upon by his wor-
shippers. In all the Scriptures, he identifies himself with a di-
stinct, four-letter proper name, that is the sacred Tetragram-
maton yhwh. Despite this clear-cut declaration in the core of
the most ancient Jewish law code, the Biblical and also the
extra-Biblical history of the people of Israel present a record
of departure from it time after time3.

The sole God and the multiple deities

behind the name Ιαω

Considering religious-philosophical notions regarding divine

realities, two early identities of the deity named Ιαω are
traceable. On the one hand, the name yhw (usually vocalized
Yaho) was used as the theonym of the God of the Hebrews as
he was conceived by Jewish Egyptian communities like the
colony at Elephantine during the sixth and fifth centuries BCE.
Their notion of God was the result of a syncrasis of “hyposta-
tized aspects of Yahweh with paganizing Canaano-Aramean
influences”4. W.F. Albright concluded that ‘pagan theological
2
T. Judge, The Relationship Between the Worship of Other Gods and
the Worship of Idols within the Old Testament, PhD thesis, Durham
2015, 4. For a discussion of the development of the worship of God
as reflected in the LXX renderings, see Ε.Γ. Δάφνη, Ἡ Μονοθεΐα
εἰς τὸ Bιβλίον τοῦ Ἱερεμίου καὶ τὴν Ἐπιστολὴν Ἱερεμίου, Vetus
Testamentum et Hellas 1 (2014) 66-106.
3
“There were syncretistic cults and movements at every known stage
of the development of Yahwism.” (W.F. Albright, Yahweh and the
Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths,
London 1968, 229).
4
J. Anderson, Monotheism and Yahweh's Appropriation of Baal.
London 2015, 33; W.F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christia-
nity: Monotheism and the Historical Process. Baltimore, MD 1940,
287. The names of other deities found in the Elephantine corpus do

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 23

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

conceptions entered into post-exilic Jewry through the circles

to which these Jews belonged’ and he described the religion
of the Jews at Elephantine as “a very remarkable form of
Yahwistic syncretism”5. The further development of this the-
ological notion behind the theonym Ιαω (observable at Ele-
phantine) towards its utilization as a generally legible rende-
ring of the four-letter name of the Biblical God—who was at
the same time understood as the Highest God, the only true
god who is universally worshiped—was a Hellenizing pro-
cess. Indeed, this theological shift is discernible in the LXX
Torah composed in Alexandria during the third century BCE6.
In the following centuries, this trend was intensified with-
in ecumenical Hellenistic culture, where blending of major
theological beliefs seemed unavoidable. Such an adoption of
this widespread syncretistic mentality is obvious on a large
scale among the Alexandrian Jews. J. Assmann observed:

The growing political and commercial interconnectedness of the ancient

world and the practice of cross-cultural translation of everything, inclu-
ding divine names, gradually led to the concept of a common religion.
The names, iconographies, and rites—in short, the cultures—might dif-
fer, but the gods remained the same everywhere. This concept of religion
as the common background of cultural diversity and the principle of cul-
tural translatability eventually led to the late Hellenistic outlook, where
the names of the gods mattered little in view of the overwhelming natural

not provide an adequate basis to describe the Jewish community as

polytheistic. Rather, they were probably “hypostases of Yhw,” or
“aspects of Yhw.” (L. Grabbe, Elephantine and the Torah, in A.F.
Botta (ed.), In the Shadow of Bezalel. Aramaic, Biblical, and An-
cient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Bezalel Porten, Leiden-
Boston 2013, 125-135, here 127-128).
5
W.F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel. Baltimore,
MD 1956, 168; idem, From the Stone Age, 286-287. In contrast,
Anderson’s view is that the Yahwism of Elephantine was a “trade-
tional Israelite religion that predated the instauration of strict mono-
theism.” (Monotheism, 32-33).
6
For the importance of naming gods in ancient Greek religion, see E.
Eidinow/J. Kindt, The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Reli-
gion, Oxford 2015, 13-14. For indications of “continuity within the
Jewish community in Egypt over the Persian and Hellenistic pe-
riods” as reflected in the LXX, see J. Joosten, Divergent cultic prac-
tices in the Septuagint. The "shoulder" (βραχίων) of the priest, Jour-
nal of Septuagint and Cognate Studies 48 (2015) 27-38, here 32-33.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 24

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

Figure 1:
The phrase «εντολων ιαω» as found in Leviticus 4:27
within the text of 4Q120/4QpapLXXLevb
(fragment 20:4/plate 378, fragment 15).

evidence for their existence and presence in the world. The idea that the
various nations basically worshiped the same deities albeit under
different names and in different forms eventually led to the belief in a
“Supreme Being” (Gk. Hypsistos, “the Highest One”). It essentially
comprised not only the myriad known and unknown deities but also those
three or four gods who, in the contexts of different religions, play the role
of the highest god (usually Zeus, Sarapis, Helios, and Iao = YHWH). This
super-deity is addressed by appellations such as Hypsistos (supreme), and
by the widespread “One-God” predication Heis Theos7.

Thus, from the first century BCE and climaxing at the end
of the first century CE and on, within Gnostic and magical-
mystical contexts the name Ιαω was used to denote “angels
or subordinate deities”8. Obviously, this use of the Greek

7
J. Assman, Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Mono-
theism. Madison, WI 2008, 55.
8
F. Shaw, The Earliest Non-Mystical Jewish Use of Ιαω, Leuven-
Paris-Walpole, MA 2014, 191-235; S.M. McDonough, YHWH at
Patmos: Rev. 1:4 in Its Hellenistic and Early Jewish Setting, Tü-
bingen 1999, 95-97. For instance, in late Hellenistic and Roman
Egypt, Ιαω was a prominent name of the lion-headed Sabaoth, the
Biblical Creator, who could assume many names and be identified
with other gods or heroes. He was Mihos for the Egyptians, Ialda-
baoth for the Ophite Gnostics, Judas, Michael or Moses for other
Judaizing sects, and also the Greek hero Perseus. He was a god in-
voked on amulets and was named in several magical spells. Also,
he was depicted as using the powerful divine snake Chnoubis as his
weapon. (A. Mastrocinque, Perseus and Sabaoth in Magic Arts and
Oriental Beliefs, in Mito y magia en Grecia y Roma, Simposio
Internacional, Barcellona 21-23 Marzo 2012. E. Suàrez de la Torre/
A. Pérez Jiménez (eds.), Zaragoza 2013, 103-116, here 104-105).
This content behind the name is widely observable all over the Me-

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 25

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

trigrammaton implies that there was here probably no clear

understanding of the personality of the Biblical God nor any
perceived connection with the Hebrew Tetragrammaton.

The identity of 4Q120

and the occurrence of the Greek theonym within it

The LXX Torah was a prominent product of Hellenistic Ju-

daism. It was translated in Egypt by Greek-speaking Jews,
presumably in the first half of the third century BCE, while the
rest of the Biblical books were translated in Palestine as well
as in Egypt, during the following four hundred years9. The
notable 4Q12010 is a papyrus scroll dating from the first cen-
tury BCE, or even “to the opening years of the first century
A.D.,” and it probably originated from “Jewish circles in
Egypt”11. The theonym Ιαω is found twice in Lev 3,11 and
4,27, and may be reconstructed in another 12 instances in the
fragments of this parchment manuscript and in one ma-

diterranean world in inscriptions of that period. (See, for instance,

the Searchable Greek Inscriptions web site of The Packard Huma-
nities Institute at: http://epigraphy.packhum.org/search?patt=ιαω).
9
E. Tov, Septuagint and Other Ancient Greek Translations, in The
Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible, M.D. Coogan (ed.),
Oxford 2011. F. Clancy argued for dating the LXX a century earlier
and claimed that “scholars should not assume the earliest LXX
translations occurred before c. 150 B.C.,” but with little effect. (The
Date of LXX, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 16.2
(2002) 207-225, here 223).
10
P.W. Skehan/E. Ulrich/J.E. Sanderson, Qumran Cave 4.IV: Palaeo-
Hebrew and Greek Biblical Manuscripts. Discoveries in the Judaean
Desert, Vol. 9, Oxford 1992, no. 120 (pp. 167-186; pl. 39-41). For
the image displayed here and others, see The Leon Levy Dead Sea
Scrolls Digital Library, http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-
the-archive/image/B-298692; http://www.deadseascrol-ls.org.il/ex
plore-the-archive/image/B-503715.
11
M. Rösel, The Reading and Translation of the Divine Name in the
Masoretic Tradition and the Greek Pentateuch, Journal for the Study
of the Old Testament 31 (2007) 411-428, here 417; E. Tov, Textual
Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Third edition, revised & expanded.
Minneapolis, MN 2012, 132; P. Kahle, The Cairo Geniza. Second
edition, New York, NY 1960, 223-224.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 26

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

nuscript12. “This scroll, 4Q120, presumably reflects the OG”

that provides us “a genuine LXX text” by being ‘an excellent
representative of the LXX’ and “a typical exemplar of the
LXX”13.
The view of the “Hebraizing” restoration (or, “re-Hebrai-
zation”) of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton within the Greek Bi-
ble text is based on the presupposition that in the OG original
text or its archetypes the surrogates14 κύριος and θεός (or δε-
σπότης) were used15. But this is far from being proven. Ad-
mittedly, the original rendering of the Tetragrammaton in the
Old Greek Bible (i.e. the reconstructed original LXX) is “a

12
These 12 instances are Lev 1,11; 2,3; 3,13.14; 4,3.4(x2).6.7; 5,19.
20.21. E. Ulrich further suggested that Ιαω may well have been the
original form of the theonym to be reconstructed in 4QLXXDeut
(4Q122) as well. (Skehan et al, Qumran Cave 4.IV, 196).
13
Tov, Textual Criticism, 132; A. Pietersma, Kyrios or Tetragram: A
Renewed Quest for the Original LXX, in A. Pietersma & C. Cox
(eds.), De Septuaginta: Studies in Honour of John William Wevers
on his sixty-fifth birthday. Mississauga, ON 1984, 85-101, here 91-
92. Earlier, Tov wrote boldly: “4QpapLXXLevb reflects the original
text of LXX, while the main LXX tradition reflects a revision.” (The
Greek Biblical Texts from the Judean Desert, in S. McKendrick/O.
O'Sullivan (eds.), The Bible as Book: The Transmission of the
Greek Text, London, New Castle and Grand Haven 2003, 97-122,
here 112).
14
I use the word “surrogate” for these Greek terms because all of them
lie outside the semantic domain of the original Hebrew term. Accor-
ding to T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint,
Louvan-Paris-Walpole, MA 2009, 419), κύριος is defined (as used
of God) as “one who exercises absolute authority over [somebody]
else or [something]: applied to the God of Israel.” The notions of
“authority”/“dominion” and “divinity” can only be considered as
broad dynamic equivalents that displace a proper name for a generic
divine title. This translational choice implies a shift in the theolo-
gical understanding of God. It is not implausible that κύριος might
have been introduced later on in LXX translations of other Bible
books.
15
Defining more precisely such a “Hebraization” process is required
in each and every reference. For example, the peculiar language of
the Alexandrine Jews observed within the LXX text was described
as “Hebraizing tendency” by J.A.H. Tittmann, Remarks on the
Synonyms of the New Testament, Vol. 2, Edinburgh 1837, 153.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 27

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

heavily debated subject”16. Was the theonym (a) replaced by

surrogates like “Lord” and “God,” (b) rendered phonetically,
or rather (c) kept reverentially untranslated in Hebrew script?
The fact that 4Q120 antedates the mainline LXX tradition
of the great Christian codices and it has some readings that
have to be “regarded as more original than the majority of
LXX manuscripts” led to the conclusion that Ιαω “is the most
likely candidate for the original reading of the LXX” and that
it was used “as if it were a personal name in its translitera-
tion”.17 According to the “prevailing assumption,” “the origi-
nal translators of the LXX never rendered the divine name
with κύριος, but kept the tetragrammaton in Hebrew or Pa-
laeo-Hebrew characters, or they used the transcription Ιαω.”
This evidenced assumption was originally discussed by P.
Kahle and a few decades later G. Howard extended the same
schema to explain in a similar process the treatment of the
Tetragrammaton within the textual tradition of the Christian
sacred scriptures, i.e. the Greek New Testament (NT)18. A.

16
P. Vasileiadis, Aspects of rendering the sacred Tetragrammaton in
Greek, Open Theology 1 (2014) 56-88, here 60-61.
17
E. Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composi-
tion of the Bible, Leiden-Boston 2015, 154; Tov, Textual Criticism,
132; Rösel, The Reading, 416-7; P. Skehan, The Qumran Manu-
scripts and Textual Criticism, in G.W. Anderson et al (eds.), Volu-
me du Congrès, Strasbourg 1956. Supplements to Vetus Testamen-
tum 4, Leiden 1957, 148-160, here 157.
18
L. Gaston summarized Howard's position—described by him as “a
very important discovery that has been strangely neglected in New
Testament studies”—as follows: “G. Howard points out that in none
of the now considerable LXX texts from the first century is kyrios
used for the tetragrammaton, which is written in Hebrew letters. He
concludes that the use of kyrios was begun by Christian scribes in
the second century, who applied it also to New Testament texts. This
means that Old Testament citations in New Testament manuscripts
originally contained the tetragrammaton. It will be seen that this
makes a considerable difference in the interpretation of many texts.”
(L. Gaston, Paul and the Torah, Eugene, OR 2006/19871, 117-118).
F. Shaw proposed that the Greek form Ιαω ‘would more likely have
been the familiar form understood by the earliest Christians and by
those to whom they preached’ as far as it was “a word in Greek
script that existed in the Greek-speaking world of the early Chri-
stians,” ‘a form familiar to gentiles.’ (The Earliest, 287-288).

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 28

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

Pietersma attempted to refute this new consensus and support

the traditional view that κύριος was original in the LXX but
despite the popularity of this view, it seems more and more
unconvincing.19
Surely, we must keep in mind that while after the first
century CE a single Hebrew Bible text tradition is actually
traceable—the so called “proto-Masoretic tradition”, before
that time we are faced with a multiplicity of textual forms.20
In a comparable manner, it is observable that various
practices were used to render the sacred Tetragrammaton in

19
As E. Ulrich noticed, “in addition to [Pietersma’s] argument's going
against the evidence, it is difficult to imagine a scribe introducing
the not-to-be-pronounced divine name where the more reverent
κύριος was already in the text.” (The Dead Sea Scrolls, 154; see,
also, Shaw, The Earliest, 134-149, 245; J. Joosten, Le dieu Iaô et le
tréfonds araméen des Septante, in M. Loubet/D. Pralon (eds.), Eu-
karpa: Études Sur La Bible Et Ses Exégètes, En Hommage À Gilles
Dorival. La Bible d’Alexandrie, Paris 2011, 115-124, here 117-
118). A most obvious reason for the wide repetition of Pietersma’s
position is exactly because it provides a facile solution that supports
the centuries-long held traditional thesis that κύριος originality
rendered the Tetragrammaton within the original Greek NT. How-
ever, as G. Howard argued, this scenario does not satisfactorily
explain the subsequent Christological implications of the NT textual
variants and the long and bloodstained theological disputes provo-
ked. (The Name of God in the New Testament, Biblical Archaeo-
logy Review 4/1 (1978) 12-4, 56, here 14). Pietersma tried to revive
the core of Baudissin’s thesis, that is, that “the LXX had rendered
the divine name as kurios right from the beginning” but “today,
however, Baudissin's view is generally discarded.” (M. Epstein, On
the "Original" Septuagint, The Bible Translator, Technical Papers
45/3 (1994) 322-329, here 327-328). Regarding the sequence in
which Ιαω appeared, M. Rösel concluded: “I would speculate that
the strange reading of ΙΑΩ is a secondary replacement that comes
from a community (in Egypt?) that still pronounced the name of
God in this way.” (The Reading, 419). But the question remains: If
there were a ‘community in Egypt that still pronounced the name of
God’ during the first century BCE and the first century CE, why
might there not have been such a community two centuries earlier
when the LXX Torah was written down?
20
E. Tov, The Scribal and Textual Transmission of the Torah Analy-
zed in Light of Its Sanctity, in B.G. Wright, III (ed.), M.F. García/H.
Najman (ass. eds.), Pentateuchal Traditions in the Late Second
Temple Period. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Juda-
ism, Vol. 158, Leiden-Boston 2012, 57-72, here 57-58.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 29

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

Greek during this same period21. All these different practices

were employed to mark different mentalities or attitudes con-
cerning the God of the Bible. In a wider spectrum, it was
simultaneously possible to denote the oneness of YHWH and
also his commonality with other prominent divine figures. A
spirit of national regeneration—“a resurgence of the Hebraic
identity” according to L. Hurtado22—which is evidenced du-
ring the Second Temple period (as revivals of the Maccabean
ideology) might have prompted archaizing and Hebraizing
trends in the revision of translations and new recensions and,
also, the emergence of special scribal conventions. Never-
theless, they could hardly have achieved uniformity or even
impose conformity in the treatment of the Tetragrammaton
within the copies of the sacred Scriptures23. And after all, this
Hebraization fever obviously did not affect all scribal activity.
While the rest of the earliest LXX manuscripts use con-
ventional representations of the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew,
4Q120 includes a vocalized form of the name24. Thus, while
21
Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls, 154.
22
L. Hurtado, "Re-Hebraization" in the Graeco-Roman Period, 2013,
https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/re-hebraization-in-
the-graeco-roman-period/.
23
R. Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton: Western Christians and the Hebrew
Name of God: From the Beginnings to the Seventeenth Century,
Leiden 2015, 47-50. 58-65.
24
More specifically: (a) P.Fouad Inv.266 (Rahlfs 848), dated in the
first century BCE, containing a passage from the book of Job with
the Tetragrammaton in Aramaic script; (b) P.Oxy.L 3522 (Rahlfs
857), dated in the early first century CE, containing a small passage
from the book of Job with the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew
script; (c) 8ḤevXII (Rahlfs 943), a fragmentary scroll of the Twelve
Prophets in Greek from Wâdi Khabra (W.Khabra XII Kaige), dated
between 50 BCE-50 CE, containing the Tetragrammaton in paleo-
Hebrew letters; and (d) P.Oxy.VII.1007 (Rahlfs 907), late third
century CE, a papyrus fragment of Genesis, in which the Tetragram-
maton is abbreviated as a double yod (‫)י‬, enlarged so as looking like
a double Greek zeta (ΖΖ), a standard abbreviation in the later rabbi-
nic tradition. The Tetragrammaton is also used in the Greek trans-
lations (LXX revisions and partly de novo translations) made since
the early second century until the end of the third century CE by
Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion and Origen in all five Greek
columns of his Hexapla, as it is testified by surviving fragmentary
copies like Codex Ambrosianus Ο 39 (Rahlfs 1098). D. Barthélemy,

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 30

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

the former copies allow the reader to choose to read or not to

read the divine name, this manuscript prompts the reader to
pronounce a certain form of the theonym in Greek25. When
this scroll was read aloud the listeners heard the proper name
of God. It is true that despite the rabbinical ordinances against
pronouncing the divine name, the shunning from articulating
the name of God in public was not a uniform practice among
the Jews (not to speak among the non-Jews) during the Se-
cond Temple period (200 BCE– 70 CE). Even though laws di-
scussed in later rabbinical documents that refer to the punish-
ment of the utterance of the Tetragrammaton are often pro-
jected back to the first centuries CE, it is doubtful whether they
were effective or strictly imposed before the destruction of
the Temple in 70 CE26. Because it was found in Palestine and

Les devanciers d'Aquila: Première publication integrale du texte des

fragments du Dodécaprophéton trouvés dans le désert de Juda.
Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 10, Leiden 1963, convincingly
argued that, by the start of the first century CE, the LXX was
sufficiently well established so that it formed the sole basis for these
revisions. This means that, aside the appearance and widespread use
of the nomina sacra from the second half of the second century CE
and onwards, Christian readers and authors who made use of these
translations were for centuries in contact with Hebrew or Greek
forms of the Tetragrammaton either in the best available copies of
the LXX or its revisions well until the tenth century CE (cf. E.
Gallagher, The religious provenance of the Aquila manuscripts from
the Cairo Genizah, Journal of Jewish Studies 64/2 [2013] 283-305).
At the end of the fourth century CE, Gregory of Nazianzus knew and
mentioned the scribal practice of the Hebrews of using different
letters to write the name of God, «χαρακτῆρσιν ἰδίοις τὸ θεῖον
τιμήσαντες». (Oratio 30, Theologica 4 [PG 36:125B; PG 130:
192A]; F. Norris, The Tetragrammaton in Gregory Nazianzen (Or.
30.17), Vigiliae Christianae 41 [1989] 339-344).
25
P. Skehan stated that Ιαω within 4Q120 “allows for the pronun-
ciation, or at least a pronounceable and normal writing, of the Yhwh
name in the same hand employed for the rest of the text.” (The
Divine Name at Qumran, in the Masada Scroll, and in the Septua-
gint, Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and
Cognate Studies 13 [1980] 14-44, here 29).
26
It seems that rabbinic laws dictated that uttering the divine name
was blasphemy and it was punishable by death. (cf. Mishnah San-
hedrin 7.5) The reason for the trial of Jesus and the accusations
against early Christians—like Trypho’s that they were speaking
«βλάσφημα πολλὰ», “many blasphemous things” (Justin Martyr,

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 31

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

in view of the scarcity of surviving ancient Bible copies,

4Q120 provides ample evidence that some Greek and Ara-
maic or Hebrew speaking Jews were using at that time a pro-
nounceable and widely recognizable form of the sacred name.
It is obvious that the use of a Greek form for the divine
name within the Greek Bible is of major importance. The use
of a Graecized form of the Tetragrammaton was a deliberate
scribal choice and consequently this was probably the prac-
tice of at least the scribe (or the scribal school) responsible for
4Q120 during the first century BCE and first century CE. Both
Jews and pagans—and, not much later, Jewish and Gentile
Christians—potentially knew and pronounced the theonym
Ιαω. Taking into account that it is a pronounceable Greek
word, already recognizable and circulating in the Hellenistic
world, and that it is not contrasted in any way with the rest of
the adjacent Biblical text of the manuscript (without over-
lining, spaces before and after the name, but written in the
same hand), it seems highly improbable that it was a substi-
tute term for the sacred Tetragrammaton aimed at reminding
the reader that in public reading it was to be orally replaced
by another term like κύριος (“Lord”)27. As a matter of fact,
the uttering of the form Ιαω may have implied two totally
different attitudes and consequently may have been conside-
red at the same period of time as:

Trypho 38.1; 80.3 [PG 6:557A. 664C | T. Falls (transl.), Saint Justin
Martyr, Fathers of the Church 6, New York 1948, 204. 276])—may
imply or include oral use of the divine name.
27
Shaw, The Earliest, 133-4; Rösel, The Reading, 416. R.J. Wilkin-
son mentioned the possibility for the use of Ιαω in 4Q120 that
“perhaps although it was written, it was not said aloud,” but this is
highly hypothetical. (Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton, 76 n. 19) The
Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who lived and wrote in the first
century BCE, is a typical example often cited to display this wide
knowledge of the name of the God worshiped by the Jews: «Παρὰ
δὲ τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις Μωυσῆν τὸν Ἰαὼ ἐπικαλούμενον θεόν», that is,
“among the Jews Moses [referred his laws] to the god who is invo-
ked as Iao.” (Bibliotheca Historica 1.94 [C.H. Oldfather (transl.),
Diodorus Siculus. Library of History, Vol. I: Books 1-2.34. Loeb
Classical Library 279, Cambridge, MA 1933, 320-321]; cf. Shaw,
The Earliest, 37-60).

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 32

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

(a) A Greek substitute that was part of an attempt by pious

Jews to safeguard the true and original four-letter Tetra-
grammaton that ought to have been hidden from non-Jews or
even from the Jewish common people (consequently, it was a
substitute name intentionally used to hide the real pronuncia-
tion of the Tetragrammaton)28; and
(b) A theonym per se, originating from the derivative three-
letter form yhw that was commonly used for few centuries by
Aramaic-speaking Egyptian Jews and was received within the
Hellenistic environment as an acceptable and even legitimate
Greek proper name used by the Jewish common people and
also freely by the Gentiles in a cosmopolitan, syncretistic
setting (consequently, it was a name used freely as a satis-
factory Greek rendering of the Tetragrammaton)29.

28
Actually, Baudissin supported the view that there existed an official
form, that is Yhwh, spoken at Jerusalem, and a folk or unofficial one,
that is Yhw or Ιαω, spoken by the common people. (W.W. Graf von
Baudissin, Kyrios als Gottesname im Judentum und seine Stelle in
der Religionsgeschichte, Vol. 2, Giessen 1929, 201) S.M. McDo-
nough noted similarly the possibility that many within Judaism
“could have proffered the form lao to outsiders while retaining the
"true" pronunciation within their own community,”—as such, “lao
was a conscious substitution for the true divine name.” (YHWH at
Patmos, 118-120) E. Bickerman also concurred with this dichoto-
my of official and popular form: “The Tetragrammaton continued
to be written in Mss. of the Bible (and of the Greek version), but
persons who read the sacred text aloud used a cypher (e.g., Adonai),
or an abbreviation of the Tetragrammaton (YH, YHW, YHH),
which necessarily lacked the supernatural potency of the full Name.
It appears that such was the practice of Elephantine Jews in the fifth
century.” (Studies in Jewish and Christian History. A New Edition
in English including The God of the Maccabees. Ancient Judaism
and Early Christianity, 68/1, Leiden-Boston, MA 2007, 81-82).
29
Shaw, The Earliest, 247. 272; McDonough, YHWH at Patmos, 121.
This stand-alone three-letter form yhw/yhh (i.e. not when found
within theophoric names) used by the Aramaic-speaking Jews of
Elephantine might have originated from a later oral form of the four-
letter yhwh in Hebrew that considered at least the final he as a vo-
calic consonant and later on was omitted altogether, as a conjectured
characteristic of so-called Transitional Biblical Hebrew. This
truncated written form yhw may have resulted in a new way of
reading this “Tetragrammaton” (that could be written now either as
yhw or yhh—if the latter is not taken as an erroneous form) sometime
during the era of the dominance of the Imperial Aramaic language.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 33

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

Is Ιαω a transcription or a transliteration

of the Hebrew term, a rendering of the four-letter
Tetragrammaton or of the later three-letter
“Tetragrammaton”?

Recently, F. Shaw summarized the available information and

persuasively concluded that “Ιαω is ultimately derivative
from the fuller form Yhwh via the shorter transitive Yhw/
Yhh”30. Additionally, as M. Rösel pointed out, ‘the use of
ΙΑΩ as the shortened form of the divine name points to Jewish
circles in Egypt.’
As regards the language of these “Jewish circles in E-
gypt,” this later truncated form of the Tetragrammaton is
found in abundance at the fifth century BCE Elephantine cor-
pus (both papyri and ostraca) written in Aramaic. This means
that yhw was part of the vernacular Aramaic diction—in
contrast with the Hebrew four-letter yhwh that was in com-
mon use in the pre-exilic period and was also abundantly

In this same period (c. fifth century BCE) the paleo-Hebrew alphabet
or script was replaced by the Aramaic or Assyrian script.
30
Shaw, The Earliest, ΧII, XΙΙΙ; B. Porten, Archives from Elephanti-
ne: The Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony, Cambridge
1968, 106. The four-letter Tetragrammaton “has been established as
primitive; abbreviations such as Yah, Yahû, Yô, and Yehô are
secondary.” (K. van der Toorn, Yahweh, in Dictionary of Deities
and Demons in the Bible, K. van der Toorn/B. Becking/P.W. van
der Horst (eds.), Leiden 1999, 910-919, here 910, 913) Regarding
the Hebrew yhw in Palestine, the reference “the form Yhw is said to
be originally Judaean (WEIPPERT 1980: 247), but its occurrence in
the northern wayfarer's station of Kuntillet 'Ajrud shows that it was
not unknown among Northern Israelites either” has to do with mor-
phological elements used in the construction of theophoric names
and not with instances of the stand-alone three-letter theonym. The
scarcity of evidence does not allow a definite inference to a broad
use of the three-letter theonym among the pre-exilic Israelites. (cf.
Porten, Archives, 105-106; G.J. Thierry, The Pronunciation of the
Tetragrammaton, in P.A.H. De Boer (ed.), Oudtestamentische
Studiën, Vol. 5, Leiden 1948, 31. 41-42) There is no evidence for
the four-letter Tetragrammaton as a component in theophoric an-
throponyms. M. Reisel attributed this shortening within Hebrew
language to the “loss of tone,” “a shift of stress toward the conjun-
ctive word” because of its use as theophoric component in anthro-
ponyms. (The Mysterious Name of Y.H.W.H., Assen 1957, 44-45)

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 34

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

found within the sacred Scriptures31. In multilingual societies

like the ones in Egypt and Palestine, the different languages
employed influenced one another to different degrees and in
this case it was Aramaic that influenced the form and the
pronunciation of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton32. The Ara-
maic influence meant that it was to be articulated according
to the then current Aramaic phonological system and its
grammatical rules. As regards their religion, a substantial part
of their Jewish heritage seems to have been lost as far as their
cult was neither monotheistic nor Biblical33. Consequently,
the yhw/yhh-Ιαω stream cannot provide substantial assistance
on the early Biblical Hebrew pronunciation of the Tetragram-
maton.

31
B. Porten notes the permanent distinction observed in the available
information between the “vernacular” form yhw/yhh and the “lite-
rary” form yhwh. (Archives, 106) For yhh, M. Reisel proposed the
possibility of this by-form’s phonetic development as: Yahūàh >
Yehūàh > Yehuàh (yhh) > Yehô (yhw). (The Mysterious, 47)
32
Unfortunately, not even today do we have the historical information
needed to reconstruct the Hebrew language for the Persian period,
that is, from the fifth to third centuries BCE. Many conclusions are
based on the conjectural “impression” that both Aramaic and He-
brew “had similar spelling rules and that these were fairly stable”
during this period. Interestingly, “the spellings now found in M[aso-
retic] T[ext] are a perpetuation and preservation of norms that were
put in place during the Persian Period.” (D.N. Freedman/A.D.
Forbes/F. Andersen, Studies in Hebrew and Aramaic Orthography,
Winona Lake, IN 1992, 34-35, 249-251; cf. W. Schniedewind, Ara-
maic, the death of written Hebrew, and language shift in the Persian
Period, in S. Sanders (ed.), Margins of Writing: Origins of Cultures,
Oriental Institute Seminars 2, Chicago 2006, 135-152, here 139-
144). Regarding the Aramaic influence on Hebrew, Joosten notes:
“The influence of Aramaic was one of the principal factors affecting
the development of the Hebrew language, particularly in the post-
exilic period. Old Hebrew words changed their meaning under the
influence of Aramaic cognates and an increasing number of new
words were borrowed from the contemporary world language. This
state of affairs is reflected in the Septuagint.” (Biblical Hebrew as
Mirrored in the Septuagint: The Question of Influence from Spoken
Hebrew, in J. Joosten (ed.), Collected Studies on the Septuagint:
From language to interpretation and beyond, Tübingen 2012, 67-80,
here 70-72).
33
M. Smith, Studies in the cult of Yahweh, Leiden 1996, 255.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 35

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

As a matter of fact, all the available archaeological evi-

dence that comes from the second half of the first millennium
BCE testifies to a four-letter Hebrew Tetragrammaton34. Lea-
ving aside the onomastic evidence of the theophoric names as
idiosyncratic, it is rather questionable “if ancient Jews abbre-
viated the divine name at all”35. Before the tenth century BCE
“Hebrew writing, like Phoenician, was purely consonantal.”
Only from the ninth century BCE the Hebrews “under the
influence of Aramaic” started employing the matres lectionis
to indicate final vowels and not until the sixth century BCE
was their use extended to indicate medial vowels36. Keeping

34
The related archeological findings include the Mesha Stele inscrip-
tion (in Moabite), the Seal of Miqneyaw, the Khirbet el-Qôm in-
scription, the Khirbet Beit Lei graffiti, the Kuntillet ʿAjrud inscrip-
tions, the Lachish letters, the Arad Ostraca, etc. The two instances
in the the Kuntillet ʿAjrud inscriptions that J. Joosten uses to support
the view that an independent three-letter yhw was used by the inha-
bitants of the northern Israel (one of them is not well preserved and
probably truncated and the other might have been an engraver’s
omission) provide extremely feeble support in view of the whole
picture. (Le dieu Iaô, 116; J. Hadley, Some Drawings and Inscrip-
tions on Two Pithoi from Kuntillet ʿAjrud, Vetus Testamentum 37/2
(1987) 180-213, here 187) Lists of place names located in the
Nubian temples of Soleb and Amara West dating from 14th and 13th
centuries BCE record a yhw(h) toponym-theonym that has been
identified with the Hebrew theonym yhwh. The problem is that E-
gyptian hieroglyphs combined logographic and alphabetic elements
and represented multiliteral values, and, as a result, yhw(h) cannot
shed light on the actual pronunciation because “er zeigt, dass sich
nicht entscheiden lässt, ob wꜢ-w in jj-h-wꜢ-w konsonantische
(yhwꜢw) oder vokalische (yhwu) Bedeutung hat und entsprechend
yah-w-/yahw- oder yahû zu sprechen ist.” (M. Leuenberger, Jhwhs
Herkunft aus dem Süden. Archäologische Befunde - biblische
Überlieferungen - historische Korrelationen, Zeitschrift für die
Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 122/1 [2010] 1-19, here 4-6).
35
G.W. Buchanan, Some Unfinished Business with the Dead Sea
Scrolls, Revue de Qumrân 13 (1988) 411-442, here 416.
36
Μ. Κωνσταντίνου, … του συνιέναι τα γραφάς: 13+1 βήματα
εισαγωγής στην Παλαιά Διαθήκη, Thessaloniki 2014, 365-368;
Tov, Textual Criticism, 209; A. Sáenz-Badillos, A History of the
Hebrew Language, Cambridge 1996, 62-66; Z. Zevit, Matres Lecti-
onis in Ancient Hebrew Epigraphs, Cambridge, MA 1980, 1-2. 8.
Matres lectionis are the Hebrew consonant letters that “acquired the
secondary function of representing some vowels” and were used as

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 36

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

in mind that yod, he and waw may be used as matres lectionis

“if they do not represent etymological consonant phonemes,”
it is required to have consonantal value at least the three let-
ters that make up the verb root of the name. Leaving also aside
the issue of the precisely which letters of the Tetragrammaton
are to be considered as radical, the Hebrew pronunciation of
the name originally should have been a three-syllable form37.

“reading aids.” (Freedman et al, Studies in Hebrew, 5-6. 20) That is,
as terminal vowels waw was used for û (also prob. for ô), yod for î
(also prob. for ê), and he for â and in the final position ā, ē and ō
were also represented by he. As internal vowel letters were used
only waw for û and yod for î. (B. Schmidt, Contextualizing Israel’s
Sacred Writing: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production,
Atlanta, GA 2015, 86-87)
37
For the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton in Biblical Hebrew
this means prima facie that yod and he should be consonantal as
being respectively at the beginning and at the middle of the word,
the “weak letter” or ‘vowel by nature’ waw (also yod when it is not
at the beginning of a word) may conditionally lose its consonantal
value and merge into a vowel when in the middle of the word, and
the last he is usually voiceless and its presence might be either
written or implied. (Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, E. Kautzsch ed.,
A.E. Cowley revs., Oxford 1910, § 5b, 8.5m, 22-24; cf. J. Blau,
Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew, Winona Lake, IN
2010) G.W. Buchanan observed on yhw: “If this vocalization [i.e.
the one used by the Dead Sea Scrolls scribes] were applied to the
Hebrew YHW, it might be pronounced, Yahûwâh or Yahôwâh.”
(Some Unfinished, 415) It is of historic interest that Voltaire, just
like Friedrich Schiller, was among those who used to vocalize the
form yhh with three syllables as Ihaho—“Moïse prononça le nom
de Ihaho, ou Jehovah” he wrote in his Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit
des nations. (Voltaire, Essai sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations,
Vol. 1, Geneva 1769, 105).

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 37

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

Figure 2:
An abbreviated marginal note at Zechariah 1:13 in Codex Vaticanus (mid fourth
century CE) meaning “οὐ κεῖται παρ’ Ἑβραίοις” or “οὐ κεῖται παρὰ τοῖς Ἑβραίοις,” that
is, “wanting according to the Hebrews [i.e. in the Hebrew text].” A second scribe
inserted these marginalia which present a striking attempt to harmonize with the
original Hebrew text. (Cod. Vat. gr. 1209, p. 987, col. 3, ln. 9)

Transliterating the Tetragrammaton in Koine Greek

would be actually impossible as far as almost none of the
three Hebrew letters had equivalents in the then current Greek
alphabet.38 Comparatively, Latin, Coptic and even Modern
Greek have been better equipped to supply the phonemes
needed to approximate the Hebrew original term.39 If all the
letters of the Tetragrammaton were considered as matres
lectionis, the result would be purely vocalic renderings in
Greek—i.e. various forms of the theonym in Greek that would
consist only of vowels.40 But such an attempt would totally

38
Because of the fact that corresponding signs-letters for several
sounds are wanting in the Greek alphabet, “only an approximate
representation was possible in these cases.” (Gesenius' Hebrew
Grammar § 6.1b, 10.1e)
39
Apparently, it is admissible for the pronunciation of the sacred
Tetragrammaton not to have been entirely uniform but rather, varied
to different degrees by time, place, language and religious commu-
nity. As a result, “there is no unique or universally "correct" render-
ing of the Hebrew [Tetragrammaton] in Greek.” (Vasileiadis, As-
pects, 71)
40
Vasileiadis, Aspects, 77-79. Such vocalic renderings are the follow-
ing: Ιαω/ Ιαο/ Ιαου, Ιαωα/ Ιαοα/ Ιαουα, Ιεω/ Ιεο/ Ιεου | Ιηω/ Ιηο/
Ιηου, Ιεωε/ Ιεοε/ Ιεουε | Ιηωη/ Ιηοη/ Ιηουη, Ιαωε/ Ιαοε/ Ιαουε, Ιεωα/
Ιεοα/ Ιεουα | Ιηωα/ Ιηοα/ Ιηουα, etc. In fact, many of them are
testified in various sources from the early centuries CE onwards.
Additionally, eccrusis, a kind of vocalic elision within a word,
might have simplified the form of such purely vocalic Greek terms
with the passing of time. (Θ. Μωυσιάδης, Ετυμολογία: Εισαγωγή
στη Μεσαιωνική και Νεοελληνική Ετυμολογία, Athens 2005, 84-
87) Josephus might have had in mind one of the aforementioned
vocalic forms when he wrote down that the “sacred letters” of the
Tetragrammaton were «φωνήεντα τέσσαρα», that is, “four vowels.”
(Jewish War 5.236/5.5.7 [H.St.J. Thackeray, Josephus. The Jewish
War, Vol. 3: Books 5-7, Loeb Classical Library 210, Cambridge,

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 38

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

ignore a number of Hebrew grammar rules for the source term

and the resulting Greek terms would seem and sound quite
odd. In conclusion, the Greek two-syllable Ιαω is most
probably either
(a) a letter-by-letter exclusively vocalic transliteration
of the three-letter form yhw41, or
(b) a vocalization or phonetic transcription of the
pronunciation of the three-letter “Tetragrammaton”
yhw/yhh as evidenced in Egyptian Aramaic-speaking
environments42, provided that it was already pronounced
Yaho(h)43.

MA 1928, 272-273]) If Josephus meant vowels and not letters or

characters in general, and if it were a kind of transliteration then the
resulting term might have been an approximation (so because of
lack of phonetic correspondence between the phoneme stocks of
Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek languages) like Ιαωα/ Ιαοα/ Ιαουα or
Ιεωε/ Ιεοε/ Ιεουε, or if it were some form of phonetic transcription
then the resulting term might additionally be Ιεωα/ Ιεοα/ Ιεουα |
Ιηωα/ Ιηοα/ Ιηουα or Ιαωε/ Ιαοε/ Ιαουε. Also, if the diphthong ου is
included, four vowels count both Ιαου, a form very close to Ιαω, and
Ιεου/ Ιηου, a form close to Ιεω/ Ιηω.
41
Such a transliteration practice is observed in the second column of
Origen’s Hexapla.
42
Joosten stated regarding the “nom araméen YHW”: “En Palestine,
la prononciation du nom divin se fondait sur le tétragramme, tandis
qu’en Égypte le nom était connu sous forme d’un trigramme. … Le
nom Iaô fait partie de l’héritage «araméen» du judaïsme égyptien de
l’époque hellénistique.” (Le dieu Iaô, 116. 118-119)
43
H. Stegemann, Religionsgeschichtliche Erwägungen zu den Gottes-
bezeichnungen in den Qumrantexten, in Qumran. Sa piété, sa théo-
logie et son milieu, M. Delcor (ed.), BEThL 44, Leuven 1978, 195-
217, here 205; A. Lukyn Williams, YĀHŌh, The Journal of Theolo-
gical Studies 28/111 (1927) 276-283. At the end of the fourth
century CE, the Hebraist Jerome explicitly mentioned that “nomen
Domini apud Hebraeos quattuor literarum est, Jod, He, Vau, He,
quod proprie Dei vocabulum sonat et legi potest Jaho,” that is, “the
name of God properly sounds and can be read Iaho.” (Breviarum in
Psalmos 8:2 [PL 26:838A; CCL 72:191]; Reisel, The Mysterious,
44) “Perhaps the word [Ἰαώ] was pronounced yahó.” (B. Metzger,
Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Palaeography,
New York 1981, 35; Thierry, The Pronunciation, 30) When Ιαω was
re-transliterated back in Hebrew it took the form yʾw [‫]יאו‬. (G.
Bohak, Ancient Jewish magic: A history, Cambridge 2007, 296)
There is also the possibility that the trigrammaton yhw was read as
a three-syllable term, virtually like Yahûwâ/ Yehûwâ and Yahôwâ/

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 39

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

Ιαω in 4Q120: A sample of the diversity

in rendering the Tetragrammaton in OG/LXX

P. W. Skehan concluded that by 100 BCE the Hebrew term

Adonay (“Lord”) might have served in certain Jewish circles
as a substitute name in public reading, but no pre-Christian
testimony has verified such practice in the OG Bible text. In
turn, P. Nagel remarked that the scribes during the last centu-
ries BCE seem to have been “uncomfortable with the term κύ-
ριος as a Greek rendering for the Tetragram, especially in the
more ‘Jewish’ circles”44. As regards the Qumran scrolls, we
must keep in mind that they “cannot tell us unequivocally
whether the [tetragrammaton] was pronounced or not”45.
It is clear today that with respect to LXX Bible copies
“different groups of scribes treated the Tetragrammaton in
different ways”, although the manuscripts “seem to be con-

Yehôwâ, or as a two-syllable like Yahwâ/ Yehwâ and Yahwô/ Yehwô.

(cf. D. Thomas, A further note on YHWH, The Bible Translator,
Practical Papers 44.4 [October 1993] 444-445) Although a purely
verbal form of the Tetragrammaton (phenomenally like Yahwe[h],
similar to yihyeh that means literally “he will be/become,” based on
mixed early and late, Hebrew and Aramaic elements of the verbs
hyh and hwh) satisfies the modern need for an apparent and overt
explanation of the morphology, phonology and semantics of the
Tetragrammaton, such a theonymic form that consisted of (or, was
identical to) a commonly used verbal type, would most probably be
a paradox and may have sounded rather odd in the ears of the wor-
shippers. (cf. Lukyn Williams, YĀHŌh) Actually, “it would be vir-
tually unparalleled for a bare verbal form to exist as a divine name.”
(B. Beitzel, Exodus 3:14 and the Divine Name: A Case of Biblical
Paronomasia, Trinity Journal 1 (1980) 5-20, here 16) If it were for
a mixed three-syllable verbal form, it would be read like Yahôweh,
or even Yahûweh. (Thomas, A further note, 445).
44
P. Nagel, The explicit ΚΥΡΙΟΣ and ΘΕΟΣ citations by Paul: An
attempt at understanding Paul's deity concepts. PhD thesis, Pretoria
2012, 48-49. For such a possibility, see Wilkinson, Tetragramma-
ton, 87. The reverence towards the divine name contributed to a
wide-spread trend of using euphemistic circumlocutions and meto-
nymies instead of mentioning the Tetragrammaton itself, especially
in pietistic circles.
45
K. Penner, Dead Sea Scrolls, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the
Books of the Bible, Oxford 2011, 173-192, here 187-188.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 40

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

sistent within themselves in representing the divine name”46.

Despite the different devices used to render the Tetragram-
maton, the general use of Ιαω in oral or written speech pre-
vailed for many centuries, including in the Bible copies47.

Figure 3:
The phrase «Αἰνεῖτε τὸν ‫»יהה‬, that is “Praise yhh,”
and the Greek theonym ιαω, along with αδωναΐ and nomina sacra (θc, κc).
(Cod. Vat. gr. 744/Rahlfs 1172, fol. 2r).

4Q120 and early Christianity

Early Christianity shared the same religious and cultural heri-

tage as the rest of Judaism in which the divine name played a

46
Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton, 60. 63. 66; Skehan, The Divine Name
at Qumran, 36. P. Nagel observed: “There existed no systematic
approach, nor a general accepted method or rule, at least from the
3rd/2nd century BCE, for rendering the Hebrew deity in general, and
the Tetragram in particular, with a ‘most suitable’ Greek equiva-
lent” (The explicit, 48). Joosten remarked a possibility proposed by
Shaw in his PhD thesis: “D’après ce savant [i.e. Shaw], il serait
possible que κύριος et Ιαω aient été utilisés tous les deux dans la
Septante primitive, en des passages différents, et que l’emploi du
premier ait été généralisé ensuite” (Le dieu Iaô, 118).
47
Vasileiadis, Aspects, 68.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 41

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

major role. The Bible copies they owned and used—either

“scrolls” of papyrus or scrolls of “parchments”48—came from
the same scribal circles. The earliest Christian communities
emerged within the variety of scribal conventions for rende-
ring the Tetragrammaton in the Greek Bible49. As a result, the
so-called “task of recovering Christianity's diversity before
and behind the “orthodoxy” of the post-Constantinian
church” should include an inquiry into the treatment of the
sacred Tetragrammaton by early Christianity.50
As implied by Jewish temple traditions, Jesus was
probably “familiar with the Temple pronunciation of the
Name”51. Also, it is possible that “in oral speech Jesus and the
disciples vocalized the divine name”52. either in the Hebrew

48
2Tim 4,13, NIV.
49
Even “within the group of Qumran scribes different practices were
employed for writing the divine names,” observed E. Tov. (Scribal
Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Ju-
dean Desert. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, Vol. 54,
Leiden-Boston 2004, 244. 265) Consequently, bold statements like
“undoubtedly kýrios also represented the Tetragrammaton YHWH
in the Greek texts [i.e. of the Septuagint] copied by Christians” need
to be reconsidered. (C. Perrot, Kyrios/Lord, in Religion Past and
Present. Brill Online 2011. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/
entries/religion-past-and-present/kyrioslord-COM_ 12537).
50
Y.A. Reed, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and post-70 Judaism, in
S.C. Mimouni/B. Pouderon/C. Clivas (eds.), Les Judaïsmes dans
tous leurs états aux Ier-IIIe siècles. Paris 2016, 119.
51
Thomas, A further note, 445. The Mishnah states: “In the sanctuary
one says the Name as it is written, but in the provinces, with a
euphemism.” (m. Sotah 7:6 [J Neusner (transl.), The Talmud of the
Land of Israel, Vol. 27: Sotah, Chicago-London 1984, 193]; m.
Berakhot 9:5; m. Sanhedrin 10:1; m. Tamid 7.2; b. Sotah 37a-38b;
b. Pesahim 50a; 1QS [Serek Hayahad or Rule of the Community]
6:27b-7:2a; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 2.12.4; see Wilkinson,
Tetragrammaton, 179).
52
D. Block, Who do Commentators say "the Lord" is? The Scandalous
Rock of Romans 10:13, in On the Writing of New Testament
Commentaries: Festschrift for Grant R. Osborne on the Occasion of
his 70th Birthday, Leiden-Boston 2013, 173-92, here 182. In Pistis
Sophia, a Gnostic text written between the third and fourth centuries
CE, Jesus is described as actually using the name Iao, and in one
case as referring to “Ieou [Jeu] Sabaoth.” (4:136 [C. Schmidt (ed.),
V. MacDermot (transl.), Pistis Sophia. Nag Hammadi Studies 9,

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 42

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

pronunciation as was heard in the temple of Jerusalem or in

the already well-known Aramaic-Greek form yhw/Ιαω53. By
the same token, ‘the Christian Scriptures were affirmative
regarding the pronunciation of God’s name’54. As J. Daniélou
explained, within “Christianity's diversity” the “Jewish Chri-
stian doctrine of the Name” held a prominent position and
acquired a wide spectrum of conceptions55. Later on, far be-
yond the early roots of Judaism and Jewish Christianity and
in harmony with the already existing “pagan familiarity with
Ιαω,” it is observed that outstanding Greek and Latin Chri-
stian authorities like Irenaeus of Lyons, Origen, Clement of
Alexandria, Didymus the Blind, Eusebius of Caesarea, Ter-
tullian and Jerome were familiar particularly with Ιαω/Iao/
Iaho—even with the Hebrew yhh—56, the Greek rendering of

Leiden 1978, pp. 353-354; G. Mead, Pistis Sophia, London 1921,

358-359]; cf. Psalm 22,22| 21,23, LXX; John 17,6).
53
Recently, after evaluating the available inscriptional evidence in the
early Roman Galilee, S.D. Charlesworth concluded: “It is likely that
some of the Twelve were […] productive [Aramaic/Hebrew-Greek]
bilinguals, that Jesus himself could also have known Greek, and that
some of the earliest Jesus tradition might have been transmitted in
Greek.” (S.D. Charlesworth, The Use of Greek in Early Roman Ga-
lilee: The Inscriptional Evidence Re-examined, Journal for the Stu-
dy of the New Testament 38/3 (2016) 356-395, here 383)
54
Vasileiadis, Aspects, 64; idem, The pronunciation of the sacred Te-
tragrammaton: An overview of a nomen revelatus that became a
nomen absconditus, Judaica Ukrainica 2 (2013) 5-20, here 10-12.
55
J. Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity: A History of Ear-
ly Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicaea. Vol. 1, London-
Chicago 1964, 146-163.
56
Origen’s comment on Psalm 2,4 survives in a tenth century CE
manuscript as following: «Δέκα ὀνόμασι παρ' Ἑβραίοις ὀνομάζεται
ὁ θ[εὸ]ς. ὧν ἕν ἐστι τὸ ἀδωναῒ, καὶ ἑρμηνεύεται κ[ύριο]ς, καὶ ἔστιν
ὅπου λέγεται τὸ ἀδωναῒ παρ' Ἑβραίοις καὶ παρ' Ἕλλησι κ[ύριο]ς,
τῆς λέξεως τῆς γεγραμμένης παρὰ τοῦ προφήτου τοῦτο
ἀπαγγελλούσης. ἔστι δὲ ὅτε τὸ ἰαὼ κεῖται, ἐκφωνεῖται δὲ τῇ κυρίως
προσηγορίᾳ παρ' Ἕλλησιν ἀλλ' οὐ παρ' Ἑβραίοις, ὡς ἐν τῷ «Αἰνεῖτε
τὸν ‫ יהה‬ὅτι ἀγαθὸν ψαλμός». κ[ύριο]ν γὰρ ἐνθάδε ἀντὶ τοῦ ἰαὼ
εἴρηκεν, καὶ ἔστιν ἡ ἀρχὴ τοῦ ψαλμοῦ παρ' Ἑβραίοις «Ἀλληλούϊα».
ἔστι δέ τι τετραγράμματον ἀνεκφώνητον παρ' αὐτοῖς». (Cod. Vat.
gr. 744 (Rahlfs 1172), fol. 2r; G. Mercati, Note Bibliche: 1. Sulla
scrittura del tetragramma nelle antiche versioni greche del Vecchio
Testamento, Biblica, 22/4 (1941) 339-66, here 350-4: Mercati in his
transcription of this text read mistakenly «τῇ κύριος προσηγορίᾳ»

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 43

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

the shortened Tetragrammaton (introduced then also in La-

tin), and even used it as an acceptable theonym to refer to the
true God57. The same was the case with the circulation “a-
mong the Christian common people” of Jewish and Christian
onomastica that widely used Greek forms of the Tetragram-
maton and underwent more slowly a gradual replacement of
these forms with other substitute or metonymic terms like

instead of the correct «τῇ κυρίως προσηγορίᾳ», thus further obscu-

ring the meaning of the phrase; Wolfram Kinzig, Eigenart und Aus-
sprache des Tetragramms bei den Kirchenvätern, in H. Assel/H.C.
Askani (eds.), Sprachgewinn. Festschrift für Günter Bader. Arbeiten
zur historischen und systematischen Theologie, Vol. 11, Berlin
2008, 202-233, here 207-210) It is highly remarkable that the He-
brew trigrammaton yhh (also found in the margin of Cod. Urbin. gr.
84, fol. 215r) is used along with the Greek “proper appellation” Ιαω
and the nomina sacra θc and κc. In Migne’s edition, instead of the
two cases of Ιαω it appears in both instances as Ιαη [Lat. Jae/Iae]
and instead of yhh it reads «Κύριον». (PG 12:1104B) Regarding the
appearance of Ιαω within the Greek Bible copies, Mercati observed
that possibly “Origene l'abbia trovato sotto quelle figure in codici
greci” and “gli Ebrei lo leggevano o pronunciavano tal quale lo
scrivevano, al pari di tutte le altre parole.” (Note Bibliche, 352) It is
observable that while Origen used the Hebrew Tetragrammaton in
his scholarly Hexapla (sometimes copied as ΠΙΠΙ), he generally
employed Ιαω in his literary works.
57
Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton, 123-129; Shaw, The Earliest, 37; Va-
sileiadis, The pronunciation, 6-8; Kinzig, Eigenart und Aussprache,
202-233; Thierry, The Pronunciation, 33-34. For instance, Didy-
mus the Blind, after using Iao in the etymologies of the names Ze-
phaniah and Joshua/Jesus, explains that «ἓν δὲ τῶν ὀνομάτων τοῦ
Θεοῦ τὸ Ἰαὼ [ἐστὶν] Ἑβραίων φωνῇ», that is “Iao is one of the na-
mes of God in the tongue of the Hebrews.” (Commentary on Ze-
chariah 6:10. 11 [Hill 117])

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 44

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

κύριος, θεός and αόρατος58. Gnostic Christianity bears similar

witness in Hebrew, Greek and Coptic contexts59.
The use of a form of the Tetragrammaton within the
4Q120 manuscript was admittedly the major reason for classi-
fying it as of Jewish origin60. In the light of the available in-
formation today (such as lowering the date of the common
use of the Tetragrammaton and the evidenced longstanding
use of Ιαω among Christians)61, might a Jewish Christian ori-
gin of the manuscript, penned sometime during the first cen-
tury CE be considered possible? Some positive factors for
such a hypothesis are the following.
58
Shaw, The Earliest, 153, 296-299; A. Deissmann, Light from the
Ancient East, New York-London 1910, 415. Origen’s onomastica
sacra, edited by Eusebius, mentions: «Ἰάω: κύριος, ἢ θεὸς, ἢ ἀό-
ρατος». (Cod. Vat. gr. 1456 (palimpsest, 12th century CE) [PL 23:
1225-1226| P. de Lagarde, Onomastica sacra, Göttingen 1870, 192.
203]) Remarkably, ancient Syriac Christianity displayed a notable
sensitivity towards the use of the Tetragrammaton both within the
OT and NT translations and other writings. (Vasileiadis, Aspects,
62. 64 n. 55; Kinzig, Eigenart und Aussprache, 218-220) This
includes both the scribal conventions and the Semitic mentalities
involved. Also, with respect to popular devotion, a Christian amulet
that dates from about the third century CE found at Tyre, opens with
the tripartite baptismal formula inscribed using nomina sacra («ἐν
τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ θ[εο]υ και ιη[σο]υ χ[ριστο]υ και πν[ευματο]c
ἁγίου»), followed by an evocation of the great name of Iao («τὸ
μέγα ὄνομα Ιαω»). (R. Kotansky, Greek Magical Amulets: The
inscribed gold, silver, copper, and bronze lamellae, Papyrologica
Coloniensia 22/1, Opladen 1994, no. 53, 301-305).
59
For instance, a new member of the so-called “Marcosians” (Μαρ-
κώσιοι), a third century Christian Gnostic movement, he confessed
during his baptism: «Ἐστήριγμαι καὶ λελύτρωμαι καὶ λυτροῦμαι τὴν
ψυχήν μου ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου καὶ πάντων τῶν παρ' αὐτοῦ ἐν
τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Ἰαώ, ὃς ἐλυτρώσατο τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ εἰς ἀπολύ-
τρωσιν ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ τῷ ζῶντι», that is, “I have been redeemed, and
I redeem my soul from this age and all the things that are from it in
the name of Iao who redeemed his soul unto redemption in the living
Christ.” (Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 1.14.2 [SC 264:299-302];
Epiphanius, Panarion 2:36 [F. Williams, The Panarion of Epipha-
nius of Salamis, Book I, Sects 1-46, Leiden-Boston 2009, 250]).
60
P. Kahle stated: “The fragment of Qumran Cave 4 renders the name
of God by ιαω (written in majuscule letters) and this alone already
shows that this papyrus was written by a Jew.” (The Cairo Geniza,
224) This conclusion is not to be considered safe anymore.
61
Shaw, The Earliest, 167-272.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 45

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

The members of the early Christian movement were

among the people that would have been less willing to submit
to rabbinic traditions and ordinances that they considered to
be un-Biblical and were supported by practices introduced
and promoted by the scribes62. Making and sharing copies of
their sacred Scriptures, i.e. mainly the Greek Bible (later cal-
led “Old Testament”), was highly important for their intensi-
ve evangelizing activity63. Their writing and copying skills
are well renowned very early among them. Furthermore, such
Jewish Christians may have been among the “Jewish scholars
standing outside the Rabbinic tradition during the period of
the first four centuries CE,” scholars able to create and use the
Greek transliterations of the Hebrew Scriptures like the ones
utilized by Origen in the second column of his Hexapla64.
Besides, a good number of the Qumran Bible scrolls were
imported from outside the community and were stored there
before its abandonment. Speaking of the Dead Sea Scrolls
found at Qumran, P. Comfort observed that “it is not
farfetched to think that some Greek-speaking Jewish Chri-
stians deposited [there] some manuscripts, both from the Old

62
Vasileiadis, The pronunciation, 9-12. Cf. Mt 5,20; 20,18; 23,1-27;
Mk 2,6.7; 3,22; 7,1-15; 8,31; 10,33; 11,18; 12,38-40; 14,1.43.53; Lk
5,21.30; 6,6-11; 9,22; 11,53.54; 19,47; 20,19.45-47; 22,2.66; 23,10.
63
Regarding the surviving NT papyri, P. Orsini and W. Clarysse
observed: “There are no first century New Testament papyri and
only very few can be attributed to the second century (𝔓52, 𝔓90, 𝔓104,
probably all the second half of the century) or somewhere between
the late second and early third centuries (𝔓30, 𝔓64+67+4, 0171, 0212).”
(P. Orsini/W. Clarysse, Early New Testament Manuscripts and
Their Dates. A Critique of Theological Palaeography, Ephemerides
Theologicae Lovanienses, 88/4 (2012) 443-474, here 466) The
“books of the sectarians” (sifrei ha-minim, Heb. ‫ )סִ פְ ֵרי הַ ִמנִ ים‬is an
explicit reference to Torah scrolls written most probably by Jewish
Christians. (Tosefta Shabbat 13:5, et al.| Jerusalem Talmud Shabbat
16.1:15c| Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 116a).
64
M. Martin, Writing divine speech: Greek transliterations of near
eastern languages in the Hellenistic East, in C. Cooper (ed.), Politics
of Orality. Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece, Vol. 6, Leiden-
Boston 2007, 251-274, here 268.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 46

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

Testament and the New Testament”65. For centuries Chri-

stians incessantly read and reproduced Greek, Hebrew and
Latin forms of the Tetragrammaton in excerpts from the He-
xapla66, in Biblical onomastica and other patristic literature67.

Author Greek excerpt English translation

secundum hebraeam linguam “various Hebrew names

Irenaeus of Lyons,
diverse dictiones are placed in the
Adversus haereses
positas in Scripturis … Scriptures …
2:35.3
Ιαωth/Ιαωh ... Ιαοth Iaôth/Iaôh … Iaoth”

“from the Hebrew

ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν ἑβραϊκῶν Γραφῶν
scriptures they took Iao
Origen, [λαβόντες] τὸν Ἰαὼ …
…
Contra Celsum 6.32 ἀπὸ τῶν Γραφῶν ληφθέντα
the names taken from the
ὀνόματα
Bible”

65
P. Comfort, Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New
Testament Paleography & Textual Criticism, Nashville, TN 2005,
126-127.
66
Kahle wrote concerning the Hexapla in the Milan palimpsest, edited
by Mercati: “The name of God is throughout in all the five columns
written as the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew square letters. That there
were Christian LXX MSS in Origen's time in which the name of
God was written in Hebrew square letters is directly contrary to all
that we otherwise know.” (The Greek Bible Manuscripts Used by
Origen, Journal of Biblical Literature 79.2 (1960) 111-118, here
116-117) Kahle’s hesitancy to admit the existence of LXX copies
produced by Christian scribes that included the Tetragrammaton
seems rather outdated.
67
Shaw, The Earliest, 13-36, 303-310; Vasileiadis, Aspects, 61-71;
idem, The Pronunciation, 12-13; Gallagher, The religious prove-
nance. For example, Basil of Caesarea apparently made use of ono-
mastica sacra, when he wrote: «Ἑρμηνεύεται γὰρ ὁ Ἀχὰζ, κατά-
σχεσις· Ἰωάθαν, Ἰαῶ συντέλεια· ὁ δὲ Ὀζίας, ἰσχὺς Ἰαῶ». (Enarratio
in prophetam Isaiam [Dub.] 7:193) The same is true for Cyril of
Alexandria, Origen, Didymus the Blind, Ps-John Chrysostom,
Theodoret and Hesychius’ Lexicon («Ἰωαθάμ: Ἰαὼ συντέλεια» and
«Ὀζείας: ἰσχὺς Ἰαώ» [M. Schmidt (ed.), Hesychii Alexandrini
Lexicon, repr. Amsterdam 1965, Vol. 2, 381; Vol. 3, 180]).

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 47

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

“it happens then that

when Iao is laid [in the
ἔστι δὲ ὅτε τὸ Ἰαὼ κεῖται,
Origen, Bible text], it is
ἐκφωνεῖται δὲ τῇ κυρίως
Selecta in Psalmos pronounced as the
προσηγορίᾳ παρ' Ἕλλησιν
2:4 properly appellation by
ἀλλ' οὐ παρ' Ἑβραίοις
the Greeks but not by the
Hebrews”

καὶ τοῦτο διὰ πάσης σχεδὸν “and you will find it

εὕροις ἂν τῆς γραφῆς, ἐπεὶ καὶ throughout nearly all the
κυρίως οὕτως παρὰ τοῖς Scriptures, and even now
Ἑβδομήκοντα ἔτι καὶ νῦν τῇ in the Septuagint He is
Eusebius, Ἑβραίων ὀνομάζεται φωνῇ. called properly by the
Demonstratio φέρονταί γε μὴν παρ' αὐτοῖς Hebrew name. Though of
evangelica 10:8.28 ἐπὶ τῆς θείας προσηγορίας καὶ course the Hebrews had
ἕτεραί τινες ἐκφωνήσεις, other expressions for the
ὥσπερ οὖν καὶ τὸ Σαδδαὶ καὶ divine Name—such as
τὸ Ἰαὼ καὶ τὸ Ἢλ καὶ ἄλλα Saddai, Iao, El, and the
τούτοις παραπλήσια like”
Tertullian, “the name Iao comes to
inde inuenitur Iao
Adversus be found in the
in Scripturis
Valentinianos 14.4 Scriptures”

Ps-John “regarding Iao, just

τὸ δὲ, Ἰαὼ, Ἑβραῖοι
Chrysostom, because it is a name of
ὀνομασίαν ὥσπερ τινὰ τῷ Θεῷ
In Psalmos 101-107 God, the Hebrews left it
κατέλιπον ἀνερμήνευτον
55.653 untranslated”

Table 1:
Patristic evidence for the use of Ιαω within their Greek Bible copies.

Furthermore, there is compelling evidence, both explicit

or implicit, that some of the Greek Bible copies—like the
ones read by Christians such as Irenaeus of Lyons68, Origen69,

68
The native Smyrnaean Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, wrote that “secun-
dum hebraeam linguam diverse dictiones positas in Scripturis,” that
is, “various Hebrew names are placed in the Scriptures,” including
among others Ιαωth/Ιαωh (v.l.) and Ιαοth. (Adversus haereses
2:35.3 [PG 7:838B-840A| U. Mannucci, Irenaei Lugdunensis
episcopi Adversus Haereses Libri quinque, Part 1, Rome 1907, 472.
474; R. Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, London-New York 1997, 91-92].
69
Origen mentioned that «ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν ἑβραϊκῶν Γραφῶν [λαβόντες]
τὸν Ἰαὼ … ἀπὸ τῶν Γραφῶν ληφθέντα ὀνόματα», that is, “from the
Hebrew scriptures they took Iao … the names taken from the Bible.”
(Contra Celsum 6.32 [PG 11:1345C-1348A| H. Chadwick (transl.),
Origen: Contra Celsum, Cambridge 1953, 349]).

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 48

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

Eusebius of Caesarea70, Tertullian71, Jerome72, and Ps-John

Chrysostom73—were employing the use of Ιαω for the Tetra-
grammaton74. If this conclusion is valid, this would imply that

70
Eusebius wrote: «Καὶ τοῦτο διὰ πάσης σχεδὸν εὕροις ἂν τῆς
γραφῆς, ἐπεὶ καὶ κυρίως οὕτως παρὰ τοῖς Ἑβδομήκοντα ἔτι καὶ νῦν
τῇ Ἑβραίων ὀνομάζεται φωνῇ. φέρονταί γε μὴν παρ' αὐτοῖς ἐπὶ τῆς
θείας προσηγορίας καὶ ἕτεραί τινες ἐκφωνήσεις, ὥσπερ οὖν καὶ τὸ
Σαδδαὶ καὶ τὸ Ἰαὼ καὶ τὸ Ἢλ καὶ ἄλλα τούτοις παραπλήσια», that
is: “And you will find it throughout nearly all the Scriptures, and
even now in the Septuagint He is called properly by the Hebrew
name. Though of course the Hebrews had other expressions for the
divine Name—such as Saddai, Iao, El, and the like.” (Demonstratio
evangelica 10:8.28 [PG 22:765C| W.J. Ferrar (transl.), The Proof of
the Gospel being the Demonstratio Evangelica of Eusebius of
Caesarea, New York 1920, 220]).
71
Tertullian stated that “inde inuenitur Jao in Scripturis,” that is, “the
name Iao comes to be found in the Scriptures.” (Adversus Valen-
tinianos 14.4 [PL 2:565A| P. Holmes (transl.), Ante-Nicene Chri-
stian Library, Vol. 15: The Writings of Quintus Sept. Flor. Tertullia-
nus, Vol. 2, Edinburgh 1870, 140; M. Riley, Q. S. Fl. Tertulliani
Adversus Valentinianos: Text, translation, and commentary, PhD
thesis, Stanford, CA 1971, 45]). G. Quispel stated: “Scripture must
mean here: Holy Writ. Does this mean that his Greek copy of the
Septuagint still contained Ἰαώ?” (G. Quispel, Gnostica, Judaica,
Catholica. Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel, J. van Oort (ed.). Lei-
den-Boston 2008, 400)
72
Jerome commented that “nomen Domini apud Hebraeos quattuor
literarum est, Jod, He, Vau, He, quod proprie Dei vocabulum sonat
et legi potest Jaho,” that is, “the name of God properly sounds and
can be read Iaho,” as it was found and read within the Bible copies
at hand. (Breviarum in Psalmos 8:2 [G. Morin (transl.), Sancti
Hieronymi presbyteri Commentarioli in Psalmos, Anecdota Mared-
solana, Vol. 3, Part 1, Oxford 1895, 20. 21]).
73
In a work attributed spuriously to John Chrysostom, it is stated in a
comment concerning the meaning of Ἀλληλούϊα at the super-
scription of the Psalm 105|104, LXX: «Τὸ δὲ, Ἰαὼ, Ἑβραῖοι ὀνομα-
σίαν ὥσπερ τινὰ τῷ Θεῷ κατέλιπον ἀνερμήνευτον», that is, “regar-
ding Iao, just because it is a name of God, the Hebrews left it un-
translated.” (In Psalmos 101-107 [PG 55:653])
74
Similar might be the case for Theodoret of Cyrus, whose editorial
activity involved Ιαω, “the usual transliteration in the LXX for
YHWH.” (C. Scholten, Theodoret De Graecarum affectionum
curatione. Heilung der griechischen Krankheiten. Supplements to
Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 126, Leiden 2015, 221; A. Baumgarten,
The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos. A Commentary. Études

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 49

 The god Iao and his connection with the Biblical God

for a few centuries Ιαω was prevailingly present within the

Bible copies read by the dispersed Christian communities,
side-by-side with Hebrew Tetragrammata75 and the increa-
singly dominant scribal device of nomina sacra76. As a result,

préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire Romain,

publiees par M. J. Vermaseren, Vol. 89. Leiden 1981, 54 n. 59)
75
As late as the fourth century CE, Jerome mentioned that public rea-
ders of Greek books (obviously copies of the Greek Bible) met the
Hebrew Tetragrammaton within their Greek texts: “Nonum [nomen
Dei est] τετράγραμμον / τετραγράμματον, quod ἀνεκφώνη-τον, id
est ineffabile, putaverunt, quod his litteris scribitur: iod, he, vau, he.
Quod quidam non intelligentes propter elementorum similitudinem,
cum in Graecis libris repererint, ΠΙΠΙ legere consueverunt.” That is:
“The ninth, τετράγραμμον [=Tetragram], which they considered
ἀνεκφώνητον, that is, unspeakable, and it is written with these let-
ters, Iod, He, Vau, He. Certain ignorant ones, because of the simila-
rity of the characters, when they find it in Greek books, are accu-
stomed to read ΠΙΠΙ [/pipi/]” (Letter 25, To Marcella [PL 22:428,
429; CSEL 54:219]; Metzger, Manuscripts, 35 n. 73). Also, Origen
remarked on copies of the Greek Bible: «Ἐν τοῖς ἀκριβεστέροις δὲ
τῶν ἀντιγράφων Ἑβραίοις χαρακτῆρσι κεῖται τὸ ὄνομα, Ἑβραϊκοῖς
δὲ οὐτοῖς νῦν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἀρχαιοτάτοις». That is: “In the most ac-
curate of the copies, the Name [of God] is put in Hebrew characters,
not the current Hebrew characters [Aramaic script], but the most
ancient [paleo-Hebrew script].” (Selecta in Psalmos [Dub.] 2:2
[PG 12:1104B]) Similarly, Jerome wrote: “Et nomen Domini tetra-
grammaton in quibusdam graecis voluminibus usque hodie antiquis
expressum litteris invenimus.” That is: “And we find the four-lette-
red name of the Lord in certain Greek books to this day written in
the ancient characters.” (Praefatio in libros Samuel et Malachim/In
libros Regum praefatio [PL 28:550| Ph. Schaff (ed.), A Select Li-
brary of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church:
Second Series, Vol. 6, New York 1893 (repr. 1980), 489]) Jerome
used Origen’s Hexapla—where the Tetragrammaton was retained
in the Aramaic-script form ‫יהוה‬/ΠΙΠΙ-as the base text for his Latin
translation of at least some of the OT books. (A. Fürst, Veritas
Latina. Augustins Haltung gegenüber Hieronymus' Bibelüberset-
zungen, Revue d'Etudes Augustiniennes et Patristiques 40 (1994)
105-126, here 108-109). Cf. Joosten, Le dieu Iaô, 117.
76
The various forms of the scribal editorial activity that resulted in the
alteration of “the text for both philological and theological rea-
sons”—including the ‘safeguarding of the sacred divine name or
tetragrammaton (YHWH)’—is an observable practice in the trans-
mission process of the Hebrew scriptures. (B. Waltke/M. O'Connor,
An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, Winona Lake, IN 1990,

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 50

 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

a possible consequence is that Ιαω (or, less possibly, a similar

Greek term77) might well have appeared in the original NT
copies as well as in the early Christian kerygma78. In the
following centuries a rapid elimination of the Biblical theo-
nym from the Christian scriptures and literature is observed,
while Christian and Jewish theological and philosophical
inquiries regarding the divine onomastics appeared and fully
blossomed in various directions.
Although this hypothesis of a Jewish Christian origin for
the 4Q120 scroll cannot be definitely substantiated, it pro-
poses that Ιαω cannot anymore be considered as the primary
factor in the argument for a Jewish origin and a pre-Christian
dating. This papyrus fragment is a sample of the Bible copies
that link the Jewish OG/LXX Torah scrolls with the late
Christian LXX codices. And in the links of this chain Jews,
Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians were all actively
involved.

(ΑUTH – 09.03.2016)

19.e). Especially the technique of the nomina sacra in the text of the
Christian scriptures used during the early Christian era testifies to
theological-reverential scribal conventions regarding the theonyms
(sacred and divine names) that resulted in textual alterations and
varying textual traditions. (cf. B. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption
of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on
the Text of the New Testament, Oxford 1996, 83-85, 172 n. 83. 271
n. 22).
77
For instance, during the early sixth century CE, Severus of Antioch
and Olympiodorus, a deacon of Alexandria, both used the form Ιωα
[Lat. Joa/Ioa] for rendering the Tetragrammaton in Greek, most
probably following onomastica sacra available to them. (Fragmen-
ta in Jeremiam 23:6 [PG 93:676A]; Catena in Joannem 8:58 [PG
23:1276 n. 4]) Similarly, the forms Ιαεω-Ιαηω might have been con-
sidered more precise Greek transcriptions of the trigrammaton yhw
than Ιαω. (R. Ganschinietz, Iao, in Paulys Realencyclopädie der
classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Vol. 9.1, Stuttgart 1914, 700.
60).
78
Shaw, The Earliest 273-301; Gaston, Paul and the Torah, 117-118,
131; G. Howard, The Tetragram and the New Testament, Journal of
Biblical Literature 96/1 (1977) 63-83; idem, The Name of God;
idem, Tetragrammaton in the New Testament, in The Anchor Bible
Dictionary, D.N. Freedman (ed.), Vol. 6, New York 1992, 392-393.

Vetus Testamentum et Hellas 4 (2017) 21-51 51