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‘Lord, Lord’: Jesus as YHWH in Matthew and Luke*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2017

Jason A. Staples
Jason A. Staples*
Affiliation:
Department of Religious Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill, CB#3225, 125 Saunders Hall, North Carolina 27599, USA. Email: jasonastaples@gmail.com
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Abstract

Despite numerous studies of the word κύριος (‘Lord’) in the New Testament, the significance of the double form κύριε κύριε occurring in Matthew and Luke has been overlooked, with most assuming the doubling merely communicates heightened emotion or special reverence. By contrast, this article argues that whereas a single κύριος might be ambiguous, the double κύριος formula outside the Gospels always serves as a distinctive way to represent the Tetragrammaton and that its use in Matthew and Luke is therefore best understood as a way to represent Jesus as applying the name of the God of Israel to himself.

Keywords

ChristologyLXXTetragrammaton/TetragramtranslationSynoptic Gospelscircumlocution

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Articles
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New Testament Studies , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 1 - 19
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Not everyone who says to me, κύριε κύριε, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me in that day, ‘κύριε κύριε, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and in your name do many powerful things?’ (Matt 7.21–2)Footnote 1

Later the remaining virgins will come and say, ‘κύριε κύριε, open for us!’ (Matt 25.11)

Why do you address me as κύριε κύριε and not do what I say? (Luke 6.46)Footnote 2

But you, κύριε κύριε, deal mercifully with me, for your name's sake, because your mercy is good. (Ps 108.21 LXX; 109.21 MT)

Say to them, ‘Thus says κύριος κύριος, “Look, I will take all of the house of Israel from the midst of the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them …”’ (Ezek 37.21 LXX)

The ambiguity of the word (ὁ) κύριος, which can mean ‘master’ or ‘sir’, ‘lord’ in the sense of kingship, or serve as a Greek representation of the unpronounced name of the God of Israel, has provided ample fodder for numerous studies on the use of this term in the Gospels and in nascent Christianity and on the christological implications of its application to Jesus.Footnote 3 Nevertheless, despite the profusion of such studies, the instances in Matthew and Luke in which the title is doubled (κύριε κύριε) have hardly been given a second thought. Indeed, many commentaries and articles specifically addressing the few passages containing this repetition in the Gospels scarcely seem to notice the doubling,Footnote 4 and those that do mention it have typically dismissed its significance as either typical of Semitic style or merely a way of marking heightened emotion.Footnote 5 Marco Frenschkowski has provided the lone exception to date, proposing that the doubling represents acclamation of Jesus as the messianic king.Footnote 6 But, as this study will demonstrate, the doubling in these passages is much more significant: the double κύριος formula would have been distinctly familiar to a first-century Greek-speaking Jewish audience as an unambiguous way to signal the presence of the Tetragram (as opposed to the more ambiguous single κύριος) in the first-century Greek Bible, suggesting that through the use of the κύριε κύριε formula both Matthew and Luke represent Jesus as applying the name YHWH to himself.

1. Κύριος and YHWH

1.1 The Tetragram in Early Greek Manuscripts

The earliest studies on κύριος in earliest Christianity argued that Christian application of κύριος to Jesus was a natural outgrowth of the LXX's typical translation of יהוה with κὐριος.Footnote 7 By extension, this also implied identification of Jesus with the name of YHWH at a very early stage in the tradition. Discoveries of earlier Greek manuscripts, however, have shown that these older manuscripts tend not to include κύριος, instead employing other means of communicating the Tetragram.

For example, the original scribe of the Deuteronomy fragments of P.Fouad 266b, which date to the first century bce, left a blank space marked by a high dot at its beginning, where a second scribe filled in the Hebrew letters for the name in Aramaic block script, filling only about half the space left by the original scribe.Footnote 8 In addition to Aramaic block script, other early manuscripts not transmitted by Christians preserve the Tetragram either in Palaeo-Hebrew scriptFootnote 9 or the Greek letters ΠΙΠΙ,Footnote 10 a degeneration of the Aramaic script that led to later Syriac copies with pypy.Footnote 11 A few examples have ΙΑΩ (probably derived from the Aramaic יהו) or other transliterations of the name,Footnote 12 and other solutions such as two yods (sometimes Palaeo-Hebrew)Footnote 13 or four dots are employed,Footnote 14 but as a rule these early manuscripts do not include κύριος. By contrast, the first manuscript with κύριος, according to Emanuel Tov's list, is P.Baden iv.56b, which dates to the second century ce.Footnote 15

On the basis of this evidence, many scholars now regard κύριος as a later Christian standardisation rather than the original rendering of the Old Greek.Footnote 16 George Howard, for example, claims that ‘we can now say with almost absolute certainty that the divine name, יהוה, was not rendered by κύριος in the pre-Christian Greek Bible, as so often has been thought’.Footnote 17 Hans Conzelmann agrees, concluding: ‘Kyrios occurs only in Christian manuscripts of the LXX, and not in Jewish ones … Thus the Christian use of κύριος cannot be derived from the LXX. The reverse is in fact the case. Once the title began to be used, it was found again in the Bible.’Footnote 18 Thus Conzelmann turns the older argument that the title had originated in the LXX on its head, arguing that the application of κύριος to Jesus originally derived from pagan usage and was eventually read back into the LXX by Christians equating Jesus with God. Albert Pietersma and Martin Rösel, however, have more recently renewed the argument for the originality of κύριος, contending that the early manuscripts preserving the name in Hebrew were the result of an archaising and Hebraising trend during the second century bce and pointing to specific translation decisions that make less sense if one presumes that the preserved Tetragram was original,Footnote 19 a conclusion echoed by Robert Kraft.Footnote 20

1.2 What is Read: Going Beyond What is Written

In any case, these older manuscripts validate the witness of Origen and Jerome that the oldest and most reliable Greek manuscripts of their day represented the Tetragram in Hebrew characters rather than writing κύριος.Footnote 21 But more importantly, both Origen and Jerome testify that κύριος was substituted for the Tetragram when these Greek texts were read, though Jerome notes that some more ignorant readers said pee-pee upon coming to these unfamiliar characters.Footnote 22 Their testimony highlights the importance of distinguishing between what is written in manuscripts and what was read; indeed, as Larry Hurtado observes, the special treatment of the name within Jewish manuscripts served ‘to signal readers to pronounce a reverential substitute-word’.Footnote 23

A fragment of Aquila's translation from the Cairo Geniza palimpsest manuscripts features a ‘palaeographical accident’ that further witnesses to this practice.Footnote 24 Although the Tetragram is normally preserved throughout these fragments, there is at least one instance (2 Kgs 23.24) in which a scribe lacking space at the end of a line replaces the Tetragram with KY, thereby confirming that this community of Greek-speaking Jews read κύριος when coming across the Tetragram.Footnote 25 Although late, this witness (which also attests κύριος in a Jewish manuscript) is nevertheless instructive, especially since other evidence suggests the אדני/κύριος circumlocution for the Tetragram had already long been in practice by the first century ce.

1.3 Evidence for an Early Κύριος Reading

The first and most obvious evidence for Jews reading (if not writing) κύριος in place of the Tetragram in the first century is that furnished by the New Testament authors themselves, since, as Rösel points out, ‘the citations of the New Testament require at least that κύριος or אדני had been uttered when the Scriptures of Israel were read aloud and studied’.Footnote 26 Fitzmyer similarly protests: ‘If κύριος = יהוה is a device found only in Christian copies of the OT, where did Luke get it when he quoted Deut 6.5 [using κύριος]?’Footnote 27 In addition, the idea that Christians read a christological title adopted from pagan terminology for rulers back into the LXX only to have later Jews adopt the same substitution for יהוה is implausible to say the least. It is more likely that the New Testament authors built on an established tradition, with κύριος already the most common Greek surrogate for the name by that time.

The New Testament evidence does not stand alone. The first known interdiction against pronouncing the name aloud actually comes in the LXX version of Lev 24.16, where the Hebrew prohibition, ‘he that blasphemes (נקב) the name of YHWH will surely be put to death’, is altered to an explicit prohibition of speaking the name: ‘He that names (ὀνομάζων) the name of the Lord, let him die the death.’ This verse thus serves as an early witness for the non-pronunciation of the name in the Greek tradition, as it is difficult to envision those who thus understood speaking the name to be prohibited promptly pronouncing it as they read.Footnote 28

For his part, Philo consistently treats κύριος as the Greek equivalent of the Tetragram, and his use of κύριος cannot be explained away as having been amended by the Christian scribes who transmitted his corpus, as this would have required not only the systematic alteration of his citations and allusions involving κύριος but also reworking ‘considerable parts of his treatises’, including frequent comments on the etymologies of κύριος and θεός.Footnote 29 Even Howard, who argues that κύριος was a later Christian innovation in the LXX, concedes:

[Philo's] weaving together of biblical quotation and exposition at times leaves hardly any doubt that Philo was perfectly capable of using κύριος as a surrogate for the Tetragram within his exposition. It may then be that our earliest witness to this particular Greek substitute for the divine name in an expositional reference is Philo.Footnote 30

On this basis, James Royse concludes that although Philo's copies of the Pentateuch may have preserved the Tetragram in Hebrew characters, ‘Philo's own written use of κύριος is consistent with his having read such texts and having pronounced the Tetragrammaton as κύριος’.Footnote 31

Josephus also shows knowledge of κύριος as a substitute for the Tetragram, though he uses it only twice, instead preferring δεσπότης when referring to the deity. The two instances of κύριος as a divine address are intriguing, as one is found in a scripture quotation in a high priestly letter (A.J. 13.3.1 §68) and the other in an invocation by King Izates, a convert to Judaism (A.J. 20.4.2 §90), indicating both that he knows of the word as a circumlocution and that these instances for some reason allow for a different language than elsewhere in his works, where he avoids the term.Footnote 32 Indeed, Josephus elsewhere informs us that it is not lawful for him to disclose the name revealed to Moses to his audience, which Fitzmyer argues ‘undoubtedly influenced his use of δεσπότης on various occasions’.Footnote 33

Other Greek witnesses of κύριος for the name include Aristobulus and the citation of Deut 7.18–19 in the Letter of Aristeas 155.Footnote 34 The prevalence of κύριος in other Hellenistic Jewish writings not translated from a Hebrew Vorlage such as the Wisdom of Solomon or 2 Maccabees is also a strong indicator that this term was a familiar surrogate for the Tetragram by the time these books were written.Footnote 35

1.4 Adonai YHWH: Problematic Redundancy

But it is actually the scribal difficulties caused by the phrase אדני יהוה that serve as the best evidence for the antiquity of אדני or κύριος as euphemisms in place of the name. Koog Hong explains:

The Adonai euphemism can be traced by examining how אדני יהוה is rendered in textual transmission – that is, whether it is faithfully retained or altered to a form that reflects an attempt to avoid the putative redundancy. אדני יהוה, ‘my Lord YHWH’, is a straightforward title. Were it not for the redundancy, this title in itself presents no need for any modification in its oral and written transmission.Footnote 36

This combination (and its variants) occurs 319 times in the Masoretic Text, of which a striking 217 are in Ezekiel, most often in introductory or concluding formulae. Lawrence Boadt observes the presence of this phrase in much older traditions and prophetic utterances and argues that Ezekiel is thus reviving ‘this archaic usage on a large scale in his oracular style’, appropriating the ‘traditional solemnity of [אדני] as a title for [YHWH]’ and ‘hearken[ing] back to a recognized effectiveness in the union of the two terms’.Footnote 37 Although Hebrew and Greek do show some tolerance for repetition of names in the vocative (e.g. 1 Sam 3.4; Luke 13.34; Acts 9.4), with the repetition typically functioning as a ‘pathos formula’ signalling a highly emotional context,Footnote 38 אדני יהוה is exceptional in that it is not restricted to circumstances of direct address, often causing exactly the sort of repetition typically avoided in Hebrew or Greek,Footnote 39 as signalled by the various methods for managing this special compound in the textual tradition.

Telltale alterations of this formula can be found as early as the book of 1 Chronicles, which never retains אדני יהוה from parallel passages in 2 Samuel, replacing it with either a single יהוה or אלהים or (on two occasions, 1 Chron 17.16, 17) with the Palestinian qerê, יהוה אלהים.Footnote 40 Hong observes that there is ‘no other way to account for this unusual replacement’, since the Chronicler replaces a formula widely used in invocations with one that is not.Footnote 41 He observes that this substitution became ‘a rather usual scribal practice’ by the time of the Targumim,

in which אדני יהוה of the MT was completely replaced with יהוה אלהים. Even the single title אדני was replaced by יהוה. The result is the complete loss of the distinction between אדני and יהוה אלהים in the Targumim.Footnote 42

These alterations attest אדני as a surrogate for the Tetragram at least by the time of the composition of Chronicles,Footnote 43 lending indirect support to the originality of the κύριε reading for the Old Greek.Footnote 44 That the Palestinian qerê appears in the great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) on two occasions (50.5; 61.11) indicates that the scribes of the Dead Sea Scroll community similarly attempted to avoid the repetition created by the compound אדוני יהוה when both words are vocalised the same way.Footnote 45

Septuagintal difficulties with this formula also indicate that some of the early Greek translators treated κύριος as the equivalent for both Hebrew words. LXX Genesis, for example, chooses δέσποτα (15.2) and δέσποτα κύριε (15.8) in the two places the combination appears – which in turn are the only two places in Genesis where the word δέσποτης appears.Footnote 46 The Exodus translator chooses different solutions that nevertheless reveal the same distaste for repetition, opting for κύριου τοῦ θεοῦ in the first case (23.17).Footnote 47 This was not a viable option in the second case (34.23), however, since the phrase ‘the God of Israel’ immediately follows the problematic double formulation, so the translator instead omits one κύριος. This use of the single κύριος eventually became the most common solution for rendering אדני יהוה and its variants elsewhere in the LXX (196 times in Rahlfs), though given the tendency of some early manuscripts to leave a space where the Tetragram appears (e.g. P.Ryl. iii.458), one wonders whether many of these examples of a single κύριος were the result of such spaces (or perhaps dots or some other placeholder) eventually dropping out in the process of transmission. Versions of the Palestinian qerê also appear twenty-four times in the LXX, all in the prophets except the aforementioned Exod 23.17.Footnote 48

Pietersma regards all these examples as showing ‘beyond a shadow of a doubt not only that adonai and the Tetragram were taken to be equivalent to kyrios but also that this equivalency was expressed in written form’.Footnote 49 I am less convinced that this equivalence was necessarily written, but these instances do indicate attempts to avoid a repetition of κύριος at an early stage in the Greek tradition.Footnote 50 Hong's restrained conclusion with respect to the textual data seems best: ‘It is equally plausible and more practical to suggest that there were multiple, competing renditions – of course including κύριος, θεός, and other special forms – among which κύριος later happened to emerge as a dominant rendition.’Footnote 51

2. Kύριος Κύριος in the Greek Bible

It can therefore be established that, regardless of what is found on the pages of our earliest manuscripts or was originally written in the Old Greek, κύριος was read in place of the Tetragram from a very early date and certainly by the first century. What matters for the purposes of this study, however, is that the use of κύριος as a circumlocution for יהוה introduced ambiguity when the Bible was read aloud – except, of course, when the repetition was retained in translation, at which point the presence of the Tetragram in the text was evident. The scribal reserve towards repetition observed in the transmission history further highlights just how distinctive the double κύριος sounded when it was retained. The distinctiveness of this repetition is further reinforced by the fact that in every extant example in pre-Talmudic Jewish literature outside the Gospels, the double κύριος serves as a Greek rendering of אדני יהוה.Footnote 52

Moreover, despite the prevalence of other solutions for representing אדני יהוה, instances of the distinctive κύριος κύριος are plentiful, particularly in the vocative, which Pietersma notes is ‘the only case in which a double kyrios was to become usual in the LXX’.Footnote 53 Eighteen of the twenty-three incidences of the double formulation not found in Ezekiel occur in the vocative, including five instances in the Psalter,Footnote 54 coinciding with the usual invocational aspects of the Hebrew combination.Footnote 55 A second similar solution found in the Deuteronomistic History is also noteworthy, as the eight instances of κύριέ μου κύριε interpret the final yod of אדני as a first-person pronominal ending (‘adoni’) but still also preserve the double vocative.Footnote 56 In any case, the repetition in such passages as these is distinctive:

κύριε κύριε, you have begun to show your strength, your power, your mighty hand, and your high arm to your servant; for what God is there in heaven or on the earth who will do as you hast done, and according to your might? (Deut 3.24; ‘O Lord GOD’ NRSV)

And I said, ‘Not so, κύριε κύριε! They say to me, “Is not this that is spoken a parable?”’ (Ezek 20.49)

If you observed lawlessness, κύριε κύριε, who could stand? (Ps 129.3 LXX; 130.3 MT)

In all, the double κύριος occurs eighty-four times in Rahlfs’ LXX, including eleven times in the Psalms and seven times in the Minor Prophets and Jeremiah. It appears an additional five times in Jewish pseudepigrapha, four in the Testament of Abraham (9.4; 10.6, 9, 11) and once in the Apocalypse of Moses (= Life of Adam and Eve) 25.3.Footnote 57 Of these references, only 2 Macc 1.24, 3 Macc 2.2 and Esther C2 (13.9 = 4.17b) are from works originally written in Greek, and each of these is an invocation to the God of Israel clearly echoing the translation of אדני יהוה elsewhere in the Greek Bible. The double κύριος also occurs once in Philo, at Conf. 173, which suggests that Philo read the double formulation in his Torah.Footnote 58 Ezekiel, which contains nearly three quarters of the occurrences of אדני יהוה in the Hebrew Bible, contains the κύριος κύριος repetition a remarkable fifty-four times (only once in the vocative), with forty-nine of these appearing in the middle portion of the book (chs. 21–39),Footnote 59 concentrated in restoration passages of special interest to early Christians. For example:

For thus says κύριος κύριος, ‘Look, I will seek out my sheep, and will visit them … And I will bring them out from the Gentiles and will gather them from the countries … I will feed my sheep, and I will cause them to rest; and they shall know that I am κύριος.’ Thus says κύριος κύριος. (Ezek 34.8–15 LXX)

‘You are my sheep, the sheep of my flock, and I am κύριος your God’, says κύριος κύριος. (Ezek 34.31 LXX)

The double formula occurs throughout these central passages in Ezekiel, in which κύριος κύριος promises to come down and shepherd his people, giving them a new heart and a new spirit and restoring the relationship between himself and his people.

It bears repeating that this double formulation specifically arose to designate the distinctive Hebrew אדני יהוה and was employed despite a scribal tendency to eschew repetition. Similar repetition of a title is uncommon, but this double formulation serves a valuable purpose in removing any ambiguity that could result from a single κύριος, which could refer to a human being or simply the title or metonym ‘Lord’ rather than the name. The double κύριος thus distinctively marks the presence of the name to the Greek reader, making it clear that the formula in question is directly referring to the God of Israel by the special name. To return to the sentiments of Boadt and Skehan, it appears this double formula is employed to call out the ‘traditional solemnity’ of the אדני יהוה formula as much as possible in the Greek translation.Footnote 60

3. Κύριε Κύριε in the Gospels

There can therefore be little doubt that a Greek audience accustomed to the frequent occurrence of the double κύριος in Ezekiel and the vocative κύριε κύριε elsewhere in the Greek Bible would hearFootnote 61 a jarring echo when reading the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.Footnote 62 By contrast, modern interpreters unaccustomed to the double ‘Lord’ in their Bibles outside these passages have tended to be deaf to the echo. Ferdinand Hahn, for example, dismisses the doubling as merely ‘a typically Semitic characteristic’, which does little to explain why such a characteristic would appear only in these specific passages.Footnote 63 Ulrich Luz, on the other hand, cites the rhetorical commonplace of ‘doubling’ (geminatio) in both Semitic languages and Greek as a way to mark language as ‘especially expressive and imploring’,Footnote 64 while François Bovon suggests that it signals ‘reverence or affection’,Footnote 65 and Frenschkowski argues that it represents the heightened context of a royal acclamation.Footnote 66 This view of the double κύριε as representing little more than an impassioned equivalent to a single κύριος has become a default position among interpreters, more assumed than argued at this point.Footnote 67 Nevertheless, although it is true that geminatio sometimes does function as a pathos formula,Footnote 68 a closer examination of the passages themselves shows that the doubling is better understood as echoing a familiar way of unambiguously rendering the name of Israel's God in the Greek Bible.

3.1 Matthew 7.21–2 and 25.11

The pathos interpretation does not adequately explain the double formulation in Matt 7.21, which provides no narrative context implying pathos or desperation on the part of the speaker. Whereas the doubling in Matt 7.22 or 25.11 could be dismissed as merely signalling heightened emotion as suggested by Luz, there is no indication of heightened emotion or affection in the statement ‘not everyone who says to me κύριε κύριε’ (7.21). Rather, this saying treats κύριε κύριε as an address or invocation expected to grant access to the kingdom. In this way, 7.21 prepares the reader to understand the other appearances of the double form in 7.22 and 25.11, where it is similarly employed (though in contexts in which it could more easily be dismissed as doubling to signal pathos) as a means by which the speaker hopes to enter the kingdom.Footnote 69 It is also surely no accident that Matt 7.21–2 involves the first uses of κύριος referring to Jesus in the Gospel after using that term eleven times to refer to God before this passage. The use of the double form for the first application of κύριος to Jesus thus ensures that the reader does not miss the theological implications of that term, signalling that this κύριε is not a rudimentary ‘sir’.Footnote 70 By using the double form here, Matthew thereby sets the tone for when characters call Jesus by the more ambiguous single κύριος later in the Gospel.

Such blurring between the name of God and the name of Jesus is reminiscent of the Christ hymn of Philippians 2, in which Jesus is ‘given the name above every other name [=יהוה] so that every knee will bow at the name of Jesus’ (2.9–10). Remarkably, Matt 7.21–2 presumes a context in which some believe that calling upon Jesus as κύριε κύριε grants entry to the kingdom of heaven, an idea almost certainly tied to the application of Joel 2.32 (MT/LXX: Joel 3.5) to Jesus, ‘whoever (LXX: πᾶς ὅς) calls on the name יהוה (LXX: κυρίου) will be saved’, in precisely the way Paul does in Rom 10.9.Footnote 71 This confession of κύριος Ἰησοῦς was certainly the characteristic Pauline confession (Rom 10.9; cf. Phil 2.11; 1 Cor 12.3; 16.22),Footnote 72 but it was not limited to Pauline communities and appears to have been common across the earliest Christian communities (cf. Rev 22.20–1; Jas 1.1). In this context, the added intertextual weight of the distinctive double κύριος in Matt 7.21–2 further reinforces Hagner's judgement that ‘Matthew's community can hardly have failed to think here of the primary Christian confession, that Jesus is Lord’.Footnote 73

Matthew's Jesus, however, cautions that not everyone (οὐ πᾶς) who does so will enter the kingdom unless s/he pairs this confession with obedience.Footnote 74 Pace the suggestion of Hans Dieter Betz, there is no indication that invoking Jesus in this manner is at all inappropriate or that ‘this repetition comes under the verdict of verbosity considered improper for worship’.Footnote 75 On the contrary, it is striking that the phrasing of Matt 7.21 does not oppose but instead presumes the legitimacy of applying the name to Jesus and implicitly embraces the confession ‘Jesus is κύριος’ – those not entering the kingdom are not rebuffed for improper worship or verbose prayers but rather for their ἀνομία (7.23) despite their presumably correct invocation. One would not say, for example, ‘not everyone (οὐ πᾶς) who blasphemes will enter the kingdom of heaven’ but rather ‘no one (οὐδείς) who blasphemes …’ since blasphemy is the thing keeping one out of the kingdom. To say that ‘not everyone’ who invokes Jesus as κύριε κύριε will enter the kingdom (7.21) presumes that many who do so will indeed gain access to the kingdom as expected – provided they do not invalidate their confession with lawlessness. The point of the passage is therefore that calling upon Jesus as YHWH, though indeed associated with entering the kingdom, will be insufficient for entry into the kingdom of heaven unless that confession is paired with obedience – a sentiment standing in harmony with Matt 5.17–20, where Jesus warns that he came to fulfil the Torah, not annul the obligation of obedience.Footnote 76 Or, to put it another way, Matt 7.21–3 argues that confessing ‘Jesus is κύριος’ with one's mouth is not sufficient for final vindication or salvation.

Verse 22 further underscores the connection of the double κύριος with the divine name, revealing that, as with the names of other deities or angels in the ancient world, the κύριος κύριος formula can be invoked to perform works of power (cf. the casting out of evil spirits by the ‘name of κύριος Jesus’ in Acts 19.13). Indeed, the condemned protest that they have performed cosmic acts of power (δυνάμεις) such as exorcism and prophecy ‘in your name’ (7.22), which might initially be assumed to be ‘Jesus’. But these prophetic exorcists do not address him as ‘Jesus’ but rather as κύριε κύριε, implying that the latter is the name invoked to perform these powerful acts. Significantly, whereas 7.21 undermines the ‘pathos formula’ explanation for the doubling, 7.22 undermines Frenschkowski's argument that the doubling represents acclamation.Footnote 77 Instead, the doubling in 7.22 occurs in the context of a protest and implies prior use of the formula to perform works of power. Notably, all three applications of the double κύριος to Jesus in Matthew imply a context of final judgement after Jesus’ exaltation and are therefore consistent with the exaltation paradigm of Matt 28.18, ‘all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me’ (cf. also Phil 2.9–10). Similarly, in Matt 7.21 Jesus immediately refers to his father in heaven after labelling himself κύριε κύριε, a reminder that his claim to the name is acquired from his father.

3.2 Luke 6.46

Unlike the Matthean passages, the Lukan version does not occur in a clearly eschatological context.Footnote 78 Rather than referencing a future time in which (third person) people will say κύριε κύριε to him, Luke's second-person present form gives the impression that Jesus is directly addressing the reader, thus retrojecting the reader's confessional and liturgical perspective back into the text, with Jesus directly warning of the consequences of disobedience regardless of confession. The second-person form is consistent with Lukan preferences elsewhere in the double tradition (e.g. the Beatitudes), and the saying corresponds well with Luke's tendency to push the use of κύριος and other indications of Jesus’ post-resurrection exaltation back into the time of Jesus’ ministry.Footnote 79 Betz's suggestion that the doubling of κύριος represents ‘a caricature of a formal devotional habit’ and critiques the ‘absurdity’ of the disciples’ repeated address of Jesus as κύριος therefore gets things precisely backwards,Footnote 80 as Luke nowhere suggests that addressing Jesus as κύριος is improper and indeed pushes in exactly the opposite direction throughout the Gospel. In addition, Luke 6.46 does not critique the address of Jesus as κύριε κύριε but rather the incongruity between this address (which is implied to be proper) and not doing what Jesus says. Luke's use of the double κύριος at this early point in the narrative also seems to confirm that the frequent application of the single κύριος to Jesus elsewhere should be understood as echoing the divine name in much the same way in which Matt 7.21–2 sets the tone for other uses of κύριος later in that Gospel.

The Lukan construction of the saying also makes it even clearer than the Matthean examples that the doubling of κύριος does not signal pathos. Indeed, the saying does not occur in the context of emotive dialogue. Instead, Luke 6.46 uses καλέω with direct object and complement (the vocative taking the place of the usual accusative complement),Footnote 81 which is a construction for addressing or designating a person by a title or name.Footnote 82 That is, the Lukan saying treats κύριε κύριε as a specific metonym or title by which Jesus is invoked: ‘Why do you address me as κύριε κύριε and not do what I say?’ Coupled with the fact that in the Lukan version Jesus demands the obedience one would expect to be directed towards God (contrast Matt 7.21–2),Footnote 83 Luke's treatment of κύριε κύριε as a specific form of address – one that echoes a way to unambiguously represent the divine name in the Greek Bible – is best understood as an application of the divine name to Jesus. There is no reason, however, to regard the double form as a way of marking ‘prayer rather than confesson’, as Bovon suggests,Footnote 84 since there is no evidence that the earliest Christian communities tended to repeat κύριος in their devotional or liturgical practices.Footnote 85 Moreover, prayers addressing Jesus as κύριε in fact assume the confession ‘Jesus is κύριος’, making the distinction between the two contexts moot from the perspective of Luke 6.46. Betz's suggestion that κύριος is used here ‘not in the higher christological sense but as appropriate for an honored person of higher rank such as teacher’ is even less probable.Footnote 86 Instead, the doubling is best understood as a way to eliminate the potential ambiguity of a single κύριος by echoing both the double κύριος formula familiar from the Greek Bible and the early Christian confession of Jesus as κύριος, thus ensuring that the reader understands this application of κύριος in the higher christological sense, amounting to addressing Jesus by the divine name.

Conclusions and Implications

Both Matthew and Luke have chosen in these passages to use the distinctive double form of κύριε that elsewhere always serves to represent the name YHWH in Greek texts. These repetitions of κύριε would certainly ring in the ears of an audience accustomed to the double κύριος referring to the name in the LXX and are difficult to explain if not echoing that phenomenon. Given the distinctiveness of the double κύριος and the way these sayings are used in Matthew and Luke, it is hard to escape the conclusion that these verses thereby place a self-referential use of the divine name on Jesus’ lips, an echo any first-century reader familiar with the Greek Bible would be unlikely to miss.Footnote 87

Such applications of the name to the exalted Jesus amount to calling him God, a figure to be obeyed and worshiped alongside God the father, regardless of whether or how such status was acquired or shared.Footnote 88 In this respect, the presentation of Jesus in these passages appears comparable to that of Philippians 2 and the creedal statement of 1 Cor 8.6, in which Paul expands upon the Shema to talk of ‘One God, the father … and one κύριος, Jesus Christ’. Similarly, through their use of κύριε κύριε, Matthew and Luke each presume (and accept) a context in which Jesus is already being identified and addressed with the name of the God of Israel (having a sort of Verbindungsidentität), the κύριος κύριος who promised to come and shepherd his people and give them a new heart and a new spirit. Unfortunately, since modern translations of the Hebrew Bible avoid the repetition, modern readers are unaccustomed to the distinctive resonance of this repetition of κύριος/Lord. As a result, we have become deaf to this echo, lacking the ears to hear Jesus’ claim to the divine name in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

Footnotes

*

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion (SECSOR) meeting in Atlanta, GA, 6 March 2010; in the Synoptic Gospels Section of the SBL Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA, 22 November 2010; and at the ‘Christianity in Antiquity Colloquium’ in Durham, NC, 15 January 2015. I am indebted to William L. Lyons, Stephen Carlson, Bart D. Ehrman, Benjamin L White, Sonya Cronin and Mark Goodacre for their insights and critiques, and I am especially grateful for the incisive critiques of the anonymous reviewer(s) from NTS, whose suggestions helped to improve the final product substantially. All remaining errors are of course my own responsibility.

References

1 All translations throughout are my own.

2 Κύριε κύριε is also attested in some manuscripts of Luke 13.25, but that reading is probably a secondary harmonisation with Matt 25.11.

3 E.g. Hahn, F., The Titles of Jesus in Christology (London: Lutterworth, 1969) 68–135 Google Scholar; Howard, G., ‘The Tetragram and the New Testament’, JBL 96 (1977) 63–83 Google Scholar; Fitzmyer, J. A., ‘The Semitic Background of the New Testament Kyrios Title’, A Wandering Aramean (ed. Fitzmyer, J. A.; SBLMS 25; Chico, CA: Scholars, 1979) 115–42Google Scholar; idem, ‘New Testament Kyrios and Maranatha and their Aramaic Background’, To Advance the Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 218–35Google Scholar; Frenschkowski, M., ‘Kyrios in Context: Q 6:46, the Emperor as “Lord”, and the Political Implications of Christology in Q’, Zwischen den Reichen: Neues Testament und Römische Herrschaft: Vorträge auf der ersten Konferenz der European Association for Biblical Studies (ed. Labahn, M. and Zangenberg, J.; Tübingen: Francke, 2002) 95–118 Google Scholar; Hurtado, L. W., Lord Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005)Google Scholar; Gathercole, S. J., The Preexistent Son (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) 243–52Google Scholar; Rowe, C. K., Early Narrative Christology (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fee, G. D., Pauline Christology (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007)Google Scholar; S. J. Beardsley, ‘Luke's Narrative Agenda: The Use of κύριος within Luke-Acts to Proclaim the Identity of Jesus’ (Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 2012).

4 Wilhelm Bousset goes so far as to quote Luke 6.46 with only a single ‘Lord’, a signal example of how thoroughly the doubling is often ignored ( Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1970) 123Google Scholar). For other examples, cf. Krämer, D. M., ‘Hütet euch vor den falschen Propheten: Eine überlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu Mt 7, 15–23/Lk 6, 43–46/Mt 12, 33–37’, Bib 57 (1976) 349–77Google Scholar, esp. 361; Fitzmyer, J. A., The Gospel according to Luke i–ix (AB 28A; New York: Doubleday, 1981) 643–4Google Scholar; Nolland, J., Luke 1–9:20 (WBC 35A; Dallas: Word, 1989) 309Google Scholar; Hagner, A., Matthew 1–13: A Commentary (WBC 33A; Dallas: Word, 1993) 186–7Google Scholar; Green, J. B., The Gospel of Luke (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) 280Google Scholar; Rowe, Early Narrative Christology, 111–14; Beardsley, ‘Luke's Narrative Agenda’, 132–4; Joseph, S. J. ‘“Why Do You Call Me ‘Master’…?” Q 6:46, the Inaugural Sermon, and the Demands of Discipleship’, JBL 132 (2013) 955–72Google Scholar.

5 For the former, see Hahn, Titles of Jesus, 90, followed by Strecker, G., Die Bergpredigt: Ein exegetischer Kommentar (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984) 172Google Scholar. For the latter, see e.g. Luz, U., Matthew 1–7 (Hermeneia 61A; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989) 379Google Scholar.

6 Frenschkowski, ‘Kyrios in Context’, 108–12.

7 E.g. Baudissin, W. W. Graf, Kyrios als Gottesname im Judentum und seine Stelle in der Religionsgeschichte (4 vols.; Giessen: Töpelmann, 1929) 2.15Google Scholar.

8 See Aly, Z. and Koenen, L., Three Rolls of the Early Septuagint: Genesis and Deuteronomy (Bonn: Habelt, 1980) 5–6 Google Scholar. A similar phenomenon is observable in P.Oxy. iv.656 (2nd/3rd cent. ce), which has four examples of spaces left by the first hand, three of which were later filled with κύριος by a second hand. See Kraft, R. A., ‘The “Textual Mechanics” of Early Jewish LXX/OG Papyri and Fragments’, The Bible as Book (ed. O'Sullivan, O. and McKendrick, S.; London: British Library/Oak Knoll, 2003) 51–72 Google Scholar, at 60–1. The oldest relevant Greek manuscript, Pap.Ryl. iii.458, which dates to the second century bce, unfortunately does not preserve an instance of the name, though one lacuna suggests either κύριος or the preservation of the Hebrew form. See Roberts, C. H., ed., Two Biblical Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1936) 28Google Scholar; Howard, ‘Tetragram’, 63.

9 E.g. 8ḤevXIIgr, fully published in E. Tov, ‘The Greek Biblical Texts from the Judean Desert’, The Bible as Book, 97–122, at 112–14. This MS has become well known as a witness to the so-called Kaige recension, as argued in Barthélemy, D., Les devanciers d'Aquila (VTSup 10; Leiden: Brill, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also P.Oxy. vii.1007 (cf. Metzger, B. M., Manuscripts of the Greek Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981) 34Google Scholar).

10 This is found in some Hexaplaric manuscripts; cf. Metzger, Manuscripts, 35, 94–95 (with a plate). It should be noted that the Tetragrams in P.Fouad 266 look sufficiently like ΠΙΠΙ for Rajak, T., Translation and Survival (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar, to judge them (mistakenly in my opinion) to be the Greek characters.

11 For fuller lists and analysis of the manuscript evidence with respect to the Tetragram, see the helpful summaries in Rösel, M. ‘The Reading and Translation of the Divine Name in the Masoretic Tradition and the Greek Pentateuch’, JSOT 31 (2007) 411–28Google Scholar, at 413–19 and Royse, J. R. ‘Philo, Kyrios, and the Tetragrammaton’, SPhiloA 3 (1991) 167–83Google Scholar, at 168–9, along with the fuller treatments in Metzger, Manuscripts.

12 E.g. 4QLXXLevb, which has ΙΑΩ in Lev 4.27 and (probably) 3.12. See Skehan, P. W., ‘The Qumran Manuscripts and Textual Criticism’, Congress Volume: Strasbourg, 1956 (ed. Anderson, G. W.; VTSup 4; Leiden: Brill, 1957) 148–60Google Scholar, at 157–60.

13 E.g. P.Oxy. vii.1007 verso 1.4 (= Gen 2.8) and 2.14 (= Gen 2.18).

14 E.g. the Hebrew manuscripts 1QIsaa 42.6; 1QS 8.14 (quoting Isa 40.3).

15 Tov, E., Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert (STDJ 54; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 289Google Scholar. The Chester Beatty papyrus of Numbers and Deuteronomy, dated by Kenyon to the first half of the second century ce, is the other earliest witness, though the ΚΥΡΙΟ[Σ] found in 4Q126, a small fragment from an unknown text, serves as a reminder that our evidence is itself fragmentary.

16 Cf. E. Tov, ‘The Greek Biblical Texts from the Judean Desert’, The Bible as Book, 97–122, at 112–14; Howard, ‘Tetragram’; Waddell, W. G., ‘The Tetragrammaton in the LXX’, JTS 45 (1944) 158–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Skehan, P. W. ‘The Divine Name at Qumran, in the Masada Scroll, and in the Septuagint’, BIOSCS 13 (1980) 14–44 Google Scholar, agrees that κύριος is probably not the earliest reading but argues that ‘as far back as it is possible to go, the Kyrios term is employed in these books for both יהוה and אדני, on the basis of the spoken Adonay that stood for either separately … This cannot have come about as exclusively the work of Christian scribes’ (38).

17 Howard, ‘Tetragram’, 65.

18 Conzelmann, H., An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament (London: SCM, 1969) 83–4Google Scholar. Cf. also Kahle, P., The Cairo Geniza (Oxford: Blackwell, 1959 2) 222Google Scholar.

19 Pietersma, A., ‘Kyrios or Tetragram: A Renewed Quest for the Original LXX’, De Septuaginta (ed. Pietersma, A. and Cox, C.; Mississauga, ON: Benben Publications, 1984) 85–101 Google Scholar; Rösel, ‘Reading and Translation’.

20 R. Kraft, ‘Format Features in the Earliest Jewish Greek Literary Papyri and Related Materials’ (paper presented at the Papyrological Congress, Vienna, 2001, http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/jewishpap.html).

21 Origen: καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀκριβεστέροις δὲ τῶν ἀντιγράφων Ἑβραίοις χαρακτῆρσι κεῖται τὸ ὄνομα Ἑβραικοῖς δἐ οὐ τοἰς νῦν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἀρχαιοτάτοις. φασὶ γὰρ τὸν Ἔδραν ἐν τῇ αἰχμαλωσίᾳ ἑτέρους αὐτοῖς χαρακτῆρας παρὰ τοὺς παραδεδωκέναι (PG 12.1104B). Jerome, Prologus galeatus (PL 28.594–5): nomen Domini tetragrammaton in quibusdam Graecis voluminibus usque hodie antiquis expressum litteris invenimus.

22 Origen, Selecta in Psalmos 2.2 (PG 12.1104B4–9): ἐστι δέ τι τετραγράμματον ἀνεκφώνητον παρ᾽αὐτοῖς, ὅπερ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ πετάλου τοῦ ἀρχιερέως ἀναγέγραπται, καὶ λέγεται μὲν τῇ Αδωναῒ προσηγορίᾳ, οὑχὶ τούτου γεγραμμένου ἐν τῷ τετραγραμμάτῳ. παρὰ δὲ Ἕλλησι τῇ Κύριος ἐκφωονεῖται. Jerome, Ep. 25, Ad Marcellam (CSEL 54.219): [Dei nomen est] tetragrammum, quod ἀνεκφώνητον, id est ineffabile, putauerunt et his litteris scribitur: iod, he, uau, he, quod quidam non intellegentes propter elementorum similitudinem, cum in Graecis libris reppererint ΠΙΠΙ legere consueuerunt. Cf. Fitzmyer, ‘Semitic Background’, 122–3.

23 Hurtado, L. W., ‘The “Meta-Data” of Earliest Christian Manuscripts’, Identity and Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean (ed. Crook, Z. and Harland, P. A.; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007) 149–63Google Scholar, at 158. Cf. also Fitzmyer, ‘Semitic Background’, 122–3; Royse, ‘Kyrios’, 177; Fee, Pauline Christology, 22.

24 Burkitt, F. C., Fragments of the Books of Kings according to the Translation of Aquila: From a MS. Formerly in the Geniza at Cairo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1897) 16Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., 16. Cf. Royse, ‘Kyrios’, 76; Fitzmyer, ‘Semitic Background’, 122; Reider, J., ‘Prolegomena to a Greek–Hebrew and Hebrew–Greek Index to Aquila’, JQR 7 (1917) 287–366 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dunand, F., Papyrus grecs bibliques (Papyrus F. Inv. 266) (RAPH 27; Cairo: Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, 1966) 51Google Scholar. Similar abbreviations are found in the second-century ce manuscript P.Oxy. iv.656 (Göttingen #905; Gen 14–27) which has two instances of blank spaces, to which a later hand added ΚΥ in one case (= Gen 24.42) and either KY or KYRIE in the other (= Gen 24.31), and the third-century manuscripts P.Oxy. viii.1075, which has ΚΣ on line 12 (Exod 40.35), and P.Oxy. ix.1166, featuring abbreviations on lines 11 and 24 (Gen 16.10, 11). Cf. Fitzmyer, ‘Semitic Background’, 137–8.

26 Rösel, ‘Reading and Translation’, 425. Cf. also Fee, Pauline Christology, 22–3.

27 Fitzmyer, ‘Semitic Background’, 121.

28 Rösel, ‘Reading and Translation’, 418. J. F. Hobbins, however, has suggested that this interdiction only applied to the full name, while abbreviated versions of the name such as ΙΑΩ, יהו or יה (which often appeared in theophoric names at any rate) did not fall under this prohibition (‘The Splendid Iao: The Identification of Helios with Iao, the God of the Jews’, http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/05/the-splendid-iao-the-identification-of-helios-with-iao-the-god-of-the-jews.html).

29 Royse, ‘Kyrios’, 173–5.

30 Howard, ‘Tetragram’, 71.

31 Royse, ‘Kyrios’, 183. Rösel, ‘Reading and Translation’, 425 n. 28 protests that the evidence for a preserved Tetragram in Philo's scriptures is flimsy but further confirms Royse's overall point about Philo's reading and use of κύριος. Cf. also Dahl, N. A. and Segal, A. F., ‘Philo and the Rabbis on the Names of God’, JSJ 9 (1978) 1–28 Google Scholar, at 1.

32 Josephus elsewhere explains that κύριος is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew אדון (A.J. 5.2.2 §121). Fitzmyer, ‘Semitic Background’, 121–2 notes that Christian alteration is unlikely in these two cases.

33 A.J. 2.12.4 §276. Fitzmyer, ‘Semitic Background’, 121 (cf. also 122–3). Similar reticence to use the name or its various euphemisms with Gentiles is seen elsewhere, with the epithet ‘most high’ more commonly preferred when communicating with outsiders, as suggested by the synagogue inscriptions cited in Hobbins, ‘The splendid Iao’.

34 Cf. Rösel, ‘Reading and Translation’, 424–5 and the citations there.

35 Rösel, ‘Reading and Translation’, 424–5.

36 Hong, K. P., ‘The Euphemism for the Ineffable Name of God and its Early Evidence in Chronicles’, JSOT 37 (2013) 473–84Google Scholar, at 479. Cf. also Rösel, ‘Reading and Translation’, 412–13.

37 Boadt, L., ‘Textual Problems in Ezekiel and Poetic Analysis of Paired Words’, JBL 97 (1978) 489–99Google Scholar, at 496.

38 For doubling as a pathos formula, see Lausberg, H., Handbook of Literary Rhetoric (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 1998)Google Scholar §§612–18, esp. 612. For examples of doubling in contexts of extreme pathos, see Luke 8.24; 2 Kgs 2.12; 8.5; Ps 22.1; Mk 15.34 // Matt 27.46. Frenschkowski, ‘Kyrios in Context’, 109 also lists several instances of doubling the epiclesis to the deity in Greek literature, and Norden, E., P. Vergilius Maro Aeneis Buch vi (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981 7) 136–7Google Scholar, 463 gives numerous examples of the doubling of names in various cultic and magical contexts. The Hebrew construct to express superlatives similarly repeats a title but subordinates one cognate to the other, e.g. ‘king of kings’, ‘lord of lords’ etc.

39 Note how Philo handles the unusual repetition of ἄνθρωπος in Lev 18.6 (a translation of איש איש, a Hebrew idiom for ‘each person of …’) in Gig. 33–4, indicating how striking such repetitions would be to a Greek ear.

40 Hong, ‘Euphemism’, 481–4. As Hong points out, even if this alteration arose from the Chroniclers’ Vorlage, it still predates the translation of the LXX and puts the אדני euphemism at a very early stage.

41 Hong, ‘Euphemism’, 483.

42 Hong, ‘Euphemism’, 483–4.

43 Chronicles has been dated from the late sixth century to the Maccabean era (ca. 160 bce), but a growing majority now puts the date sometime in the fourth century. Cf. Klein, R. W., 1 Chronicles (Hermeneia 13; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006) 13–16 Google Scholar, 31–7; Peltonen, K., ‘A Jigsaw without a Model? The Date of Chronicles’, in Did Moses Speak Attic? (ed. Grabbe, L. L.; JSOTSup 37; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001) 225–73Google Scholar; Kalimi, I. ‘Die Abfassungszeit der Chronik – Forschungsstand und Perspektiven’, ZAW 105 (1993) 223–33Google Scholar.

44 Hong, ‘Euphemism’, 484.

45 On the handling of the name and its circumlocutions in the Dead Sea Scrolls, see Rösel, M., ‘Names of God’, The Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) 600–2Google Scholar; Howard, ‘Tetragram’, 66–70; Skehan, ‘Divine Name’, 14–28.

46 There is some textual support for an additional κύριε in 15.2, though the shorter reading seems more likely original. The Jeremiah translator also renders the doublet with this phrase on two occasions (1.6; 4.10), with δέσποτης again nowhere else occurring in the book. See also Jonah 4.3.

47 Pietersma, ‘Kyrios or Tetragram’, 95: ‘What we see immediately is that the translator rather than repeating kyrios, has opted for the so-called Palestinian qere, which was apparently known in Egypt as early as the third century bc.’

48 In the New Testament, κύριος ὁ θεός (without a possessive pronoun or another modifier) also appears in Luke 1.32 and Rev 1.8, 22.5. Κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ occurs six times in Revelation, though in the LXX that phrase tends to translate יהוה אלהי הצבאות. Rev 18.5 appears to echo Isa 51.22 with its use of κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ κρίνον and thus should not be understood as an example of the Palestinian qerê.

49 Pietersman, ‘Kyrios or Tetragram’, 96.

50 Hong, ‘Euphemism’, 482. Cf. also Japhet, S., The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and its Place in Biblical Thought (BEATAJ 9; Frankfurt: Lang, 1989) 20–41 Google Scholar, esp. 39; Rösel, M., Adonaj, warum Gott ‘Herr’ genannt wird (FAT 29; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000) 184–5Google Scholar.

51 Hong, ‘Euphemism’, 478–9; cf. Rösel, ‘Reading and Translation’, 417. De Troyer, K., The Pronunciation of the Names of God: With Some Notes Regarding nomina sacra’, Gott nennen: Gottes Namen und Gott als Name (ed. Dalferth, I. U. and Stoellger, Ph.; RPT 35 Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 143–72Google Scholar argues that θεός was the original Greek rendering (159–64), but Hong, ‘Euphemism’, 478 n. 23 disagrees: ‘It is also likely that to read יהוה as θεός was only a second option – i.e., due to redundancy.’ Cf. also Rösel, ‘Reading and Translation’; Wevers, J. W., ‘The Rendering of the Tetragram in the Psalter and Pentateuch: A Comparative Study’, The Old Greek Psalter (ed. Hiebert, R. J. V., Cox, C. E. and Gentry, P. J.; JSOTSup 332 Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001) 21–35 Google Scholar.

52 The only example of κύριε κύριε not clearly serving as a rendering of אדני יהוה of which I am aware is found in b. Hullin 139b, where R. Kahana describes Herodian doves cooing קירי קירי (κύριε κύριε) – aside from one dissenter who protests that it should instead be קירי בירי (‘κύριε is a slave’) before promptly being slaughtered. Pace Frenschkowski, ‘Kyrios in Context’, 109, there is no indication in this passage that the phrase is being used as an acclamation of King Herod. Rather, ‘Herodian doves’ simply designates birds kept in captivity, as discussed in Schürer, E., Millar, G. Vermes, F. and Black, M., The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 bc–ad 135), vol. i (London: Bloomsbury, 1973; repr. 2014)Google Scholar 310 n. 77. In any case, this passage is both too late and too unclear to be of any value for assessing the use of double κύριος centuries earlier.

53 Pietersma, ‘Kyrios or Tetragram’, 96.

54 Although our LXX lacks the doubling, the version of Ps 34.22 known to Alexander Numenius in the second century ce apparently had κύριε κύριε, as he uses it as an example of ἀναδίπλωσις. See Anonymus Seguerianus in L. Spengel, Rhetores Graeci (3 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1853–6) iii.182.24. The doubling could be explained as such in this poetic verse, but numerous instances in Ezekiel (i.e. ‘thus says Lord Lord’) and elsewhere cannot be so explained.

55 E.g. Deut 3.24; 9.26; Judg 2.1; 6.22(A); 16.28(A); 1 Kings 8.53; Pss 67.21 (68.21 MT); 108.21 (109.21MT); Jer 51.26 (44.26 MT). The prevalence of the vocative may be construed as in keeping with Boadt's observations about the invocational aspect of the Hebrew phrase. Cf. Skehan, ‘Divine Name’, 35.

56 Judg 6.22(B); 2 Sam 7.18, 19 (2x), 20, 22, 7.28, 29. These examples from 2 Samuel 7 are incidentally the same invocations 1 Chronicles alters, as discussed above.

57 Of these, Apoc. Mos. is from a Hebrew exemplar, while the original language of T. Ab. is uncertain.

58 Cf. also Plant. 47, which has a double κύριε separated by ἁγίασμα.

59 Numbers based on Accordance Bible Software 10.2 (Orlando: Oak Tree Software, Inc., 2013)Google Scholar searches of Rahlfs’ critical edition, which primarily relies on Codex Vaticanus. LXX Ezekiel demonstrates the difficulty scribes had with the awkward repetition presented by the qerê for this phrase, with the middle section almost exclusively employing κύριος κύριος, the first twenty chapters preferring the single κύριος, and chs. 40–8 employing mainly κύριος ὁ θεός. This peculiar distribution has led some to posit three separate translators for the book. See McGregor, L. J., The Greek Text of Ezekiel (SCSS 18; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985) 5–19 Google Scholar; cf. also Hong, ‘Euphemism’, 480. Interestingly, P.Beatty 967 lacks the double κύριος, employing only the single κύριος and fifteen instances of κύριος ὁ θεός, none of which occur in the later manuscript tradition; see Skehan, ‘Divine Name’, 35–7. However, Ziegler, J., ‘Die Bedeutung des Chester Beatty-Scheide Papyrus 967 für die Textüberlieferung der Ezechiel-Septuaginta’, ZAW 61 (1948) 76–94 Google Scholar argues that these examples represent secondary alterations in the process of transmission.

60 Boadt, ‘Textual Problems’, 496. Cf. Skehan, ‘Divine Name’, 35. See nn. 37 and 55 above.

61 In the ancient world, where reading was almost always aloud, ‘readers’ and ‘hearers’ are nearly the same thing. See Gamble, H., Books and Readers in the Early Church (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995) 203–42Google Scholar.

62 Pace Frenschkowski, ‘Kyrios in Context’, 109, who asserts, ‘We also have not the slightest hint the call [sic] might have any kind of tradition-historical connection with the Septuagint rendering of YHWH’, when in fact the doubling provides precisely that.

63 Hahn, Titles of Jesus, 90. Cf. also Strecker, G., Die Bergpredigt: Ein exegetischer Kommentar (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984) 172Google Scholar; Bovon, F., Luke 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1–9:50 (Hermeneia 63A; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002) 253Google Scholar n. 57, citing Strack, H. L. and Billerbeck, P., Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (4 vols.; Munich: Beck, 1924)Google Scholar i.943; ii.258.

64 Luz, Matthew 1–7, 379.

65 Bovon, Luke 1, 253 n. 57.

66 Frenschkowski, ‘Kyrios in Context’, 111–12.

67 This is easily observed by noting the frequency with which interpreters gloss the phrase with an exclamation point. E.g. Betz, H. D., The Sermon on the Mount (Hermeneia 54; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 456Google Scholar; Bovon, Luke 1, 254; Rowe, Early Narrative Christology, 112.

68 Cf. Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, §§612–18.

69 As noted by Albright, W. F. and Mann, C. S., Matthew (AB 26; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) 302Google Scholar, the parable of the virgins ‘unequivocally equates [Jesus’] ministry with God's visit to claim his own’.

70 See France, R. T., The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 293Google Scholar.

71 See Betz, Sermon, 546–7. As noted by Hurtado, L. W., One God, One Lord (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2003 2) 93–125 Google Scholar, such ‘calling upon the name’ of Jesus indicates worship and invocation than one would direct towards God. Cf. also Novenson, M. V., Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) 107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 As Novenson notes, κύριος is ‘“the” new title for the person of Jesus in the Pauline epistles’, occurring twenty-six times in the seven undisputed letters (Christ among the Messiahs, 17).

73 Hagner, Matthew 1–13, 187.

74 Betz, Sermon, 546: ‘What is denied, therefore, is an illusionary expectation stated as a false saying of Jesus that would read: “Everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter into the kingdom of the heavens”.’

75 Betz, Sermon, 542.

76 Betz, Sermon, 546–51 argues that Matt 7.21–2 polemicises against Gentile believers who call Jesus κύριος but do not obey the Torah, though he also rightly notes that Paul himself ‘would agree that Christians who have nothing to offer in the last judgment except the cry “Lord, Lord!” have no chance of escaping condemnation’ (547), since Paul similarly presumes the need for obedience guided by the love command, which Matthew also puts at the centre. A proper understanding of the double κύριος as referencing the confession of Jesus as κύριος in the context of ‘calling upon the name κύριου’ further strengthens this argument, though it need not only apply to Pauline or Gentile Christians but rather to any who do not adequately live up to what Matthew regards as proper obedience.

77 Frenschkowski, ‘Kyrios in Context’, 108–12. In fairness, Frenschkowski only deals with Q (that is, Luke) 6.46 and never discusses Matt 7.22.

78 Hahn, Titles of Jesus, 91; cf. also Joseph, ‘Master’, 964. Bovon, however, cautions against concluding that an eschatological context is absent from the saying simply because it is not overtly stated (Luke 1, 253).

79 Fitzmyer, Luke i–ix , 202–3 refers to this ‘retrojection’ as ‘a form of Lukan foreshadowing’. See Rowe, Early Narrative Christology, for a fuller analysis of Luke's use of κύριος and its connection to post-exaltation Christology. Given the match between this version and Lukan proclivities, there is reason to question whether Luke's version is indeed more original, as argued by e.g. Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 90; Schürmann, H., Das Lukasevangelium, vol. i (Freiburg: Herder, 1969) 379–80Google Scholar; Schneider, G., ‘Christusbekenntnis und christliches Handeln: Lk 6, 46 und Mt 7, 21 im Kontext der Evangelien’, Die Kirche des Anfangs: Festschrift für Heinz Schürmann (ed. Schnackenburg, R., Ernst, J. and Wanke, J.; EThSt 38; Freiburg: Herder, 1978) 9–24 Google Scholar; Fitzmyer, Luke i–ix , 643; Betz, Sermon, 253; Tuckett, C. M., Q and the History of Early Christianity (London: Black, 2004) 214–15Google Scholar; Joseph, ‘Master’, 962; Fleddermann, H. T., Q: A Reconstruction and Commentary (Leuven: Peeters, 2005) 306Google Scholar; Frenschkowski, ‘Kyrios in Context’, 107. On the Lukan version as a secondary abbreviation, see Hahn, Titles of Jesus, 91.

80 Betz, Sermon, 636.

81 As Culy, M. M., ‘Double Case Constructions in Koine Greek’, JGRChJ 6 (2009) 82–106 Google Scholar, at 82 n. 2 explains, ‘[t]he vocative does occasionally appear in object-complement constructions with a verb of identification. In such instances, it replaces whatever case would have been expected in the complement.’ See also BDAG 502 (1.b), which also understands the vocative as taking the place of the second accusative in this case. John 1.38 provides another example: εἶπαν αὐτῷ ῥαββί. Luke's use of the vocative – the case of ‘calling’ (κλητική) – with καλέω also further emphasises what Jesus is being called here (thanks to Stephen Carlson for this point).

82 E.g. Luke 20.44 // Matt 22.43; Matt 23.8, 9; John 10.35; Rom 9.25; Heb 2.11; 1 Pet 2.7; 3.6. Cf. also the use of καλέω in Luke 1.32, 59, 62; John 1.42. Were Luke 6.46 merely reporting speech rather than declaring a title, one would expect a single object (1 Sam 3.4; Deut 5.1; Tob 4.3; Luke 5.32) or a verbal form such as λέγων (e.g. Luke 18.38; 23.21) rather than an object + complement construction.

83 Cf. Hahn, Titles of Jesus, 91.

84 Bovon, Luke 1, 253–4. For the opposite view, see Schürmann, Lukasevangelium, i.381.

85 Bovon defends his suggestion by appealing to the use of the single κύριος to address not only God the father but also Jesus, essentially ignoring the significance of the doubling (Luke 1, 254).

86 Betz, Sermon, 664.

87 This also suggests that English translations should render the phrase ‘Lord Lord’ (or ‘Lord Lord’), not ‘Lord, Lord’.

88 Cf. Hurtado, One God, 93–128; Fitzmyer, Luke i–ix , 202–3, 365.