Kyrios (Christianity)
The title Kyrios ( old Greek κύριος , Lord) is used in the parlance of the New Testament for both God and Jesus Christ . In the liturgy , the Greek invocation Kyrie or Lord for Jesus Christ is common.
In ancient Greece Kyrios described the home side and the head of the family a house and Economic Community, the Oikos .
Tanach or Old Testament
In order not to accidentally misuse the biblical name of God YHWH , Judaism made its pronunciation taboo and developed substitute readings for it. Usually the Hebrew consonants were underlaid with the vowels for the word Adonaj ("[my] Lord"). The translation into Hellenistic Greek - the Septuagint - uses the word Κύριος more than 6000 times in the same tradition instead of the name of God (the address as "God" remains unaffected). Older manuscripts, however, wrote YHWH (יהוה) in Hebrew letters to signal the listener to read Κύριος here .
In accordance with the power relationship indicated by the term “master”, people often refer to themselves as “servants” or “servants” - similar to the relationship between a ruler and his subject.
New Testament
In the New Testament the tradition of the Septuagint is taken up so that God is addressed as κύριος . In addition, the term continues to be the mundane designation of a lord and master in a house. In addition, however, the authority of Jesus, which for Christians goes far beyond that of a religious teacher (“master”, “ rabbi ”), is expressed by the Kyrios title. This is justified, among other things, by the fact that Jesus addressed God with the confidential Abba and also allowed his disciples to address this.
The use of the title Kyrios for Jesus is reinterpreted insofar as on the one hand his closeness to God is emphasized (cf. the idea of the resurrection ), but on the other hand the service character of his appearance towards people is the justification for this address (cf. B. Heb 2,9). Another line of reasoning connects the title with a royal authority of Jesus - be it in the sense of a god-anointed Savior-King for Israel ( Messiah ) or as a world judge in the service of a new, divine justice.
Christianity history
The Kyrios title was used in Christianity for centuries for God and Jesus at the same time; In individual liturgical texts such as the Kyrie eleison , the Greek wording was retained even when most elements of the divine service were designed in Latin or in other languages.
literature
- Eduard Williger : Kyrios . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XII, 1, Stuttgart 1924, Col. 176-183.
Web links
- J. Cornelis de Vos: Mr / Adonaj / Kyrios. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Most famous of the Papyrus Fouad 266
- ↑ If the name Yahweh had been desired, it would have been written in Greek letters.