Why was gods name taken out of the Bible?

Question

The word Lord and God are only titles. Jesus said that there are many gods. Also in 1 Corinthins 8 :5 Paul makes the same statement.
God name was used over 7,000 time in the original manuscripts. I think you can still find it in your Bible at Isaiah 42:8 and in Pslams 83 : 18
Jesus said He came here to make His Fathers name known. I think mankind has the same problem today!

Answer 1

I know that your point is that "Jehovah" is not in many Bibles more often then it is but that is not God's name either but we sure do not hear the Watchtower admitting this do we?

Rather then ask why "Jehovah" is not in the Bible, I would rather ask why the NWT has changed so much of the Word of God. Do they not think God was smart enough to write it as HE wanted it?

Gen. 1:1-2 - "In [the] beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of [the] watery deep; and God's active force was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters." (New World Translation, Emphasis added)
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society denies that the Holy Spirit is alive, third person of the Trinity. Therefore, they have changed the correct translation of "...the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters," to say "...and God's active force was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters."
Zech. 12:10 - In this verse God is speaking and says "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son" (Zech. 12:10, NASB).
The Jehovah's Witnesses change the word "me" to "the one" so that it says in their Bible, "...they will look upon the one whom they have pierced..."
Since the Jehovah's Witnesses deny that Jesus is God in flesh, then Zech. 12:10 would present obvious problems--so they changed it.
John 1:1 - They mistranslate the verse as "a god." Again it is because they deny who Jesus is and must change the Bible to make it agree with their theology. The Jehovah's Witness version is this: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god."
Col. 1:15-17 - The word "other" is inserted 4 times. It is not in the original Greek, nor is it implied. This is a section where Jesus is described as being the creator of all things. Since the Jehovah's Witness organization believes that Jesus is created, they have inserted the word "other" to show that Jesus was before all "other" things, implying that He is created.
There are two Greek words for "other": heteros, and allos. The first means another of a different kind, and the second means another of the same kind. Neither is used at all in this section of scripture. The Jehovah's Witness have changed the Bible to make it fit their aberrant theology.
Heb. 1:6 - In this verse they translate the Greek word for worship, proskuneo, as "obeisance." Obeisance is a word that means to honor, show respect, even bow down before someone. Since Jesus, to them, is created, then he cannot be worshiped. They have also done this in other verses concerning Jesus, i.e., Matt. 2:2,11; 14:33; 28:9.
Heb. 1:8 - This is a verse where God the Father is calling Jesus God: "But about the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.'" Since the Jehovah's Witnesses don't agree with that they have changed the Bible, yet again, to agree with their theology. They have translated the verse as "...God is your throne..." The problem with the Jehovah's Witness translation is that this verse is a quote from Psalm 45:6 which, from the Hebrew, can only be translated as "...Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom." To justify their New Testament translation they actually changed the OT verse to agree with their theology, too!
The NWT translation is not a good translation. It has changed the text to suit its own theological bias in many places.

More to the point, why have they added several requirements for salvation such as being a member in "Jehovah's organization in good standing and attending all the meetings? I sure can not find this in GOD"s plan of salvation as shown in the 3rd link below.

I have been e-mailed by the questioner stateing that I need to know Greek and Hebrew. Actually, both Greek and Hebrew will confirm what we have said about who Jesus is.

http://www.shatterdmen.com/Who%20Do%20You%20Say.htm

http://www.carm.org/doctrine/trinity.htm

Answer 2

The reason it was taken out of the Old Testament was because the Jews had extreme reverence for the name. It began to be considered so sacred that they were afraid to use it and risk taking the name in vain. Eventually it became unknown except for the vowels, so even though translators would like to have translated it into their own language, they had a problem. The didn't know which vowels to use. They didn't have that problem with names for Jesus, Jeremiah, etc. because the vowels and the pronunciation of those names had never ceased being used. Many translators followed the Jewish custom of using LORD simply because YHWH couldn't be pronounced and for a thousand years, no one had a clue as to what vowels they should use. Then some translators erroneously thought that the vowels of Adonai (Lord) were the vowels that went with YHWH. They combined them and voila! At last there was a name that could be pronounced. The first known written use of a pronouncable name for YHWH dates back to about 700 years ago, by a Catholic monk. Eventually it became Jehovah and to be honest, I'm not sure when and how Yahweh came about. Personally, I think that YHWH should be translated as Jehovah or Yahweh because it accurately conveys that a personal name is used. I also think that in the New Testament 'god' and 'lord' should be translated 'god' and 'lord' because ithat is also accurate. The New World Translation published by Jehovah's Witnesses put the name of God back into the Old Testament about 6900 times. Unfortunately, in the New Testament, they have basically said "Well, you didn't put it in there, but we think we you meant for it to be there" so they added it 237 times where it doesn't appear in the original Greek. They didn't have the problem of not knowing the proper vowels or pronounciation - they simply chose to mistranslate 'god' and 'lord' in 237 places.

Answer 3

It was taken out because the Jews went to extremes to honor God's name. They developed such an extreme view of the importance of the name that they stopped using it - they saved it for special occasions like the Day of Atonement and eventually It became unknown, so translators have often opted to use the title "lord" rather than guess at the name.

You're probably a Jehovah's Witness and you know what the custom is among JW's - you show honor for the name by using it. That's the custom, so that's what you do. What if you decided it would be more respectful to use the name sparingly, maybe save it for special occasions? Do you think that view would be accepted by the JW community you're a part of? Of course not, so you follow the prevailing custom in YOUR religious community which is considered to be the 'respectful' thing to do.

The Jews also followed the prevailing custom in THEIR religious community - but their custom said the name was too special to be using all the time. To speak the name and treat it commonly in Jesus' day would be considered blasphemy. To NOT treat the name casually is considered wrong by Jehovah's Witnesses so they endlessly go on and on about how disrespectful it is to say Father or God. (As Jesus & the apostles did). Both the Jewish and the JW views are extreme and unwarranted.

If you study your New World Interlinear translation, you'll see that Jesus referred to his - and our - father as "Father", sometimes as lord or god. Those are respectful titles and it's ridiculous to say that it's offensive to Jehovah to call him by a respectful title. God's name is not used in the New Testament in any of the original Greek language manuscripts. Yes, it's in the Hebrew Old Testament, but like it or not, it's not in the Greek scriptures which were written for Christians. So if that's OK with Jehovah, and that's the way he had the Bible preserved, why do Jehovah's Witnesses think it's up to them to improve on the Bible by changing a couple of hundred scriptures to read "Jehovah" when in reality, the name was not being used in everyday language at the time those scriptures were written.?

Answer 4

Because the Jews developed a tradition which said that God's name was too sacred to be spoken so when they read the Scriptures, they would say Lord instead. Eventually, some translators just substituted Lord in the scriptures themselves,

By the time the Bible was translated into most other languages, the pronounciation of the name was no longer known, so most translators translated it as lord. When Jerome translated the Hebrew into Latin, he used Lord but noted that God's name, if known, would contain these four letters: YHWH

Answer 5

If you read the translation called "The Scriptures", it uses the true names of people, places, and fo God. The name of God is known as the tetragammaton, meaning the 4 letters. YHVH, or YHWH depending on how you translate Hebrew characters into english. The pronunciation has been lost over time but most people agree with the pronunciation "Yahweh." According to Hebrew legend, the actual proper name of God was a secret 28 letter name that was lost after the exile from the garden.

Answer 6

Jesus said Jewish traditions made Jehovah's word invalid, so why would a christian want to follow "Jewish tradition" when it comes to the bible? Matthew chapter 15.

As to the accuracy of the NWT, please read this quote:

Old Testament:
In fact, the New World Translation is a scholarly work. In 1989, Professor Benjamin Kedar of Israel said:
"In my linguistic research in connection with the Hebrew Bible and translation, I often refer to the English edition as what is known as the New World Translation. In doing so, I find my feeling repeatedly confirmed that this kind of work reflects an honest endeavor to achieve an understanding of the text that is as accurate as possible. Giving evidence of a broad command of the original language, it renders the original words into a second language understandably without deviating unnecessarily from the specific structure of the Hebrew....Every statement of language allows for a certain latitude in interpreting or translating. So the linguistic solution in any given case may be open to debate. But I have never discovered in the New World Translation any biased intent to read something into the text that it does not contain."

New Testament:

While critical of some of its translation choices, BeDuhn called the New World Translation a “remarkably good” translation, “better by far” and “consistently better” than some of the others considered. Overall, concluded BeDuhn, the New World Translation “is one of the most accurate English translations of the New Testament currently available” and “the most accurate of the translations compared.”—Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament.

“Here at last is a comprehensive comparison of nine major translations of the Bible:

King James Version,
New American Standard Bible,
New International Version,
New Revised Standard Version,
New American Bible,
Amplified Bible,
Today's English Version (Good News Bible),
Living Bible,
and the New World Translation.

The book provides a general introduction to the history and methods of Bible translation, and gives background on each of these versions. Then it compares them on key passages of the New Testament to determine their accuracy and identify their bias. Passages looked at include:

John 1:1; John 8:58; Philippians 2:5-11; Colossians 1:15-20; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8; 2 Peter 1:1

Jason BeDuhn
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, and Chair
Department of Humanities, Arts, and Religion
Northern Arizona University


According to Mr. BeDuhn only the NWT translated John 1:1 into proper English.

I enjoyed his comments in his book, You can not say in proper english, "Snoopy is dog"

You have to say "Snoopy is a dog"

To make the English translation "Word was God" correct you have to add to John's words in Greek "(ho)" before god(2nd)

If John didn't use (ho) then the translators can't either.

In John 1:1 & 2 the greek word for god appears 3 times, in the first and third usages John said "the God"

the 2nd usage John left off "the" in front of the word god. If John didn't add it we shouldn't either. To add "the" in the second usage, we are interpeting, not translating.

When a bible says "Word was God" they are actually "adding words" to the bible that aren't there.

Answer 7

A lot of it was because of superstition. I'm also suspect that Jehovah or Yahweh was removed from the OT when Christianity came into fashion. Like probably about the time of the Council of Nicea. If Jesus wanted to make his father's name known, he sure didn't say his name a lot.

Answer 8

Ex.3:14,15 says: I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name Lord I was not known to them.
Other references to check are Ex.15:3, Ps:83:18, Is:52:6, Jer:16:21, Eaek37:6,13 and John 8:58. It appears we should call Him I AM or the LORD...but, since He wants all men to be saved, I guess we just need to call on Him in whatever way we know how...I think He just wants us all to do our best to communicate....so He can have all his kids at home with him forever in eternity!

Answer 9

jesus isnt even jesus's name!! there is no J in aramaic!! that was a greek transliteration of the name which was supposed to be pronounced eesouh!!but then they eventually replaced the I with J!! if you are going to believe jesus is GOD atleast dont be so ignorant to not even bother researching whether it is his name!!

are you forgetting jesus was from nazereth, an arab city now.. and he himself called god ALAHA, or ELAH.. which is the word for god in aramiac. In hebrew the word is ELOHIM.. in arabic it is ALLAH. they are all the same word with the same meaning as ARAmaIC, ARAbIC, and Hebrew are all sister semetic languages!

the word we use in english is "GOD" which actually originates from HINDU scripts!! remeber the english language wasnt invented for another 1000yrs after christs death.

And to enlighten those who dont know where the word CHRIST comes from.. it is from CHRISTOS, which is greek for messiah... which actaully means the "ANNOINTED ONE". it is not the surname of jesus for those are extremely ignorant! this is why christians today that live in the lands of the bible (which is the middle east) call each other meseehs (which is "christians".. but in arabic).

in answering your question: the problem is that in english we only use 2 names which are LORD and GOD. however we know that he has many different names in the scriptures, however they are attributes or descriptive names. there is the tetragammaton (YVHV) which is used many times in the old testament.. but even this name to jews is supposed to be an abbreviation! the more used word in Hebrew is ELOHIM. and btw.. the most used word in the world for god is ALLAH.. which is what christian arabs call god in the bible (incase the un-educated think its a different God that only muslims worship!!).

Answer 10

The word god means a object to worship, But the True God told Moses THat I AM THAT I AM HAS SENT Moses