Questions for Jehovah's Witnesses...?

Question

If the name Jehovah is so important, then why is it Never used in the entire Greek New Testament?
If men edited out the name of God, "YHWH" when they copied the New Testament, as only the Watchtower organization claims, then how can we have any confidence in any of the New Testament?
Should we discard the New Testament or the Watchtower organization as Unreliable?

Answer 1

Nearly EVERY edition of the so-called "New Testament" includes "Jah", the shortened form of the Divine Name "Jehovah" at Revelation 19:1-6. Some bibles refuse to translate these expressions correctly as "Praise Jah", leaving the untranslated "Hallelu-jah" or "Alleluiah" without its obvious connection to "Jah Jehovah".

(Isaiah 12:2) Jah Jehovah is my strength and my might

(Isaiah 26:4) Trust in Jehovah, you people, for all times, for in Jah Jehovah is the Rock of times indefinite.


There are at least TWENTY-EIGHT translations of the Christian Greek Scriptures (the so-called "New Testament") which restore the divine name. New World Translation restores the divine name in about 200 instances; there is but one single solitary instance where NWT chooses to restore the divine name without agreement from among the TWENTY-SEVEN others. Note the uncontroversial passage:

(1 Corinthians 7:17) ...Jehovah has given each one a portion... [compare Romans 12:3: "think so as to have a sound mind, each one as God has distributed to him a measure of faith"; 2 Cor 10:13: "the boundary of the territory that God apportioned to us"]


Perhaps these other TWENTY-SEVEN translation committees feel as Jehovah's Witnesses do... that Jesus, the apostles, and the other Christian bible writers must have used the divine name in their speech and in their writings as Isaiah and Moses (e.g. Ps 83:18) and other bible writers did. Sadly, the original Greek manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures (the so-called "New Testament") have never been found.

(John 17:26) [Jesus said] I have made your name known to them and will make it known, in order that the love with which you loved me may be in them

(Matthew 6:8,9) God your Father knows what things you are needing before ever you ask him. 9 “You must pray, then, this way: “‘Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified.


Think about it: Jesus and his apostles must have been extraordinarily familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures (the "Old Testament"), and the evidence is that they frequently quoted from these writings. The Hebrew Scriptures use the divine name SEVEN THOUSAND TIMES; would Jesus and his apostles have skipped over "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" when it appeared in the text they were quoting?

Perhaps the most revealing passage is to note the way that Luke 4:18,19 quotes from Isaiah 61:1,2. Scholars universally concede that the passage in Isaiah uses the divine Name and even repeats that Name; Jesus and his audience all understood Hebrew and the scroll was almost certainly in Hebrew (although that is immaterial). Clearly, when Jesus actually read the Isaiah passage he would hardly have replaced his Father's personal name with a generic term (such as the corrupters of Luke's Gospel have done).

(Luke 4:16-21) [Jesus] entered into the synagogue, and he stood up to read. 17 So the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed him, and he opened the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18 “Jehovah’s spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor, he sent me forth to preach a release to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away with a release, 19 to preach Jehovah’s acceptable year.” 20 With that he rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were intently fixed upon him. 21 Then he started to say to them: “Today this scripture that you just heard is fulfilled.”

(Isaiah 61:1,2) The spirit of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah is upon me, for the reason that Jehovah has anointed me to tell good news to the meek ones. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to those taken captive and the wide opening of the eyes even to the prisoners; 2 to proclaim the year of goodwill on the part of Jehovah


As in Luke chapter 4, the New World Translation is quite careful to ONLY render the divine name when a verse or phrase in the Christian Greek (NT) Scriptures seems to quote or refer to a Hebrew (OT) Scripture with the divine Name. That is why the OT has almost 7000 occurrences of "Jehovah" while the NT has less than 300.

An additional example is the way the Apostle Paul at Romans 10:13 quotes Joel 2:32.

(Romans 10:13) For “everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved"

(Joel 2:32) And it must occur that everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will get away safe (see also Zeph 3:9)


Essentially, the New World Bible Translation Committee believed that it is preferable to err (if that is what they did) on the side of magnifying the divine name, rather than share in perpetuating a superstition that hides it.

The name "Jehovah" is an English translation of the Hebrew name pronounced as or similar to "Yahweh" or "Yehowah"; the exact original pronunciation is unknown. The four Hebrew characters corresponding to the letters "YHWH" are well-recognized as the biblical personal name of Almighty God, and are universally designated as "the Tetragrammaton" or "the Tetragram".

For centuries, most Jews have superstitiously refrained from pronouncing aloud any form of the divine Name. They base that superstition on the third of the Ten Commandments given to Moses:
(Exodus 20:7) You must not take up the name of Jehovah your God in a worthless way
http://watchtower.org/e/bible/ex/chapter_020.htm?bk=Ex;chp=20;vs=7;citation#bk7

Over the centuries, that Jewish superstition has expanded to also forbid writing or engraving any form of "YHWH", even when simply copying from one of the nearly 7000 occurrences in the Hebrew Scriptures. In recent centuries, some superstitious Jews have even forbade unabbreviated EUPHEMISMS for "YHWH"; capitalized terms such as "Tetragrammaton" and (amazingly) even "the Name" are forbidden by such superstitions, and they even insist that "God" must be written as "G~d".

Naturally, the religious and superstitious practices of a person are between him and his Creator. However, in recent decades these superstitious Jews have worked to impose their superstitious sensibilities beyond their religious communities, and onto the entire populace. Thus, although "YHWH' is unanimously recognized as the personal name of God, few today use any form of it in their writings and conversation.

Interestingly, Christendom has largely joined with superstitious Jews in suppressing the use of "Yahweh" and "Jehovah". However, it seems that Christendom's anti-YHWH bias largely devolves from their hatred of Jehovah's Witnesses, the religion almost single-handedly responsible for the growing public recognition that the Almighty God of Judaism and Christianity actually does have a personal name.

It seems that too many are more interested in coddling superstition than in allowing intellectual honesty and respect for the Almighty.

Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/na/index.htm?article=article_06.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/20040122/

Answer 2

I'm really tired of this question, and don't really want to comment on it at all, but just to keep things honest, I feel I have to say that TeeM is not being accurate in his answer. He says that the Babylonian Talmud says that Christian writings containing the Divine Name should be burned. I know he knows that isn't true, and I don't understand why he tries to mislead people by saying things like that.

The Babylonian Talmud speaks of "sectarians" that removed the Divine Name. The word used is not "Christians", so we don't know if it's speaking of Christians or one of the other sects of Judaism. The writings spoken of aren't called "Christian" writings. It's no secret that the Divine Name was removed from the Old Testament, so even if the "writings" are Scriptures, it could be the Old Testament written by the Jews.

And even though it's generally true that LORD in all capitals in the Bible usually indicates that YHWH was in the original text, that isn't always the case. There is a Scripture where it says "the LORD said to my Lord", (I think it's in Acts) in which "LORD" is not YHWH in the original, but it is translated in all caps to distinguish between the two lords, Jehovah and Jesus. But in the original Greek, the word used is kurios (lord), not God's personal name because as you said, God's name never appears in its entirety in the original Greek language scriptures.

Also, Achtung errs in saying that the NWT "restores" the divine name in the New Testament, since it's not possible to restore it unless it was there originally. It's not there now and if it ever was, it's impossible to know which scriptures contained it so "restoring" is just a word used to sound good. It sounds better than saying they "changed" it in certain scriptures that they THINK it might have been in originally.

Answer 3

It is quite clear that Yahshua (Jesus) acknowledged the distinct name of God, His Father, during His earthly ministry, and that He actually made quite a point of it.

Yahshua instructed that prayer should be directed to the Father, and that His name should be declared "hallowed" or "holy."

Matt 6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name

He came in His Father's name, and specifically not in His own name.

John 5:43 I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.

The faithful are marked by having the Father's name written in their foreheads.

Rev 14:1 And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.

No matter how you break it down, God Almighty revealed His name thousands of years ago as YAHWEH (Exd 6:3 - Jehovah), and quite emphatically declared that His name would never, ever change (Ex.3:15). Yahshua (Jesus) said that God was His Father, and clearly proclaimed God the Father's name as distinct from His own. Even through the closing chapters of Revelation, God the Father's name remains an identifying feature between God's people and others. Though it is true that Yahshua (Jesus) is to be given a new name (Rev 3:12), it is equally true that God Almighty's name was, is, and always will be YAHWEH (English: Jehovah).

Answer 4

It is not just Jehovah's Witnesses that have come to realize Jehovah's name belongs in the NT.

Wolfgang Feneberg comments in the Jesuit magazine Entschluss/Offen (April 1985): “He [Jesus] did not withhold his father’s name YHWH from us, but he entrusted us with it. It is otherwise inexplicable why the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer should read: ‘May your name be sanctified!’” Feneberg further notes that “in pre-Christian manuscripts for Greek-speaking Jews, God’s name was not paraphrased with kýrios [Lord], but was written in the tetragram form [YHWH] in Hebrew or archaic Hebrew characters. . . . We find recollections of the name in the writings of the Church Fathers;

Professor George Howard of the University of Georgia wrote: “Since the Tetragram [four Hebrew letters for the divine name] was still written in the copies of the Greek Bible which made up the Scriptures of the early church, it is reasonable to believe that the N[ew] T[estament] writers, when quoting from Scripture, preserved the Tetragram within the biblical text.”—Journal of Biblical Literature, March 1977, p. 77.

“In pre-Christian Greek [manuscripts] of the O[ld] T[estament], the divine name (yhwh) was not rendered by ‘kyrios’ [lord] as has often been thought. Usually the Tetragram was written out in Aramaic or in paleo-Hebrew letters. . . . At a later time, surrogates [substitutes] such as ‘theos’ [God] and ‘kyrios’ replaced the Tetragram . . . There is good reason to believe that a similar pattern evolved in the N[ew] T[estament], i.e. the divine name was originally written in the NT quotations of and allusions to the OT, but in the course of time it was replaced by surrogates.”—“New Testament Abstracts,” 3, 1977, p. 306.

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Volume 2, page 649) says: “One of the most fundamental and essential features of the biblical revelation is the fact that God is not without a name: he has a personal name, by which he can, and is to be, invoked.” Jesus certainly had that name in mind when he taught his followers to pray: “Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified.”—Matthew 6:9.

Even the Babylon Talmud states that Christian writtings containing the Divine Name should be burned.

Please note the NKJV:

Matt 4:10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you,[d] Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”[

Please note LORD in the NT. LORD in all caps, is Jehovah.

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Answer 5

A valid question. One cannot logically claim that the Bible is reliable, while at the same time saying that serious alterations to the Bible were made by copyists.

The logical explanation - if we are to believe that the Bible is reliable and substantially unchanged in vital matters of doctrine and faith - is that the personal name of God was not used by New Testament writers. Or if it was, that the removal of the name was allowed by the Divine Author himself. Obviously, He would not be so unreasonable that he would impose a requirement for salvation of "using" a Name that he did not preserve, thus making it impossible for a willing subject to even KNOW what that name is.

Jesus said that the Pharisees made the word of God invalid by teaching their traditions instead. The Pharisees were not alone in adhering to tradition, over Scripture.

Answer 6

Discard the Watchtower organization as its unreliable.

Answer 7

God’s name does occur in its abbreviated form in both the old Greek manuscripts and the translations of them. In your Bible reading have you observed at Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6, the expression “Alleluia” or “Hallelujah”? According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary “Hallelujah” means: “Praise ye Yah (Jehovah).”