New World Translation Brackets!!

by gold_morning 137 Replies latest watchtower bible

Mondo1

No, I do not deny that they have added it, but frankly, if I had to choose between adding it and taking it away, as long as there is some level of justification in adding it (i.e. that it is a quote or allusion to an OT passage and the context does not demand that it not be present), I'd rather see it added then removed.

Lady Liberty

Mondo,

Here's the info. from the links above:

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The Central Issue

Behind all of the information on this web site, there is one central issue:

We are told that the Tetragrammaton (????—the Hebrew name of God) was used 237 times by the original Christian Scripture (New Testament) authors. And, then, because of a great heresy in the second and third centuries, ???? was removed leaving no evidence today that it was in the original manuscripts.

This site evaluates ancient Greek manuscript evidence, the religious writings during the first three centuries of the Christian era, and historic background in order to determine whether or not the Tetragrammaton (????) was used in the original Christian Scripture (New Testament) manuscripts. Unless noted otherwise, this site is dealing only with the Christian Scriptures (New Testament).

This web site does not discuss theology. It is dedicated to the study of biblical manuscript evidence.

Why is this an important issue?

The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures was published by the Watch Tower Bible Society in 1950. The word "Lord" was changed to "Jehovah" 237 times in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament). In some verses, the meaning did not change because the verse was talking about the God of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). (For example, Hosea 11:1 is quoted in Matthew 2:15 when Matthew says, "And [Joseph] stayed [in Egypt] until the decease of Herod, for that to be fulfilled which was spoken by Jehovah (rather than "Lord") through his prophet, saying: 'Out of Egypt I called my son.'" )

In other verses, the meaning of the Bible is greatly altered when the word "Lord" is changed to "Jehovah." For example, in the New World Translation Revelation 11:17 says, "We thank you, Jehovah (rather than "Lord") God, the Almighty, the one who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and begun ruling as king." There is a great difference in meaning when the verse identifies "Jehovah" as "God, the Almighty" rather than the "Lord" (Jesus) as "God, the Almighty."

This change represents the "Foremost Feature" of the New World Translation.

The publishers of the New World Translation say,

"The foremost feature of this translation is the restoration of the divine name to its rightful place in the English text. It has been done, using the commonly accepted English form "Jehovah" 6,973 times in the Hebrew Scriptures and 237 times in the Christian Greek Scriptures." (New World Translation Reference Edition, 1984, page 6.)

Reader's Note: Our web site is not dealing with the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). Nonetheless, we frequently commend the Watch Tower Society for its faithful restoration of the Divine Name (Jehovah) to the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament).

Is ???? used in ancient Greek manuscripts?

The Tetragrammaton (the word necessary for inserting "Jehovah" into the English translation) is never found in any of more than 5,000 ancient Greek manuscript copies of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament). The Greek text from which the New World Translation was translated is published by the Watch Tower Society in their Kingdom Interlinear Translation. The Tetragrammaton never occurs in the Greek text of the Kingdom Interlinear Translation.

On what basis, then, was this change made in the New World Translation?

The New World Bible Translation Committee felt strongly that the original writers of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) used the Tetragrammaton 237 times. However, there are no surviving manuscript copies which contain the Hebrew word ????. The Translation Committee suggested that there was a great heresy in the second and third centuries. They believe that as a result of this heresy the word ???? was changed to the Greek word for "Lord" (Kyrios) in all manuscript copies of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament).

Because they felt that the original writings had been changed, they felt obligated to make the necessary correction in The New World Translation. They said,

To know where the divine name was replaced by the Greek words Kyrios and Theos, we have determined where the inspired Christian writers have quoted verses, passages and expressions from the Hebrew Scriptures and then we have referred back to the Hebrew text to ascertain whether the divine name appears there. In this way we determined the identity to give Kyrios and Theos and the personality with which to clothe them.
To avoid overstepping the bounds of a translator into the field of exegesis, we have been most cautious about rendering the divine name in the Christian Greek Scriptures, always carefully considering the Hebrew Scriptures as a background. We have looked for agreement from the Hebrew versions to confirm our rendering. Thus, out of the 237 times that we have rendered the divine name in the body of our translation, there is only one instance where we have no agreement from the Hebrew versions. (Appendix 1D of the New World Translation, reference Edition, 1984, pages 1564 and 1563.)

Therefore, the Translation Committee changed the word "Lord" (Kyrios) to "Jehovah" in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament),

Whenever the Christian Scripture (New Testament) writers quoted a verse, a passage or an expression from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) in which the Tetragrammaton (????) was used.
Whenever the Tetragrammaton (????) is used in a Hebrew version.

The reader's decision.

The Watch Tower Society is forthright in telling us that there is no Greek manuscript evidence for the Tetragrammaton in more than 5,000 currently known Christian Greek Scripture manuscripts.* On this web site, we have explored other information which, if it existed, would indicate that the Tetragrammaton had been used but later expunged. It is assumed that the reader will independently verify information from both this web site and from Watch Tower Society publications. Finally, with the resulting body of information from these studies, the reader must evaluate his or her options.

*For reference see Aid to Bible Understanding, pages 886-888.

Said very simply, after studying the information regarding the word "Lord" and ???? in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament), the modern English Bible reader must choose between one of two options:

The reader may insist that the words the translators use in his or her Bible be a faithful translation of the words actually found in the best available Bible manuscripts.
Or, the reader may allow the translators of in his or her Bible to change the meaning of the best available Bible manuscripts by adding different words from sources outside of these ancient Bible manuscripts.

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Is the New World Translation a Better Bible?

The New World Translation was first published in 1950 by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (Jehovah's Witnesses). This Bible has now been translated into 61 languages. Is this new translation truly a better Bible?

The Bible is God's written Word. It is the message God wants men and women to read so that they can know Him. However, the Bible was not written in the language we speak today, so it must be translated before we can read it.

God used approximately 36 men over a period of almost 2,000 years to write the 66 books of the Bible. Yet everything that each man wrote agrees just as if one author had written the whole Bible. In fact, that is what actually happened. The real author of the Bible is God.

The Bible was written in three languages and is divided into two parts. The Old Testament was written first. Almost all of these first 39 books were written in the Hebrew language. (Only eight of a total of 929 chapters were written in Aramaic.) The Old Testament contains some of the earliest written history of our world and it describes the beginning and history of God's special people. It contains poetry and books showing God's people how to live. The Old Testament also tells of the Savior who would come to rescue all humanity from their sin.

The second part of the Bible is about the Savior Jesus and His followers. This second part is called the New Testament. It records how Jesus lived a perfect life and yet was hated because He said He was from God. It recounts how His enemies killed Him, and then how He came back to life three days later to show that He really was God. The New Testament tells how Jesus' followers learned to be obedient to Him and spread the message that Jesus was the Savior of everyone who believes in Him.

The New Testament was written in Greek, and was completed about 40 years after Jesus lived. It was written by men who either knew Jesus personally or were His early followers.

But the Bible is more than just history. The Bible is God's Word for each of us today. It tells us about God. It tells us how Jesus came to save us from our sin. And it tells us how we should live in a way that pleases God. Therefore, we need to be able to read the Bible and understand exactly what God wants us to know. However, because the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, it must be translated into a language we understand before we are able to read it. We must have an accurate translation if we are to learn what God wants us to know.

Translations of the Bible have been made in many languages. In fact, the Bible has been translated into more languages than any other book in the history of the world. As a language changes, new translations must be made. But not all translations have been made simply because the language changed. Regrettably, sometimes translations were made because the translators wanted to publish a Bible that taught their doctrine.

Since the Bible is God's Word, we want the Bible translator to translate the exact thoughts of the Hebrew and Greek languages into the language we speak today. Therefore, the best Bible translations will follow this simple rule:

The best Bible translation will tell us the exact thoughts of the original writers of the Hebrew and Greek portions of the Bible in a way that is easily understood in our own language.

Of course, a Bible translation may be good in one area of translation but faulty in others. The best Bible translation for us today will be the one that most accurately tells us all of the thoughts of the original writers. However, a Bible translation should never be used to make the reader think that God is favoring a particular religious group's doctrine.

Some basic Bible facts

The writers of each of the 39 Old Testament books and 27 New Testament books used pen and ink and wrote on some form of animal skin or reed paper. The New Testament books are the most recent. Yet, even these were written almost 2,000 years ago. The original authors wrote a single copy on a reed paper called papyrus. We believe that the original account written by each author was inspired by God and was written without any errors. It was written exactly as God intended. Every word was perfect. However, the original copies have long since been lost.
Many copies of each book were made immediately after they were written. Then copies of the copies were made. Yet these were all hand-written documents and each contained some copying mistakes. Do we know today what the original authors wrote? Surprisingly, we do. Many very old copies of the Bible survived in countries with dry climates like Egypt. The oldest known New Testament document is very small, but it was copied less than 60 or 70 years after the Apostle John wrote it. These hand-made copies are called Greek manuscripts. There are a number of ancient New Testament Greek manuscripts that were copied within 150 to 200 years after the original was written. In the last 200 years, over 5,000 copies of ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament have been discovered. After careful study of each of these manuscripts, the copying mistakes can be identified. It has been a slow and difficult process, but it has resulted in a reconstruction of the original Greek text of the New Testament that is almost exactly the same as it was written by the original writers.
We know much about the history of the Bible manuscripts because of the writings of early Christians. Large numbers of ancient manuscripts written by Christian authors survived in the same way that the ancient Greek manuscripts of the Bible survived. These authors often quoted Scripture in their writings. This tells us the words used in the Bibles they were copying. There were also many debates between these authors in the first 400 years of the life of the Church. Because we can read their answers to each other, we often know exactly what was happening during the earliest history of the Church.
The Old Testament uses the Hebrew name of God over 6,800 times. Because of the way ancient Hebrew was written, it is not easy for a translator today to decide exactly how that name should be pronounced. The name has often been written Jehovah. Many Bibles have simply written God's name as LORD using all capital letters. But it is important to remember that the Old Testament authors frequently used God's Hebrew name.
The New Testament does not use God's Hebrew name. None of the more than 5,000 ancient Greek manuscripts that we have today use the Hebrew name of God written in either Hebrew or Greek letters. It is abbreviated as Jah in the word hallelujah four times (Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, and 6). But in these four instances, it is written in Greek and not Hebrew letters. All 5,000 surviving Greek manuscripts use a single word that is most frequently applied to Jesus. That word is Lord. This single word is also used in quotations of the Old Testament where God's Hebrew name is written. The use of this single word for Lord is one of the most important issues concerning the accuracy of the New World Translation.
The New Testament frequently quotes the Old Testament. In many of these quotations, either the Hebrew name of God--which is often written Jehovah--is in the actual Old Testament quotation, or the quotation is saying something that is true of only Jehovah. As we will see, it is very important to know if the New Testament writer actually applied these quotations containing the Hebrew name of God to Jesus, or if the writer intended them to apply only to Jehovah.

Some examples

Before we go further, we need to look at two examples that show us why the debate regarding the Hebrew name of God in the New Testament is important.

Certain verses talk about God. There are verses in the New Testament that specifically identify the one referred to as God. Revelation 11:17 is one example. It says, "We give Thee thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty." The New World Translation translates this same verse as, "We thank you, Jehovah God, the Almighty." It makes a great deal of difference if the one who is "God, the Almighty" is the Lord (Jesus) or Jehovah. Revelation 4:11 says "Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God." The New World Translation reads, "'You are worthy, Jehovah,' even our God." There are a number of similar examples in Revelation in which the New World Translation uses Jehovah rather than Lord. (Revelation 1:8, 4:8, 15:3, 16:7, 18:8, 19:6, 21:22, and 22:5-6.) Yet, in each of these examples, the Greek text from which the New World Translation was translated (the Kingdom Interlinear Translation published by the Watch Tower Society) always uses the Greek word for Lord. It does not use the Hebrew name of God because there is no ancient manuscript evidence that the New Testament writers used it.
The Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament. The New Testament frequently quotes the Old Testament. The New Testament quotation sometimes includes a verse that uses the Hebrew name of God. Matthew 3:3 is an example. It says, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." Matthew quoted Isaiah 40:3 and applied it to John the Baptist who made the way ready for Jesus. Isaiah 40:3 used the Hebrew name of God. However, when Matthew quoted the verse he applied it to Jesus by using the Greek word for Lord. However, the New World Translation says, "Someone is crying out in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way of Jehovah, you people! Make his roads straight.'" Again, the Greek text from which the New World Translation was translated uses the Greek word for Lord and not the Hebrew name of God.
Sometimes, however, the Hebrew name of God is not included in the verse that is quoted from the Old Testament. In Romans 14:11, the Apostle Paul said, "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God." Paul quoted Isaiah 45:23 which says, "I have sworn by Myself…that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance." The Hebrew name of God is not in the actual Old Testament verse that Paul quoted, though Isaiah said that these were the words of God Himself. So Paul knew that it was God who said, "to Me every knee will bow." That worship belongs only to God. Yet in Romans 14:11, Paul says that it was the Lord speaking. However, the New World Translation says, ""'As I live.' says Jehovah, 'to me every knee will bend down, and every tongue will make open acknowledgment to God.'"" (Notice that the New World Translation uses extra quotation marks to show that God is speaking.)
However, the Apostle Paul repeats this quotation in Philippians 2:10-11. He says, "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Paul said that the worship that belonged only to God in the Old Testament was also to be given to Jesus. The translators did not want to use the word Jehovah because this verse referred to Jesus. So the New World Translation says, "So that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend…and every tongue should openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." In the verse in Philippians they omit quotation marks as though it is not a verse from the Old Testament. (In their reference Bible they list Isaiah 45:23 as the source for Romans 14:11, yet there is no reference to Isaiah in Philippians 2:10-11.) They ignore that this worship with "every knee bowing" belongs only to God.

The translators' assumptions

The translators of the New World Translation believe that in the original New Testament Greek manuscripts the Hebrew name of God was written in Hebrew letters. They say that the original authors would have read their Hebrew Bibles that used the Hebrew name of God and would have copied that name in Hebrew as they were writing the Greek New Testament. However, then they must explain why none of the 5,000 ancient Greek manuscripts that exist today contain the Hebrew name of God. They explain this by saying that there was false teaching between 70 and 170 years after Jesus lived. They say that this false teaching opposed the use of God's Hebrew name and caused it to be changed to Lord in all of the existing Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. They say that careless and deceitful scribes changed the Bible. There are two great problems with this explanation.

There is no manuscript evidence of any kind that indicates that the Hebrew name of God was used in the New Testament. In over 5,000 ancient manuscripts, there is not one indication that the Hebrew letters of God's name were used. There is not even indication that the Hebrew letters were changed to Greek letters. The only word that appears is Lord. By 170 years after Jesus had lived, the Church had spread from Judea to Asia, Europe and Africa. If this change had been made, it would have meant that all of the thousands of manuscripts on three continents had been altered. That is difficult to imagine since we have Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that were written sometime between 70 and 170 years after Jesus lived which do not contain the Hebrew name of God.
In all the writings of the early Christians, there is not a single reference to a false teaching that would have caused this change in the New Testament. This change would have caused great debate among early Christians. After all, many had already suffered much for the Gospel. Why would they say nothing when mere scribes decided to change the Bible after they had suffered for it. Both secular history and the writings of the early Christians would have mentioned the conflict that would have come from such a change.

Hebrew versions

If there are no ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that contain the Hebrew name of God, how did the translators of the New World Translation justify using the name Jehovah in the New Testament? The translators gathered a large number of Hebrew versions that used the Hebrew name of God as their evidence. In most cases, in verses where these Hebrew versions used the Hebrew name of God, the New World Translation used Jehovah.

A Hebrew version is a New Testament translated for Hebrew-speaking Christians. It is not a New Testament originally written in Hebrew. Hebrew versions were translated from the same Greek texts used for all other New Testament translations. None of these Greek texts contain the Hebrew name of God. Hebrew versions cannot give more information about the original Greek manuscripts than the Greek texts from which they were translated. Nor are Hebrew versions ancient texts. The Hebrew versions cited by the translators of the New World Translation were themselves translated between the years 1385 and 1979. Hebrew versions are not ancient manuscripts that came from the time of the first Church. They are certainly not older than the ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.

The translators of the New World Translation used the Hebrew versions as though they separated the identity of Lord and Jehovah. However, that is not true. When one reads certain of these Hebrew versions, it is apparent that the Hebrew translators did just the opposite and used the Hebrew name of God to show that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. For example, seven of these Hebrew versions used the Hebrew name of God in 1 Peter 3:15. Had the New World Translation used Jehovah in this verse it would have read, "But sanctify the Christ as Jehovah in your hearts." In another interesting example from a Hebrew version, when the grammatical rules used by the translators are applied, Acts 26:15 reads, "And Jehovah God said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." These Hebrew versions really show that Jesus is Messiah and fully identified with God rather than showing that Jesus and Jehovah are distinctly different.

There is another question that would need to be answered if the original writers of the New Testament had used the Hebrew name of God. We would need to ask how many times (and in what verses) the Hebrew name of God was used. The translators of the New World Translation say that the Hebrew name of God was used 237 times in the New Testament. But when we read the New World Translation, it is obvious that the selection of these 237 verses has more to do with what the verses were saying than with what was written in ancient manuscripts. The verses that were most frequently changed from Lord to Jehovah were those verses that identify a quality that could only be true of God.

Why do Jehovah's Witnesses want Jehovah in the New Testament?

There is a simple reason why Jehovah's Witnesses want a Bible that uses Jehovah rather than Lord in many New Testament verses. Because they believe that Jesus is merely God's first created son, they do not want their Bible to identify Jesus as being equal to the God of the Old Testament. They want a Bible with a New Testament that makes a distinction between Lord and Jehovah. If the New Testament identifies the One on the throne as the "Lord God Almighty" (Revelation 11:17), this would tell us that the Lord Jesus is "God Almighty." Similarly, the Old Testament often makes statements that can only be said of God. If the New Testament quotes an Old Testament verse that uses the Hebrew name of God but applies it to Jesus as Lord, this would tell us that the New Testament writer was identifying Jesus with the God of the Old Testament. This is what Paul did when he quoted Isaiah 45:23, yet applied it to Jesus. Therefore, Jehovah's Witnesses want to change these verses so that Jesus is not identified with God. They want their Bible to read "Jehovah God Almighty" in Revelation 11:17 and many similar verses. They also do not want to apply an Old Testament quotation that uses the Hebrew name of God to Jesus in the New Testament.

Evaluating the New World Translation

We said that a good translation tells us the exact thoughts of the original Bible writers. The Old Testament writers used God's name over 6,800 times. A good translation of the Bible should use God's name in the Old Testament. Regrettably, many Bible translations today do not. However, the New World Translation uses the name Jehovah over 6,800 times in the Old Testament. In this area, the New World Translation has correctly told us the meaning intended by the original writers.
The translators of the New World Translation have used the name Jehovah 237 times in the New Testament. There is no New Testament Greek manuscript evidence that shows that the Hebrew name of God was ever used. However, if the Hebrew name of God had been used, then there would need to have been an explanation for its removal. There is no historic record of any debate among the early Christians regarding the removal of the Hebrew name of God from their Scriptures. The translators of the New World Translation mislead their readers. With no Greek manuscript or historical evidence, they changed the word Lord that was written by the inspired New Testament writers to Jehovah in 237 verses.
We also find serious inconsistency in the translators' use of Jehovah in the New Testament. They say that they will insert Jehovah when an Old Testament verse using the Hebrew name of God is quoted. In almost all cases they follow their rule. However, when 1 Peter 3:15 quotes an Old Testament verse using the Hebrew name of God, it is omitted in the New World Translation because it would identify Jesus as God. When Philippians 2:10-11 gives qualities to Jesus that can only be true of God, they do not acknowledge that the verse is an Old Testament quotation.
The translators are also inconsistent in their use of Hebrew versions. In most instances, when a Hebrew version uses the Hebrew name of God, they insert Jehovah into the New Testament verse. On the other hand, even though seven Hebrew versions use the Hebrew name of God in 1 Peter 3:15, they still do not insert Jehovah as noted above. If the translators had inserted Jehovah in this verse, it would have identified Jesus with Jehovah. Many Hebrew versions have used the Hebrew name of God to identify Jesus with Jehovah. However, the translators of the New World Translation have avoided making that identification in their own translation.
In certain passages, words have actually been inserted to change the meaning of the Bible. When talking about Jesus, Colossians 1:16 says, "For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth." However, the New World Translation says, "By means of him all [other] things were created in the heavens and upon the earth." Because Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus was created as the first son of the Father, they have added the word "other" to this verse. The word "other" has been inserted four times in this chapter so that they can teach that Jesus was created. In verses 16 and 17 the New World Translation says, "All [other] things have been created through him and for him. Also, he is before all [other] things and by means of him all [other] things were made to exist."
Sometimes the translators of the New World Translation give the same word from the original Greek language two different meanings so that they do not identify Jesus with Jehovah. Their own Greek New Testament uses a single word to mean "obeisance." When the New World Translation uses this word about the Lord Jesus, they translate it as "obeisance. However, when they translate the same word about Jehovah, they translate it as "worship."
When reading the Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Translation it is obvious that they have published a Bible for the purpose of teaching their own doctrine. They have done this by changing the meaning of the most authentic ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.

The New World Translation has failed the test that says that the best Bible translation will tell us the exact thoughts of the original writers of the Hebrew and Greek portions of the Bible in a way that is easily understood in our own language. The New World Translation does not accurately translate what the New Testament writers said about Jesus.

The Good News

Jesus died for our sins so that we can be completely forgiven. He came back from the dead to give us new life. If you do not know God, Jesus will become your Savior if you believe that His death and resurrection is all that you need to satisfy God. (Read Romans 5:1-21 in your Bible.)

Does it matter who Jesus is? It certainly does. If Jesus is God, then He has the power to give us His perfection and we will someday live with God. Of course, we must learn to be obedient to Him in the lessons He wants to teach us. But we do not need to work to earn Salvation. Salvation is God's free gift to us when we have faith in Jesus' death and resurrection. The Bible says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Because their Bible has been changed, Jehovah's Witnesses do not know that Salvation is God's free gift. Since they do not believe that Jesus can give them His perfection as God, they think that they must do good works in order to earn Salvation. They hope that if they do enough, they will live forever in God's Kingdom.

Yes, it does matter whether Jesus was just a perfect man, or if He is really God. Read your Bible to learn what it says about Jesus and why your Salvation depends only on Him.

Why is Jehovah's name missing from the New Testament?

Does the Watchtower's theory foster doubt in the Bible's reliability?

In part one we discussed the Watchtower's theory that unscrupulous men in the early church removed Jehovah's name from all the copies of the Greek New Testament. We discussed that to believe this theory one must deny Jehovah's sovereign ability to protect his word through the ages. Believing the Watchtower's theory would not result in faith in the New Testament but foster a doubt in its reliability. After all, if men were able to completely wipe out Jehovah's name from the New Testament, then what else did they remove or what did they add? Far from producing trust in the accuracy of the New Testament, the Watchtower's theory only opens the door to distrust and all kinds of abuse. As Christians, we maintain the accuracy of the entire Bible. We also trust the faithfulness of the God who produced his word and sovereignly protected it throughout the centuries.

Is Jesus the reason?

But the question still remains, if Jehovah God is Sovereign over his inspired word and faithfully protected its transmission to us today, why doesn't the Greek manuscript contain God's name? We believe the answer is found in the words of Jesus Himself. In John chapter 17 Jesus' prayer to the Father is recorded. Verse 11 in the New World Translation says, "...I am coming to you. Holy Father, watch over them on account of your own name which you have given me..." Jesus said that God's own name had been given to him! What is God's own name? If you are a Jehovah's Witness, you are taught that God's own name is Jehovah. Although the Society admits in their booklet The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever on page 15 that the name Jesus means Jehovah is Salvation, they never teach their followers that the Bible says that God's own name has been given to Jesus. How did Jehovah give his own name to his son? Hebrews 1:4 tells us in the New World Translation, "So he has become better than the angels, to the extent that he has inherited a name more excellent than theirs." Jesus inherited his name from his father! No angel could inherit the name Jehovah, and Hebrews chapter one certainly refutes the Watchtower's teaching that Jesus was created as an angel.

Is there a transition of name?

The transition of the power and authority of the Old Testament name of Jehovah to the New Testament name of Jesus reveals God's full plan of salvation. Acts 4:12 says, "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." When the Watchtower rejects Jesus' full inheritance of the name Jehovah, they are in essence rejecting the Father as well. Jesus said clearly in John 5:23 "...all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him."

Why does the New Testament not contain the name of Jehovah? We believe that it does - in the name of Jesus! If the Watchtower had been consistent in their substituting "Jehovah" in place of "Kurios", the Greek word for Lord, then Philippians 2:9-11 should read in their Bible: Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven, and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Jehovah, to the glory of God the Father.

Go back to part one: Who removed Jehovah's name from the New Testament?

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Who removed the name Jehovah from the New Testament?

What is the Charge?

The Watchtower Society has produced a booklet called The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever. In this booklet the Society levels a very serious charge that the early church removed God's name from the New Testament. We would like to test the Watchtower's theory and verify the outcome of such a serious charge. On pages 23 & 24 of the booklet the Society admits that we do not have the original manuscripts of the New Testament but we have thousands of copies of the originals. Those who have studied the transmission of the New Testament are familiar with the fact that when an original Biblical letter from sent from the author, the church receiving the document duplicated it and sent the copies to other churches. These churches in turn made additional copies and distributed these. Through the years thousands of copies of the original manuscript were made and dispersed widely throughout the known world. Keep in mind these were not translations of the Bible, but were copies of the original Greek.

What do the manuscripts show?

Now let us consider the Watchtower's admission on page 23 of the booklet that, "no ancient Greek manuscript that we possess today of the books from Matthew to Revelation contains God's name in full." Just think of that - no copy of the original Greek manuscript contains God's name in full! The Watchtower's logic says that because some editions of the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew) had replaced Jehovah's name with God and Lord that theoretically the early church must have taken it upon themselves to remove God's name from the original Greek New Testament. Although the Watchtower does admit that the original copies of the Hebrew Old Testament are faithful in retaining YHWH as the name of God, their teaching allows for a group of men the power to be able to remove Jehovah's name from every New Testament manuscript.

Was Jehovah unable to protect his name?

How did a group of men manage to remove Jehovah's name from all of the availablemanuscripts of the original Greek new testament? To do this they would have had to seize and change every single copy that was floating around throughout all of the known world, since the Watchtower admits that there is not a single copy of the Greek manuscripts that contain Jehovah's full name. These men would have had to go from door to door and confiscate every single copy of every single new testament book. How is it that Jehovah God faithfully protected his Old Testament word throughout thousands of years when men tried to destroy it, yet was powerless to protect the newtestament manuscripts from corruption for even a few hundred years? And if Jehovah was powerless to protect even his name, what else did these unscrupulous men remove? Once you admit that it is possible to tamper with all of the available manuscripts, the reliability of the new testament is shattered. In contrast, the faithfulness of Jehovah God to protect all of his sovereign word is evident. The faithfulness of the original Greek text can be verified by comparing copies produced at different times from different original copies and made by different copyists. In addition Jehovah God caused so many copies of his word to remain that any human error incorporated into the text is evident by comparing the copies.

The question still remains, if Jehovah God is Sovereign over his inspired word and faithfully protected its transmission to us today, why doesn't the Greek manuscripts contain God's name? We will be discussing this question in part two.

Go to part two: Why is the name Jehovah missing from the New Testament?

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Lady Liberty

No, I do not deny that they have added it, but frankly, if I had to choose between adding it and taking it away, as long as there is some level of justification in adding it (i.e. that it is a quote or allusion to an OT passage and the context does not demand that it not be present), I'd rather see it added then removed. Dear Mondo, Thank you for your honesty. First I want to say that I firmly believe in God's name. However, after finding it has been added in places where it obviously never was, it upset me very much. Especially when considering this scripture: Galations 31:8,9
8
However, even if we or an angel out of heaven were to declare to YOU as good news something beyond what we declared to YOU as good news, let him be accursed.
. 9 As we have said above, I also now say again, Whoever it is that is declaring to YOU as good news something beyond what YOU accepted, let him be accursed.
It is pretty clear that we are not to go beyond things written. Obviously, Jehovah could have seen to it that his name was throughout it, just as he preserved it in the in the Hebrew scriptures, yet for whatever reason, he chose not to. I am sure you will agree we do not know better then him. Sincerely, Lady Liberty
Hellrider
Mondo
No, I do not deny that they have added it, but frankly, if I had to choose between adding it and taking it away, as long as there is some level of justification in adding it (i.e. that it is a quote or allusion to an OT passage and the context does not demand that it not be present), I'd rather see it added then removed.
The problem is that adding the "divine name" into the NT causes theological consequenses by settling the trinity vs non-trinity-dispute once and for all, and in an unjust manner. It removes all ambiguity about Jesus Christ and is relationship to the Father, an ambiguity that is present in the texts, and which it is wrong to remove. This, in combination with f.ex. translating the same greek word as "obeisance" (when referring to Jesus) and "worship" (when referring to the Father), along with lots of other examples, makes for a very biased translation. I saw you write "most criticisms of the NWT are unjustified" above a couple of posts ago, but most translators are very clear on the NWT:
1. Dr. Bruce M. Metzger, professor of New Testament at Princeton University, calls the NWT "a frightful mistranslation," "Erroneous" and "pernicious" "reprehensible" "If the Jehovah's Witnesses take this translation seriously, they are polytheists." (Professor of New Testament Language and Literature)
2. Dr. William Barclay, a leading Greek scholar, said "it is abundantly clear that a sect which can translate the New Testament like that is intellectually dishonest."
3. British scholar H.H. Rowley stated, "From beginning to end this volume is a shining example of how the Bible should not be translated."
4. "Well, as a backdrop, I was disturbed because they (Watchtower) had misquoted me in support of their translation." (These words were excerpted from the tape, "Martin and Julius Manteyon The New World Translation", Mantey is quoted on pages 1158-1159 of the Kingdom interlinear Translation)
5. Dr. Julius Mantey, author of A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, calls the NWT "a shocking mistranslation." "Obsolete and incorrect." "It is neither scholarly nor reasonable to translate John 1:1 'The Word was a god.'"
6. "I have never read any New Testament so badly translated as The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of The Greek Scriptures.... it is a distortion of the New Testament. The translators used what J.B. Rotherham had translated in 1893, in modern speech, and changed the readings in scores of passages to state what Jehovah's Witnesses believe and teach. That is a distortion not a translation." (Julius Mantey, Depth Exploration in The New Testament (N.Y.: Vantage Pres, 1980), pp.136-137)
7. the translators of the NWT are "diabolical deceivers." (Julius Mantey in discussion with Walter Martin)
Mondo1

Hellrider,
Well those aren't very specific! Mantey was definitely upset theologically, as his letter to the WT shows, and within his letter his issues were definitely unjustified. Stafford really brought this to light in his response. It seems that most of the John 1:1 issues were based upon an abuse of the converse of Colwell's rule, and so those lacked any validity at all.
The obeisance/worship issue is hardly justified either, for Bible translations regularly translate that different. They translate it as worship for Christ because that is what *their theology* teaches, but they translate it other was in other places. So it isn't a matter of bias, just interpretation in translation. There is a difference.
And finally, on the Lord/Jehovah issue, I don't think there is any ambiguity at all. The Bible is very clear on who they are.
Mondo
Mondo1

LL
I can hardly see what the divine name being added to the New Testament has to do with declaring a different good news.
AuldSoul

Mondo1,
(1) Who is "the Alpha and the Omega"? Jehovah, Jesus, or both of them? When answering, keep in mind that none of the places where they inserted "Jehovah" into Revelation was a quote from the OT.
(2) If the four living creatures, the 24 elders, and every living creature can rightly offer a prayer of praise to the One seated on the throne and to the Lamb, why can Jehovah's Witnesses not pray to the Lamb?
Revelation 5:6-14 And I saw standing in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the elders a lamb as though it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which [eyes] mean the seven spirits of God that have been sent forth into the whole earth. And he went and at once took [it] out of the right hand of the One seated on the throne. And when he took the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp and golden bowls that were full of incense, and the [incense] means the prayers of the holy ones. And they sing a new song, saying: "You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals, because you were slaughtered and with your blood you bought persons for God out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and you made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they are to rule as kings over the earth."
And I saw, and I heard a voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice: "The Lamb that was slaughtered is worthy to receive the power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing."
And every creature that is in heaven and on earth and underneath the earth and on the sea, and all the things in them, I heard saying: "To the One sitting on the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing and the honor and the glory and the might forever and ever." 14 And the four living creatures went saying: "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped.
Religious differences aside, I think you can see the point. There are unquestionably some serious problems with their doctrines even according to their own translation.
Respectfully,
AuldSoul
Borgia

I once read a thread somewhere were the issue of proskuneo was dealt with embedded within historical context.....
Cheers
Borgia
Hellrider

Mondo:
The obeisance/worship issue is hardly justified either, for Bible translations regularly translate that different. They translate it as worship for Christ because that is what *their theology* teaches, but they translate it other was in other places. So it isn't a matter of bias, just interpretation in translation. There is a difference.
They do? Do you have any examples?
And finally, on the Lord/Jehovah issue, I don't think there is any ambiguity at all. The Bible is very clear on who they are.
Just curious: How do you justify the NWT-version of Zechariah 12:10 "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.
...which the NWT renders "They will look to the one whom they have pierced..."
No amibguity, you say?
Leolaia

One of course could also mention another obvious case, the application Joel 2:32 to Jesus in Romans 10. The NWT's insertion of "Jehovah" effectively breaks the train of thought.
Another instance where they insert the name outside of quotations of the OT is "Jehovah" in Jude 14-15. This is a quotation not from the OT but from 1 Enoch 1:9 and neither does "Jehovah" occur there either.

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