"Jehovah" In The New Testament.

by LostintheFog1999 72 Replies latest watchtower bible

LostintheFog1999

I see they have updated their list of translations or versions where some form of YHWH or JHVH appears in the New Testament.
https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/appendix-c/divine-name-new-testament-2/
aqwsed12345
A shared treasure of Judaism and Christianity, an important element of faith is the name of God; Christians have no particular objection to the name "Jehovah", but they do not insist on it, because it is a theological term.
The Hebrew language originally only recorded consonants, and it was only supplemented with vowel marks in the early Middle Ages. Since when reading the letters YHWH, they always said Adonai ("Lord") instead of Yahweh, the vowels of Adonai were written above and below the consonants YHWH in the Middle Ages (1520, Galatinus). Thus the form "Jahovah", "Jehovah" or "Jehovah" was created, which sounds impossible to Hebrew ears.
This theological term has nevertheless become quite widespread in theological literature, in translations of the Old Testament (!), and in poetry over the centuries.
In Exodus 3:14, "I Am Who I Am" (in Hebrew: ehyeh asher ehyeh), or "I Am" (ehyeh) himself sends Moses to the people. The meaning of the introduction is obvious from the context: God is who He is, and He doesn't have a name in the sense of the pagan gods, who could be invoked and influenced by their names, but He is always with them and will be.
"I Am" is none other than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because in verse 15 he continues: "...YHWH, the God of your fathers...". The origin and pronunciation of the word YHWH (approx. Yahweh) is highly debated among experts. The Watchtower has adopted the interpretation that this is the causative form (hifil) of the old, rare version of the verb to be (havah), which would mean: "the Creator"; YHWH in Israeli translations is Adonai ("Lord"), Shaddai ("Almighty").
The Jews were not afraid of "superstitiously" pronouncing the name, but of unnecessary invocation of the Person behind it, reckless, insignificant, aimless, or malicious mention (the "in vain" in Exodus 20:7 refers to this). Understandably, due to their terrifying experiences with God, they avoided the "vain" use of God's name.
The Jews copied the Scripture letter by letter, but certain errors occurred; when the scribes noticed this, they indicated the correct reading with marginal notes, thus distinguishing between the ketib ("written") and the qere ("to be read") text. However, they did not mark God's name with a special qere because they expected everyone to know: if they read YHWH with their eyes, they should say Adonai ("the Lord") with their mouth. Jews still often refer to God simply as "the Name" (ha-Shem).
If Jesus in the synagogue (Luke 4:16-21) had pronounced the Name while reading Isaiah (61:1-2), wouldn't that have caused an outrage among the "superstitious" Jews, wouldn't they have attacked him immediately? Instead, we read that they listened attentively to the reading (4:20), and even initially received his added words positively (4:22).
Indeed, Jesus "did not teach like the scribes", but not merely because he was against the traditions that contradicted the law. Unlike the scribes who referred to the Scripture and to each other, Jesus stated things "as one who had authority", as one who could refer to himself (see at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Mt 7:29). What does this have to do with the use of the Name in the synagogue scene?
The "Lord's Prayer" is a prayer addressed to our Father. If Jesus really wanted to encourage the use of the Name with the Lord's Prayer, why should we call God Father, why doesn't the prayer start like this: "Our Lord...", or like this: "Our Jehovah"?
How could a prayer addressed to God encourage us, people, to consider God's name holy? The word "hallow" is not in the optative but in the imperative mood, and it does not ask something from man, but from God. Translated literally: "let your name be hallowed", i.e., by God, i.e., God should make it holy among people, so that finally his royal rule may come, and his will may be done on earth as it is done in heaven (Mt 6:9-10).
If the use of God's name is really so important, then why do Jehovah's Witnesses address God with a theological hybrid word alien to Hebrew, why not according to the most probable pronunciation (e.g. Yahweh)?
Some fragments from early times of the 3rd-century BC Greek translation of the Old Testament (Septuagint, LXX) that have survived contain the four Hebrew letters within the Greek text.
However, this does not mean that they later left it out because of "superstition", as the substitution of JHVH with Kyrios in later editions was not a translation of JHVH, but of Adonai, thus drawing attention to the correct reading (the kere).
This was obviously not needed for the Jews, but for the pagans who were already reading the LXX.
But the pagans would not have been able to do anything with the four Hebrew letters within the Greek text anyway, they would have misunderstood it, so Kyrios was needed from the outset.
In the era of the emperors, who deified themselves and also had themselves called kyrios, it was a testimony on the part of the Jews that their God was "the Lord" (ho kyrios), and not the emperor.
Jehovah's Witnesses' own Bible translation, the New World Translation, has a very debatable feature: it uses the name Jehovah in the New Testament as well, which they call the Christian Greek Scriptures. Witnesses have a hard time defending this stance, because:
- There is not a single New Testament manuscript left to us that contains the name Jehovah.
- The organization's Wescott-Hort text also does not use the name Jehovah.
- No contemporary work mentions that the name was in the New Testament.
- Even in the works of Christian writers, there is no trace of this.
The topic of the divine name has already produced several studies from the critics. The foundations of the argument are not solid. The Society's argument (as a recent study pointed out) is based on some assumptions. We would like to highlight a few of these.
One assumption is that the Septuagint (LXX) translation quoted by Christians used the divine name. There is insufficient evidence for this. The appendix contains 12 fragments, but these prove: there were LXX versions that included the divine name. However, many other LXX fragments do not use it. When the New Testament writers quote the LXX, they used several versions, not just one. But the JHVH name is indeed in the original Scriptures, so this assumption can be overlooked.
The main question is whether Jesus' disciples used the Name? Not a single Christian writer, not a single early Christian group's surviving writings contain the Name. Why?
The apostles indeed quoted the Old Testament either from the Hebrew text (from memory, or possibly from scrolls in their possession), or according to the first-century, commonly used editions of the Greek LXX.
There is not a single fragment of the Greek New Testament that contains even a single Hebrew letter or the Greek transcription of YHWH.
There is no historical record that such a New Testament text ever existed, or that anyone ever saw anything like it.
Is there any factual basis for the Watchtower's claim that the New Testament authors also inserted the Hebrew JHVH into the Greek text?
If not, why does it present as a fact something for which there is no evidence, and which contradicts the well-known facts?
According to the appendix, some have falsified the New Testament writings. However, this is just a theory, as the Society acknowledges (although a theory cannot be treated as a historical fact...). George Howard invented this theory, but he himself did not dare to declare it as a fact. Why not? Because there is no evidence for it. A step as significant as the editing of the Gospels would have required a joint resolution, a joint conspiracy. There would have been traces of this, the Jewish religious leaders would have attacked immediately. But nothing like this happened.
There is not a single written record within Christianity that the church called upon the copyists or translators of the Scriptures to erase JHVH. Such a decision would have required at least a universal council resolution, would have provoked significant internal resistance, and could not have been carried out secretly.
There is not a single written record outside Christianity either, that would verify or at least indicate something like this, although this could have been a strong argument for the Jews in religious debates.
The Watchtower's claim of Bible forgery is thus only an assumption without proof, i.e., a hypothesis. Nevertheless, they accuse the Christianity of the 2nd and 3rd centuries of capital crime, i.e., Bible forgery, because due to their alleged crime, anyone could have believed until the 20th century, based purely on the Bible, that JHVH was among us in Jesus. It fundamentally questions whether God's revelation was successful and whether His Word has been preserved; this contradicts Jesus, who said that his words will remain forever (see Mt 24:35). They also accuse the writers of 20th century Christian Bible translations, hymn books or creeds of hatred against the Name of God, because they mostly omit the name "Jehovah" that still appears in old translations, and replace it with "Lord".
None of the surviving Greek New Testament copies contain Hebrew letters, and there is no historical trace of the Name being "erased." The Society, therefore, presents unproven assumptions as facts (slander). The name Jehovah appears 237 times in the "Christian Greek Scriptures," of which 82 are quotes from the Old Testament that contain YHWH, but the other 155 cases were chosen completely arbitrarily. If we start from the existing copies and the facts: the New Testament calls the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit both Lord and God.
Isn't it theological bias to present something as a fact for which there is no evidence? Isn't the Watchtower afraid that its claim contradicts even the words of Jesus? Does the Watchtower rightly accuse Christian churches, who do not object to the Name, as they regularly use the "Yahweh" accepted by the Jews, and even the form Jehovah in specialist literature, sermons, some Bible translations and hymn books, and who, not out of resentment against God and his name, but primarily to distance themselves from the teachings of the Watchtower and its separate Bible, were forced to avoid the variant name "Jehovah"?
The written revelation has been preserved by God's providence; through the many hundreds of preserved copies, thousands of fragments, references, and ancient translations, the sacred text could be completely reconstructed except for a few disputed details. The internationally accepted Hebrew and Greek texts: Biblia Hebraica, Novum Testamentum Graece (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart), The Greek New Testament (United Bible Societies, New York).
The New Testament writers (except for Luke), who were native Aramaic speakers, did not use the Hebrew letter YHWH, nor did they try to reproduce its Greek phonetics. In quotes from the Old Testament, they always translated YHWH as "the Lord" (kyrios). They referred to Jesus with the same word: "the Lord" (kyrios), and even to the Holy Spirit (e.g. 2Cor 3:17). In the New Testament there is no rule or indication that the kyrios would have a different meaning specifically for YHWH, and another one specifically for Jesus.
Based on the above facts, we only have three possibilities by the method of exclusion:
- if the authors of the New Testament had not paid attention to the fact that the reader could confuse YHWH with Jesus, they would have written with a degree of irresponsibility that would fundamentally question the inspiration and sanctity of their writings;
- if the aim of the authors of the New Testament had been deliberate deception, then we could forget the whole issue
- if the authors of the New Testament wrote consciously and carefully, and had no intention of deceiving others, then based on the facts, it is logical to conclude that they also professed the deity of Jesus.
The WTS presents its own assumption as fact. No one can know what or all that was used in the 1st century. As for Jesus, he knew Hebrew and likely read from the Hebrew scrolls in the synagogues of Palestine, not from the LXX.
According to linguistic research, the Apostles mostly quoted from the Hebrew originals of the Hebrew Scriptures, rarely from the LXX's Old Greek versions, and probably often quoted from memory. The appendix of The Greek New Testament (United Bible Sociates, New York, 4th edition, 1993) lists all Old Testament quotations and allusions, separately marking those taken from the Septuagint with LXX. As I counted, only 62 out of 309 quotes come from the LXX, and only 41 out of about 1200 references. The ratio of quotes and references taken from the Hebrew text and its Greek translation (LXX) is fifteen to one!
Undoubtedly, some copies of the LXX that contained the Name survived even after the 1st century. The WTS itself mentions the 2nd-century (converted to Judaism) Aquila LXX edition, and the 4-5th-century publication by Jerome (Hieronymus), who still saw such copies. However, it is a question why there is not a single fragment or at least a reference to the Tetragrammaton being included in the Christian Greek Scriptures, contrary to the LXX. Why is there no historical data about anyone ever seeing such a thing?
If Jesus had pronounced the Name (the third word of Isaiah 61:1) in the synagogue, the Jews would have immediately reproached him, who, according to the WTS, never uttered the Name out of "superstitious" fear. Instead, they listened to him and only became upset when Jesus claimed that the text he read was being fulfilled right there, in him.
Jesus taught differently from the scribes, not because he freely pronounced the name, but because he taught with authority [exousia] during the Sermon on the Mount. While the rabbis could only refer to the Scripture or to some other famous rabbis, Jesus taught with his own authority: "You have heard that it was said… But I say to you…" (cf. Jn 6:45). Such a sermon ended with Mt 7:28-29.
Jesus' disciples knew God's YHWH name: they knew how to write and pronounce it, as the people could hear it year by year from the mouth of the high priest who presented the sacrifices. Jesus did not make his disciples acquainted with God's name in the sense that he had to betray a sequence of sounds, and there is no biblical data that he would have encouraged them to use the name freely. To "make someone known by name" means to introduce someone personally or to present someone's personality. Thus, Jesus introduced God's essence, personality to his people who had distanced themselves from God (cf. Jn 1:18).
Few Jehovah's Witnesses can look up the Greek base text used, although the Society published it in 1985. Even it does not contain the divine name!!! The Watchtower Society refers to so-called 'J sources'. The problem is that the 'J sources' are all late (1385–1979) translations, not copies made from the Greek text.
The evidence that the organization has brought up over the years in favor of this characteristic of the translation has all been refuted. The July 15, 2001 issue of The Watchtower came up with a new "proof" that quickly turns out to be, to put it mildly, misleading.
The article starting on page 29 deals with Origen. On page 31, there is a picture showing a part of Origen's work Hexapla, with the Greek transcription of YHWH circled. The explanatory text next to the picture says:
"Origen's work titled Hexapla proves that the name of God was used in the Christian Greek Scriptures."
The article no longer makes this claim, only that the Hexapla contains the name of God and this is the proof that the Christians used the name Jehovah.
A research-minded Witness might be satisfied with this and be reassured that something still confirms the Governing Body's position. Is this really the case?
The magazine itself provides the answer on page 30, where it honestly acknowledges what the Hexapla is. It writes, "The Hexapla is a large fifty-volume edition of the Hebrew Scriptures." So, it is an OLD TESTAMENT! Nobody disputes that the name Jehovah has a place in the Old Testament. But the fact that the Old Testament and its translations use the name Jehovah does not prove that it was also in the New Testament. Therefore, the caption on page 31 is highly misleading and does not reflect reality.
The J-sources
What are these so-called J-sources? Several in-house Witnesses asked us. This was partly our fault because we used a designation that the Witnesses do not know. Therefore, we owe an explanation. To prepare a translation, texts are needed on which we base the translation into a given language. These are the sources we use. There are several thousand manuscripts available for the New Testament. These texts had to be distinguished from each other. Therefore, each of these usable source materials received an individual code with a combination of a letter and a number. The earliest material in time, for example, is P52, made in AD 125. Each papyrus manuscript received a P sign. The book mentions the New Testaments translated into Hebrew. The Watchtower Society (but not others!) refers to these with a J letter.
What's wrong with these J-marked sources? The P-marked sources were created between AD 100 and 300 (these are copies of copies made from the original writings and their copies, etc.). The Hebrew alef-marked Codex Sinaiticus is also from the 4th century AD. The A-marked Codex Alexandrinus is from the 5th century AD, etc. What are the J sources? New Testament translated into Hebrew. So these are not copies, but translations, which is a significant difference. Translations are generally less accurate (more distorted) than copies. It is generally not professional to justify a translation process with another translation when talking about deviation from the copies! It's like justifying my wrong action with someone else's wrong action.
Another big mistake is that the copies marked with P, Hebrew alef, A, B, C, and D are fairly early. The time gap between them and the original Writings is between 25 and a few hundred years. The reader may smile at a few hundred years. But do they know how many years are between the translations marked with the letter J and the original Writings? The Society lists 27 such translations. The earliest translation is from 1385 (distance 1287 years), the latest is from 1981 (distance 1883 years); so a few hundred years really is a trifle compared to this.
But why is this important? Because the J sources are the most fundamental from the point of view of the NWT. Only these use the divine name. Not a single copy, only these translations! We think it is understandable how significant this is. The New World Translation reference version lists these translations in detail.
At first glance, it may not be striking, but the age of the so-called "J" sources is of great significance. According to the information found in KIT and NWT,
- the earliest "J" labeled Hebrew translation, "J2" (containing the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew), dates from 1385 AD, thus from the 14th century, the Middle Ages;
- the most frequently quoted Hebrew translation, "J7" (the entire New Testament in Hebrew), is from 1599 AD, on the threshold of the new era;
- the most recent is the 1979 "J22" (also a complete translation).
In contrast, it is a well-known fact that the earliest Greek manuscripts in our possession, which contain the words "kyrios" and "theos", were copied only about 30 years after John wrote the Book of Revelation. The earliest Hebrew translation brought up to substantiate the use of "Jehovah" in the New Testament was thus created at least 1300 years later than the Greek copies! In rendering the text, the Society attributes greater authority to 14th-century and later Hebrew translations than to 2nd-5th century Greek copies. On what basis?The Watchtower Society essentially argues in favor of the NWT by saying that the Tetragrammaton appears in such Hebrew translations that were made from the well-known Greek text which does not even contain the Tetragrammaton! After this, several questions arise:
- The Society does not consider the existing Greek text (Westcott-Hort, 1881), which it also uses, to be intact because, according to its theory, Christians of the 2nd-3rd centuries erased the divine name from it. So, did Jesus and the apostles not tell the truth? (Matthew 24:35, 1 Peter 1:25)
- In the text's translation, the Society attributes greater authority to Hebrew translations from the 14th century and even later than to the Greek copies from the 2nd-5th centuries. On what basis?
- The word "kyrios" ("Lord") appears 714 times in the Greek text; the NWT replaces this 224 times with "Jehovah". The question is, why did it do this in exactly these 224 cases and why not in the other 490 cases?
- The word "theos" ("God") appears 1318 times in the Greek text; the NWT replaces this 13 times with "Jehovah". The question is, why did it do this in exactly these 13 cases and why not in the other 1305 cases?
- Although 82 out of the 237 cases involve quotes from Hebrew texts that contained the Tetragrammaton, what justifies the other 155 cases? What does not justify the rest? Do you think the "J" sources can substantiate the replacement of the words "Lord" and "God" with "Jehovah"?
The Society treats Professor Howard's theory similarly to its own as a fact ("historical fact"), or presents it misleadingly as a statement ("used the tetragrammaton"). Howard's theory remained what it was in professional circles: a hypothesis, an unproven assumption. Regarding the Talmudic passage, Howard also only hypothesized, and did not claim that these were Jewish-Christian texts.
This theory of Howard's also remained what it was: a hypothesis. Moreover, Howard at least inaccurately provided the title of the Talmud quotation: "Talmud Shabbat 13,5" simply does not exist. According to Ezra Bick, an Israeli Talmud scholar, the most probable place for the text is Shabbat 116a. The Society claims that the word here "minim" (heretics) refers to Christians, but in reality, we can guess among three possibilities. The "minim" or heretics refers to Jews (according to Bick's opinion), or to Christians (according to the Society), or to Judaizing Christians, who were also considered heretics by the early Christian church (e.g., the Ebionites).
stan livedeath

end of part one.
aqwsed12345

The writings of the Watchtower consistently muddle the legitimate demand to indicate in the translations at the appropriate places in the Old Testament that it is Yahweh or Jehovah - and your demand, plucked from thin air, to attempt this also in the New Testament, at the two hundred or so places they determined, despite the fact that here, the faintest semblance of manuscript and historical evidence is entirely lacking.
These insertions are labeled as "easier to understand" only by the Watchtower. In reality, it's a sectarian stamp: the branding iron, fired up by the "discreet slave" and pressed on the body of their congregation, of the desire to be different at all costs. The brazen disregard of the Greek text we have at hand. Double standards. Because they do the same thing as the "great harlot" they condemn, while they, in principle, are willing to renounce their custom and issue many translations abundant in the name Jehovah / Yahweh, the Watchtower is not willing to do the opposite.
The fact that the New Testament refers to the Old Testament at certain places does not turn into a fact, a text, a data, their underlying assumption that in the original, apostolic-evangelistic text YHWH stood there. And yet, they say in their writings (although they can no longer defend it in a factual debate), that the apostate copyists left out the Name etc. But they cannot produce a single New Testament manuscript that would support them here. The hypothesis of the "apostate copyists" is good for everything and good for nothing. With this method, they could even prove that reincarnation was in the Bible, only those pesky apostate copyists left it out.
Don't forget: the New Testament writers often quote the Septuagint, not the Masoretic Hebrew text. And despite the few manuscripts they have unearthed, the Septuagint contains a tendency (and not just on the side, but as a mainstream, and well before the writing of the New Testament), to represent the name YHWH with the word Lord. JWs can argue with this tendency, and qualify its cause as superstitious - but it seems, the New Testament authors did not consider it superstitious or offensive to God, because whenever they quote the Old Testament, they do not transcribe the tetragrammaton with Greek letters, but call it Lord. In this regard, therefore, they approved the Jewish custom they call superstitious. And at least in this, they testify against them that the name YHWH would be so important and indispensable in the New Testament that without its proclamation, the church itself would collapse.
In response to the question that if it is allowed to rewrite the name YHWH in our translations of the Old Testament, then why aren't you allowed to "rewrite" it in the New Testament, I answer this: JWs are ignoring a very important aspect. We are free to consistently write out the name YHYH as Yahweh or Jehovah in our translations (like J. N. Darby), and the mainstream churches don't bite the head off of anyone who might circumlocute the Name out of excessive fear due to the "do not take in vain" commandment or for some other reason (e.g. because they don't want to pronounce it incorrectly). Therefore, we have freedom: the (non)pronunciation, the (non)translation of the name YHWH is not a matter of faith for us. Moreover, newer translations also distinguish between Lord (Adonai) and LORD (YHWH), so anyone who wishes can reconstruct the original for themselves by looking through the usual substitution. This is what many Bible translations do.
You cannot use our freedom to justify how they falsify the New Testament Greek manuscripts, which deal with the Tetragrammaton in a similarly cool manner and translate it as freely into Lord as we do. Moreover, JWs blaspheme as apostate everyone who removed the name YHWH from both covenant documents. But it has become certain that this accusation of them first hits the apostles. For if they had taken it as a matter of faith, as they do, they would have avoided the Septuagint like the plague.
No one said "YHWH is not the name of God." Just that it is not the only name of God, and not an indispensable name for him. Learn to understand their opponents' statements in the sense they represent, and do not project onto their place some concocted, albeit obviously easier to attack, nonsense. And do not expect me to defend this nonsense on behalf of everyone. No: here their schizoid, either-or logic has misled them, which shouts into their ear that God can only have one true and indispensable name (YHWH), and whoever denies this also denies that YHWH is the name of God.
Has God changed? The answer is a definite no. God did not change either when he said that his name YHWH was not yet known to the patriarchs. Nor did he start to change when he declared himself in Jesus as the Father (as the Father of Jesus Christ and our Father). This would lead to another thread of argument, so I will not elaborate further here.
The ancient Israelites lived in a polytheistic, pagan environment and were, in some respects, a rather undeveloped civilization. In such an environment, monotheism was a revolutionary idea on the one hand, and on the other hand, they were constantly exposed to the constant temptation from paganism. In fact, as we know, the common Israelites often fell into the sin of idolatry. (This also shows that the common man was never a high-level theologian in any era, and it would be pointless to ever expect this.) The role, meaning, purpose, and significance of the name "I AM" (Yahweh) can only be understood in this environment. But why?
For an ancient common man, for whom the existence of multiple gods was as evident as the cellphone is for us today, if you had been living in the Near East during the Egyptian captivity, it would have been evident to you that every nation has its own god, with its temples and priests. People talk about it, sacrifice animals to it, etc. No one questioned its existence. The various nations didn't say that our "gods" exist and yours are the products of religious fantasy and mythology, but rather said things like our gods are stronger than yours. In such an environment, saying that these so-called gods do not exist at all would have caused considerable confusion. "What, Osiris doesn't exist? But there is his temple, my neighbor regularly sacrifices to him, how could he not exist?". And God chose a brilliant way in the cultural environment to communicate the basic religious truth about Himself to His chosen people.
Because whenever a Jew pronounced the word God as YAHWEH, they thereby professed that He alone is "The One Who IS" (therefore, other "gods" do not exist). The name YAHWEH clearly refers to God as the absolute being, whose real characteristic and essence is that He IS, He exists: He is the Eternal. Compared to Him, other deities are nothing, non-existent, see Is. 42,8. When God in the Bible emphatically declared several times, "I am Yahweh", He essentially said, "understand that I alone am the existing God, no other god exists besides me". Therefore, this Name had a pedagogical aim and role, somewhat like telling a small child that the "name" of the plug is "Don'tStickYourFingerInIt". It is perfectly clear that this "name" is not a name in the sense of, say, Carl, but serves the purpose of reminding the person, when recalling this "name", of the most important thing they should think of first in relation to this matter. So the purpose of the name Yahweh was to remind Jews in a fundamentally polytheistic environment that their God is the only true God, they can only believe in Him, only worship Him, etc. - while the many "gods" of other peoples do not actually exist.
The Holy Tetragrammaton is both a revelation and a rejection of the Name. The essence of God, His existence, is fundamentally different from this world, so we cannot "essentially" know God - we can only say, "what is not He".
From this it follows that the name YAHWEH fulfilled its role when monotheism was still on weak legs - even among Jews! - , when the religious development of the Israelite people was not high. God, therefore, in this matter as well, gradually led the people carrying the revelation to a higher religious standpoint. He did not anticipate the normal intellectual development as a Deus ex machina, but involved his revelations in its individual phases. Therefore, the naming of God as Yahweh is an early stage of the development of monotheism.
From this it follows clearly that later, when monotheism was strong, the oneness of God had largely become evident to the Jews, there was no longer a need for this "crutch" for God. Just as the side wheels are only needed on a bicycle until the child is too small to balance on two wheels, after which there is no longer a need for them. We will not perceive the removal of the side wheels as a negative or a lack, on the contrary. The same was true here.
This is confirmed by the fact that the name Yahweh fell out of common use. We all know that God punished the Jewish people by sending them into Babylonian captivity. Well, this punishment was quite effective, as we all know how effective a religious reform Ezra carried out among the Israelites who returned to their land. His basic act was regular Torah study, so the "theological" knowledge of the average people also increased a lot. Monotheism was no longer questionable, other kinds of "dangers" (such as those later condemned by Jesus among the hair-splitting, Pharisaic interpretations of the Torah) were of course threatening, but that is another story.
There was no longer a need for the name Yahweh to maintain monotheism, so when God providentially led his people to a new level, there was not only no longer a need for any nominator, but it was specifically a hindrance - just as the side wheels used to learn to ride a child's bike can later function as a hindrance. God's Providence is ultimately behind the Name's exclusion from common use.
The ancient gods could be invoked at any time by their names. Hence, the knowledge of a god's name in some sense encompassed the belief that a human could possess its power, or in some sense rule over it. In this sense, the Name became a kind of speakable magic spell. Traces of this can be found in certain Semitic, Arab legends, where to use the power of the djinn, one must know its name. Although in the Bible the use of the Name YHWH is free from such misuse, nevertheless – if we tie God to a specific "Name" this in some sense carries the danger of the emergence of this phenomenon (even if it is not consciously functioning).
What are we talking about? The Name becomes objectified, which is treated as a kind of property. Like the medieval mystical Jewish rabbis who used the Tetragrammaton as a kind of magic spell. They wrote it on the golem, and it came to life. They can essentially misuse it as magical automatism and as a guarantee of salvation. Indeed, the use, the utterance of the word "Jehovah" does not guide anyone, and it does not cause any additional salvation, because the Bible does not aim for us to "use" the Tetragrammaton, a Hebrew word, zealously for salvation, like some magic key, but to know the person of God, to love him, and to become His children.
The Old Testament Jews gradually understood that there is no name, word, or phrase in human language that could describe the essence of God. "The divine is unnameable", says Theologian St. Gregory. "Not only does reason show this, but so do the oldest and wisest Jews. Those who respected the Divine by writing His name with special signs, and did not allow God's name and creatures to be written with the same letters... could they ever have dared to pronounce the Name of the indestructible and unique nature in a fleeting voice? Just as no one could ever take in all the air, so reason could not fully embrace, and words could not encompass the essence of God."
By not pronouncing the name of God, the old Jews showed that contact with God is possible not so much through words and expressions, but rather through devotion and humble silence. So the real reason is that this is a mystery, not because it's taboo. The reality of God surpasses the world. Compared to Him, we do not even exist. The pure linguistic version of the Holy Tetragrammaton was also used by other Semitic peoples, and by the Jews before Moses. However, this embodiment into a purely human word was a prefiguration of the embodiment into Jesus, just as the burning bush was a prefiguration of the transfiguration on Mount Tabor. If we deny the incarnation of Christ, this leads to the denial of the Holy Tetragrammaton. The "namers" just pronounce a generally used Semitic designation of divinity, moreover in the Latin reading (Jehovah => Latin reading of the Holy Tetragrammaton), so they just do what someone would do if they were scrutinizing the human nature of Jesus, which is possible, as he was truly human. However, they do not reach the essence of the Holy Tetragrammaton, only its "garment", and never pronounce it as heretics, because they cannot "possess" the knowledge of the Name, they can only defile it.
Since it is undeniable that the name YHWH does not appear in the existing manuscripts of the New Testament, except for the four Hallelujahs, only the transcription of Kyrios (Lord), what prevents us from keeping these in the New Testament translations? Precisely this entitles us to do so, if the New Testament writers (following the Septuagint) mentioned the names of Jeremiah and Jesus in Greek, why shouldn't we accept from their mouths the Greekization of the name YHWH to "Kyrios"? And it cannot be an argument against this that "apostate copyists left out the name YHWH from the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament," because 1. there is no evidence for this, 2. why couldn't anyone say about this that "then let's re-Hebraize the names of Jeremiah and Jesus in the New Testament!"?
I see the storm with which Jehovah's Witnesses force the name YHWH on the New Testament as quite novel and contrived. How the Septuagint and today's translations were handled, I do not consider a matter of salvation in any way, and I read Darby as gladly as King James. I don't know if this is laid down as a program for them, but I feel that they were the first to make this a matter of salvation. And if the debate has reached this point (that one party is accusing the other of heresy and apostasy on the basis (also) that it wants to translate the name YHWH as Kyrios, LORD, Eternal), then he who has so far considered his practice to be free and innocent is quite helpless if he wants to maintain it as a custom. Because we admit that among us this is not a law, not a question of salvation, and in principle can be changed at any time (of course, rewriting translations does not happen overnight, especially if there is no compelling reason) - but they are pressing us, and they blame us for everything because of this.
The question is how this writing of YHWH in the LXX (which was not universal among Jews either, as we know from various sources) could have made its way into the New Testament in such a way that not a single copy of it has survived. One of the Bodmer papyri (p66) contains the section Johnn 1:1-6:11, in its entirety, including for example Jn 1:23. According to WTS, the tetragram should be here. Well, this papyrus is from the 2nd century, and we hardly have longer New Testament sources from before that time. I haven't looked into what kind of textual witnesses are available for the places in question, but you already have to place the action of the "apostate copyists" team without gaps at a very early time.
Jesus declared: "I came in my Father's name." He also emphasized that what he does, he does "in his Father's name." - Indeed, and he did not say that he came in the name of Yahweh or Jehovah. This proves that the Father is not just a title, but also a name. (As is, I might add, the Son and the Holy Spirit, for in this triune name is baptism.)
"In the Greek Scriptures, God's name appears in abbreviated form. In Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6, God's name is part of the expressions "alleluia" or "hallelujah"." - According to this, those "apostate copyists" were not vigilant enough to root this out as well. These four examples rather weaken JW's case, because in a fixed liturgical formula it preserves the name Yah in the New Testament. Therefore, the copyists could not have been led by superstition or pagan prejudice, as JWs are prone to assume as a reason.
"Is the New World Translation the only translation in which God's name has been restored to its place in the Greek Scriptures? No" - In fact, it is not even "the only one," because there is no such translation. The ones they mention did not "restore" but, on a speculative basis, contrary to the evidence of the manuscripts, inserted the name Yahweh (Jehovah) into their translations. But this does not make JW's position more secure, but theirs more shaky. I am only reacting to one of the missing sources, but it is enough to prove their bad faith.
The Watchtower is sitting on the horns of a dilemma here. Because if that mass of Greek manuscripts, on which he is forced to base the authenticity of God's word in other respects, fell victim to the tendentious "apostate copyists" at this point, then what prevented them from forging whole doctrines into the Scripture elsewhere so that they uniformly appear in all surviving copies? And then WTS is forced to make itself the measure of authenticity not only in terms of the occurrence of the JHWH name in the New Testament, but also in many other textual and theological questions.
slimboyfat

You can read the argument in favour of the divine name in the original New Testament here:
http://www.areopage.net/howard.pdf
Notice that George Howard linked the removal of the divine name from the New Testament with the post-biblical conflation of Jesus with God, ultimately leading to the Trinity doctrine.
Modern scholars that argue for the divine name in the original New Testament are:
Gaston, L. (2006). Paul and the Torah. Wipf and Stock Publishers
Howard, G. (1977). The Tetragram and the New Testament. Journal of biblical literature, 96(1), 63-83.
McRay, J. (2008). Archaeology and the New Testament. Baker Academic.
Mussies, G. (2001). YHWH at Patmos: Rev 1: 4 in its Hellenistic and Early Jewish Setting (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.107).
Schottroff, L., & Janssen, C. (2021). 1 Corinthians. Kohlhammer Verlag
Shaw, F. (2014). The Earliest Non-Mystical Jewish Use of Iao. Contributions to biblical exegesis and theology, 70.
Trobisch, D. (2000). The First Edition of the New Testament. Oxford University Press
Vasileiadis, P. D. (2019). Jesus, the New Testament, and the Sacred Tetragrammaton. Synthesis, 8(1), 27-87.
aqwsed12345

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." (Matthew 24:35)
"The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” (1Peter 1:25)
"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book" (Revelation 22:18)
If we trust in the Lord's promise, then his word cannot be falsified without a trace, and consequently we must start from the fact that the surviving version is the revealed New Testament scripture itself without distortion. And nothing should be added to this based on all kinds of conspiracy theories, unproven speculation.
https://www.forananswer.org/Top_JW/tetra-appenD.pdf
https://www.bible.ca/jw-YHWH.htm
George Howard's theory has been rejected by most - if not all - modern Biblical and Textual scholars. In any case, his theory is that the New Testament authors retained the Tetragrammaton whenever they quoted verses from the Old Testament that contained it. His theory thus has no relevance to most of the 237 instances where the NWT translators inserted "Jehovah" into their "Christian Greek Scriptures."
Professor Howard wrote these letters that have been made public which clarify his position:
The University of Georgia
College of Arts & Sciences
June 5, 1989
Bob Hathaway
Capistrano Beach, CA 92624
Dear Mr. Hathaway:
My conclusions regarding the Tatragrammaton and the New Testament are:
1) the N.T. writers might have used the Tetragrammaton in their Old Testament quotations, and 2) it is possible (though less likely) that the Tetragrammaton was used in a few stereotype phrases such as "the angel of the Lord." Otherwise it probably was not used at all. I disagree with the Jehovah Witness translation that uses Jehovah many times. This goes beyond the evidence. I do not believe Jesus Christ is Jehovah. If the Jehovah Witnesses teach this (I’m not aware of most of their theology) they are off the mark.
Sincerely,
George Howard
Professor
The University of Georgia
January 9, 1990
Steven Butt
P.O. _____
Portland, ME 04104
Dear Mr. Butt:
Thank you for your letter of 3 January 1990. I have been distressed for sometime about the use the Jehovah’s Witnesses are making of my publications. My research does not support their denial of the deity of Christ. What I tried to show was that there is evidence that the Septuagint Bibles used by the writers of the New Testament contained the Hebrew Tetragrammaton. I argued that it is reasonable to assume that the NT writers, when quoting from the Septuagint, retained the Tetragrammaton in the quotations. This does not support the JW’s insertion of "Jehovah" in every place they want. To do this is to remove the NT from its original "theological climate." My opinion of the New World Translation (based on limited exposure) is that it is odd. I suspect that it is a Translation designed to support JW theology. Finally, my theory about the Tetragrammaton is just that, a theory. Some of my colleagues disagree with me (for example Albert Pietersma). Theories like mine are important to be set forth so that others can investigate their probability and implications. Until they are proven (and mine has not been proven) they should not be used as a surety for belief.
Sincerely,
George Howard
slimboyfat

George Howard, who claimed little familiarity with the NWT, seems to have been misled by the apparently myriad evangelicals and former JWs who pestered him in his later years. He says that his article supports the use of the divine name in direct questions from the OT, and in OT “stock phrases”, such as “angel of Jehovah” and “word of Jehovah”, but not the “many” times where NWT has used the divine name. In fact the majority of the 237 times the NWT uses the divine name are accounted for by quotations and OT “stock phrases”.
The letter to Mr Butt looks odd compared with George Howard’s statements elsewhere. His article itself pointed out that the first Christians did not view Jesus as God and that the identification of the two was a conclusion that later Christians arrived at by confusing the Lord God with the Lord Jesus. In another of the letters above, George Howard says he “does not believe that Jesus Christ is Jehovah” and he disagrees with JWs if this is what they teach. First of all, this shows he clearly knows nothing about JWs, or the NWT. Secondly, it contradicts the letter to “Mr Butt” where George Howard, a Jew by background as far a I know, so it is claimed, was concerned that JWs are using his work to deny the “deity of Christ”. This is an odd statement whichever way you look at it, and hard to reconcile with the rest of George Howard’s comments.
Other scholars who have supported the divine name in the original NT include David Trobisch, Lloyd Gaston, Luise Schottroff and John McRay. I think opponents of the NWT need to stop claiming that no other scholars have supported the idea and deal with the actual arguments they make.
There is no NT manuscript that is confidently dated to anywhere near the first century as one of the letters to George Howard claimed, and he pointed this out at the time. This has been emphasised by the later dating of most manuscripts in recent scholarship.
The point about God’s word not being suppressed can be viewed either way, because JWs obviously view the discovery of the LXX fragments in twentieth century as more than coincidental, and the mounting evidence for the divine name coinciding with gathering of ‘a people for his name’ as part of God’s purpose. If your argument is that God would not allow his name to be suppressed then their answer is that indeed he hasn’t.
aqwsed12345

slimboyfat
"In fact the majority of the 237 times the NWT uses the divine name are accounted for by quotations and OT “stock phrases”."
Wrong: The name Jehovah appears 237 times in the "Christian Greek Scriptures" of the NWT, of which 82 are quotes from the Old Testament that contain YHWH, but the other 155 cases were chosen completely arbitrarily. It's not "the majority", but only about a third.
"George Howard says he “does not believe that Jesus Christ is Jehovah”"
Since there is no God named "Jehovah", this is a medieval misreading, a serious Hebraist will not argue with it, and the WTS does not assert that this could have been the original pronunciation, only that it is "established" and "traditional". There is no /dʒ/ sound in Hebrew. It is ironic how much they can scold "traditions" in other cases.
I note that the position of the WTS is not very strong according to this, if without the New Testament being filled with "Jehovah", that is, in the absence of an unproven conspiracy of the "apostate copyists", based on the established text by existing Greek manuscripts, Jesus is just as much Lord (thus God) as the Father.
Here, the burden of proof would be on the Watchtower, which it obviously did not fulfill. The gathering "a people for his name", which simply means "people for him" (check: Raymond Franz - In Search of the Christian Freedom, chapter 14), did not begin in 1931 according to the New Testament (when the WTS adopted the name "Jehovah's witnesses"), but on the Pentecost of 33 AD, when the church was established. According to theim, God had no people for almost 1900 years then. The followers of Chirst were simply called Christians in the NT (Acts 11:26), and according to Ignatius of Antioch the Church was called καθολικός since the Apostolic Age.
Only a few marginal authors came up with such a theory (apparently every researcher wants to stand out with some revolutionary idea), and that too only as a definite hypothesis.
And yes, if the conspiracy assumed by WTS or Howard is true, then God's word has certainly been damaged, since to this day no authentic manuscript has been found that contains the New Testament message intact.
slimboyfat

If you read Howard’s article he clearly argues that Jesus and God are distinct in the New Testament. It’s a key part of his argument.
You have only counted the direct quotations, you have not counted the OT “stock phrases” as George Howard put it, of which there are many, especially in the book of Acts and the first two chapters of Luke.
aqwsed12345

Somehow he just wrote: "My research does not support their denial of the deity of Christ." and unproven theories "should not be used as a surety for belief", JWs still do this. So this was not a "restoration" of the "Divine Name", but an arbitrary solution with the lack of evidence. Have you read Raymond Franz argumenst about the "use" of the name?

"Jehovah" In The New Testament.

Share this