The most successful teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses and an amazing new book on the divine name (page 8)

johnamos

Judging by the balderdash reply so far I realize that I should also state that the scriptures that I cited are not relevant to the points being shown. I only used those scriptures to show the use of the names found in them.

lemonjuice

Slimboyfat .

1)The strongest proponents of the name Jehovah who are Jehovah's Witnesses express serious doubts on whether Jehovah is the most accurate English pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton .

Check on the link here where it says that the most likely pronounciation of YHWH is Yahweh in Hebrew.

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200276306

You can also check Insight on the scriptures published by the WTS says the same thing.

2) Its amazing in view of the above that despite knowing that the pronounciation they use is not to correct they still insist on using it. They call themselves with a Name which is MIsleading everyone. For a religion that prides itself in emphasizing that its the only one having accurate knowledge of the Bible whereas all the others are false teachers and in the darkness regarding knowledge.

3) Its also strange that of the more then 5000 manuscripts- some stretching right up to the 2nd century -of the NT none display the Tetragrammaton.

Some sources reveal that there could have been up to 1 million chrisitians in the first century. Is it possible that with so many copies of the NT writings the Tetragrammaton was on purpose removed from people who had miraculous abilities?

If something as important as God's name was erased from the NT what other things could have been erased? How reliable then can we say those writings are? Was God so impotent to let this happen?

Too many questions come to mind.

Vanderhoven7

No need to wonder why God made His personal name unpronounceable, unknowable and never once found on the lips of Jesus or in any of the New Testament writings. Perhaps there is a more important name for people to know.

JeffT

Since I got out I've found it funny that the WTBS claims that God made sure the Bible was handed down to us accurately, therefore we can rely on it. Except that he was apparently unable to keep those nasty Catholic monks from deleting his own name. If that is so all fired important, why didn't he make sure it stayed there?

steve2

I have to say, based on this thread alone, that SBF remains perhaps my favorite poster. He doesn't play the game and articulates issues well - which is not to say I always agree with him. But he gets me thinking which I value.

Laika

Hi Slim, interesting (and provocative!) thread.

I am going to somewhat disagree, I have long thought that the Watchtower insistence on the use of the divine name is one of their weakest arguments, and I am surprised that it doesn't cause them bigger problems. This is because it creates a contradiction with another important Watchtower doctrine, one that they share with most evangelicals, that the bible is inerrant and the NT manuscripts are a reliable copy of the original writings of the apostles and other NT writers. Take as an example appendix A3 of the revised new world translation:

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/appendix-a/how-the-bible-came-to-us/

The Author and Originator of the Bible is also its Preserver. He is the One who caused this statement to be recorded:
“The word of our God endures forever.”—Isaiah 40:8.
That statement is true, even though no original Bible manuscript of the Hebrew and Aramaic Scriptures * or of the Christian Greek Scriptures has survived to our day.
...
How confident can we be that the thoughts contained in the original Bible texts have been accurately transmitted to us?...
Regarding the Christian Greek Scriptures, or so-called New Testament, Bible scholar F. F. Bruce wrote: “The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning.” He also said: “If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.”

However in appendix A5 they are forced to take the argument that the manuscripts are not as reliable as they have just claimed they are in order to defend their insertion of Jehovah into the NT of the NWT:

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/appendix-a/divine-name-christian-greek-scriptures/

Bible scholars acknowledge that God’s personal name, as represented by the Tetragrammaton (יהוה), appears almost 7,000 times in the original text of the Hebrew Scriptures. However, many feel that it did not appear in the original text of the Christian Greek Scriptures. For this reason, most modern English Bibles do not use the name Jehovah when translating the so-called New Testament. Even when translating quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures in which the Tetragrammaton appears, most translators use “Lord” rather than God’s personal name.
The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures does not follow this common practice. It uses the name Jehovah a total of 237 times in the Christian Greek Scriptures. In deciding to do this, the translators took into consideration two important factors: (1) The Greek manuscripts we possess today are not the originals. Of the thousands of copies in existence today, most were made at least two centuries after the originals were composed. (2) By that time, those copying the manuscripts either replaced the Tetragrammaton with Kyʹri·os, the Greek word for “Lord,” or they copied from manuscripts where this had already been done.

I am struggling to think how one can reconcile these two competing positions, and I wonder if you are aware that the Watchtower Society has ever made an attempt to do so? You ask:

However, for those who maintain the holy scriptures, it poses a number of deeper questions.

If evidence that the divine name was used in the original NT writings grows to become impossible to deny, this should raise deeper questions for both the JW and evangelical view of 'inerrancy' I.e what else in the manuscripts are incorrect, and on what basis can we claim nothing else has been copied incorrectly/changed from the originals. Though, given that the inconsistent JW position should already raise questions for them I don't suppose this will become much of an issue.

Edit: or, I suppose, what JeffT (more succinctly) said

Fisherman

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have to say, based on this thread alone, that SBF remains perhaps my favorite poster. He doesn't play the game and articulates issues well - which is not to say I always agree with him. But he gets me thinking which I value.

Same here Steve and I have also expressed on other threads how much I enjoy and respect his posts even when I don't agree with him. He is one of the best posters here and also a talented writer -as I have expressed before.

I have to say, based on this thread alone, that SBF remains perhaps my favorite poster. He doesn't play the game and articulates issues well - which is not to say I always agree with him.....steve2

I absolutely don`t agree with him on this thread.

However.

I enjoy a lot of what he posts on other subjects.

SBF thinks outside of the box and won`t be bullied.

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The most successful teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses and an amazing new book on the divine name

johnamos

lemonjuice

Vanderhoven7

JeffT

steve2

Laika

Fisherman

galaxie

steve2

OUTLAW

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