LIST OF 99 LANGUAGES THAT USE A VERNACULAR FORM OF THE TETRAGRAMMATON IN THE NEW TESTAMENT CHIHOWA: Choctaw IÁHVE: Portuguese IEHOUA: Mer IEHOVA: Gilbertese; Hawaiian; Hiri Motu; Kerewo; Kiwai; Marquesas; Motu; Panaieti (Misima); Rarotongan; Tahitian; Toaripi IEHOVAN: Saibai IEOVA: Kuanua; Wedau IHOVA: Aneityum IHVH: French IOVA: Malekula (Kuliviu); Malekula (Pangkumu); Malekula (Uripiv) JAHOWA: Batak-Toba JAHUÈ: Chacobo JAKWE: (Ki)Sukuma JAHVE: Hungarian JEHOBA: Kipsigis; Mentawai JEHOFA: Tswana JEHOVA: Croatian; German; Kélé (Gabon); Lele (Manus Island); Nandi; Nauruan; Nukuoro JEHOVÁ: Spanish JEHÔVA: Fang; Tsimihety JEHOVAH: Dutch; Efik; English; Kalenjin; Malagasy; Narrinyeri; Ojibwa JEOVA: Kusaie (Kosraean) JIHOVA: Naga (Angami); Naga (Konyak); Naga (Lotha); Naga (Mao); Naga (Ntenyi); Naga (Sangtam); Rotuman JIOUA: Mortlock JIOVA: Fijian JIWHEYẸWHE: Gu (Alada) SIHOVA: Tongan UYEHOVA: Zulu YAHOWA: Thai YAHVE: Ila YAVE: Kongo YAWE: Bobangi; Bolia; Dholuo; Lingala; Mongo (Lolo); (Lo)Ngandu; (Lo)Ntumba; (Ke)Sengele YEHÓA: Awabakal YEHOFA: Southern Sotho YEHOVA: Chokwe; Chuana (Tlapi); (Ki)Kalanga; Logo; Luba; Lugbara; (Chi)Luimbi; (Chi)Lunda (Ndembu); (Chi)Luvale; Santo (Hog Harbor); Tiv; Umbundu; (Isi)Xhosa YEHOVAH: Bube; Mohawk; Nguna (Efate); Nguna (Tongoa) YEHOWA: Ga; Laotian; (Ki)Songe; Tshiluba YEKOVA: Zande YEOBA: Kuba (Inkongo) YEOHOWA: Korean YHWH: Hebrew YOWO: Lomwe ZAHOVA: Chin (Haka-Lai) Identifying the Only True God ALMOST as long as humans have existed, they have had many gods. There have been so many that it is difficult to put an accurate figure on the number of gods and goddesses worshiped throughout the earth—but it runs into the millions. Having established that there is a God, we now ask, Which of all the gods worshiped throughout the earth, now and in the past, is the true God? That there is only one true God who can be identified as such is clearly stated in the Bible at John 17:3: “This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.” An Identifying Name It would be reasonable that any god who has personality would need a personal name to distinguish him from other gods with names of their own. It would preferably be a name designated by the god himself, rather than a name coined by his worshipers. In this regard, however, a very puzzling fact emerges. While most well-established religions ascribe personal names to their gods, Jews and mainstream churches of Christendom have failed to identify by a distinctive personal name the god that they worship. Instead, they resort to such titles as Lord, God, Almighty, and Father. Writing in the publication Theology, author David Clines stated the following: “Somewhere between the fifth and the second centuries B.C. a tragic accident befell God: he lost his name. More exactly, Jews gave up using God’s personal name Yahweh, and began to refer to Yahweh by various periphrases: God, the Lord, the Name, the Holy One, the Presence, even the Place. Even where Yahweh was written in the Biblical text, readers pronounced the name as Adonai. With the final fall of the temple, even the rare liturgical occasions when the name was used ceased, and even the knowledge of the pronunciation of the name was forgotten.” However, no one can say for sure exactly when orthodox Jews ceased to pronounce God’s name out loud and instead substituted the Hebrew words for God and Sovereign Lord. It seems, then, that the very first essential in any quest to identify “the only true God” would be to get to know him by name. Such a search is not at all difficult, for the name of Almighty God, the Creator, is clearly and simply stated at Psalm 83:18: “That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.”—King James Version. Jehovah or Yahweh? Whereas the name Jehovah appears in the King James Version and other Bible translations, some prefer to use the name Yahweh instead of Jehovah. Which name is correct? The most ancient Bible manuscripts were written in the Hebrew language. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the divine name occurs almost 7,000 times and is spelled with four consonants—YHWH or JHVH. These four-consonant words are commonly called the Tetragrammaton, or Tetragram, derived from two Greek words meaning “four letters.” Now the question of accurate pronunciation arises because early Hebrew writing consisted of consonants with no vowels to guide the reader. So whether the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton becomes Yahweh or Jehovah depends on which vowels the reader supplies to the four consonants. Today many Hebrew scholars prefer Yahweh as the true pronunciation. However, consistency favors Jehovah. In what way? The pronunciation Jehovah has been accepted in English for centuries. Those who object to using this pronunciation should also object to the use of the accepted pronunciation Jeremiah and even Jesus. Jeremiah would need to be changed to Yir·meyah′ or Yir·meya′hu, the original Hebrew pronunciations, and Jesus would become Ye·shu′aʽ (Hebrew) or I·e·sous′ (Greek). Hence, many Bible students, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, feel that consistency favors the use of the already well-known English-language “Jehovah” and its equivalent in other languages. Does It Really Matter? Some may argue that it does not really matter whether you address Almighty God by a personal name or not, and they are content to speak of and address God as Father or simply as God. Both these terms, however, are titles rather than names and are neither personal nor distinctive. In Bible times the word for God (ʼElo·him′, Hebrew) was used to describe any god—even the pagan Philistine god named Dagon. (Judges 16:23, 24) So for a Hebrew to tell a Philistine that he, the Hebrew, worshiped “God” would not have identified the true God whom he worshiped. Of interest is a comment in The Imperial Bible-Dictionary of 1874: “[Jehovah] is everywhere a proper name, denoting the personal God and him only; whereas Elohim partakes more of the character of a common noun, denoting usually, indeed, but not necessarily nor uniformly, the Supreme. . . . The Hebrew may say the Elohim, the true God, in opposition to all false gods; but he never says the Jehovah, for Jehovah is the name of the true God only. He says again and again my God . . . ; but never my Jehovah, for when he says my God, he means Jehovah. He speaks of the God of Israel, but never of the Jehovah of Israel, for there is no other Jehovah. He speaks of the living God, but never of the living Jehovah, for he cannot conceive of Jehovah as other than living.” Some persons are surprised to see God’s name in their Bible. This often is because their Bible is one that seldom uses God’s name. The King James Version, for example, uses the name “Jehovah” by itself only at Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18 and Isaiah 12:2 and 26:4. However, when this Bible translates God’s name by the title “Lord” or “God,” it always puts this title in capital letters, as “LORD” and “GOD,” which sets it apart from the common words “Lord” and “God.” Note this at Psalm 110:1. ‘But why,’ you may ask, ‘is God’s name not used in every place that it occurs in the original Bible text? Why are the titles LORD and GOD generally used in its place?’ In its preface the American Standard Version explains why it uses God’s name Jehovah, and why for a long time that name was not used: “The American Revisers, after a careful consideration, were brought to the unanimous conviction that a Jewish superstition, which regarded the Divine Name as too sacred to be uttered, ought no longer to dominate in the English or any other version . . . This personal name, with its wealth of sacred associations,is now restored to the place in the sacred text to which it has an unquestionable claim.” Yes, men who translated that Bible into English felt that the reasons why God’s name had been left out were not good. So they put it back into the Bible in its rightful places. Where is God’s name found in Bible translations that are commonly used today? The New English Bible: The name Jehovah appears at Exodus 3:15; 6:3. See also Genesis 22:14; Exodus 17:15; Judges 6:24; Ezekiel 48:35. (But if this and other translations use “Jehovah” in several places, why not be consistent in using it at every place where the Tetragrammaton appears in the Hebrew text?) Revised Standard Version: A footnote on Exodus 3:15 says: “The word LORD when spelled with capital letters, stands for the divine name, YHWH.” Today’s English Version: A footnote on Exodus 6:3 states: “THE LORD: . . . Where the Hebrew text has Yahweh, traditionally transliterated as Jehovah, this translation employs LORD with capital letters, following a usage which is widespread in English versions.” King James Version: The name Jehovah is found at Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; 26:4. See also Genesis 22:14; Exodus 17:15; Judges 6:24. American Standard Version: The name Jehovah is used consistently in the Hebrew Scriptures in this translation, beginning with Genesis 2:4. Douay Version: A footnote on Exodus 6:3 says: “My name Adonai. The name, which is in the Hebrew text, is that most proper name of God, which signifieth his eternal, self-existing being, (Exod. 3, 14,) which the Jews out of reverence never pronounce; but, instead of it, whenever it occurs in the Bible, they read Adonai, which signifies the Lord; and, therefore, they put the points or vowels, which belong to the name Adonai, to the four letters of that other ineffable name, Jod, He, Vau, He. Hence some moderns have framed the name of Jehovah, unknown to all the ancients, whether Jews or Christians; for the true pronunciation of the name, which is in the Hebrew text, by long disuse is now quite lost.” (It is interesting that The Catholic Encyclopedia [1913, Vol. VIII, p. 329] states: “Jehovah, the proper name of God in the Old Testament; hence the Jews called it the name by excellence, the great name, the only name.”) The Holy Bible translated by Ronald A. Knox: The name Yahweh is found in footnotes at Exodus 3:14 and 6:3. The New American Bible: A footnote on Exodus 3:14 favors the form “Yahweh,” but the name does not appear in the main text of the translation. In the Saint Joseph Edition, see also the appendix Bible Dictionary under “Lord” and “Yahweh.” The Jerusalem Bible: The Tetragrammaton is translated Yahweh, starting with its first occurrence, at Genesis 2:4. New World Translation: The name Jehovah is used in both the Hebrew and the Christian Greek Scriptures in this translation, appearing 7,210 times. An American Translation: At Exodus 3:15 and 6:3 the name Yahweh is used, followed by “the LORD” in brackets. The Bible in Living English, S. T. Byington: The name Jehovah is used throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. The ‘Holy Scriptures’ translated by J. N. Darby: The name Jehovah appears throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, also in many footnotes on Christian Greek Scripture texts, beginning with Matthew 1:20. The Emphatic Diaglott, Benjamin Wilson: The name Jehovah is found at Matthew 21:9 and in 17 other places in this translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures. The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text—A New Translation, Jewish Publication Society of America, Max Margolis editor-in-chief: At Exodus 6:3 the Hebrew Tetragrammaton appears in the English text. The Holy Bible translated by Robert Young: The name Jehovah is found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures in this literal translation. Christians and the Name NO ONE can say for sure exactly when orthodox Jews ceased to pronounce God’s name out loud and instead substituted the Hebrew words for God and Sovereign Lord. Some believe that God’s name passed out of everyday use well before Jesus’ time. But there is strong evidence that the high priest continued to pronounce it at religious services at the temple—particularly on the day of Atonement—right up until the temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. Hence, when Jesus was on earth, the pronunciation of the name was known, although perhaps it was not widely used. Why did the Jews cease to pronounce God’s name? Probably, at least in part, because of misapplying the words of the third commandment: “You must not take up the name of Jehovah your God in a worthless way.” (Exodus 20:7) Of course, this commandment did not prohibit the use of God’s name. Otherwise, why did God’s ancient servants such as David use it so freely and still enjoy Jehovah’s blessing? And why did God pronounce it to Moses and tell Moses to explain to the Israelites who it was that had sent him?—Psalm 18:1-3, 6, 13; Exodus 6:2-8. Nevertheless, by Jesus’ time there was a strong tendency to take the reasonable commands of God and interpret them in a highly unreasonable way. For example, the fourth of the Ten Commandments obligated the Jews to observe the seventh day of each week as a day of rest, a Sabbath. (Exodus 20:8-11) Orthodox Jews took that command to ridiculous lengths, making innumerable rules to govern even the smallest act that could or could not be done on the Sabbath. It was doubtless in the same spirit that they took a reasonable command, that God’s name must not be dishonored, to a most unreasonable extreme, saying that the name should not even be pronounced. Jesus and the Name Would Jesus have followed such an unscriptural tradition? Hardly! He certainly did not hold back from doing works of healing on the Sabbath, even though this meant breaking the man-made rules of the Jews and even risking his life. (Matthew 12:9-14) In fact, Jesus condemned the Pharisees as hypocrites because their traditions went beyond God’s inspired Word. (Matthew 15:1-9) Hence, it is unlikely that he would have held back from pronouncing God’s name, especially in view of the fact that his own name, Jesus, meant “Jehovah is Salvation.” On one occasion, Jesus stood up in a synagogue and read a portion of the scroll of Isaiah. The section he read was what we today call Isaiah 61:1, 2, where God’s name appears more than once. (Luke 4:16-21) Would he have refused to pronounce the divine name there, substituting “Lord” or “God”? Of course not. That would have meant following the unscriptural tradition of the Jewish religious leaders. Rather, we read: “He was teaching them as a person having authority, and not as their scribes.”—Matthew 7:29. In fact, as we learned earlier, he taught his followers to pray to God: “Let your name be sanctified.” (Matthew 6:9) And in prayer on the night before his execution, he said to his Father: “I have made your name manifest to the men you gave me out of the world . . . Holy Father, watch over them on account of your own name which you have given me.”—John 17:6, 11. Regarding these references by Jesus to God’s name, the book Der Name Gottes (The Name of God) explains, on page 76: “We must appreciate the astonishing fact that the traditional Old Testament understanding of God’s revelation is that it is a revelation of his name and that this is carried on through to the final parts of the Old Testament, yes, continues even into the last parts of the New Testament, where, for example at John 17:6, we read: ‘I have made your name manifest.’” Yes, it would be most unreasonable to think that Jesus held back from using God’s name, especially when he quoted from those portions of the Hebrew Scriptures that contained it. The Early Christians Did Jesus’ followers in the first century use God’s name? They had been commanded by Jesus to make disciples of people of all nations. (Matthew 28:19, 20) Many of the people to be preached to had no conception of the God who had revealed himself to the Jews by the name Jehovah. How would the Christians be able to identify the true God to them? Would it be enough to call him God or Lord? No. The nations had their own gods and lords. (1 Corinthians 8:5) How could the Christians have made a clear difference between the true God and the false ones? Only by using the true God’s name. Thus, the disciple James remarked during a conference of the elders at Jerusalem: “Symeon has related thoroughly how God for the first time turned his attention to the nations to take out of them a people for his name. And with this the words of the Prophets agree.” (Acts 15:14, 15) The apostle Peter, in his well-known speech at Pentecost, pointed out a vital part of the Christian message when he quoted the words of the prophet Joel: “Everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will get away safe.”—Joel 2:32; Acts 2:21. The apostle Paul leaves no doubt about the importance to him of God’s name. In his letter to the Romans, he quotes the same words by the prophet Joel and goes on to encourage fellow Christians to show their faith in that statement by going out to preach about God’s name to others in order that these, too, might be saved. (Romans 10:13-15) Later he wrote in his letter to Timothy: “Let everyone naming the name of Jehovah renounce unrighteousness.” (2 Timothy 2:19) At the end of the first century, the apostle John used the divine name in his writings. The expression “Hallelujah,” meaning “Praise Jah,” appears repeatedly in the book of Revelation.—Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6. However, Jesus and his followers had prophesied that an apostasy would occur in the Christian congregation. The apostle Peter had written: “There will also be false teachers among you.” (2 Peter 2:1; see also Matthew 13:36-43; Acts 20:29, 30; 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 John 2:18, 19.) These warnings were fulfilled. One result was that God’s name was pushed into the background. It even got removed from copies and translations of the Bible! Let us see how that happened. [Footnotes] Some suggest another reason: The Jews may have been influenced by Greek philosophy. For example, Philo, a Jewish philosopher of Alexandria who was approximately contemporary with Jesus, was greatly influenced by the Greek philosopher Plato, who he thought was divinely inspired. The Lexikon des Judentums (Lexicon of Judaism), under “Philo,” states that Philo “united the language and ideas of Greek philosophy (Plato) with the revealed faith of the Jews” and that to begin with he “had a visible effect upon the Christian church fathers.” Philo taught that God was indefinable and, hence, unnameable God’s Name and the “New Testament” THE position of God’s name is unshakable in the Hebrew Scriptures, the “Old Testament.” Although the Jews eventually stopped pronouncing it, their religious beliefs prevented them from removing the name when they made copies of older manuscripts of the Bible. Hence, the Hebrew Scriptures contain God’s name more often than any other name. With the Christian Greek Scriptures, the “New Testament,” the situation is different. Manuscripts of the book of Revelation (the last book of the Bible) have God’s name in its abbreviated form, “Jah,” (in the word “Hallelujah”). But apart from that, no ancient Greek manuscript that we possess today of the books from Matthew to Revelation contains God’s name in full. Does that mean that the name should not be there? That would be surprising in view of the fact that Jesus’ followers recognized the importance of God’s name, and Jesus taught us to pray for God’s name to be sanctified. So what happened? To understand this, remember that the manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures that we possess today are not the originals. The actual books written by Matthew, Luke and the other Bible writers were well used and quickly wore out. Hence, copies were made, and when those wore out, further copies were made of those copies. This is what we would expect, since the copies were usually made to be used, not preserved. There are thousands of copies of the Christian Greek Scriptures in existence today, but most of them were made during or after the fourth century of our Common Era. This suggests a possibility: Did something happen to the text of the Christian Greek Scriptures before the fourth century that resulted in the omission of God’s name? The facts prove that something did. The Name Was There We can be sure that the apostle Matthew included God’s name in his Gospel. Why? Because he wrote it originally in Hebrew. In the fourth century, Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate, reported: “Matthew, who is also Levi, and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language . . . Who translated it after that in Greek is not sufficiently ascertained. Moreover, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea.” Since Matthew wrote in Hebrew, it is inconceivable that he did not use God’s name, especially when quoting from parts of the “Old Testament” that contained the name. However, other writers of the second part of the Bible wrote for a worldwide audience in the international language of that time, Greek. Hence, they did not quote from the original Hebrew writings but from the Septuagint Greek version. And even Matthew’s Gospel was eventually translated into Greek. Would God’s name have appeared in these Greek writings? Well, some very old fragments of the Septuagint Version that actually existed in Jesus’ day have survived down to our day, and it is noteworthy that the personal name of God appeared in them. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Volume 2, page 512) says: “Recent textual discoveries cast doubt on the idea that the compilers of the LXX [Septuagint] translated the tetragrammaton YHWH by kyrios. The oldest LXX MSS (fragments) now available to us have the tetragrammaton written in Heb[rew] characters in the G[ree]k text. This custom was retained by later Jewish translators of the O[ld] T[estament] in the first centuries A.D.” Therefore, whether Jesus and his disciples read the Scriptures in Hebrew or Greek, they would come across the divine name. Thus, Professor George Howard, of the University of Georgia, U.S.A., made this comment: “When the Septuagint which the New Testament church used and quoted contained the Hebrew form of the divine name, the New Testament writers no doubt included the Tetragrammaton in their quotations.” (Biblical Archaeology Review, March 1978, page 14) What authority would they have had to do otherwise? God’s name remained in Greek translations of the “Old Testament” for a while longer. In the first half of the second century C.E., the Jewish proselyte Aquila made a new translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, and in this he represented God’s name by the Tetragrammaton in ancient Hebrew characters. In the third century, Origen wrote: “And in the most accurate manuscripts THE NAME occurs in Hebrew characters, yet not in today’s Hebrew [characters], but in the most ancient ones.” Even in the fourth century, Jerome writes in his prologue to the books of Samuel and Kings: “And we find the name of God, the Tetragrammaton [יהוה], in certain Greek volumes even to this day expressed in ancient letters.” The Removal of the Name By this time, however, the apostasy foretold by Jesus had taken shape, and the name, although appearing in manuscripts, was used less and less. (Matthew 13:24-30; Acts 20:29, 30) Eventually, many readers did not even recognize what it was and Jerome reports that in his time “certain ignorant ones, because of the similarity of the characters, when they would find [the Tetragrammaton] in Greek books, were accustomed to read ΠΙΠΙ.” In later copies of the Septuagint, God’s name was removed and words like “God” (The·os′) and “Lord” (Ky′ri·os) were substituted. We know that this happened because we have early fragments of the Septuagint where God’s name was included and later copies of those same parts of the Septuagint where God’s name has been removed. The same thing occurred in the “New Testament,” or Christian Greek Scriptures. Professor George Howard goes on to say: “When the Hebrew form for the divine name was eliminated in favor of Greek substitutes in the Septuagint, it was eliminated also from the New Testament quotations of the Septuagint. . . . Before long the divine name was lost to the Gentile church except insofar as it was reflected in the contracted surrogates or remembered by scholars.” Hence, while Jews refused to pronounce God’s name, the apostate Christian church managed to remove it completely from Greek language manuscripts of both parts of the Bible, as well as from other language versions. The Need for the Name Eventually, as we saw earlier, the name was restored to many translations of the Hebrew Scriptures. But what about the Greek Scriptures? Well, Bible translators and students came to realize that without God’s name, some parts of the Christian Greek Scriptures are very difficult to understand properly. Restoring the name is a big help in increasing the clarity and comprehensibility of this portion of the inspired Bible. For example, consider the words of Paul to the Romans, as they appear in the Authorized Version: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13) Whose name do we have to call on to be saved? Since Jesus is often spoken of as “Lord,” and one scripture even says: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” should we conclude that Paul was here speaking about Jesus?—Acts 16:31, Authorized Version. No, we should not. A marginal reference to Romans 10:13 in the Authorized Version points us to Joel 2:32 in the Hebrew Scriptures. If you check that reference, you will find that Paul was actually quoting the words of Joel in his letter to the Romans; and what Joel said in the original Hebrew was: “Everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will get away safe.” (New World Translation) Yes, Paul meant here that we should call on the name of Jehovah. Hence, while we have to believe in Jesus, our salvation is closely linked with a proper appreciation of God’s name. This example demonstrates how the removal of the name of God from the Greek Scriptures contributed to confusing Jesus and Jehovah in the minds of many. Undoubtedly, it contributed greatly to the development of the doctrine of the Trinity! Should the Name Be Restored? Would a translator have any right to restore the name, in view of the fact that existing manuscripts do not have it? Yes, he would have that right. Most Greek lexicons recognize that often the word “Lord” in the Bible refers to Jehovah. For example, in its section under the Greek word Ky′ri·os (“Lord”), Robinson’s A Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament (printed in 1859) says that it means “God as the Supreme Lord and sovereign of the universe, usually in Sept[uagint] for Heb[rew] יְהוָֹה Jehovah.” Hence, in places where the Christian Greek Scripture writers quote the earlier Hebrew Scriptures, the translator has the right to render the word Ky′ri·os as “Jehovah” wherever the divine name appeared in the Hebrew original. Many translators have done this. Starting at least from the 14th century, numerous Hebrew translations were made of the Christian Greek Scriptures. What did the translators do when they came to quotations from the “Old Testament” where God’s name appeared? Often, they felt forced to restore God’s name to the text. Many translations of parts or all of the Christian Greek Scriptures into Hebrew contain God’s name. Translations into modern languages, particularly those used by missionaries, have followed this example. Thus many African, Asian, American and Pacific-island language versions of the Greek Scriptures use the name Jehovah liberally, so that readers can clearly see the difference between the true God and the false ones. The name has appeared, too, in versions in European languages. One translation that boldly restores God’s name with good authority is the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures. This version, currently available in 11 modern languages, including English, has restored God’s name every time that a portion of the Hebrew Scriptures containing it is quoted in the Greek Scriptures. Altogether, the name appears with a sound basis 237 times in that translation of the Greek Scriptures. Opposition to the Name In spite of the efforts of many translators to restore God’s name in the Bible, there has always been religious pressure to eliminate it. The Jews, while leaving it in their Bibles, refused to pronounce it. Apostate Christians of the second and third centuries removed it when they made copies of Greek Bible manuscripts and left it out when they made translations of the Bible. Translators in modern times have removed it, even when they based their translations on the original Hebrew, where it appears almost 7,000 times. (It appears 6,973 times in the Hebrew text of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 1984 edition.) How does Jehovah view those who remove his name from the Bible? If you were an author, how would you feel about someone who went to great lengths to remove your name from the book you authored? Translators who object to the name, doing so on account of problems of pronunciation or because of Jewish tradition, might be compared to those who Jesus said “strain out the gnat but gulp down the camel!” (Matthew 23:24) They stumble over these smaller problems but end up creating a major problem—by removing the name of the greatest personage in the universe from the book that he inspired. The psalmist wrote: “How long, O God, will the adversary keep reproaching? Will the enemy keep treating your name with disrespect forever?”—Psalm 74:10. [Box on page 25] “The LORD”—Equivalent of “Jehovah”? To remove God’s distinctive personal name from the Bible and substitute a title such as “Lord” or “God” makes the text weak and inadequate in many ways. For example, it can lead to meaningless combinations of words. In its foreword, The Jerusalem Bible says: “To say, ‘The Lord is God’ is surely a tautology [a needless, or meaningless, repetition], as to say ‘Yahweh is God’ is not.” Such substitutions can also lead to awkward phrases. Thus in the Authorized Version, Psalm 8:9 reads: “O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!” What an improvement when the name Jehovah is restored to such a text! Thus, Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible reads here: “Jehovah, our Lord, how honourable Thy name in all the earth!” Removing the name can also lead to confusion. Psalm 110:1 says: “THE LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” (Authorized Version) Who is talking to whom? How much better the rendering: “The utterance of Jehovah to my Lord is: ‘Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet.’”—New World Translation. Additionally, substituting “Lord” for “Jehovah” removes something of pivotal importance from the Bible: the personal name of God. The Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Volume 1, page 572) states: “Strictly speaking, Yahweh is the only ‘name’ of God.” The Imperial Bible-Dictionary (Volume 1, page 856) describes the difference between “God” (Elohim) and “Jehovah,” stating: “[Jehovah] is everywhere a proper name, denoting the personal God and him only; whereas Elohim partakes more of the character of a common noun, denoting usually, indeed, but not necessarily nor uniformly, the Supreme.” J. A. Motyer, principal of Trinity College, England, adds: “Much is lost in Bible reading if we forget to look beyond the substitute word [Lord or God] to the personal, intimate name of God himself. By telling his people his name, God intended to reveal to them his inmost character.”—Eerdmans’ Handbook to the Bible, page 157. No, one cannot render a distinctive proper name by a mere title. A title can never convey the full, rich meaning of the original name of God.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 23:29:52 +0000
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