• Loyally Advocating the Word of God
    The Watchtower—1982 | March 15

    • Loyally Advocating God’s Name

      21. How do most modern Bible versions take issue with God himself?

      21 However, a very serious way in which most modern versions fail to stick loyally to God’s Word is in their failure to do justice to God’s distinctive name Jehovah. It is represented in Hebrew by a four-letter word known as the Tetragrammaton. Proof that Jehovah God himself takes his personal name seriously can be seen from the fact that he inspired his Hebrew penmen to use it for a total of 6,961 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. (This includes the 134 times that the Hebrew scribes purposely left it out.)

      22, 23. (a) What shows it is wrong to translate God’s name by a common noun? (b) What honest appraisal does The Jerusalem Bible make of this? (c) According to some authorities, why is it preferable to use the name “Jehovah” rather than “Yahweh”?

      22 The fact is that the Creator is referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures more often by his distinctive name Jehovah than by all other designations put together. More than that, it simply does not make sense to translate a proper name, such as Jehovah, by a common noun such as Lord; no more than it would make sense to translate “Rolls Royce” (the name of the world’s most costly automobile) simply by the word “auto” or “car,” when there are so many other autos or cars. The Jerusalem Bible, though preferring “Yahweh” to “Jehovah,” makes a strong point for using it instead of “Lord.” The preface of that translation states: “To say, ‘The Lord is God’ is surely a tautology [a needless repetition], as to say ‘Yahweh is God’ is not.”

      23 Then should “Yahweh” be used instead of “Jehovah”? Not necessarily so. According to Canon D. D. Williams of Cambridge, the “evidence indicates, nay almost proves, that Yahweh was not the true pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton.” The Biblia Hebraica, published in Stuttgart in 1951, vowel points the Tetragrammaton to read “Yeh·wahʹ.” This edition was used by the New World Bible Translation Committee. Tübingen professor Gustav Oehler states: “From this point onward I use the word Jehovah, because, as a matter of fact, this name has become more naturalized in our vocabulary, and cannot be supplanted.” The Bible translator Rotherham, in his Emphasized Bible, was among the first to use the form “Yahweh.” However, in his Studies in the Psalms, first published after his death, he returned to the form “Jehovah,” stating he did so because of “the desirability to keep in touch with the public eye and ear.”

      “Jehovah” in the Christian Greek Scriptures

      24. (a) How many times does the New World Translation use Jehovah’s name in the Christian Greek Scriptures? (b) What are some examples of earlier translations doing the same?

      24 But what about the use of “Jehovah” in the so-called New Testament, the Christian Greek Scriptures? In the New World Translation it appears 237 times. While this may seem to be most unusual, this translation is by no means the first to use this name in this part of the Bible. Its use goes back at least as far as 1796, when German translator Brentano used the form “Jehovah” at Mark 12:29. There is also the Emphatic Diaglott, an interlinear translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, first published in 1864. Repeatedly it uses “Jehovah” in its quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures where this name appears, for a total of 18 times. For example, see Matthew 22:37, 44; Mark 12:29, 30; Luke 20:42.

      25. (a) What recent evidence indicates that God’s name appeared in the original text of the Greek Scriptures? (b) What dual change apparently took place in the second century C.E.?

      25 The reason that it seems most unusual for the name “Jehovah” to appear in the Christian Greek Scriptures is that, for centuries, it was thought that this name did not appear in the Septuagint Version of the Hebrew Scriptures used by Jesus and his apostles. But more recent discoveries definitely prove that the Tetragrammaton did appear in the Septuagint in those times. Thus Professor Howard of the University of Georgia states: “We know for a fact that Greek-speaking Jews continued to write [the Tetragrammaton] within their Greek Scriptures. Moreover, it is most unlikely that early conservative Greek-speaking Jewish Christians varied from this practice. . . . It would have been extremely unusual for them to have dismissed the Tetragram from the biblical text itself.” So he concludes: “Since the Tetragram was still written in the copies of the Greek Bible which made up the Scriptures of the early church, it is reasonable to believe that the N[ew] T[estament] writers, when quoting from Scripture, preserved the Tetragram within the biblical text. On the analogy of pre-Christian Jewish practice we can imagine that the NT text incorporated the Tetragram into its OT quotations.” Professor Howard also notes that when the Tetragrammaton was removed from the Septuagint it was also removed from the quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures appearing in the Christian Greek Scriptures. This change evidently took place at the beginning of the second century C.E. There is no question that the name Jehovah does belong in the Christian Greek Scriptures, as we find it in the New World Translation.

      26. What precedents does the New World Translation have for its extended use of the Name?

      26 The New World Translation also uses the name “Jehovah” in addition to where the name appears in quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures. Why? So as to help the reader to know whether Jehovah God or Jesus Christ is referred to when “Lord” (Kyrios) appears in the Greek text. Is there any good precedent for doing so? Yes, for in some 20 Hebrew versions of the Greek Scriptures we find this to be the practice. Also, there are many missionary translations of the Christian Greek Scriptures that do the same. For example, one of the earliest translations of the Christian Greek Scriptures into Japanese freely uses the name “Ehoba” (Jehovah).

      27. Regardless of what, and because of what, should loyal servants of God make full use of the New World Translation?

      27 Regardless of whether Hebrew and Greek scholars of Christendom praise or criticize the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, the fact remains that it was produced by men who loyally adhered to God’s Word. It is indeed a great help in ‘making us wise for salvation and in aiding us to be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.’ (2 Timothy 3:15-17) May all of us who have this fine translation available in our language be blessed in using it to the full.