Papyrus 46, one of the oldest New Testament papyri
The name “Jehovah” comes from an English rendering of the Tetragrammaton—a name consisting of 4 letters (YHWH). This name appears more than 6000 times in the Hebrew Old Testament text. The Septuagint, a Greek version of the Old Testament, also contains the name.
However, no New Testament manuscript contains this name at all, not even when the writers quoted Old Testament passages where the Tetragrammaton appeared. Instead, the Greek text substitutes the words kyrios (Lord) or theos (God).
The Watchtower admits that no existing New Testament Greek manuscript contains the Tetragrammaton. On page 11 of its Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, it states, “One of the remarkable facts, not only about the extant manuscripts of the original Greek text, but of many versions, ancient and modern, is the absence of the divine name.”
Despite this, the Watchtower’s New World Translation inserts the name “Jehovah” into the New Testament 237 times. How do they justify this? Continue reading
I never try to talk Jehovah’s Witnesses out of calling God “Jehovah.” The problem is that the Watchtower claims that we must use that name and address him as “Jehovah” whenever we pray to him.
