(Question #12) If the name Jehovah is so important, then why is it never used in the entire Greek New Testament? If men edited out the name of God, “YHWH,” when they copied the New Testament, as only the Watchtower organization claims, then how can we have any confidence in any of the New Testament? Should we discard the New Testament or the Watchtower organization as unreliable?

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That is really a false choice and betrays the questioner’s underlying bias.

The question ought to be rephrased, something along the lines of this: Since the sacred name of God appeared in the Hebrew Scriptures almost 7,000 times and is most prominent in the revered Ten Commandments, which explicitly warned against using the name of YHWH in a disrespectful way, why doesn’t YHWH appear in the so-called New Testament?

Or this: Because it is undeniable that God attached great importance to his holy name in the pre-Christian Scriptures, why doesn’t it appear at all in the New Testament? 

The mystery of God’s missing name is all the more intriguing given the fact that Jesus and his apostles quoted from the Hebrew text about 360 times and alluded to it a similar amount. Of the over 300 direct citations the YHWH appeared in dozens of places in the Hebrew. And there is also evidence that the YHWH appeared in early copies of the Septuagint, which was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that existed when Jesus was on earth.

For example, on one occasion when Jesus was attending a service in his local synagogue he requested to have the scroll of Isaiah. He unfurled it to the place where we call Isaiah 61:1 (the original Bible was not divided into chapter and verse) and he read the following: “The spirit of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah is upon me, because Jehovah anointed me to declare good news to the meek. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the wide opening of the eyes to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of Jehovah’s goodwill…”

Since Jesus once stated in prayer that he made his Father’s name known, and he taught his disciples to pray for the name of God to be sanctified, it is highly unlikely that Jesus would have substituted the title Adonai for YHWH when he publicly read the passage where his Father’s personal name appears.

That being the case, why doesn’t the Tetragrammaton appear in any Greek text in existence? The only reasonable answer is that men edited it out in later copies, a possibility the questioner dismisses. But since no original Greek manuscripts have yet been discovered, it cannot definitively be claimed that the Tetragrammaton did not appear in some places. 

But if that is why the name is missing, why would God allow it? Well, why does God allow modern translators to remove his name from the entire Bible, including the Hebrew text where it appears thousands of times? Keep in mind that it is the translators who have declared the name of God to be unimportant – not God himself. 

As for why God would permit it, could it be that God allows men to reveal their hatred of him? After all, what could be more disrespectful to God than rendering him nameless? 

What is more, since there is virtually nothing the mainstream denominations teach that is true, we would not be amiss in coming to the conclusion that God does not want his name associated with them.

For a fact, Jehovah only gives his name to those whom he recognizes as his people. For example, Isaiah 43:7 refers to those who are called by God’s name, saying:  “Everyone who is called by my name and whom I created for my own glory, whom I have formed and made.”

And, anyone with insight into the prophecies knows that God is not really speaking to fleshy Israel. The sons and daughters comprising “Israel” whom God repurchases are on the scene for the return of Christ. To verify that, Revelation reveals that those who are destined to be with Christ on heavenly Mount Zion have both the name of the Lamb and the name of his Father written upon their foreheads. (Revelation 14:1) In other words, the name of God and the name of Jesus are not the same. 

This fact also exposes the lie that Jehovah changed his name to Jesus.

So, because the masses of churchgoers refuse to recognize God’s personal name, some even despising it, they betray the fact that they are not God’s people.

Related article: Why Does the Watchtower Insert “Jehovah” into the New Testament? 

Note for video viewers: I intentionally blurred the video to compensate for the annoying pixelating that occurs when vertical lines are too close. I don’t wear stripped shirts any more when in front of a camera

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