The name of God and the Trinity

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adriano

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I’m puzzled about the name of God in the bible. The Jehovah’s witnesses deny the Trinity because they say it is a man-made doctrine and they also say that my bible(NIV) is wrong because the name of God, Jehovah, has been replaced with Lord or God. They say their bible is true because the true name of God which is Jehovah is used throughout their bible. I thought they were wrong but I’ve done some research on the net and I found among other information that according to the Catholic Encyclopaedia, Jehovah occurs more frequently than any other divine name. It is found in the Old Testament 6000 times, either alone or in conjunction with another divine name.
I’d like to know why most of the bible translations don’t use the name Jehovah which seems to be the true name of God. Are most of the bibles wrong and are the Jehovah’s witnesses right? It seems that in many modern translations the name Jehovah disappears but in other older ones like The American Standard Version is still used. Any research, books or advise on these issues are more than welcome.
 
Adriano - a few ideas:
  • Today it is thought that the name “Yahweh” is the more accurate form of the Divine Name found in the Old Testament. Another word for the Divine Name is the “Tetragrammaton”, meaning “four letters”. The four Hebrew letters for the name translate out to the English letters YHWH. “Jehovah” is an older, more incorrect way to translate those letters - most scholars today think that "Yahweh " is more accurate.
  • Without any manuscript support, Jehovah’s Witnesses have put the name “Jehovah” over 200 times in the New Testament of their New World Translation. They have an explanation for this that is several pages long, but the bottom line is - there is NOT ONE ancient Greek manuscript of the New Testament that contains the Tetragrammaton. The reason why other Bibles do not contain “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” in the New Testament is simply because there is no manuscript evidence for it. The entire world has been turned upside down looking for manuscripts of the New Testament, and NOT ONE of them has the Tetragrammaton in it. The question must be asked - if God had wanted the Tetragrammaton to appear in the New Testament, could He not have worked things out so that manuscripts containing that name would exist?
  • Their putting of the name “Jehovah” in the New Testament has obscured the meaning of the text in several places; a notable example is in Romans 10:13 where a verse from the Old Testament (Joel 2:32) referring to Yahweh (or “Jehovah”) is quoted and applied to Jesus.
  • If you will look in the great Catholic Bible translations, The Jerusalem Bible and the New Jerusalem Bible, you will see that the name “Yahweh” is used throughout the Old Testament, where there *is *manuscript evidence for it (the 1901 American Standard Version, which you refer to, has it only in the Old Testament, also).
  • Christians need to keep in mind the following statements:
Acts 4:12 (referring to Jesus) … for there is no other name (Jesus) under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved
Phillipians 2:9-10 for this reason God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth

I hope some of this helps.
 
Adriano! I looked again and I see that it’s your first post!
**Welcome to the forum! **
 
Thank you netmender!
I’m having massive debates with a colleague who is a Jehovah’s witness. The topics are: the name of God, the Trinity, the rock(Peter), bible translations, the history of the church and many more.Thank you for your reply, very helpful.
 
Adriano:

You might find my website www.catholicxjw.com helpful. There are many articles on discussing the Trinity with JWs there.

Jeff Schwehm
Fellowship of Catholic Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses
 
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jschwehm:
Adriano:

You might find my website www.catholicxjw.com helpful. There are many articles on discussing the Trinity with JWs there.

Jeff Schwehm
Fellowship of Catholic Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses
Click to expand...
Thank you Jeff, great web site

adriano
 
I dont know if it belongs in this thread, but if they are worried about stuff not found in the Bible why do they use “watch tower” and “Kingdom Hall”?? The Bible uses the word “church”
 
I have always looked on God the Father as a “Father” figure. And as such would a father really get mad at how we called him. Even if we had a rebellious child would we stop loving that child if they started calling us by our first name. We might be hurt but we would hope that some day they would come to their senses and start calling us Dad again. Worrying about what we call God is just another way that non-Catholics like to point out how non-Catholic they really are.
 
Jehovah is actually a “typo”!

I believe in Greek (?) there was no letter for the Y ((the closest would’ve been J) or W (w looks like a V) and of course, there were no vowels in Hebrew/Aramaic so they just had to fill in the blanks?

YAHWEH =
JEHOVAH - J for Y, E,O and A were add ons, V for W, the H was there!

Someone correct me if I’m confused!
 
Although the name “Jehovah” is written in the original biblical manuscripts, remember that “Jehovah” was only WRITTEN, BUT NEVER SPOKEN ALOUD. This is due to the great respect the Jewish people had for the Name of God; that man was unworthy to utter the glorious Name of God through his unclean lips. This tradition was passed down in Jewish culture, even unto the time of the Apostles. From there it entered Christian culture.
 
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