Introduction
The Bible says that the Divine Name was revealed to Moses by God Himself.
In Exodus 3:13-15 we read:
“And Moses said to God, Behold, when I come to the sons of Israel, and shall say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they shall say to me, What is His name? What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM. And He said, So you shall say to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. And God said to Moses again, You shall say this to the sons of Israel, Jehovah (יהוה) the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My title from generation to generation.”
יהוה is the way the Name revealed to Moses is written in Hebrew. The Tetragram (from the Greek “Tetragrammaton”, which means “four letters”) corresponds in our alphabet – more or less – to the following letters: “YHWH.”
The Tetragram is translated “Jehovah” in four passages of the King James Version (Exodus 6:3, Psalms 83:18, Isaiah 12:2, 26:4). The 1901 American Standard Version used Jehovah in the Old Testament and so does the Modern King James Version – that’s why I am quoting from it here.
Discussing the opportunity to render יהוה as Jehovah or Yahweh, or in any of the other suggested ways, is not my goal here. Neither it is to investigate the meaning of the Name or Names of God. It is my purpose to ascertain whether the Divine Name could have been in the autographs of the New Testament or not and, by logical consequence, if a translator can rightfully restore it in the New Testament or not.
In general, the need of identifying God’s Name and render it somehow in the text has been felt by many translators when dealing with the Old Testament. But what about the New Testament? Are there any grounds to extend such practice to the New Testament?
There is nothing wrong in studying the Hebrew roots of our Christian faith. The New Testament itself motivates the inclusion of Hebrew words in our Christian terminology. Words we even use daily like Hallelujah, Amen, Messiah, etc., are clear evidence of such tendency. But the New Testament was originally written in Greek, not in Hebrew, and many Hebrew concepts have been adapted and expressed in the Greek language in which the inspired authors were writing – showing us that there is nothing wrong with translating God’s Word. So if someone is trying to force the presence of God’s Name (whether they transliterate it Jehovah or in any other way), along with those who try to “restore” as much as possible of Hebrew terminology and names in general, we can’t help but be skeptical about it.
In fact, not only there isn’t enough evidence to believe that the Divine Name was in the autographs of the Greek Scriptures – LXX included – but, on the contrary, there is good evidence that it was not in the original Greek New Testament.
This I will try to discuss shortly in the pages that follow.
Manuscript Evidence
We have almost six thousand manuscripts of the original Greek text of the New Testament, attesting its antiquity and reliability. There is no trace in any of them of יהוה, or of any kind of transliteration of the Name in any way. In all the Greek New Testament manuscripts, in all the occurrences of the Old Testament passages quoted, where יהוה is found in the original Old Testament Hebrew, we invariably find “Kyrios” in the New, which is the Greek for “Lord.”
Such was the practice of the Septuagint, the LXX, which is a translation of the Old Testament in Greek as old as the third century BC. Since the New Testament writers wrote in that language, they must have simply and logically followed the LXX practice. Again, unanimous manuscript evidence points in that direction.
I believe this objective fact alone would suffice to end the matter here.
Those who believe that the יהוה was in the autographs of the New Testament and that some kind of conspiracy removed it all together from all the existing copies, have absolutely no evidence to support their views. In doing so, in their blind need to further their theories, they fail to see that, by accusing ALL manuscript evidence to have been altered so well as to leave no trace at all of such a deliberate falsification, they are undermining the reliability of the very text of that Bible that they say they cherish and honor as God’s Word.
If we can believe that someone was able to remove or change anything from the Bible and leave no trace at all of such a corruption of the text, then we must also be ready to give up believing the New Testament text as we know it to be reliable.
We thank God that such a possibility is not only remote, but unquestionably and scientifically impossible and we can safely trust the text of the New Testament, which has been handed down to us through the centuries, virtually identical to that of the autographs, as 99 per cent of the text of the above mentioned manuscripts is preserved unchanged.
To this we must add that not only Greek manuscript show no trace of God’s Name in the New Testament, but also all the Christian writers of the first centuries that quote the New Testament know nothing of the presence of the Tetragram in the Greek text. This happens both with the orthodox and the heretic writers – who agree on this. It must be admitted that joined witness of enemies is very reliable.
Internal Evidence
The New Testament text clearly shows that even if its writers had written their books in Hebrew, they would have avoided the use of the Tetragram – which was the common practice of the first century Jewish writers.
Though Jehovah’s Witnesses keep on believing that our goal should be to bear witness to the mosaic Name of God, in whatever way we write it or pronounce it, biblical and historical facts point to an entirely different direction.
Let us consider some statistics concerning the occurrences of the יהוה and of the word God in the Old Testament.
| יהוה | אלהים | |
| Pentateuch | 1820 | 312 |
| Isaiah | 450 | 16 |
| Jeremiah | 726 | 36 |
| Ezekiel | 434 | 20 |
As we can easily see, Old Testament authors gave great relevance to the Tetragram. It was the Name that God revealed just before the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt. In that occasion God gave Moses the Law and He made a covenant with the nation of Israel. יהוה was Israel’s Covenant Name of God.
In the New Testament things change.
That a change occurred in the relationship of God with man and also with his people, who had rejected the Messiah, is clearly and openly stated by John in his Gospel: “For the Law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17)
The New Testament is not Jehovah-centered, like the Old, but Christ-centered.
“Furthermore, there is no salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must get saved.” (Acts 4:12)
The tendency of the Old Testament writers has been reversed and the use of the word “God” is overwhelming compared to the use of the word “Lord” which is often referred to Jesus and most of the other times a quotation of Old Testament passages.
If the words of Jesus are to be relied and we have to be his witnesses in the preaching of the Gospel, it is natural that this must be reflected in the New Testament words.
Let us see some more statistics.
This is the occurrence of Divine Names in in the New Testament (10 percent more or less, depending on the Bible version we use).
God 1372
Jesus 983
Christ 571
Messiah 2
Lord 100 – O.T. quotations
Lord 500 – Refer to the Lord Jesus
Lord 120 – Generic
Father 369
Son of God 301
Can there be any more devastating evidence to the Christ-centered New Testament doctrine? 983 + 571 + 2 + 500 + 301: we have a total of about 2357 references.
The 120 generic use of the word “Lord” does not necessarily need to be considered a reference to the Tetragram. In the Old Testament אדני (reads: Adonai) which means “Lord” is found a good number of times: 837.
Internal evidence shows that, being their focus on Christ, the New Testament writers had no reason to use the Tetragram when the consolidated practice of the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, in some instances even directly quoted) was to use the word “Kyrios”, which is “Lord”, for every occurrence of the Divine Name.
Why use “Lord”?
Because even as far as the third century BC, it was a consolidated orthodox Jewish practice, as a sign of respect, not to pronounce God’s name even when reading the Hebrew Bible.
The Jews encountering the word יהוה in their Bible, even today, read “Adonai”, which means “Lord.” Hence the Greek translation Lord. Hence the New Testament practice.
Every reliable translation renders “Kyrios” as “Lord”, not corrupting the text, not following opinions and ideas, but simply translating the text of the New Testament as it can be retraced through the manuscript evidence in our possession.
Even through the Greek language reverence for the Name is visible. In fact, New Testament writers show the same attitude of orthodox Jews of the first century in avoiding even the implicit use of God’s Name, as statistics data confirms.
Though the whole New Testament was written in Greek, there is a Hebrew version of Matthew that circulated in the Jewish circles and was used in the fourteenth century to dispute Christian doctrine. I believe the way the Divine Name is dealt with in the Hebrew Matthew is very instructive. In every place where Matthew quotes from the Old Testament as well as where the Name is part of significant expressions (like “Angel of the Lord”, which in Hebrew includes the Tetragram), the Hebrew text has ה, a short form of “hashem”, which means “the Name” – a very common way of reading and addressing the Tetragram among the Jews, even today.
In the rest of the Hebrew Matthew, the Name is avoided, not used! This is quite significant. It tells us that the author of this Gospel showed very deep respect for the Divine Name, and that it is more evident since we are looking at a Hebrew version of a New Testament book who could have been written about the same time the original Greek was written.
This same attitude the reader will find in the Hebrew translations of the New Testament, where the Tetragram is obviously retained in the places where the text quotes the Old Testament passages that have it, but not elsewhere in the text.
Internal evidence shows also that in many passages the context in which the apostles write show that they used the word “Lord” and not the Tetragram.
Let’s look at just one example.
“10. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. 12. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. 13. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. 14. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? 15. And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:10-15)
Paul wrote in Greek to Christians residing in Rome. If you read carefully his words either you realize that he used “Kyrios”, “Lord” openly identifying Jesus with “Jehovah”. In verse 11 “Lord” is a general reference. The Hebrew version has אדון (reads Adon). In verse 12 it is a direct Old Testament quotation and “Lord” here in the Hebrew versions of the New Testament is יְהוָה. So verse 9 which introduces this paragraph becomes key in understanding what follows: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
(My friend, apart from everything we are discussing here, this is vital. In order to be saved you must confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that he raised him from the dead. This is not a game. This is not simply a theological dispute: believing or not believing, confessing or not confessing Jesus will determine your eternal destiny. Nothing else matters more than this! If you have never done it before, I suggest you read this passage as many time as it is necessary in order to make sure you understand what it says, believe it and be saved!)
See the devastating parallel in 1 Corinthians 1:2: “Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours…”
Revelation 1:8 is quite relevant in regard to our investigation in the use of the Divine Name and the New Testament.
“…who is, and who was, and who is to come.” (Revelation 1:4, 8, 4:8, 11:17, 16:5).
The Greek has: “ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος”.
This expression is the equivalent in the Greek language of the Hebrew יהוה.
John knew the Tetragram but instead of transliterating it from the Hebrew, he translates its immediate meaning in Greek, and so we do in our languages.
Evidence is found in Revelation 1:4. Here in the Greek the fact that a nominative case follows the preposition ἀπὸ is a grammar mistake. Unless, John does it on purpose, dealing with the expression as the Divine Name, immutable, then not subject to declension. See for a quick reference: Richard A. Young, Intermediate New Testament, Greek, A Linguistic and Exegetical Approach, p. 13. But if you know Greek you can see the discrepancy by yourself.[1]
Why is this sentence to be considered as the Divine Name?
The four Hebrew consonants are vocalized in the Masoretic text as follows
יְהוָֹה
If we simply add the vowels’ symbols to the consonants, we’ll read in our alphabet the familiar YeHoVaH. Asher Intrater is a Messianic Jew. He writes in his book “Who ate with Abraham?” that the sequence of the three vowels “e” (sh’va), “o” (holom), “a” (patach), indicate the root of the future, present and past tense.
So the sentence in Revelation John renders the Jewish Divine Name of God in the Greek language, making it universally understood.
If we fail to see the importance of this in this discussion, the problem is ours and our preconceived ideas matter to us more than facts. But facts still remain.
The Tetragram and the Septuagint
Some believe that the ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint can be a key to solving the problem concerning the presence or absence of the Name in the Greek New Testament – if it is a problem at all.
The Papyrus named P. Fouad 266 or also known as Rahlfs 848 is as old as the second century BC. It has the Tetragram in the Hebrew square alphabet, the one we know and which I also used in this article, which is still in use in Israel today. Other ancient Greek manuscripts of the LXX were found with the Name in paleo-Hebrew script, the alphabet in use before the square script alphabet came into use. The singularity of the scribal behavior has led someone to conjecture that the Septuagint, though a Greek translation, originally retained the Divine Name in Hebrew letters.
Professor George Howard set forth a theory: “that the divine name, יהוה (and possibly abbreviations of it), was originally written in the NT quotations of and allusions to the OT and that in the course of time it was replaced mainly with the surrogate” Greek word we translate in English as “Lord”. (see Journal of Biblical Literature, The Tetragram and the New Testament, 96/I (1977), 63-83).
I fail to see the reasons for the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ excitement concerning Howard’s theories. They quote him as if he was giving any sanction to their practice of using Jehovah in the New Testament. On the contrary, he clearly states that: the New Testament originals might have had the original Hebrew words for the Tetragram (יהוה) or its common Hebrew abbreviation (ה) – not Jehovah! – and only when quoting from the Old Testament. Also, the fact that some ancient LXX manuscripts had the Name in Hebrew, is openly contrary to the use of Jehovah, that for a Jew might be as good as any other surrogate – since Jehovah is neither the transliteration of the Hebrew into our alphabet nor the way it is read. Jehovah’s witnesses are used to quote authorities that, when fairly considered, are against their views. Professor Howard has been writing to the Watch Tower for a long time to lament this misuse of his work, but without any result.
Albert Pietersma has written a very deep and valuable article on this subject: “Kyrios or Tetragram: a renewed quest for the original LXX.” There he gives convincing evidence that the presence of the Tetragram in some LXX manuscripts is due to the need of harmonization with the Hebrew text felt by some scribes or religious groups. Specifically, in dealing with the witness of the above mentioned P. Fouad 266 or Rahlfs 848, he writes: “it contains at least half a dozen instances of correction to the Hebrew text. Some revising of this text has obviously been done in order to bring it in better accord with the Hebrew.” Pietersma concludes: “In the Pentateuch kyrios (which means “Lord”) as a surrogate for the tetragram is original.”
In this perspective the testimony of the LXX to the Name assumed by Howard in order to develop his theory must be reconsidered altogether. His idea of the presence of the Tetragram or of the abbreviation of it, is not substantiated and cannot be considered anything more than a theory at best. In fact, evidence points to another direction than that suggested by Howard: the presence in some manuscripts of the original Hebrew name of God in a Greek translation must be seen as a trace of deliberate attempts of Jewish scribes to improve the text of the Septuagint, bringing it to a more evident dependence from the Hebrew original. It can be no matter of discussion the fact that the scribe inserting יהוה at the place of Kyrios would not expect the fruiters of his work to read יהוה in any other way than “Adonai”, which is equivalent to “Kyrios” in Greek and “Lord” in English.
The Septuagint testimony is in favor of the use of “Kyrios”, “Lord”, by New Testament authors also where they quote from Old Testament passages. They simply followed in the footsteps of the Septuagint, using “Kyrios.”
Conclusions
As I said earlier, no evidence is so strong against the presence of יהוה in the New Testament like the witness of all the existing Greek manuscripts.
In the early Church period there were only local, independent groups (churches) connected one to another by bonds of love, but no central authority existed which could impose whatever idea, practice or text to all of Christianity. It is self-evident that the New Testament books must have circulated for some time independently. They must have been used and copied by heretics also and, in general, by different emerging factions in Christianity.
It is practically impossible that something that was in all or almost all the books of the New Testament could be obliterated from manuscript evidence without leaving any trace at all in any of the surviving manuscripts. Not with the incredible amount of evidence we have of the original Greek text.
Avoiding to argue about the possible renderings of the Tetragram, I conclude that the serious, honest translator of the New Testament – in order to remain such and not become an editor of the text – must abide with the witness of the New Testament and translate “Lord” every occurrence of “Kyrios.”
Of course the Hebrew translations of the New Testament must be an exception, since they should diligently render the Old Testament quotations including the Name. Of course the Tetragram will be read by Jews “Adonai”, which means “Lord” and corresponds to the Greek “Kyrios” – which is the reading adopted by the New Testament. It can also be read Hashem, the Name.
For all the above facts, the only possible conclusion of this discussion is that, as far as evidence is concerned, the apostolic choice was to use “Lord” (Kyrios in the original Greek) in the New Testament text, even in the quotation of Old Testament passages that, in the original Hebrew, included the Divine Name. All attempts to “restore” the Name, in any of its suggested readings, are not to be encouraged or supported, since they do not improve the text, nor translate it, but represent a corruption of the text of the New Testament as preserved in all the ancient manuscript evidence.
[1] “χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἑπτὰ πνευμάτων, ἃ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου αὐτοῦ.” As you can see after the Divine Name reference, John shows that he is perfectly aware that ἀπὸ must be followed by the genitive.