kyrios--did the NWT pick and choose it's translation in the NT

Bob Loblaw

Hey everybody,

I'm not new,...just needed to change my alias.

Anywho. Topic....the Tettragrammaton.

I've recently read the WTS's excuses why they've inserted the word Jehovah into the new testament even though no ancient NT greek manuscripts contain YHWH.

Therefore, my question is regarding the greek work kyrios.

Correct me if i'm wrong here,...but they've translated kyrios into Jehovah is some cases and kyrios into Lord in others.

Is this true?

If so,...shouldn't kyrios be translated consistently? It should (for them) either be Lord throughout or Jehovah throughout...or did they base the translation of the word on context.

Romans 10: 9 , For if you publicly declare that ‘word in your own mouth,’ that Jesus is Lord, and exercise faith in your heart that God raised him up from the dead, you will be saved.

Of course they couldn't translate the above verse to read "Jesus is Jehovah" for obvious reasons,...but this whole process of taking one greek word and picking and choosing when It's appropriate to use Lord and when it's appropriate to use Jehovah seems very counterfeit because it really affects the meaning. Therefore is the WTS playing God in their translation process?

I'm the furthest thing from an expert,...so I'm just trying to grasp all this a little bit better.

Narkissos

Briefly their argument, I think, is that they substituted "Jehovah" to kurios in OT quotations (but they didn't even do that consistently).

As Romans 10 shows, this is absurd, because the quotation of Joel in v. 13 is precisely meant to back up Paul's original statement in v. 9ff (note the little word "for," in Greek gar, introducing the quotation in v. 13). Once "Jehovah" is inserted in v. 13 the quotation becomes completely irrelevant to the argument.

A problem that most JWs will never notice, since they are content with "quoting verses," and hardly care for contextual arguments.

Bob Loblaw

Thanks Narkissos,

I wanted to make sure I wasn't way out in left field on this.

TheCoolerKing

Yes Bob, you are correct. That's why the NWT or at least the New Testament part of it, is not a reliable translation of the Bible. It is a biased version that was made to fit the JW theology. Ask any current JW and they will tell you that the name Jehovah was added to the NT because it had been removed from the actual Greek texts. But this is based more on what they THINK happened then the actual facts show.

As you mentioned, there are over 5000 ancient Greek manuscript copies of the Bible available today. None of these contain YHWH, the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, in the 237 places where the Society has added Jehovah. Some of the ancient Greek manuscripts date from the 3rd and 4th century. Just refer to a copy of the Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, published by the Watchtower Society, and you can see the actual Greek word Kyrios appearing there. The Society lists about 20 J references in the Interlinear Translation as proof that they are justified in replacing Kyrios with Jehovah. However, the J references that the society has listed are actually taken from more recent translations of the Bible. The earliest one having been published in 1385. Also the only consistenancy with their replacing Kyrios with Jehovah, occurs when Jesus or Lord appears to be divine.

For more information on this, I would suggest that you refer to the following website: http://www.tetragrammaton.org/. It is an excellent site on this topic.

Hope this helps.

Doug Mason

The NWT claims to use the Tetragram wherever the NT quotes the OT. It goes further, by using it in parts of speech, at allusions, and so on.

Further, as its "J20" reference shows, there are places where the NT quotes an OT reference where the Tetragram appears but the NWT does not use "Jehovah".

In addition, there are instances where some of its "J" sources use the Tetragram (in Hebrew letters and not spelled as "Jehovah"), but the NWT does not.

Do you want specific examples, or is that enough?

Doug