Will Power,
You may not be trying to convince me of anything but you consistently ignore the answers to your questions. Let's try again:
You said:
The one addressed in this verse [Revelation 11:17] is clearly "God...the Almighty." Did John write this of Jehovah (YHWH), or did he write it of the Lord (Kyrios)?
This question implies an ignorance that Lord (Kyrios) does not only refer to Jesus Christ. Rev. 7:13,14 refers to one of the elders seen by John in vision as 'Lord'; Acts 16:16,19,30 refer to men as 'Lords'; and two verses previous (Rev. 11:15) John refers to Jehovah as 'Lord' where he writes :"
The kingdom of the world did become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ...". Clearly, whether you use 'Jehovah' or 'Lord' in verse 17 you are referring to God, the Almighty, not to his Christ. So why does the NWT substitute
kyrios with 'Jehovah' in this verse? The expression
'Jehovah God' occurs hundreds of times in the Hebrew Scriptures which are the grounds for believing it was also used in the NT.
'Lord God' is
never used in the OT. Most people are familiar with the expression 'Lord God' only because the English translations they use have replaced 'Jehovah' with 'Lord' where the phrase occurs in the OT.
That is not the principle the WT applies...61 [verses] have no quotation, reference or parallel thought. These 61 verses are what the WT & NWT use to strip Jesus Christ of his godly attributes, parallels, identifications, etc.
That's easy to say. As one of the principles for substitution is that the passage containing
kyrios (the Greek word for 'Lord') applies to God rather than Jesus the onus is on you to demonstrate that any of these passages clearly refer to Jesus. The question to ask yourself is when the expression used by the NT writers is also used in the Hebrew Scriptures, do the Hebrew Scriptures use 'Jehovah'. An example is the references you supply from Matthew which all refer to the angel of Jehovah. The expression
'Jehovah's angel' occurs 35 times in the Hebrew Scriptures and
'angel of Jehovah' 12 times.
'Lord’s angel' is
never used. As Matthew first wrote his gospel in Hebrew for Hebrews this common OT expression (Jehovah’s angel) is almost certainly what he used.
Let’s also consider those verses which you have particularly commented on:
Acts 13:44 This verse has the Greek - 0eov = God being replaced where early 301-400m. exist. WT cites a version from 1877 for the change
The expression here used is
'the word of God' and is translated in NWT as
'the word of Jehovah'.
The footnote shows that the
original copier of the codex Vaticanus 1209 (Greek, fourth century) as well as the codex Ephraemi rescriptus (Greek, fifth century), the Curetonian Syriac (fifth century) and the Syriac Peshitta all use the Greek/Syriac equivalent of God.
The corrector of codex Vaticanus 1209 as well as the codex Sinaiticus (Greek, fourth century), codex Alexandrinus (Greek, fifth century) and papyrus Bodmer 17 (Greek, seventh century) use the Greek equivalent of Lord.
Hebrew translations by Franz Delitzsch and United Bible Societies substitute the tetragrammaton in this verse.
The expression 'word of Jehovah' occurs almost 200 times in the Hebrew Scriptures which certainly qualifies it as a parallel thought in the OT.
But what is particularly significant about this verse is the variation of the Greek textual support. A principle of textual criticism is to determine why and how variants occur. Now in this and other instances there is ancient textual evidence for both 'word of God' and 'word of the Lord'. Bruce Metzger commented on this peculiarity in his book A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, (UBS,1971,p.401):
The latter reading [the word of the Lord] reflects the Christianization of the traditional expression…The two expressions occur 32 times in the manuscripts of Acts. In nine of these passages the manuscript tradition shows no appreciable variation.
So of the 32 times these expressions occur in Acts, 23 show appreciable variation i.e. there is textual support for both readings. Metzger attributes this variation to
Christianization of the traditional expression [word of God]. What does he mean? He means that Luke probably wrote
'word of God' in all instances but subsequent copyists
Christianized it to read
'word of the Lord'.
But as I’ve shown above, the traditional expression was 'word of Jehovah' which occurs almost 200 times whereas 'word of God' only occurs half a dozen times in the Hebrew Scriptures. Now if Luke had used the traditional expression – 'the word of Jehovah' – that would explain why there is such textual confusion over this expression…some copyists chose to render it 'word of God' while others rendered it 'word of the Lord'.
Acts 16:32 This verse has the Greek - 0eov = God being replaced where even earlier 201-300m. exist. WT cites a version from 1599 for the change
The expression here used is
'the word of God' and is translated in NWT as
'the word of Jehovah'.
The footnote shows that the
original copier of the codex Sinaiticus (Greek, fourth century) as well as the codex Vaticanus 1209 (Greek, fourth century) use the Greek equivalent of God.
The corrector of codex Sinaiticus as well as the codex Alexandrinus (Greek, fifth century), codex Ephraemi rescriptus (Greek, fifth century), papyrus Chester Beatty 1 (Greek, third century) and papyrus Bodmer 17 (Greek, seventh century) use the Greek equivalent of Lord.
Seven Hebrew translations of the 13 cited substitute the tetragrammaton in this verse.
The same facts that applied to Acts 13:44 are just as true here and the textual confusion which supports the hypothesis that Luke wrote 'word of Jehovah' is again evident.
Acts 18:21 This verse has the Greek - 0eov = God being replaced where early 301-400m. exist. WT cites a version from 1877 for the change
The expression here used is
'God willing' and is translated in NWT as
'if Jehovah is willing'.
The footnote shows that there is strong support for 'God' in the Greek, Latin and Syriac texts.
The Hebrew translation by Franz Delitzch (1981) substitutes the tetragrammaton in this verse.
I have to agree there does not seem to be the same level of support for using Jehovah in this verse as there is in the other verses discussed.
1 Thessalonians 4:15, however only 1 of the 2 "Lords" in this verse have been changed even tho the greek is exactly the same for both words, yr 301 supports for Lord for both, WT cites 1599 version for changing only one.
The expression here used is
'the word of the Lord' in the first instance and
'presence of the Lord' in the second instance. They are translated in NWT as
'Jehovah’s word' and
'presence of the Lord' respectively.
In my discussion of Acts 13:44 above I mentioned that the expression 'word of Jehovah' occurs almost 200 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. This fully meets the criteria for including God's name.
Why do the translators not use ‘Jehovah’ in the expression 'presence of the Lord'? Quite simply because there is no parallel expression 'presence of Jehovah' in the Hebrew Scriptures. I would have thought that was obvious.
Your assertion that the 61 references you provided which, you emphasized, “have no quotation, reference or parallel thought [in the Hebrew Scriptures]” has been shown to be false in most instances. If you had just read the scriptures you cited you would have recognised the expressions 'angel of Jehovah' and 'Jehovah’s word' as having OT origins. Lynn Lundquist says in his book from which you abundantly quote (p. vii of the Overview): "no serious student ever accepts a writer's presentation without first confirming the information for himself". You are well advised to do so before you present his citations on a public forum.
Earnest
