AN OPEN LETTER TO WITNESSES
Dear Witness reader:
We commend you as an individual, and the Watch Tower Society to which you are affiliated, for your unwavering defense of the divine name in the Hebrew Scriptures. The divine name is written in the best Hebrew manuscripts in at least 6,828 instances. As such, you have faithfully translated God's holy name in your Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament).
From the time of William Tyndale (1494-1536) and the influence of the subsequent King James Version, the English Bible tradition has frequently used LORD in place of the divine name in its Old Testament. The Watch Tower Society has been telling Christendom since before the New World Translation was published in 1950 that we have offended God by removing His holy name from our Old Testament. Please do not stop reminding us of that. We need to listen to the truth you are telling us. More importantly, in true repentance we must translate and publish what God has written in His Word. We must follow the example you set in your own Hebrew Scriptures and reinstate the name of God into our Old Testament.
Thank you for reminding us of our error. Persist until we change.
AN OPEN LETTER TO NON-JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
Dear Reader,
The history of the Church has been inextricably linked to the defense of Scripture. We must object to any distortion of God's written revelation and accept only the best manuscript evidence as the foundation of all English Bible translations. As such, it is entirely appropriate that we demand that the Watch Tower Society publish a Bible that is accurate in its translation of the New Testament Greek manuscripts. We are fully justified in our insistence that the name "Jehovah" not be inserted 237 times into the New World Translation's Christian Scriptures (New Testament). Our position is not an outgrowth of our theology. Rather, it is based on verifiable manuscript evidence showing that the writers of the New Testament used only the Greek word Kurios (Lord) to identify both Yahweh of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament as "Lord." There is no New Testament Greek manuscript evidence of the Divine Name being written in Hebrew letters.
However, if any from outside the Watch Tower's ranks would dare to evaluate the New World Translation's error of inserting "Jehovah" in the "New Testament," we must equally listen to what the Watch Tower Society has long said about the faulty translation process in our own English Bible tradition. We boldly question the historical and textual basis for the use of "Jehovah" 237 times in what we call the New Testament. Why do we so completely fail to see our own error in publishing an Old Testament that has removed God's name 6,828 times by inserting LORD in place of the Divine Name?
With true repentance we must translate and publish without alteration what God has written in His Word. Difficult as it would be to correct almost 600 years of English Bible tradition, we must reinstate the name of God in our Old Testament.
