Claim 13 of 15 · Case 12 · Jehovah’s Witnesses

The New World Translation inserts the name Jehovah into the New Testament 237 times, though no Greek manuscript of the New Testament contains it.

One claim from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.

Suggest a correction

The Watch Tower’s New World Translation puts the divine name Jehovah into the New Testament 237 times. The difficulty is that not one of the thousands of Greek New Testament manuscripts uses the divine name there; they use the Greek words for Lord, kyrios, and God, theos. The translators argue the name must have been original and was later removed, and they restore it. But there is no manuscript evidence for the removal, and the practice lets the translation avoid passages where Lord refers to Jesus. Where the New Testament quotes an Old Testament verse about Jehovah and applies it to Jesus, inserting Jehovah hides the very identification the text is making.

Backed by 1 piece of evidence

  1. The manuscript record

    This turns on physical evidence anyone can check. A translation choice defended by an assumed but undocumented deletion is a weak foundation, especially when it changes who a verse is about.

    1 source · 1 objection