The apologetic in this collection has been the greatest challenge to the NEW WORLD TRANSLATION since the Watch Tower Society published it in 1950. The deity of Christ is at the heart of the debate. Translation of this material continues in countries where Jehovah's Witnesses work. This collection is now available for research and publication without copyright restriction. Copy the CD for your personal use. Review it on www.tetragrammaton.org. Downloadable Research Library The accompanying CD contains seven complete books in downloadable Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat files. All printed or CD formatted materials may be freely used without copyright restriction including use in research, re-publication, and web site posting. Copy the CD for your personal use. Published in 2003 without copyright protection. WORD RESOURCES, INC P.O. Box 301294 Portland, OR 97294 www.tetragrammaton.org All quotations from other sources which are reproduced in the Downloadable Research Library are protected by the copyright of the original publisher. ISBN 0-9703890-3-5 95 28. USD CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: Let's Answer the Big Questions First i Some Comments About Other Things iv "LORD" and "Jehovah" vi BOOK OUTLINES: (cid:88) The Tetragrammaton and the Christian Greek Scriptures 1 (cid:89) The Divine Name in the New World Translation 20 (cid:90) The Tetragrammaton in Hebrew Versions 32 (cid:91) The New World Translation and Hebrew Versions 37 (cid:92) Jehovah in the New Testament 45 (cid:93) Is the New World Translation a Better Bible? 53 BONUS BOOK (cid:94) Living by Faith, Pleasing God 58 MORE RESEARCH IS NEEDED 74 OTHER DOWNLOADABLE MATERIAL ON THE CD The Tetragrammaton is Essential to Your Faith What are Hebrew Versions? Is the New World Translation a Better Bible? (for translation) Why is God's Name Absent in Greek Scripture Manuscripts? Personal Bible Study Downloadable Research Library Living by Faith (for translation) Six books in large-print format A strategy for reaching Jehovah's Witnesses "LORD" and "Jehovah" Doctrinal Statement None of the material from Word Resources, Inc. is copyright protected. You are free to reproduce or edit it as you wish. We prefer that you make no reference to Word Resources in re-published materials. Use only your own author or ministry name. The more rapidly this information becomes public domain, the more quickly the Watch Tower Society will be held openly accountable for their misleading “New Testament” apparatus. (Their apparatus appeals to presumable Tetragrammaton and Hebrew Version evidence in order to justify their removal of the word Lord from the New Testament 237 times. In these instances, they have replaced Lord with Jehovah.) They have used this faulty apparatus in order to produce a New Testament which denies the deity of Christ in their widely distributed New World Translation. Let's answer the big questions first Why are we giving you free downloadable books? Since the Watch Tower Society (Jehovah's Witnesses) published their New World Translation of the Greek Scriptures (New Testament) in 1950, their translation has never been challenged as thoroughly or as intensely as it has been by the books on the accompanying CD. The first two books in the series were released in 1998. One of the reasons this effort is becoming so successful is that the material is not copyright-protected. Consequently, the material can be found on web sites around the world. It has already been translated for both web sites and for printing in multiple languages. It randomly appears in theological material written by others. Because permission is not needed to use it, we simply don't know where else it is being used unless we happen to find it listed on a search engine. We want you to use it too. Why is the Tetragrammaton subject so important? The New World Translation was published as a Bible which could be used to deny the deity of Christ. Without qualification, it has been the most successful of this genre of translation ever produced. By 1998, over 100,000,000 copies of the New World Translation had been printed in 21 languages. When confronting Jehovah's Witnesses, evangelicals usually debate theology. But theology is subjective. A theological debate between a seminary student and a Jehovah's Witness would be recounted quite differently depending on which one is talking. The seminary student, in relating the debate to his fellow seminarians, would point out inconsistencies in the Jehovah's Witness's theology. In a Service Meeting, the Jehovah's Witness would describe the seminary student's departure from "truth." The Tetragrammaton debate, however, is more objective. The New World Translation is based on the premise that the Tetragrammaton (YHWH in Hebrew letters) was used in the New Testament autographs. The New World Translation replaces "Lord" with "Jehovah" 237 times in their New Testament. Many of these passages would establish the deity of Christ if the word "Lord" remained in the verse. If the Tetragrammaton, however, was used in these verses, then a Jehovah's Witness might have a marginal argument that Jesus could be the first creation of the Father. If the Tetragrammaton was not used in the autographs, then John quotes Jesus as saying, "I am the Lord God…Almighty" in Revelation 1:8. Do you see where this is going? If we can use manuscript evidence to establish that the Tetragrammaton was not used in the autographs, then the deity of Christ stands. But where do we get this manuscript evidence? Conveniently, the Watch Tower Society publishes all of the information we need. A copy of their Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Christian Scriptures (KIT) provides a ii Downloadable Research Library complete Greek text which uses only Kurios, and never the Tetragrammaton. KIT also includes an exhaustive description of the apparatus the translators employed to justify the use of "Jehovah" in the New Testament. Unintentionally, however, their apparatus also shows that the earliest available evidence for the Tetragrammaton in the New Testament (apart from Matthew) is from a 1599 Hebrew version. That Hebrew translation was made from Erasmus' Greek text. It can be easily shown that Erasmus' text (the text of the King James New Testament) does not use the Tetragrammaton. (The earliest "Jehovah" references are 16 citations from a 1385 Hebrew version of Matthew.) The same KIT apparatus also documents that the earliest evidence for Kurios comes from Greek manuscripts dated between 201 and 400 A.D. Your school library may have a copy of KIT. If not, ask if a Jehovah's Witness acquaintance can obtain a copy for you. You could also search in used book stores or on the web at sites such as www.powells.com. Another possibility is [email protected]. There are two editions of KIT. The 1969 edition gives more information concerning the "J" references, while the 1985 edition gives several additional "J" references. The 1969 edition is of greater value for this study. This is not just a debate focusing on Greek New Testament manuscripts. This series of books introduces one of the most effective apologetics for countering the Jehovah's Witness claim that Jesus is a created being. This apologetic is ultimately about the Person of Christ and His Divine nature. Introducing the New World Translation If you are unfamiliar with the New World Translation, the material included in the book outlines should give you sufficient information to understand its translation limitations. Section (cid:93) Is the New World Translation a Better Bible? will give you a general introduction to the problems of this translation. Sections (cid:88) The Tetragrammaton and the Christian Greek Scriptures and (cid:89) The Divine Name in the New World Translation will give you a technical introduction to the textual problems that would arise if the presumed Tetragrammaton were imported into the New Testament text. These last two sections ((cid:88) and (cid:89) ) as well as Sections (cid:90) The Tetragrammaton in Hebrew Versions and (cid:91) The New World Translation and Hebrew Versions evaluate whether Hebrew versions could provide a credible justification for importing "Jehovah" into the New Testament. Where do our books go? Of course, by the time you read this, these numbers will be out of date, but we thought you might like to see some statistics: Since 1998, we have printed over 77,000 books. In addition, 5,000 books and 10,000 tracts were printed in Ethiopia in the Amharic language. We seldom know where else the material is being used, but we know of instances where it has also been translated into French, Finnish, and Introduction iii Portuguese. Portions have been used in Hungarian. We also know of other translation projects under consideration. Between October, 1998 and April, 2003, we distributed over 66,500 books in both printed and CD formats. In addition to distribution within the U.S., books have been shipped in case lots to Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and English-speaking Africa. The best news is that well over half of our books have gone directly to Witnesses themselves. To date, we have direct-mailed over 23,000 books to their 4,700+ Kingdom Halls in the United States. In another mailing, we sent a CD containing all of our books to the English-speaking Kingdom Halls in Canada. Each of the 112 international Branch offices has received several mailings of books, and a CD containing all our material in downloadable format. All Governing Body members and some 60 key leaders of the Society have received copies of each book. A personal letter has been enclosed in many of these mailings. Additionally, large numbers of books have gone to organizations that are distributing them directly to Witnesses. A comment on style Our books were deliberately written using terminology familiar to Jehovah's Witnesses. They also cite only Watch Tower Society reference materials. Therefore, the style is different from what you may be familiar with, and citation sources you might expect to see are not used. But remember that you are "reading over their shoulder." Jehovah's Witnesses will have enough difficulty with the content. It would be counter-productive to make them struggle with terminology as well. But there is more. Nothing would be gained by being harsh with either the Watch Tower organization or its people. We want to show respect to them even while challenging a foundation of their faith. We trust that you will recognize our love for them as we write. What about the Living by Faith book? We thought you might like to have it. Actually, that isn't the only reason. We hope you might be able to use it in your own life. We also think that others might benefit from it. Use Living by Faith in any way you want. However, read it first for yourself. some comments about other things What you will find in the Downloadable Research Library This book was compiled to give you a reference outline for the companion CD. However, we also want to provide enough information in the outline so you don't need to search through the CD before understanding each topic. For that reason, we include brief excerpts from selected books. These excerpts were chosen so that, as a whole, they would give a simple but complete description of the subject. We have included complete tables of contents and subject and verse indexes. We want this to be a research tool for Bible school or seminary students as well as being a technical resource for instructors and others doing research and writing. We use page flags to identify the page location in our published books. The page flag looks like this: ••119••. Your library may have some of our published books in their stacks. If not, they are available through www.tetragrammaton.org. We also assumed that you would see Downloadable Research Library first on a library shelf. If you need specific information from it, you may make photocopies. However, Downloadable Research Library is also on the CD. If you copy the CD, you will have the complete outlines as well as the individual books. While we are talking about the CD Everything is on the CD. All our books are there in both Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat files. Most are available in large-print format. You will also want to look at our Doctrinal Statement and the other short documents. We included several CD label documents to enable you to photocopy or print a label. If you have compatible software, you may be able to copy-and-paste it to your label template. You can free-download Avery's software from www.avery.com. After you burn your first CD, your dialogue box will ask if you want to make another copy. Please make several copies for others. We want to get CDs into the personal libraries of as many students and faculty members as possible. Most of the book files on the CD are also downloadable from our web site www.tetragrammaton.org. None of the web site material is copyright-protected. Introduction v When you use this material We request that no credits be given when this material is translated or quoted for web site or publication use. We prefer that others publish it under their own name rather than under the name of our author or publisher. There is great value in making this material public domain. What is the purpose of this strategy? We want Jehovah's Witnesses, through a work of the Holy Spirit, to realize as quickly as possible that their New World Translation masks the identity of Jesus. Then we want them to discover the joy of knowing the One who is God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. But time is crucial. The more quickly this task can be accomplished, the better. If you were to visit a Sunday meeting in almost any Kingdom Hall you would realize that there are many elderly Witnesses. It will take less time for public domain material to win a hearing than it would for a single author to accomplish the same task. If you are doing research papers that require bibliographies, identify the title of the book as coming from the Downloadable Research Library, citing the author as "not listed." Though we publish anonymously, you should know that we have openly identified ourselves to the Watch Tower Society's leadership. Our ministry is not a hit-and-run operation. The Governing Body, the Public Affairs Director, and many key leaders not only know the author's name, address, and phone number, but they have received a full report of each mailing along with a copy of each book. However, that report was always given after the mailings were received by their Kingdom Halls! Talking about rebuttals Greg Stafford has been one of the Watch Tower Society's most important independent apologists. (Independent means that he does not publish through the Watch Tower Society press. Visit www.elihubooks.com.) He reviewed our material on pages 18-36 in his book Jehovah's Witnesses Defended, Second Edition, 2002. His summary on page 35 is significant. In a rather convoluted statement, he concedes that there is no manuscript evidence allowing insertion of "Jehovah" in 144 of the 237 instances where it has replaced "Lord" in the New World Translation's New Testament. (The passages he cites as lacking textual support for "Jehovah" include critical verses in Revelation that identify Jesus as "Lord God Almighty.") However, for other than textual reasons, he nonetheless favors the New World Translation's use of "Jehovah" in the New Testament. In closing We are attaching an article which is included on the CD. It may be disconcerting to those of us who are life-long evangelicals, but it needs to be said. Mull it over for the next year or two.