Did Jesus and his disciples tell others about Jehovah?

[Eloi]

The Jews to whom they were first preached the good news of the Kingdom already knew who God is. Jesus and his apostles were Jews, so they knew it too. The OT is full of references to the person of God and his personal name, so Jews were considered His witnesses (Is. 43:10-12). Jesus even told the Jews that the One they believed to be their God was his own Father.

John 8:54 Jesus answered: “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, the one who you say is your God. 55 Yet you have not known him, but I know him. And if I said I do not know him, I would be like you, a liar. But I do know him and am observing his word.

Although Jesus mentioned his Father to them many times, he had to make them understand that he was the Messiah that Jehovah had promised before, but they did not believe him. In time it began to be preached to non-Jews who believed in many gods, and who had no idea of the importance of God's Messiah.

What God did Judeo-Christians speak to non-Jews when Christian congregations began to form in the first century? Did they talk about Jehovah, or did they forget about him? Can a worshiper of Jehovah forget his God?

[onewithhim]

So you think that Jesus would refuse to speak his Father's name when he quoted a Scripture that has the name in Hebrew?

Yes.

Why do you think that he would bow to a silly superstition of the Jews?

If he was real and the Gospels accurately reflect what he said historically, because he was a first-century Jewish man. If he wasn't real or the Gospels aren't historically accurate, then the authors reflected first- or second-century Jewish tradition.

Why wouldn't you believe that he actually said God's name in the Christian Greek Scriptures when he was determined to make Jehovah's name known as can be seen from his prayer to the Father (John 17: 6,26)?

To "make Your Name known" is used in many contexts as a euphemism for making people aware of Yahweh's divine attributes and deeds. Isaiah 64:1-2 uses the phrase this way and it's likely how John's Jesus uses the phrase, because he's focusing on Yahweh's love rather than the idea that people are getting His Name wrong or something. In fact, Jewish tradition uses the literal epithet Hashem, which literally means "The Name," to refer to Yahweh.

An interesting irony is that this tradition is used as a common apologetic excuse for why Exodus 6:3 doesn't contradict Genesis 14:22, for example, even though it is specifically talking about His Names. From the NKJV Study Bible (emphasis in original):

The patriarchs had known God Almighty. It is not that they had never heard the name Yahweh, but they had not known God in an intimate way. The patriarchs knew a great deal about God and had experienced His goodness in many ways. But they had not had the revelation that was granted to Moses and the people of his day.

Matthew and all of the New Testament writers quoted verses from the Hebrew text or from the Septuagint where the divine name appears. In Peter's speech at Acts 3:22 a quotation is made from Deuteronomy 18:15 where the Tetragrammaton appears in a papyrus fragment of the Septuagint dated to the first century B.C. It is safe to assume that Peter would've used God's name.

To the contrary, both Peter and the author of Acts were Jewish men of the first or second century. It is likely that they would have used an epithet for God rather than Yahweh's Holy Name.

Peter, the author of Acts (probably Luke), and Jesus were all first century Jews but they didn't adhere to the thinking of the religious leaders. They constantly brought out the truth of the matter that the Pharisees were contradicting God's own word. They were upstarts in Jewish minds and they indeed were relentlessly proclaiming the hypocrisy of the religious leaders. Why do you think they would go along with the superstition of refraining to use God's name? (See Matthew chapter 23.) Jehovah actually said at Exodus 3:15 that his name was to used for generation after generation, far from being an unpronouncable name. (See Exodus 3:15 in the American Standard Version and Young's Literal Translation.)

"This what you are to say to the sons of Israel, 'Jehovah the God of your forefathers...has sent me to you. This is my name to time indefinite, and this is the memorial of me to generation after generation.'" (Exodus 3:15, ASV, Young's) Looks like He wanted it to be used.

[Difflugia]

Peter, the author of Acts (probably Luke), and Jesus were all first century Jews but they didn't adhere to the thinking of the religious leaders. They constantly brought out the truth of the matter that the Pharisees were contradicting God's own word.

You're projecting onto them which rules you think they followed despite what the text says.

Why do you think they would go along with the superstition of refraining to use God's name?

You keep asking the same question and the answer's always going to be the same. Jesus and the gang were first-century Jews and Jewish people in the first century didn't say the Holy Name. You can insist that they happened to share your theology, but I don't think they did no matter how many times you ask.

Looks like He wanted it to be used.

Unless we change the New Testament, it looks like Jesus disagreed.

[Difflugia]

When studying the teachings of the Bible, distinguishing between the original writings and the translated manuscript copies we have today is crucial.

If you're talking about the New Testament, we're not discussing translations (unless you subscribe to the idea of Hebrew/Aramaic primacy).

Evidently, something occurred after the first century AD that led to only certain manuscripts surviving, which replaced God's personal name.

The copies of the Septuagint that survived are the ones that were preserved by Christians. No more, no less. Up to the first century, copies of the Septuagint were prepared predominantly by Jews for Jews. Over the next couple of centuries, that changed and the Greek scriptures were used and copied by Christians.

Upon discovering the oldest Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament, we ask again: was God's name included in the Greek versions? The response was always the same: YES,

No. There are copies of Greek Old Testament manuscripts with the Tetragrammaton marked in some way, but it's not like all manuscripts older than a certain age marked the Tetragrammaton and they weren't marked consistently. There was a transition period during which copyists changed how they represented the Tetragrammaton in Greek copies, from using some sort of unique marker to the word κυριος.

God's name was indeed present in the LXX that Christians cited during the first century.

Some of them.

It was carefully erased from subsequent copies, while with absolutely certainty attempts were made to erase all references in the earlier versions, likely by destroying those copies that included it.

This is baseless speculation. The state of the manuscript evidence doesn't require conspiracy theories to explain it.

Now, considering Christian writings, is there reason to believe the same occurred with early Christian Greek Scriptures, like those of the Hebrew Scriptures, which might have included God's name? Indeed, there are compelling reasons to believe early Christians both pronounced and documented God's personal name in their Greek texts. Why then do the Christian Greek writings available to us, similar to the initial LXX versions, lack God's name despite indications it was there?

There are no "indications that it was there." You have speculated that it was and you have invented a history of the OG translations of the Hebrew Old Testament that would support that, but that's all you have. An equally parsimonious explanation is that Christians didn't specially mark the Tetragrammaton in their copies of the Greek Old Testament, the original compositions that would become the New Testament, or any later copies of them.

The explanation is straightforward: God's name was removed from both the LXX and Christian writings around the same time, by the same individuals, and for identical reasons. Who were these individuals, and what were their motives?

A straightforward explanation is that "these individuals" were the earliest Christians and their motives simply related to a different theological outlook than the one you are trying to project onto them.

[Bible_Student]

There's no need for conspiracy theories to understand that God's name faces opposition. In modern times, right before us, Trinitarian translations of the Bible are eliminating God's personal name from the Hebrew Scriptures, where it originally appeared almost 7,000 times.

[Tcg]

There's no need for conspiracy theories to understand that God's name faces opposition. In modern times, right before us, Trinitarian translations of the Bible are eliminating God's personal name from the Hebrew Scriptures, where it originally appeared almost 7,000 times.

Got any evidence to back up this claim? This is a debate forum where evidence is expected, not simply bare assertions.


Tcg

[onewithhim]

There's no need for conspiracy theories to understand that God's name faces opposition. In modern times, right before us, Trinitarian translations of the Bible are eliminating God's personal name from the Hebrew Scriptures, where it originally appeared almost 7,000 times.

Got any evidence to back up this claim? This is a debate forum where evidence is expected, not simply bare assertions.


Tcg

Evidence has been provided in my previous posts. It is just largely ignored.

[onewithhim]

Peter, the author of Acts (probably Luke), and Jesus were all first century Jews but they didn't adhere to the thinking of the religious leaders. They constantly brought out the truth of the matter that the Pharisees were contradicting God's own word.

You're projecting onto them which rules you think they followed despite what the text says.

Why do you think they would go along with the superstition of refraining to use God's name?

You keep asking the same question and the answer's always going to be the same. Jesus and the gang were first-century Jews and Jewish people in the first century didn't say the Holy Name. You can insist that they happened to share your theology, but I don't think they did no matter how many times you ask.

Looks like He wanted it to be used.

Unless we change the New Testament, it looks like Jesus disagreed.

No, he didn't. Did you bother to read the 23rd chapter of Matthew? He didn't go along with the Pharisees at all.

[Tcg]

There's no need for conspiracy theories to understand that God's name faces opposition. In modern times, right before us, Trinitarian translations of the Bible are eliminating God's personal name from the Hebrew Scriptures, where it originally appeared almost 7,000 times.

Got any evidence to back up this claim? This is a debate forum where evidence is expected, not simply bare assertions.


Tcg

Evidence has been provided in my previous posts. It is just largely ignored.

My post wasn't directed to you. Your posts, whatever they may say, don't change Bible_Student's claims into anything other than bald assertions.


Tcg

[Difflugia]

Looks like He wanted it to be used.

Unless we change the New Testament, it looks like Jesus disagreed.

No, he didn't. Did you bother to read the 23rd chapter of Matthew?

Yes, onewithhim.

Maybe you can find somewhere in that chapter where Jesus discusses saying the Holy Name instead of replacing it with an epithet.

He didn't go along with the Pharisees at all.

Since that's obviously not true in any sort of absolute sense (they were all Jewish, after all), the key is figuring out exactly where they would have disagreed. You've projected your own theology onto Jesus to the point that you're willing to believe that the true history of the New Testament runs completely counter to the manuscript evidence. I've been known to indulge in the idea that certain verses contain interpolations despite no manuscript evidence, but the Witness position on the Tetragrammaton in the New Testament takes on a completely different dimension. You are arguing that the nature of the text, including the very words of Jesus, has completely changed, but in a short enough period of time that all direct evidence of it was lost. To say that your position is untenable is an understatement.

[Bible_Student]

... the Witness position on the Tetragrammaton in the New Testament takes on a completely different dimension. You are arguing that the nature of the text, including the very words of Jesus, has completely changed, but in a short enough period of time that all direct evidence of it was lost. To say that your position is untenable is an understatement.

The conviction that the name of the Jewish God was originally included in early Christian Greek texts is not unique to Jehovah's Witnesses.