The organisation states in its own publications that no surviving early Greek manuscript of the Christian Greek Scriptures contains the divine name: The Watchtower of 1 March 1991 says ‘True, no early surviving Greek manuscript of the “New Testament” contains the personal name of God,’ and Insight on the Scriptures asks in its own sub-heading why the name is ‘not in any available ancient manuscript’.
Claim ID claim-bible-no-greek-manuscript-has-nameConcerns 1 March 1991Organisation's explanation
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The organisation answers that the extant copies date from the third century onwards, by which time ‘the original text of the writings of the apostles and disciples had been altered’, and that the Septuagint evidence shows the same substitution demonstrably happened to Greek copies of the Hebrew Scriptures.
1 March 1991 · pp.26-30 · pars. 14, 17, 20 (pp. 28-30) · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“True, no early surviving Greek manuscript of the “New Testament” contains the personal name of God. But the name was included in the New World Translation for sound reasons, not merely on a whim.”
The article is the organisation’s fullest published answer to the charge that the New World Translation is falsified. It compares the criticism to sixteenth-century attacks on Luther’s Bible, defends the renderings at Luke 23:43 (“Truly I tell you today”), Matthew 26:26 (“This means my body”) and John 1:1 (“the Word was a god”), and answers the objection to the form “Jehovah” by saying that “scholars are by no means in agreement that the form ‘Yahweh’ represents the original pronunciation”. It offers this explanation of the criticism: “the New World Translation is criticized because it is published by Jehovah’s Witnesses, who outspokenly declare that many of Christendom’s doctrines are not found in the Bible.”
Provenance and verification note for The Watchtower, The “New World Translation”—Scholarly and Honest
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and read in full; the issue date was confirmed by locating the article in the Online Library’s listing for The Watchtower of 1 March 1991, and page numbers were taken from the document’s embedded page markers.
Notes. This is the article the site should quote when stating the organisation’s case on the divine name in the Christian Greek Scriptures: it concedes the manuscript position and argues from inference.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-nwto-w-1991-0301-scholarly-honest
1988 · pp.9-10 · pars. 31-38 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“In view of this evidence it seems most unusual to find that the extant manuscript copies of the original text of the Christian Greek Scriptures do not contain the divine name in its full form.”
The article poses the question in its own sub-heading: “Why is the divine name in its full form not in any available ancient manuscript of the Christian Greek Scriptures?” It answers that the earlier explanation — that the Septuagint had already substituted Kyʹri·os — “is no longer valid” in light of the Septuagint fragments, quotes Paul Kahle (The Cairo Geniza, 1959, p. 222) to the effect that “It was the Christians who replaced the Tetragrammaton by kyrios”, and concludes: “Evidently because by the time those extant copies were made (from the third century C.E. onward) the original text of the writings of the apostles and disciples had been altered.”
Provenance and verification note for Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 2, Jehovah (section “In the Christian Greek Scriptures”)
Confidence note. Article opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and read in full; the quoted sentence sits immediately after the embedded page marker for page 9. The scholarly works it cites were not opened.
Notes. The organisation’s own reference work states plainly that no available ancient manuscript of the Christian Greek Scriptures carries the divine name.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-nwto-it-jehovah-greek
1985 · pp.1133-1137 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“Authorities fix the date for this papyrus as the first century B.C.E., that is, about two centuries after the LXX was begun. This proves that the original LXX did contain the divine name wherever it occurred in the Hebrew original.”
The appendix builds the case from Papyrus Fouad Inv. 266, a Septuagint roll of Deuteronomy in which the Tetragrammaton is written in square Hebrew characters. It records that a fragment was published by W. G. Waddell in 1944, that in 1948 “two Gilead-trained missionaries of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society obtained photographs of 18 fragments” in Cairo and permission to publish them, and that 12 appeared in the 1950 New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures. It quotes Paul Kahle and Jerome, and argues from Jerome’s statement that Matthew first wrote in Hebrew that the divine name stood in the original Gospel.
Provenance and verification note for The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (1985 edition), Appendix 1A: The Carry-Over of the Divine Name Into the Greek Scriptures
Confidence note. Appendix opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and read; quotations and page markers confirmed from the document. The cited papyrological literature was NOT opened.
Notes. Note carefully what is and is not claimed: the papyrus evidence concerns the Greek Septuagint (an Old Testament translation), not any manuscript of the Christian Greek Scriptures.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-nwto-int-1985-app1a
A direct link to this claim is https://jwtruth.org/evidence/claim-bible-no-greek-manuscript-has-name/. Every source above opens the original document or the best available copy. If you believe the wording, date or context is wrong, report an error.