Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 2, “Jehovah (section “In the Christian Greek Scriptures”)”
“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 It answers that the earlier explanation — that the Septuagint had already substituted Kyʹri·os — “is no longer valid” in light of the Septuagint fragments, quotes Paul Kahle (The Cairo Geniza, 1959, p. 222) to the effect that “It was the Christians who replaced the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.”
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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.
Corroborated by. src-nwto-w-1991-0301-scholarly-honest, src-nwto-int-1985-app1a
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