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Protestant Apologetics

Responding to Jehovah's Witnesses

God Must Be Called Jehovah

Watchtower Teaching

JWs teach that using God's personal name — rendered 'Jehovah' — is essential to true worship. They claim that Christendom has suppressed the divine name and that restoring it is central to their mission. The NWT inserts 'Jehovah' 237 times into the New Testament, despite there being no manuscript evidence for the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) in any surviving Greek NT manuscript. The name 'Jehovah' is itself a medieval hybrid of the consonants YHWH with the vowels of Adonai.

Why This Matters

Knowing God is not about syllables — it is about relationship. Jesus taught his disciples to pray 'Our Father' (), not 'Our Jehovah.' The New Testament authors, writing under inspiration, used Kyrios (Lord) and Theos (God) — never the Tetragrammaton. If using 'Jehovah' were essential to salvation, the inspired NT writers failed to include it even once. The Watchtower's insertion of 'Jehovah' into the NT relies on 'J-references' — Hebrew back-translations made centuries after the original Greek, which universally read Kyrios. This is not restoration; it is fabrication. The irony is that 'Jehovah' is not even the correct pronunciation of YHWH — most scholars prefer Yahweh.

Watchtower Sources
What Does the Bible Really Teach?, ch. 1
The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever, 1984
Reasoning From the Scriptures, pp. 195–199
Also Known As
JehovahGod's namedivine nameYHWHYahwehTetragrammatonJehovah's nameGod's personal namename of Godusing God's nameJehovah pronunciationJ-referencesdivine name NTKyrios vs Jehovahname essential to salvationhallowed be thy nameJehovah's Witnesses nameAdonaiAdonai substitutionLord substitutionnever speak God's namedon't pronounce YHWHHebrew word for LordJehovah mispronunciationJehovah hybridhow Jehovah was inventedAdonai vowels YHWH consonantsJehovah originJehovah historymedieval hybrid nameyod he vav he