Why do the Jehovah's Witnesses maintain that Jesus was Michael the archangel?

There are MANY Bible translations which show that God's personal name "JEHOVAH" most definitely exists in the Hebrew Sciptures (aka the Old Testament) and if you for whatever reason TRY to deny this I will simply retort by posting various respected Bible translations which clearly use and show God's name "JEHOVAH" in the Hebrew Scriptures... But you're free to do so anyway if you'd like. Consequently, "JEHOVAH" is God's personal name as it is commonly pronounced in ENGLISH and "Yahweh" is His personal name as it is commonly pronounced in HEBREW. Just as God's Son's name is pronounced "Yeshua" in HEBREW and "Jesus" in ENGLISH.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is that whether you or anyone else likes it or not, the position of God's name is unshakable in the Hebrew Scriptures, the "Old Testament." Although the Jews eventually stopped pronouncing it, their religious beliefs PREVENTED them from removing the name when they made copies of older manuscripts of the Bible. Hence, the Hebrew Scriptures contain God's name more often than any other name.

With the Christian Greek Scriptures, the "New Testament," the situation is different. Manuscripts of the book of Revelation (the last book of the Bible) have God's name in its abbreviated form, "Jah," (in the word "Hallelujah"). But apart from that, no ancient Greek manuscript that we possess today of the books from Matthew to Revelation contains God's name in full.

Does that mean that the name SHOULD NOT be there? That would be surprising in view of the fact that Jesus' followers recognized the importance of God's name, and Jesus taught us to pray for God's name to be sanctified. So what happened?

To understand this, remember that the manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures that we possess today ARE NOT THE ORIGINALS. The actual books written by Matthew, Luke and the other Bible writers were well used and quickly wore out. Hence, COPIES were made, and when those wore out, FURTHER COPIES were made OF THOSE COPIES.

This is what we would expect, since the copies were usually made to be used, NOT preserved. There are THOUSANDS of copies of the Christian Greek Scriptures in existence today, but most of them were made DURING or AFTER the fourth century of our Common Era. This suggests a possibility: Did something happen to the text of the Christian Greek Scriptures BEFORE the fourth century that resulted in the omission of God's name?

The FACTS prove that something did. We can be sure that the apostle Matthew included God's name in his Gospel. Why?

Because he wrote it originally IN HEBREW. In the fourth century, Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate, reported: "Matthew, who is also Levi, and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language . .

. Who translated it after that in Greek is not sufficiently ascertained. Moreover, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea."

Since Matthew wrote IN HEBREW, it is inconceivable that he DID NOT use God's name, especially when quoting from parts of the "Old Testament" that definitely CONTAINED the name. However, other writers of the second part of the Bible wrote for a worldwide audience in the international language of that time, GREEK. Hence, they did not quote from the original Hebrew writings but from the Septuagint Greek version.

And even Matthew's Gospel was eventually TRANSLATED into Greek. Would God's name have appeared in these Greek writings? Well, some very old fragments of the Septuagint Version that actually existed in Jesus' day HAVE survived down to our day, and it is noteworthy that the personal name of God APPEARED in them!

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Volume 2, page 512) says: "Recent textual discoveries cast doubt on the idea that the compilers of the LXX Septuagint translated the tetragrammaton YHWH by kyrios. The oldest LXX MSS (fragments) now available to us have the tetragrammaton written in Hebrew characters in the Greek text. This custom was retained by later Jewish translators of the Old Testament in the first centuries A.D.

As I'm sure that you know, in the original Hebrew text (Old Testament), the Name *does* appear nearly 7,000 times. Its use throughout the Scriptures far outnumbers that of any of the titles, such as "Sovereign Lord" or "God," applied to Him. Granted, most of the physical evidence found in existing N(ew) T(estament) manuscripts does not support "Jehovah" in the New Testament.

But what makes such a difference is the belief that BOTH "Testaments" are the word of God and must not contradict each other in important areas of knowledge. We can accept both "Testaments" as the inspired word of God and still see understandable differences occurring between the two, but not basic contradictory differences. For example, we know how and why animal sacrifices to God have been done away with.

It has been carefully, logically explained in the NT and, therefore, does not contradict the OT teachings where such sacrifices were required (essential). But where is the careful, logical explanation that shows that the necessary knowledge and use of God's name (as clearly acknowledged by word and example throughout the OT) was done away with in the NT? It's not there.

How can it be that God reveals His personal name and commands that it be publicly acknowledged and used forever by His servants (and they respectfully do so for over a thousand years) and then, for no scriptural reason, His worshipers suddenly begin refusing to use that name and even hide it? Therefore, if we are to keep the Scriptures from terribly contradicting themselves in an extremely important area, we must conclude that either the OT scriptures are wrong or the oldest available NT manuscripts and fragments (at least those which actually contain places that quote from the OT where "YHWH" was originally used) are copies that have been CHANGED FROM THE ORIGINAL. Since the name of God being used as YHWH even in everyday life is attested to by archaeological findings back to the 8th century B.

C. At least, we are really forced to conclude that, yes, the existing NT manuscripts are terribly wrong in this particular area. Therefore, we know that the Name belongs in the NT.

Besides, the MSS we have today were copies of copies, etc., written hundreds of years after the originals, and therefore may well have been changed when the name became a hated "Jewish" name to "Christians" (around 135 A.D.). And even *with* these changes, the Name has not been entirely left out of the N.T. since Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6 still retains "Alleluia": "ALLELUIA, the Greek form (Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6) of the Hebrew Hallelujah = Praise ye *JEHOVAH*, which begins or ends several of the psalms (106, 111, 112, 113, etc.)." – Easton's Bible Dictionary, Thomas Nelson Publ. , 1897.

Additional Reading: God's Name and the "New Testament" http://www.watchtower.org/e/na/article_0... "Jehovah" in The New Testament http://searchforbibletruths.blogspot.com...

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