A Personal Bible Study

    You often feel that you must follow books written by others in order to accurately study the Bible. But Jehovah has given you his spirit so that you might learn from your own study. Make this a personal Bible study. Find out for yourself what Jehovah is saying to you in his Word.

    This study will help you if you have recently read or heard discussions regarding the Tetragrammaton in the Christian Greek Scriptures. Many are beginning to question the place of the Tetragrammaton in the Christian Scriptures. You may already have an opinion, or you may still be thinking about it. However, now that the best historical and textual evidence strongly suggests that the original Christina Scriptures writers did not use the Tetragrammaton, we must look again at the meaning of Scripture as it was written. Today, and accurate Bible translation should read Lord (or sometimes God) rather than Jehovah in the Christina Scriptures. (Remember, however, that the New World Translation is one of the very few English Bibles which has correctly restored Jehovah to the Hebrew Scriptures. It is to be commended for that.)

    The verses on the left hand side of your study sheet list all 237 occurrences of Jehovah in the New World Translation Christian Scriptures. In all but 14 instances, the Kingdom Interlinear Translation uses the word Lord in English (and Kyrios in Greek which is the Greek word for Lord) at these verses. All but one of the exceptions use God (Theos) and are found at Matthew 4:4, John 6:45, Acts 13:44 and 48, 16:32, 8:21, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, Colossians 3:16, Hebrews 2:13, James 2:23 twice, and 2 Peter 3:12. James 1:12 uses a grammatical construction which is neither Lord nor God. These exceptions are identified in parenthesis in the 14 verses involved.

    What was the Scripture writer saying? For this study, we encourage you to use your New World Translation. Ask yourself what the Scripture writer is saying if he used the word Lord in these verses. Also compare the verse with the Hebrew Scripture quotation when it is available. Many quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures do not actually use Jehovah's name in the verse quoted. In these instances you need to read the Hebrew Scripture context to verify that it is Jehovah speaking or that the writer is talking about Jehovah. (It is sometimes difficult to be certain which verses should be included as quotations, so you may add (or remove) verses from those given. However, if you add verses, determine that the Hebrew Scripture reference is actually a quotation and not just a reference to a similar subject in the Hebrew Scriptures. You will be surprised to realize, however, that most of the 237 Jehovah references are not quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures.)

    Do not use other books with your study. Let this be you own personal Bible study. This study material gives you only Bible references. It does not tell you what your answers should be. For each verse you study, simply thing through the question "What is this verse saying if the inspired writer wrote Lord?" (You will need to modify your answer for the 13 verses which use God rather than Lord.)

    Keep the study interesting for yourself. Keep notes in the spaces provided if that helps maintain your interest. Keeping notes will help you review later. From time to time, you will also want to make notes in the summary section at the end of each book. You may also record the date when you complete each study. Do not be concerned if the study takes time. It may be more interesting for you to do only one or two verses a day. The pages may be punched and put into a notebook.

    May Jehovah God give you a satisfying understanding of himself as you search his Word.

    You may want to use the PDF Format to print this Personal Bible Study. Also, see the explanation concerning Hebrew Scripture Quotations and Cross Reference Citations in Chapter 3 of the book The Teteragrammaton and the Christian Greek Scriptures. We cited only Hebrew Scripture Quotations and References to The Divine Name in this study. We did not include Cross Reference Citations. See Appendix B for the complete list of citations. You may also want to look at the more complete Detailed Personal Bible Study which includes additional background information.