New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures

by Quendi 66 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  PSacramento

  But no one (To my knowledge) who was able to speak from a position of authority has ever claimed it was forged, faked or plagiarized.

  I don't think anyone said that it was forged or faked or anything else for that matter.

  There is no "copyright" on the bible and unless one takes an offical translation like the NIV and puts THEIR name on it, I don;'t think that using other bibles to compare trnaslation while working on your own, qualifies as any of that.

  I am just saying that it wouldn't be too hard for many people to do just that and make their own "official bible" of their own religion.

  Agreed?
• 

  TD

  PSac,

  Agree.

  The idea that it's faked is part and parcel of the "Version" vs. "Translation" question on page 2 and the top of page 3 of this thread. The theory is that no one involved was capable of even simple translation, so they took various interlinears and composed their own English verson based on the interlinear glosses and then billed it as a fresh translation. Ergo, it's faked.

  I haven't commented on this thread because I think the NWT is a great translation. I just don't think it's the abomination it's made out to be on the internet.
• 

  PSacramento

  Like I mentioned before, I don't mind it so much.

  It is not a very "good read", it is dry and often times emotionless and at times muddled.

  The Portuguese version is more "pleasant" to the reading to be honest and I recall Narkissos mentioning the same thing about the french versions.

  I miss Narkissos posts by the way, we don't have enough posters like him and You for that matter :)
• 

  Bungi Bill

  TD,

  Firstly, you have a PM!

  As to your pertinent remarks about subjectivity, I would suggest that this runs heavily through most of the matters that get discussed on this board.

  Regarding Bible doctrine and Bible translations, I often wonder how much of a proverbial "chicken and egg" situation we are dealing with here!

  i.e. Just to what extent did one result from the other?

  Bill.
• 

  shepherd

  "With no real primary scholarship on the NWT committee, I'm guessing that the gang made use of the same tools you mentioned, concordances, lexicons, etc. Then they had to have dozens of translations to refer to. With said tools in hand (no pun intended), I'm guessing Franz & company proceded to cherry-pick the verse translations most favorable to the WT worldview. Hell, anyone with the time and desire could probably put together their own translation that way. You certainly wouldn't need any real knowledge of Ancient Near East languages, society, etc. "

  This is also what I think happened. They wanted their own Bible 'translation', not just for doctrinal reasons, but for copyright reasons. They wanted a Bible they could publish freely in modern English. They wanted one that did not have the biases in translation they did not accept, especially in reference to the Trinity, and they wanted to add a few of their own. So, they looked at a few other translations and concordances, lexicons, etc. to cobble together their own.

  The result is not the terrible translation some claim it to be. It is no better and no worse than many others. But of course, it does support their doctrinal position and that upsets many, even though other translators do the same thing.

  I have to admit, I would never ever use it again because it is tainted just by the fact JWs compiled it.
• 

  Disillusioned JW

  The New Testament writers in a few verses when quoting the OT where The Name (the name of YHWH/Yahweh in the Hebrew OT, but typically "the LORD" in the Greek manuscripts of the OT) appears were equating Jesus with "the LORD" (Yahweh). See Romans 10:9 -13 in the NWT (1984) and then read the interlinear literal translation of the Greek text in the WT's Kingdom Interlinear. Look at the cross references (in the 1984 NWT) for verse 13 to Joel 2:32 and Zephaniah 3:9. Those OT verses are where The Name YHWH/Yahweh/Jehovah is used in the Hebrew Scriptures ("the LORD" in at least most copies of the Greek translation of those scriptures). Look at Acts 2:21 (NWT 1984) where it says "And everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved." Then look at the Kingdom Interlinear's literal interlinear translation and notice it says "the name of Lord" instead of Jehovah in that verse.

  See also the website of https://www.tetragrammaton.org/ . Its author claims to have attended meetings at a Kingdom Hall of JWs on a weekly basis and that he has never been a JW (and thus never an apostate of the WT/JW religion). He is an evangelical Christian who has carefully examined the J (Jehovah) references in the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures.

  There is evidence that the earliest Christians originally thought of the heavenly Christ as originally an emanation of Yahweh (or as part of Yahweh) and thus they thought he could be called Yahweh and "the LORD" and thus also be worshiped and be considered God and be prayed to (see John 1:1, John 20:28, Acts 7:59,60 [note footnote in 1984 NWT regarding alternate reading for "made appeal" and see the Kingdom Interlinear's literal translation of Acts 7:59, 60]). See Colossians 1:17 in the KIT and note that the Greek text for that verse has no Greek word meaning "other". Note that NWT Bible editions printed from 2006 and later exclude the brackets around the word "other" and thus obscure the fact that the word "other" in the translation of that verse does not complete the sense of that verse, but rather alters its meaning.
  

  See also Hebrews 1:1 - 14 and note that Jesus is being contrasted with the angels and thus being considered as not an angel and thus not the Archangel Michael. Notice that verse 6 (in the 1984 NWT) says "... let all God's angels do obeisance to him." Note that the footnote for that verse in the 1984 NWT Reference Bible says 'Or, "let ... worship." '. Compare the wording of the verse to the 1970 and earlier editions of the NWT; they say in the main text for Hebrews 1:6 the following '... And let all God's angels worship him." ' [See also the ASV and KJV Bibles for that verse.] In contrast the latest revision of the NWT (the 2013 Revision) in Hebrews 1:6 in the footnote for "do obeisance" doesn't give the alternate rendering of "worship .." but says "bow down" instead. [See https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/nwt/books/hebrews/1/#fn161259120 .] Step by step the WT in the translation of their NWT has diminished the significance of sayings in the Bible which ascribe worship to Jesus Christ.
  

  Let me make clear, I don't believe/think that Jesus is the God or a god - I'm now an atheist and a philosophical naturalist - but I now think that parts of Bible do teach that Jesus is God (in some sense - in a much greater sense than the WT interpretation of "and the Word was a god") and that the earliest Christians thought of Jesus as God (in some sense - in a much greater sense than the WT interpretation of "and the Word was a god"). See the book by Earl Doherty called The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus. See also Doherty's website at https://www.jesuspuzzle.com/jesuspuzzle/index.htm .

  The earliest extant New Testament manuscripts didn't write out the name Jesus but used nomina sacra instead. Regarding nomina sacra see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomina_sacra .
• 

  BereanThinker7

  For the "old testament" I still often use the NWT, for the "new testament" I have found the Revised English Version quite nice. It is a version the also restores the Divine where the tetragrammaton originally appeared, the usually use Yahweh.

  I think obviously using a variety of translations is best to get a real sense of things. You can find the REV here. . . https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/ and they have a user friendly app for mobile, that I find much less annoying than jw.borgs app lol