The French NWT

by Narkissos 13 Replies latest members private

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  the_classicist

  First I would like to say thanks for posting that, because I was wondering last night, coincidentally, how the other translations of the NWT were made. I would suspect, though, and you would know more about this than me, that in other countries where there are less JWs, the NWT is translated directly from English. Y'know this proves two things: 1) JWs aren't as concerned about true biblical scholarship as they seem, and 2) The WT is an Anglophone and American religion.

  By the way, Narkissos, what do you think of la Bible de Jerusalem as a translation? Is the French version of the NWT any good (I would say it's English equivalent isn't)?
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  Narkissos

  Hillary_step

  I understand that a new French translation of the NWT is due out shortly, or has recently been released, I have lost track. From what I understand it deviates in some very significant ways from the English translation. I would be interested to read your comments on it.

  I lost track too! Haven't heard about it. Next time I meet JWs in the street I'll ask.

  One funny thing is how I got the 95 edition. In the 90's I was working in the French Bible Society and an interim secretary was recruited for a few months. This girl never showed up at staff birthday parties so I wondered... asked her and, bingo! she was a JW in good standing, working for Babylon the Great, answering orders of churches, pastors, priests... even the French Bethel when it ordered "other" Bibles! She got me the 95 edition.

  Having met Michel a number of times I can agree with your comments. He seemed refreshingly free of the internal political grappling that makes up so part of ones life in Bethel's around the world.

  I'm glad you knew him. Strangely enough he later became the president of the national legal association. I'll pm you later on some personal memories...
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  Narkissos

  SNG,

  Was this book censured at the time you were working on it, because Ray Franz had left? If so, was this known internally, but not to Witnesses in general? Was it translated grudgingly, since there was no suitable replacement?

  Yes I guess it was heavily "censured" as a consequence of Ray's eviction from Bethel (but I only figured that out later). We had received from Brooklyn a "corrected" unbound version for translation, with large cuts and some rephrasing. It was not widely known, but anyone comparing the English and French could see the difference. I guess the true "replacement" came with the Insight volumes (but then I was gone).

  Fairchild,

  Yes poetry, where there is so obviously more to a text than meaning (semantics), reminds us of what Derrida calls the paradoxical impossibility and possibility of translation. One has to think of translation as a different text (the translator really being another author) yet related to the "original". Which is of course shattering to any concept of "authority".

  The Classicist,

  The Jerusalem Bible is an excellent translation; always debatable of course, not so "consistent" as Osty, but much more creative and reflecting some of the best mainstream scholarship available. From the original edition in the 50's it has been revised several times, mostly in a textually conservative way (limiting textual conjectures), but the introductions and footnotes in the 1998 edition are generally excellent and this makes up for that.
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  dgp

  Bookmarked in view of how interesting this is.

  In my humble opinion, Mr. Émile Müller beat the Watchtower at its own game. Three million cheers to him for that.

  Yes, "I am a doctor" is correctly translated as "Je suis médecin", but that is not the case with the word God. "était un dieu" is not the same as "était dieu", even if "dieu" is not capitalized. I invite anyone to try. Google "était dieu" and then "était un dieu", and you'll get very different meanings.

  For example, I just googled the words "était un dieu", and one of the results I came upon was "quand l'empereur était un dieu", a book by Ms. Julie Otsuka. Those words mean "when the emperor was a god", and they were made in reference to the emperor of Japan, who, as we know, was was deemed to be one god, one among many; and every new emperor was another god. If "était un dieu" meant the same as "était dieu", then why is it that the writer used the definite article "un"? The writer, obviously, couldn't hold that every Japanese emperor was one and the same god, but only one of them.

  What if the statement were "quand l'empereur était dieu"? Then the translation would be "When the emperor was god". You can argue that this final statement might be understood to mean that the emperor was one of many gods, not the only one, but that is not in line with the general spirit of the French language.

  I think Mr. Müller was an honest man above all.

  I wonder if modern versions of the French NWT include the "un dieu". That would be very revealing.