Quote: It is not necessary for Bible translators to know Hebrew and Greek. (page 3)

damselfly

Move along people it's not a free show.

Dams

Elsewhere

Move along now... nothing to see here...

Undecided

I assume they were referring to translating the NWT into another language, not the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of the bible.

Ken P.

OHappyDay

Of course it's about translating the English NWT into other languages. In which case none of this is as unusual or as sinister as it's being made out to be, or even all that interesting.

AuldSoul

Actually, OHappyDay, if the meanings of the English words as incorrectly applied by the WTS are used as a basis, the resulting Bible would be horribly skewed.

For example John 10:16, the words translated "which are not of this fold" are explained by the WTS to mean that there would be other sheep which were not IN "this fold" of spiritual Isarel that he was collecting at that time. However, the Greek even from their Kingdom Interlinear Translation plainly shows that this "of" means "out of" which would mean Jesus was referring to sheep FROM, or OUT OF two different sources with one destiny ("one flock"), not two different destinies for sheep FROM the same flock.

This is just one tiny example but there are hundreds of others.

Respectfully,
AuldSoul

Narkissos

In which case none of this is as unusual or as sinister as it's being made out to be, or even all that interesting.

OHD, there is a real problem if the non-English NWT editions claim to be anything else than a mere translation of the English NWT.

The 1995 edition of the French NWT has the following mention on the title page:

Les Saintes Ecritures Traduction du monde nouveautraduites d'après l'édition anglaise révisée de 1984; on s'est constamment référé aux langues d'origines, l'hébreu, l'araméen et le grec.

(Translation of the underlined part: "referring constantly to the original languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek")

Whereas this was true of the original French NWT (1974), as I pointed out before, it was known as a remarkable exception. If editions in other languages have a similar mention while the Branch Office manual clearly shows that the translators don't need (nor, for that matter, are encouraged) to learn Biblical languages that is pretty outrageous imo.

VM44

I think it is the 1984 English NWT that "references constantly" the original languages. At least the reference Bible does.

The french translation references the original languages through the english version.

Is that how it worked?

--VM44

Narkissos

I think it is the 1984 English NWT that "references constantly" the original languages. At least the reference Bible does.
The french translation references the original languages through the english version.

Is there an English verb "to reference"? (It doesn't appear in my dictionaries.) What is its nuance?

I checked the 1995 French edition which is the only one I have at hand, but I actually had the previous one (1974) in mind, which had a similar mention (going from distant memory: "en tenant régulièrement compte de l'hébreu, de l'araméen et du grec" = "regularly taking into account the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek"); this definitely did not apply to the cross-references or footnotes (there was none) but to the translation (as also the 1995 wording suggests imo).

About the original French NWT (1974) see http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/9/86744/1.ashx

sass_my_frass

Oh the lies. If only I'd seen it all earlier and spared myself so many wasted years.

Euphemism

Narkissos wrote:
Is there an English verb "to reference"?

Yes; from m-w:

1 a : to supply with references b : to cite in or as a reference
2 : to put in a form (as a table) adapted to easy reference

The most common meaning is 1b.

The 1913 Webster's didn't have it; I would guess that it's a relatively recent (~50 years) back-formation from the noun; c.f. contact.

Quote: It is not necessary for Bible translators to know Hebrew and Greek.

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