by jes30427 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I think Franz declined to read the passage, i.e. he said he would not read it, not that he could not. Of course, if he felt confident about his translating abilities, I don't see why he would have refused the demonstration....
Aren't we all blessed that Jehovah has proceeded to give us a Bible so that we may take in knowledge and put our faith in our a god who died on a torture stake so that we may be in union with Jehovah in the new system of things?
When I first got dragged in about 1963, the Green NWT was there in full force. I was told that it was released in stages through the fifties and that the complete thing came out in 1960 or 1961.
We should not forget that a Christadelphian (or maybe an independent) minister left the WT Society the publishing rights to a complete interlinear translation Greek<>English of the NT back in the 20's. They later plaigarized it into the Kingdom Interlinear Translation. I always thought that Freddi and the boys must have used it pretty heavily as a crib sheet during the translation days.
It is also interesting to note that the company line on that God-Awful Green cover was:
a. It reminds us of grass & trees & hence the new earth...
b. It was deliberately picked because it was different from Worldly bibles which were usually a depressing black.
c. (or, more likely) - maybe we got a great deal on ugly green naugahyde.
Most of us could not wait to get a copy of either the deluxe edition in maroon or black, or that brown "pocket" edition just so we didn't have to flash the dreaded "green" from door to door.
I guess the green bible is more or less an antique artifact now...
My green Bible has lots of wads of gum between its pages.
When asked in a Scotland courtroom if he could translate Genesis 2:4 into Hebrew, Franz replied that he could not. The truth is that Franz was unable to translate Hebrew or Greek.
Not that it's any great accomplishment, but Franz most certainly knew ancient Greek.
He declined to translate from English into Hebrew. Why is anybody's guess. Not to defend him, but it is harder going from your native tongue to a language that you can read but not speak.
