The New World Translation is a Mess

by Amazing 144 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Amazing

  Onacruse,

  I just responded to your earlier comments just before you posted again right after me. You must have missed my comments. The point about the NWT having thousands of errors comes from Dr. Julius Mantey. He would have to demonstrate it. I heard him say it in a film about the JWs.

  As a non-expert, in studying just one topic, I found about two dozen obvious errors, or better stated manipulations of the text to fit Watchtower theology. As I posted above, I will post some of these as a sample. In the meantime, I return your dare, and ask you to debate one of the scholars I quoted, such as Dr. J. Johnson who said:

  Dr. J. Johnson: California State University, Long Beach. When asked to comment on the Greek, said, "No justification whatsoever for translating theos en ho logos as 'the Word was a god'. There is no syntactical parallel to Acts 23:6 where there is a statement in indirect discourse. Jn.1:1 is direct.. I am neither a Christian nor a Trinitarian.

  Jim Whitney
• 

  onacruse

  Our posts crossed! Such is the life of people that must go to work to work for a living!

  I have my copy of the Dana and Mantey A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament in hand (therefore I don't need to contact the dead, LOL), and will transcribe a copy of pages 139-140 when I get home (unless someone else does it first)...and it won't agree with what you've asserted about John 1:1.
• 

  Amazing

  Onacruse,

  If Mantey's manual agrees with the Watchtower Society, then you need to write to various scholars and present both his quotes and his manual and show that he was screwed up and that thus, they too are all screwed up, because his manual overrides everything every major scholar says. You need to reconcile this with Dr. Mantey's own comments above, in which he takes exception with hos his manual was incorrectly used by the Society. You don't need to debate me ... hey, if you want to defend the NWT, do it with the experts quoted above ... show them. You still have to answer my challenge to contact Dr. J. Johnson.

  Metatron,

  I only used John 1:1 because theat verse allowed me to get the most quotes about the NWT. However, I already said that I would post more examples. I am traveling to Oregon tomorrow, so it may be a few days, as I will be tied up visiting and vacationing.

  Jim Whitney
• 

  onacruse

  Zico:

  I know hardly anything about Greek, but I am wondering, if their translation as 'a god' is so admissable, why do they have to resort to deceit in order to defend it?

  They have indeed done just that!...but the deceit was in the Trinity brochure, not in the NWT translation per se. And now I really really must be getting off to eat some sawdust...but you can easily imagine what I will be thinking about until I get back! LOL Craig
• 

  Amazing

  Onacruse (Craig),

  I am off to Oregon tomorrow ... maybe we can talk in person. E-mail me with your phone number. My e-mail is [email protected]

  Jim Whitney
• 

  Narkissos

  The translationof John 1:1, imo, cannot be settled by syntax alone. It cannot be validly discussed apart from the question of what is exactly meant by "theos" in the Fourth Gospel in general and the Prologue in particular. If we don't step out of the anachronistic 4th-century dichotomy -- either Arius or Athanasius -- to look into the more fluid notion of the divine in proto-Gnostic circles of the late first or early second centuries, we simply cannot get it.

  There are certainly thousands of debatable renderings in the NWT, as in any other version. Undisputable falsifications, otoh, are rare. The most obvious case to me is not John 1:1 but the introduction of "Jehovah" into the NT. That makes one case or hundreds, depending on how you count.
• 

  onacruse

  Jim, I don't do e-mail, or any of the messaging services (burned out on that a long time ago, when I was a mod), but I know that anyone who has the will can find out my cell-phone #, etc, anyway...so here it is: [removed]

  I'd certainly be glad to have you at our home as a guest...of course, as a guest that I can kick off the front porch at my discretion! LOLOL (Hey, so I've been watching too many COPS shows, eh? )

  edit to add: The brakes on my rig tossed off, so that's why I'm back posting, instead of working!
• 

  onacruse

  Here is the transcription of Dana and Mantey (A Manual of the Greek New Testament, pp. 139-140)(Greek words transliterated):

  The use of the articular and anarthrous constructions of "theos" is highly instructive. A study of the uses of the term as given in Moulton and Geden's Concordance convinces one that without the article "theos" signifies divine essence, while with the article divine personality is chiefly in view. There is keen discernment in Webster's statement, published as far back as 1864:

  "Theos" occurs without the article (1) where the Deity is contrasted with what is human, or with the universe as distinct from its Creator, or with the nature and acts of evil spirits, (2) when the essential attributes of Deity are spoken of, (3) when operations proceeding from God are appropriated to one of the three Divine Persons, (4) when the Deity is spoken of as heathens would speak, or a Jew who denied the existence of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But the article seems to be used (1) when the Deity is spoken of in the Christian point of view, (2) when the First Person of the blessed Trinity is specially designated, unless its insertion is unnecessary by the addition of "pater," or some distinctive epithet..."

  This analysis is doubtless more exact and detailed than the facts will support, but it certainly shows admirable discrimination. Surely when Robertson says that "theos," as to the article, "is treated like a proper name and may or may not have it" (R. 761), he does not mean to intimate that the presence or absence of the article with "theos" has no special significance. We construe him to mean that there is no definite rule governing the use of the article with "theos," so that sometimes the writer's viewpoint is difficult to detect, which is entirely true. But in the great majority of instances the reason for the distinction is clear. The use of "theos" in John 1:1 is a good example. "Pros ton theon" points to Christ's fellowship with the person of the Father; "theos hev ho logos" emphasizes Christ's participation in the essence of the divine nature. The former clearly applies to personality, while the latter applies to character..."

  Thus, as Narkissos mentions, this matter of translation cannot be definitively decided merely on the basis of grammar.
• 

  onacruse

  If Mantey's manual agrees with the Watchtower Society, then you need to write to various scholars and present both his quotes and his manual and show that he was screwed up and that thus, they too are all screwed up...

  No, I don't need to write to these various scholars, because, quite frankly, I don't give a flying bat about what these scholars want to think. That's their business, with their own agendas, and their own gods to talk with.

  You need to reconcile this with Dr. Mantey's own comments above, in which he takes exception with hos his manual was incorrectly used by the Society.

  That the WTS, as typical, cherry-picks certain scholars and uses their scholarly works out of context, is not the issue here.

  hey, if you want to defend the NWT,

  The NWT is no better and no worse than the other 40+ translations I have at my disposal: every one of them has their own foibles and biases; I don't defend any of them...nor do I spend much time reading any of them.

  do it with the experts quoted above ... show them. You still have to answer my challenge to contact Dr. J. Johnson.

  I'd rather talk to Merton Campbell, and ask him how his conscience is treating him lately.
• 

  Death to the Pixies

  Dr. Robert H. Countess: (Univ. of Tenn. and author of an excellent critical analysis of the NWT called The Jehovah's Witnesses' New Testament): "There are 282 places in the New Testament where, according to the NWT translation principle, the NWT should have translated 'a god' but in fact they follow their own rules of 'a god' translation only 6% of the time. To be ninety-four percent unfaithful hardly commends a translation to careful readers!"

  Reply: Countess is a hack I have noticed. He makes up "rules" that the WT never stated, mis-quotes them and then ignores basic Greek Grammar. How many of the verses cited by Countess fall under this observation by Daniel Wallace:

  """Though by definition an articular noun is definite, an anarthrous noun may also be definite under certain conditions. As was mentioned earlier, there are at least ten constructions in which a noun may be definite though anarthrous. The following is a brief look at these constructions.

  1) Proper names
  ". . . If we read Paulos we do not think of of translating it "a Paul." . . ."

  2) Object of a Preposition
  "There is no need for the article to be used to make the object of a preposition definite. . . " (

  3) With Ordinal Numbers.

  4) Predicate Nominative
  "If the predicate nominative preeceds the copula, it may be definite though anarthrous. . . ."

  5) Complement in Object-Complement Construction

  6) Monadic Nouns

  7) Abstract Nouns

  8) A genitive Construction

  9) With a Pronominal Adjective

  10) Generic Nouns " *Wallace Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, pg. 245

  Countess includes the genitive theou in his critique. The NWT never said that anarthous=indefinte no matter what, they always carefully consider context and grammar with regards to QEOS. These lists always crack me up, people quote them without any attempt to look into the bias, not of the WT, but of the scholars who condemn. For instance Metzger operated under the assumption of "Colwell's rule", who of course is also quoted in the list...but then Harner is quoted who argued against Colwell's QEOS being definite inferences! Remarkable.