LIE in NWT Phil 3:11

by hamsterbait 16 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  hamsterbait

  NWT has for Philippians 3:11

  " [to see] if I may attain to the earlier resurrection from the dead."

  The greek doeas not contain the word "earlier" - nor does any other translation I checked. not even my commentary discusses the idea of an earlier resurrection.

  Is this an even more blatant example of translation with hind sight by Freddie and Co?

  I thought the translation made sense until I got intoa nasty fight with an eldumb, and now I know why the WT is discouraging any deep research on the NWT.

  I reckon the Interlinear wil be removed very soon.

  HB
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  Junction-Guy

  Thanks for sharing this.
  
  
  
  
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  betterdaze

  Good catch!
  
  ~Sue
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  A-Team

  Similar Problem with 1 COr 10:9. Why do you think they are discouraging the study of Greek/Hebrew.
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  greendawn

  True the word earlier or anything like it doesn't exist at all in that verse but what exactly would the dubs gain by including this word in their translation.

  But it's interesting to note that Paul here talks about attaining the resurrection, strange since all the dead will be resurrected. Apparently he specifically refers to the resurrection of the saints and that's perhaps why the dubs put in the words earlier resurrection.

  They believe the saints will return to life first before the rest of the dead.
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  hamsterbait

  Greendawn-

  I understood from RO 11:32 and v 2 that the OT promises to the Jews would still be fulfilled. As Martha seemed to believe, at the time of the Lazarus miracle, the Jews would be given a resurrection to earth ( during the millennium -WT teaching)to form the earthly paradise in Zion promised in Isaiah ( Paul in Ro 11 seems to hint at this)

  Certainly an interpretation of Ro 11 vv 2 and 32 as only applying to spiritual Israel does not make total sense, especially any interpretation applying to the WT Spiritual Israel after 1919. In what way are the remnant bound together in error (v32) after 1919?

  If Paul believed the earlier resurrection was to heaven (WT teaching) then the later would be to earth (WT teaching).

  I think there is a lot of retroactive reinterpretation of the verse going on here.

  I am convinced "EARLIER" has been added in accord with WT ideas in Eph 3:11.

  HB
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  Justahuman24

  Hmmm...

  Well, I just compared many different Bible version in English, Spanish and French and yes, most of them do say "resurrection" and leave at that. But a few others paraphrase the meaning/translation and add "men" and other words that are not in the original Greek. And yes, obviously, they include "earlier" based on their believe but also because usually the word for resurrection is "anastasis" but Phil. 3:11 has the word "ex-anastasin" instead of just "anastasis". "Ex-anastasin" lit. could mean "out-resurrection" which the NTW includes in its footnote and so the WT makes a distinction between "ex-anastasin" and "anastasis". "ex" usually means out, out of. So they must've tried to fit a word that makes sense and they chose "earlier". Not that I'm defending the WT but every translator has to do this. No translation is perfect or word for word.

  Justahuman24 - but super nonetheless
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  Leolaia

  The Society is here following the Rotherham translation which has "earlier resurrection" here. This is a doubtful attempt at rendering a hapax legomenon that is otherwise absent from the NT and is fairly rare elsewhere. The word in question is exanastasis "out-resurrection" which contrasts with the usual anastasis. The term is used in Isaiah 29:9 LXX to refer to the act of getting out of bed (hoi hupnó exanastantón "the sleeping ones rising up out [i.e. out of bed]") and it has a similar usage in Polybius. I think it is clear here that Paul is using the word to emphasize the change involved in resurrection, that the resurrected are raised out of the dead. "Earlier" thus is an overtranslation.

  I found an interesting reference to kind of interpretation found in the NWT and Rotherham's version in Whedon (1876) which says that "in exanastasis, out-uprising, millenarians have found a reference to a supposed first resurrection in order of time. Note, 1 Cor. xv,24. This they find confirmed in the Greek preposition before the dead, a true rendering of the phrase being the out-uprising from (without the article) deads. But ... the prefix ex in exanastasis is, we supposed, as is often the case, simply intensive or emphatic" (p. 329). The millenarian interpretation is found in many 19th-century works of an Adventist and millenarian background, as can be seen by searching for exanastasis in Google Books. For just one example, Hudson (1860), Christ Our Life: The Scriptural Argument for Immortality Through Christ Alone, claims that "the peculiar Greek word exanastasis may simply express the primary importance which pertains to the destiny of the saved throughout the Scriptures" (p. 9). That Russell inherited this view can be found in such places as the Russell-White Debate in which Russell likens the "out resurrection" to the "first resurrection" of Revelation (p. 99).
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  Alligator Wisdom

  Apparently this is the explanation given by the WTS.

  ***

  it-2p.787Resurrection***

  First

  resurrection. Revelation 20:5, 6 refers to the resurrection of those who will reign with Christ as "the first resurrection." The apostle Paul speaks of this first resurrection also as "the earlier resurrection from the dead [literally, the out-resurrection the out of dead (ones)]." (Php 3:11, NW,Ro,Int) On the expression Paul uses here, Robertson’s WordPicturesintheNewTestament (1931, Vol. IV, p. 454) says: "Apparently Paul is thinking here only of the resurrection of believers out from the dead and so double ex [out] (tenexanastasinteneknekron). Paul is not denying a general resurrection by this language, but emphasizing that of believers." Charles Ellicott’s Commentaries (1865, Vol. II, p. 87) remarks on Philippians 3:11: "‘The resurrection from the dead;’ i.e., as the context suggests, the first resurrection (Rev. xx. 5), when, at the Lord’s coming the dead in Him shall rise first (1 Thessalon. iv. 16), and the quick be caught up to meet Him in the clouds (1 Thess. iv. 17); compare Luke xx. 35. The first resurrection will include only true believers, and will apparently precede the second, that of non-believers and disbelievers, in point of time . . . Any reference here to a merely ethical resurrection (Cocceius) is wholly out of the question." One of the basic meanings of the word e·xa·na´sta·sis is getting up from bed in the morning; thus it can well represent a resurrection occurring early, otherwise called "the first resurrection." Rotherham’s translation of Philippians 3:11 reads: "If by any means I may advance to the earlier resurrection which is from among the dead."

  ***

  Interesting that the WTS can do outside research and use so-called "worldly" commentators. However, the R&F shouldn't. Honestly, I'm trying to decipher this myself. I don't know what else to add to this topic.

  Great find hamsterbait!!

  Alligator Wisdom (aka Brother NOT Exerting Vigorously)
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  Stealth453

  Good catch.