?? Basis for the New World "Translation" ??

AlphaOmega

Does anyone know which Englsh Bible was used as the basis for the New World Translation? I have heard that it was the Moffat translation, but I have also heard that it was the Rotherham translation ??? Here is my reason for asking:

The society "aquired" the rights to publish Steven Byington's own Bible translation and named it "The Bible In Living English" But in a review of the New World Translation that he wrote for the Christian Century around 1950, Steven T. Byington implied that the "translators" of the New World Translation copied the English text from another Bible (and made changes to suit their own doctrine). I would love to find out which Bible Steven Byington was implying they copied. Thanks AO

Leolaia

Byington's letters are posted here:

http://www.freeminds.org/doctrine/byington.htm

I don't see anything that implies that he thought that the NWT translators simply copied another English translation as the basis for the NWT. I have noticed though that some idiosyncratic translation choices in the NWT happen to coincide with those in Rotherham. I've given an example here: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/140042/1.ashx. But that is quite a different matter than claiming that the NWT simply copied (plagiarized) this version.

AlphaOmega

The other is that King James' committee in their black-letter edition put words that are "not in the original" in smaller roman type, not very black, with a note in their preface explaining the purpose. Subsequent printers, often having available no distinctive type except italics, have put such words into italics, with the result that today the usual reader takes them to be emphasized words, commonly misemphasized. My father's stock example of the consequence was 1 Kings 13:27. The New World Translation capitals, I charge, combine these two old-time failures.

Scan of article here http://www.filesend.net/download.php?f=3e39c3a5d275ca261a9f217990476045

So the accepted way of showing words added by the translators to the KJV was to put them into italic...

Evident here :

Philippians 2:9-10 KJV

[9]

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

[10]

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of thingsin heaven, and thingsin earth, and thingsunder the earth;

The accepted way of showing words added by the translators to the NWT is to put them in square brackets

Evident here :

Philippians 2:9-10 NWT

[9]

For this very reason also God exalted him to a superior position and kindly gave him the name that is above every [other] name,

[10]

so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the ground,

Yet the NWT has many words added to it by the translators that do not appear in the untranslated text.

It is a fair assumption that if the NWT was based on an English translation, the "translation committee" was not aware that the italic text was actually an addition and so wrote it into their text in standard type. Leaving words that they have added themselves to be put in square brackets.

So the clue would be to find words that appear in italic text in the KJV but appear in normal text in the NWT.
As far as comparison with other translations goes, it is harder if they didn't have an accepted form of highlighting their additional words. But the example you cite in your JWD link is a good example.

Maybe this is not what Byington was alluding to, but this is how I took this article when I read it a few years ago.

Perhaps I am just a cynic

Leolaia

Byington is only talking about translation/exegetical choices....He makes no claim that the NWT is based on an English version.

Now, an interesting study, which I don't think has been ever done, would be to compare the NWT with the Emphatic Diaglott, Rotherham, ASV, and other verisons the JWs used by the 1950s, and see how much translation choices mirrored "favorite renderings" already used by the Society in its literature, or just in general whether one can detect an influence from these versions in the wording of the NWT. But that is not the same thing as your more stronger claim, if I am reading you correctly.

Narkissos

This is a bit misleading.

That one language needs twelve words to render what another says in ten words doesn't mean that two words have been "added". For this reason no Bible version that uses some typographical difference (like the KJV italics or the NWT square brackets) to indicate the so-called "added words" ever reaches consistency in this process. To be really consistent they should put italics / brackets in every sentence and the result would hardly be readable. In the case of Philippians 2:10, either "things" (impersonal) or "those" (personal) is required for the English translation of the Greek texts (depending on the interpretation of the adjectives as neuter or masculine) and neither can be adequately termed an "addition".

More generally, I'd say that all modern translators, regardless or their knowledge of the original languages, work with a (more or less critical) eye on extant published translations. The NWT is certainly no exception, but (1) I don't think it is consistently dependent on one translation because the plagiarism would have long been remarked and exposed and (2) its painful, schoolish, but fairly consistent overtranslation of the Hebrew and Greek texts (especially verb forms) is quite unique and testifies to a basic familiarity with the original languages by at least some of the translators.

AlphaOmega

Byington is only talking about translation/exegetical choices....He makes no claim that the NWT is based on an English version.
Now, an interesting study, which I don't think has been ever done, would be to compare the NWT with the Emphatic Diaglott, Rotherham, ASV, and other verisons the JWs used by the 1950s, and see how much translation choices mirrored "favorite renderings" already used by the Society in its literature, or just in general whether one can detect an influence from these versions in the wording of the NWT. But that is not the same thing as your more stronger claim, if I am reading you correctly.

I am trying to do such a comparison (nothing too weighty, but with a few passages). I have Moffat's translation and the ED etc (no Rotherham though).

I just don't see how any "translator" that had a passion for the language would produce such a dubious version - let alone how a whole "committee" of such translators could agree on those matters.

You are reading me correctly, but maybe that is a bold idea, and one that I should let go of.

I am just trying to cobble together some suspicions. Maybe a more accurate way of describing it would be that the hypothesis (unproven) is that the NWT is a collection of contemporary translations "stitched together".

Am I way off here ?

Leolaia

I just don't see how any "translator" that had a passion for the language would produce such a dubious version

In my opinion, it's simple...it's because they were amateurs. They had some skill and decent enough knowledge of the language to at least attempt a translation. That doesn't necessarily make it a good translation. An amateur can produce a very bad translation. Byington in his review repeatedly mentions the fact that the translators stuck too close to their "uninspired" Greek dictionaries. That imho is a sure sign of the lack of experience involved.

I have Moffat's translation and the ED etc (no Rotherham though).

You can get Rotherham here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=sUgBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT8#PPT6,M1

AlphaOmega

Okay.

Thanks Narkissos and Leolaia for your input. As ever I am amazed and astounded at the collective knowledge held in the minds of JWDers.

So I guess that I will rule out the "based on one source" theory.

I have no knowledge of Hebrew or Greek (only what I have picked up when researching the NWT), so I am out of my depth, especially if as you both say, the translators were translators and not just a bunch of people intent on faking it from modern day translations and dictionaries.

Leolaia - thanks for the link. I can't actually find anywhere to download it on that page... is it a link to buy or one of Google's digitisations ?

AO

OnTheWayOut

This should get you somewhere. Our own Doug Mason was involved in compiling this:

http://www.forananswer.org/Top_JW/Byington.htm

AlphaOmega

Thanks OnTheWayOut... I'm sure Doug will pop along soon

?? Basis for the New World "Translation" ??

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