anyway lieu said it the best: "until you prove the originals are around, they're all horseshit" and stop nitpicking like all my arrogant elders do.
at gatherings they're never loose, they try to argue over insignificant nada's!
New World Translation, is it the best bible translation?
by littlebuddy 177 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Qcmbr
Ok let's summarise the facts:
We have 27 'agreed' source books written decades after the events. Numerous other scriptures got deselected along the way.
Those 27 books were chosen over 1500 years by the dominant christian branch (trinitarian catholicism). Later church councils ratified these.
The first 300 years had NO new testament merely a selction of books, scripts, letters or more commonly fragments gathered into scrapbooks.
The 'canon' has seen various different lists - but all canon's reject commonly used scriptures accepted as authoratitive by other branches of christianity.
Paul's letters form a large part of the theological and church organisational elements of the NT as we have it. Historically many rejected Paul's letters as authoratitive and there is evidence of false authorship. Paul is reported as sometimes at odds with the apostles.
The variations between the greek and latin families of the books prove categorically that g_d was not making ANY attempt to intervene in the flawed copying process nor to remove erroneous interpolations.
There were huge vested interests in changing texts to 'win' religious viewpoints. The Trinity is a case in point. The nature of Jesus is another.
The NT is riddled with inconsistencies (disagreeing stories), historical errors (nativity characters not contempories) and mystical diatribe (Revelations from beginning to end.)
Our culture can only try and approximate an understanding of the metaphor, meaning and context of the writings. English as a language cannot ever be an accurate translation of greek, hebrew, latin, coptic or anything else - it is a best fit.
The 'word of god' is supposedly written under inspiration and be directly from god but ironically the exact opposite process is deemed the best way to extract its meaning - worldy educated and non-divinely inspired self-procalimed scholars.
The truth of the matter is G_d isn't involved (the JWs gleefully claim that there are no more miracles or communication from G_d), never was involved in the preservation of any text, didn't write swathes of it and there is NO evidence he ever inspired anyone else to write anything in his name.
If the JWs wish to claim they have the best modern translation of a bunch of certainly corrupted, Catholic canonised, dubiously authored, historically flawed, culturally unreachable and often convoluted irrational mysticism then so be it.
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OUTLAW
Without the Catholics..
Jehovah`s Witness`s wouldnt have a name for thier God..
A name for thier religion..
Or..
A Bible..
Jehovah`s Witness`s should be Gratefull to the Catholics,for thier very existance..
.......................LOL!!...OUTLAW
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jonathan dough
Aren't you all missing an important point? No one has the original manuscripts. Who knows what they said? All we have are potentially flawed copies.
JD II
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TD
Lieu:
...A problem arises when we find that men of those times fancied the 'poetic' as a sign of high breeding and scholarship. This lent to all the occasions of pluperfect - present subjuntives being used in translations.
I assume you're talking about English instead of Greek (?) since the pluperfect in Greek is a true past tense used only in the indicative mood and not in the subjunctive.
I understand how this could occur in old English, but at John 17:3, the Greek verb in question really is conjugated as a present active subjunctive so in this case, the translator would not be taking any poetic license by rendering it as unrealized action. Even modern translations like the NIV do this.
Reniaa,
I followed the link, but Brenton Hepburn's exlanation is purely theological and even at that, he appears to me to have it just backwards. "Knowing" someone implies a personal relationship. Simply having knowledge of or about someone does not. You can study the biography of a famous individual to no end, but the most you would ever be able to say is, "I know about them" or maybe even, "I know all about them." But you would never be able to truthfully say, "I know them" without meeting them and establishing a personal relationship.
Here's another way to look, at it. A scripture I've encountered a lot in JW literature is James 2:19:
"You believe there is one God do you? You are doing quite well. And yet the demons believe and shudder."
The demons have "taken in knowledge" about God. Most believers would recognize that in many ways that level of knowledge would be superior to anything humans could possess right now since the demons have actually seen God many times. But they don't have anything resembling a personal relationship with God and are in fact, completely alienated from Him. That is the distinction between knowledge about an individual and actually knowing that individual.
But even if we set that aside, judging from your explanation and the one you've linked to, the deviation in the NWT from what the KIT acknowledges that the Greek text literally means seems to have no basis but theology. --An apparent desire of the NWT translators to distance themselves from a mainstream theological viewpoint. On this thread, you've consistently pointed out the impropriety of basing translation on theology.
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TD
Qcmbr:
...And yet the BOM reads word for word with the KJV in places. --God must have known in advance not only that this corruption would occur and not only what form it would take, but that it would suit His purpose in the end.
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reniaa
hi TD
not impropiety just accepting it is a factor of belief in God. theology is what we are all about the trick is to have the correct one :)
"taking in knowledge" I do not see it as cold as you do, because it implies getting to 'know" a person or subject really well. So we will have to agree to differ on that one.
I don't like how shallowly other christians faiths use the 'know', I guess I've just heard to often the expression 'I know (insert JEsus or God here) so I don't need the bible or to look at those scriptures etc.
I'm sorry I can't give you a better greek discussion it's not my forte.
thx TD
Reniaa
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isaacaustin
All other faiths do use use 'know' shallowly...at least not mine. The JWs focus on taking in WT knowledge rather than knowing God. You can go to wikipedia and research a famous athlete, then go to intellius and find out as much personal info as possible...yet if you saw them in the street you would not know each other. That is a JW toward God.
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isaacaustin
LOL '?' spike
The shallowness of your comprehension i guess