So how exactly did this "new translation" come to be?

by sir82 79 Replies latest jw friends

  • sir82
    sir82

    It's not out of the question that Geoffrey Jackson has learned Hebrew and Greek for the purpose of doing the revision.

    Uh-huh.

    At the AGM they explained that the "new NWT committee" has been in existence in 5 years.

    So you think Geoff Jackson, between convention talks, jetting to assembly hall dedications, and just general GB stuff, learned Biblical Hebrew and Greek well enough in his spare time over 5 years that he is capable of translating from the original text in modern English? Over a 5 year period?

    Say, I'd like to tell you about an excitng investment opportunity, involving pay phones and time shares.....

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    It must be the new one because of the date, surely.

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    Maybe he was already learning Hebrew and Greek before the work began, or before he even got on the GB for that matter. He has translation background, plus evidently long term ambitions within the organization. It's not out of the question that he'd been planning it for some time.

  • Simon
    Simon

    Yes, it seems to be more of a re-write than a new interpretation of the original scripture simply to make the language more modern sounding.

    Most other translations already did this 20+ years ago.

  • sir82
    sir82

    Maybe he was already learning Hebrew and Greek before the work began, or before he even got on the GB for that matter.

    He was a missionary in Papua New Gunea or Fiji or some place like that.

    So you think, in between the required 120-130 hours per month in field serve-us, he was attending a university and getting 2 Master's Degrees, one in Biblical Hebrew and one in Biblical Greek?

    It stretches credulity beyond recognizability.

    Come on dude, he spent 20 hours a week reading Fred Franz's chicken-scratch notebooks, and doing <Find><replace> of "prostitute" for "harlot".

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    Maybe you are right, but a person doesn't need to go to university to learn Greek or Hebrew. I know a number of ordinary Witnesses who have learned Hebrew and Greek, some at university, some in their spare time. I have taken classes in Hebrew and Coptic, one degree level, the other not, but both pretty similar in how far they went. Hebrew is not a difficult language to get the basics. A lot of the OT contains hapax legomena and unique constructions anyway and even good Classical Hebrew scholars will be relying heavily on textual commentaries, grammars and lexicons to make sense of the text.

    To put it another way, given that Jackson has an interest in languages and translation, and that he is on the Governing Body that initiated the revised NWT, it would be pretty surprising if he was not heavily involved, and if he did not at least attempt to grapple the original languages to some extent.

    Having said that, there is little if any use of technical, scholarly language on textual or linguistic issues in the appendices. The discussion of the divine name relies on the same old quotes the Society have been using for decades, and fails to reference more recent scholarship that could be cited in their favour. At least Fred Franz made an effort to use scholarly language, as if to convey that he understood the scholarly literature and knew what he was talking about on linguistic and textual matters. There is precious little evidence in the revised NWT of original scholarly engagement with the text, and much to suggest that the revision is primarily stylistic in its scope.

  • Apognophos
    Apognophos

    That's why I think the line "Rendered From the Original Languages by the NEW WORLD BIBLE TRANSLATION COMMITTEE —Revised 2013—" is referring to a task performed by the original committee. Note that they've set aside the "Revised" note with long dashes -- it's not the 'rendering from the original languages' that is dated 2013.

  • wasblind
    wasblind

    That's why I think the line " Rendered From the Original Languages by the NEW WORLD BIBLE TRANSLATION COMMITTEE ---Revised 2013--- " is refering to a task performed by the original committee." ______Apognophos

    Again, here's what the WTS say about the original committee

    " Is it really a scholarly translation?

    Scince the translators have chosen to remain anonymous, the question cannot here be answered in terms of thier educational background"________Reasoning book page 277

    #35 REPITITION FOR EMPHASIS

    " What you need to do ?

    State more than once the points that you especially want your audience to remember "_____Theocratic Ministry School Book Page 206

    .

  • wasblind
    wasblind

    Nobody can self destruct like the WTS

  • Apognophos
    Apognophos

    Just to be clear, I don't really believe that the original Committee was qualified enough to do their own translation (and in any case they used pre-existing scholarly works as a guide). I was simply pointing out to slimboyfat that the new Committee is not even claiming to have done the same level of work, that is, going back to the original languages. If they had (or claimed to have had), they would have proudly said so in the Sanderson video instead of showing us a bunch of notebooks from the first Committee.

    The point is, no one in 2013 is claiming to know Greek or Hebrew, not Jackson or anyone else, so this speculation is way out there.

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