The New World Translation

by Coded Logic 23 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Coded Logic

  One of the JWs foundational doctrines is their belief in the inerrancy of the Bible. There are several methods they use to try and support this position including their claim that the Bible, as it exists today, is the exact same Bible that has been around for thousands of years. They teach that “God’s Word” has been perfectly preserved. But is this claim true?

  Well, let’s start with the basics. The New World Translation is what's known as a Protestant Bible (having 66 books). This type of Bible was first put together in 1825 by the British and Foreign Bible Society. Prior to that, the Bible had an alternate number of books depending upon which version you read.

  For example, the oldest manuscripts we have of the Old Testament come from the Dead Sea Scrolls (dated between 50 and 200 BC). It includes Bible Books that are not found in the NWT such as Sirach, Tobit, and the Book of Enoch. And the Dead Sea Scrolls also include extensions to Esther and Daniel that are no longer present today (including the account of Bell and the Dragon.)

  If these books and extensions aren’t part of God’s word, why were they included as part of the Bible earlier? And why did it take until 1825 for them to be taken out by the British and Foreign Bible Society? More importantly, why were Enoch’s prophecies removed from the Bible when Jude clearly thought they were part of Biblical canon?

  Yes, the seventh one in line from Adam, Enoch, prophesied also regarding them, when he said: “Look! Jehovah came with his holy myriads to execute judgment against all.”

  - Jude 1:14 (quoting the prophecy in Enoch 1:9)

  So who is wrong? The NWT? Or Jude?

  But it’s not just the Old Testament that has canon related issues. For example, the Bible books Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, Jude, and Revelation were not added to the Bible until AFTER 419 AD. Conversely, books that used to be part of the New Testament but were later removed include Shepherd of Hermes, Epistle of Barnabas, 1 & 2 Clement, Epistle to the Laodiceans, and the Apocalypse of Peter.

  All of this begs the question: If the Bible wasn’t accurate back then - why would anyone assume it’s accurate now?

  There are also other problems. Like entire books that were referenced have gone missing - like the Book of Jasher (see Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18). There are also supposed prophecies that are “fulfilled” but for which there exists no original prophecy (Matthew 2:23, 27:9, no where in the Bible does it say Jesus would be called a Nazarene).

  So the next time someone tells you the Bible is “God’s Word” ask them, which Bible? Which books? And how do THEY know?

  If God inspired the Bible as his inerrant word, why did he not keep it as his inerrant word?

  -Bart Ehrman
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  Crazyguy

  For me it was a real eye opener to find out that the bible started out with about 20 books then more added and other books taken out. This happen for several hundred years. Then as you mentioned after the protestant reformation more books taken out a lot more and a few added, so it became clear to me that its all a mans fansy..Then if one just looks at all the contradictions well thats another subject all un to itself..
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  Doug Mason

  In the article on "Inspiration" in the WTS's "Insight" volume 1, they state that the original writings are without error but that this cannot be said of the copies (which of course were cited by the NT writers).

  “Absolute inerrancy is therefore to be attributed to the written Word of God. This is true of the original writings, none of which are known to exist today.” (“Insight on the Scriptures”, Vol. 1, page 1206)

  “The copies of those original writings and the translations made in many languages cannot lay claim to absolute accuracy.” (“Insight”, Vol. 1, page 1206)

  Doug
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  Doug Mason

  Regarding the use of the book of Enoch, etc., see the list at (document) pages 22 ff of: http://www.jwstudies.com/God-breathed_Scriptures.pdf ("Document" page 22 is "PDF" page 27)

  Doug
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  Moses Joe

  I've always believed in God and I always will, but I've also always thought that the trustworthyness of the bible is questionable. If Christendom is wrong, then why trust the bible they put together? If the devil can have gods name erased and lost, then why cant the entire bible be affected?

  So many things lend to it being largely faulted, yet it still exists and has not been completely destroyed. That much to me seems of interest, and at least part if not most of it must still be original.
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  John Chapman

  It's not that people read the wrong Bible it's that they haven't the foggiest notion of how to read it. 99.9% of Christians believe in monotheism when the Bible plainly said the GodS created heaven and earth. Even Jesus said "We are Gods". Christian monotheism came from the Egyptian heretic Pharaoh Akhenaton and was adopted by the Hyksos tribes (Hebrews) who followed him and his fanatical religion after looting Egypt of its wealth. They were never slaves for the Egyptians. Another thing is the insistence in worshiping Jesus (actually Yeshua ben Yoseph, they couldn't even keep his name straight) as God when Yeshua Himself never desired or asked for such worship. If Yeshua were here today he's probably puking His guts out due to the money grubbing, child molesting, doctrine twisting, woman degrading Zionist loving fools calling themselves christian. "Get away from me you workers of lawlessness, I never knew you." would be the first thing he told Zionist apologetics like Pat Robertson and John Hagee who just can't wait for a nuclear war to start in the middle east or most Jehovah's Witnesses who can't wait for a major war to start anywhere. The fools don't realize they're already in hell and will have to do the same thing over and over again until they finally find some humility and get it right. The wheel of Karma affects Everyone....
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  Doug Mason

  Moses Joe,

  If you believe in God, and that is your perfect right, then continue to do so. This does not mean one has to worship a book.

  Doug
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  opusdei1972

  The Church Father Polycarp quoted the book of Tobit in the second century. Clement, bishop of Rome, quoted the book of Wisdom at the end of the first century. The canonical letter of Jude quoted the book of Enoch. Accordingly, early christians used more books than those in NWT.
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  JoshJeffries

  Speaking from the viewpoint of a Jew, I can attest to the fact that Watchtower ideas about the Bible canon show intellectual immaturity and limited, two-dimensional reasoning.

  The idea of "canonization" is a Christian one, not something that comes from us Jews. The Roman Catholic Church had to develop a "rule" for what books were approved for Christians after a bishop, Marcion of Sinope, claimed that the Gnostics were correct about some of their ideas. Claiming that holy writings held secret knowledge that only a select group could understand, Marcion endorsed the Gnostic technique of creating lists of "proof texts" upon which to support his doctrine.

  Rejecting all of the Hebrew texts, Marcion claimed that only an edited version of Luke's gospel and some of Paul's epistles were to be used as the "rule" or "canon" upon which to base all that was "true." The Christian church expelled Marcion as a result, but the genie was out of the bottle. They would spend the next 300 years investigating and answering the challenges raised by Marcion, eventually creating an "authorized canon" by the 4th century which included not just the 27 books of the New Testament but the particular list of books unique to the Alexandrine Septuagint (which is where the "additional" books come from), thus making a list slightly longer than what is found in the Tanakh.

  This process never actually occurred in Judaism as the Marcion question was limited to what had become mostly a Gentile religion. By the 2nd century Jews had divided their religious texts by language and era, but this was never canonization in the Christian definition of the word.

  Limiting their reasoning to the Christian definitions of "inspiration" and "canon," too many Christians are still making the mistake of claiming that we Jews have somehow rejected such books as Maccabees or the Wisdom of Solomon, etc. as found in some of the Orthodox and Catholic canons. Unlike many Christians who believe that religion is based on Scripture, Judaism is very different. Scripture is a product of Jewish worship, not its basis.

  While some so-called "Catholic books" are not included in the Tanakh, Christians keep making the mistake that this means they have been rejected. This is just the result of ignorance. The Tanakh or Old Testament is limited to those books believed to be originally penned in Hebrew and during the era of the First Temple. The Alexandrine books were originally composed in Greek (with a few sections in Aramaic or Hebrew) and are of the era of the Second Temple, thus disqualifying for inclusion in the Tanakh on the basis of language and era of composition.

  And Jews do not hold to the idea behind "inspiration" that Christians do regarding the Scriptures. The religion of the Jews itself is inspired, therefore its religious texts being a product of Judaism are sacred. So those books which get divided into categories such as apocrypha or Mishnah or writings which make up the Talmud are not excluded from the Tanakh due to "lack of inspiration." In fact many Jews commonly read the Maccabean texts every year during Chanukkah and have been doing so throughout history, so arguments made by many Christians with claims of trying to "be like the Jews" in accepting or rejecting certain texts are just nonsense.

  The book of Enoch is not part of any official library of Jewish books because it is what we call "midrash." It is traditional analysis or commentary on parts of Torah, and since it is a commentary about books in the Tanakh it iwould not itself be part of that which it interprets. It was not "removed" from anything. Christians don't make commentaries part of their canons either.
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  EdenOne

  Marked