I agree. Despite a lot of the complaints to the contrary by opposers, I found the original NWT to be largely free of doctrinal bias, and it also kept a good balance between the poetic language of early more "flowery" translations and clarity for the modern reader.
The Revised NWT (RNWT) as I call it, is a significant dumbing down of the language, and has been in parts slanted towards doctrinal bias to suit the GB and Org, particularly in regards to the use of words like "loyalty" and "elders" etc.
The examples you cite are good ones.
Is "Do not gaze about" really that hard to understand? Or does it in fact paint a good word picture?
Likewise with the concept of "holding fast" to something as opposed to "holding on to" it.
There are many other similar examples of the "dulling" of the language into a more bland form.
Also, there was never a sufficient explanation for removing the plural "you" (which used to be capitalised as "YOU"), which helped the reader to understand immediately whether the audience was a single individual or a collective.
Along with the increasingly narrow focus of Bible "studies" and articles - reusing the same basic scriptures and points over and over, leaving out references to other Bible translations and historians which they used to include in their literature, etc - it increasingly seems to me that the Org is trying to stifle intellectual inquiry and genuinely curious study of the Bible.
True, successive GBs have never been keen on wide research outside their own doctrines, but they never used to be as narrow and insular as they are becoming now, when it came to choice of language and discouraging further reading and research on theocratic topics.
Also, they have craftily made the meeting items much more dependent on pre-written content both in their design and in the reduction of the length of time, which makes it almost impossible to bring in additional material to expand on a subject, whether that's other Bible verses, or external sources - even the ones they used to like to use, like say, Herodotus or certain Bible encyclopaedias and commentaries.
The other way they do that is by inserting a video into a meeting item and then having questions asked about the video. It doubly takes up time: 1) viewing the video (which could be done at home), then 2) discussing what has already been shown! Absolutely no original input at all, nor any need to introduce other Bible references, even IF they relate to and expand on the topic.
