The usual shift of the topic to the authority contest and no-answer by “Dr.” Argumentum ad Verecudiam. That's precisely why I say that you are theologically zero, there is never a substantive answer on behalf of you, just debate over what and why some liberal Catholic-basher Prof. Dr. PhD -berg/-stein/-witz said and meant (I don’t give a damn), instead of adressing the issue on it merits.
Zechariah 12:10 Corruption in the NWT
by Sea Breeze 36 Replies latest watchtower bible
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aqwsed12345
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slimboyfat
You claimed Alter translated the phrase as “the one”. He simply doesn’t. It’s wrong. And when I pointed out your mistake, you changed the subject.
You claimed that the NWT didn’t translate the phrase as “to me” because of bias. But there are tons of versions that do the same as the NWT, many of them listed in careful’s post above.
You’re a Catholic are you not? Practically every modern Catholic version I can find agrees with the NWT on this point: The New American Bible, The Jerusalem Bible, The New Jerusalem Bible, The Revised New Jerusalem Bible, The Christian Community Bible, The New Christian Community Bible, The Revised Standard Version, The New Revised Standard Version. All versions that are approved by the Catholic Church and they all agree with the NWT on this verse. In fact are there any recent Catholic versions that don’t agree with the NWT?
So what on earth are you talking about?
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aqwsed12345
Nope, that is not the issue here, but whether the NWT intentionally deviates from the established Hebrew text (’elai et asher-daqaru) in the verse in question. It is a simple question: yes or no? Well?
And in this regard, what Robert Alter, or all the Bible translations you listed, say. It is completely irrelevant. Prove that the given Hebrew text does not have a first-person singular subject. If it does, then it does not change if the Pope himself does not have it in his personal translation, then my answer is that the Pope was wrong about this. It is as simple as that.
So what's your answer: Does ’elai et asher-daqaru contain first personal singular object ("me")? Yes or no? If not, justify why not, feel free to use a dictionary, AI, whatever, but focus on this, and how X and Y translated it is not an argument at all.
That is how you should debate, but instead you start this usual authority contest, and bashing the marginal parts of my answer, and the usual "but it is AI!". If AI, if not AI, if its content is true, then it is true, if not, then refute it on the merits. Nothing else matters.
But I'm not surprised that JWs and their apologists can't substantively defend critical parts of the NWT linguistically, instead resorting to this kind of "but he farted too" argument. The critical details of the NWT are tried to be justified by little-known, erroneous translations by private individuals, well-known “bugs” in well-known translations, selective citations of professionally accepted Greek language books, a misleading series of “examples” that prove nothing, and the works of liberal Catholic and Protestant authors who do not consider the Bible to be the reliable word of God.
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slimboyfat
The fact that Catholic versions agree with the NWT on the translation of Zechariah 12:10 is entirely relevant to your false claim that the NWT has purposely not translated the verse correctly.
To any reasonable person the fact that Catholic versions agree with the NWT on the translation Zechariah 12:10 is compelling evidence that it is a legitimate translation.
According to you the LXX translators, the author of the gospel of John, and modern Catholic versions that render the verse similar to the NWT are all wrong and you alone are right.
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aqwsed12345
No, it is not relevant at all, that other translations also render this like that, because if the Hebrew phrase ’elai et asher-daqaru indeed contains a first-person singular object, then this fact would not change even if all the Bible translations in the world had translated it incorrectly in this regard.
So if a solution is controversial in a Bible translation, you shouldn't run to other translations, but look at the grammatical meaning of the established text in the original language. But you're not capable of doing that. Translation is not based on "precedents," there is no principle that says "if someone else translated it this way, it must be legitimate." It's just a "but he farted too" kind of argument. The meaning of the text is not determined by other translations.
The LXX is just an uninspired translation, the NT quote is a free adaptation (neither a verbatim quote, nor an inspired determination of the meaning of the Hebrew OT text), the text of Zechariah is in Hebrew, so what does 'elai et asher-daqaru mean? Can you give a straightforward answer for this question? Yes or no?
So if a certain solution is controversial in a Bible translation, it’s misguided to simply point to other translations as justification. Instead, the discussion should center around the grammatical and contextual meaning of the established text in the original language. Appealing to what other translators have done isn’t a real argument; it’s just deflecting the responsibility to evaluate the actual source material. Translation doesn’t work on the basis of precedent—there’s no rule that says if someone else translated it a certain way, that automatically makes it legitimate. Relying on that kind of defense is like saying, “Well, he did it too,” which is hardly a convincing or scholarly approach. Ultimately, the meaning of the text must be determined by direct engagement with the original, not by tallying up how others have rendered it.
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slimboyfat
It's just a "but he farted too" kind of argument.
Most of your posts come across as pretentious farts to be honest.
there’s no rule that says if someone else translated it a certain way, that automatically makes it legitimate.
Not just someone else, but all modern Catholic versions translate it similarly to the NWT. (Plenty of non-Catholic versions too, of course) Are you claiming that all modern Catholic versions somehow agree with the NWT in offering a translation of Zechariah 12:10 that is not legitimate?
You talk as if all the scholars that translate similar to the NWT are somehow ignorant of the reasons you give for your rendering, but their comments and explanations demonstrate that they are fully aware of the type of arguments you make, they just disagree with them. They find the contextual considerations, variants, LXX reading, John’s quotation, plausible emendation compelling reasons for the renderings they give.
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aqwsed12345
The heart of the matter is the underlying Hebrew text, not the head-count of English versions that chose to smooth its abrupt first-person turn. Every complete Masoretic manuscript—including the pre-Christian fragments from Naḥal Ḥever—reads אֵלַי אֵת אֲשֶׁר־דָּקָרוּ, “to me whom they pierced.” The two-consonant pronominal ending י cannot be anything but a first-person object; the direct-object marker אֵת immediately follows, so the grammar is airtight. Against that reading stand only a later marginal qere and the Septuagint’s paraphrase, both explainable as scribal or translational attempts to relieve the shock of Yahweh speaking of Himself as the pierced one. Text-critically, therefore, “me” is the lectio difficilior and, by standard canons, the preferred reading.
Why, then, do a number of modern Catholic and Protestant Bibles adopt “him/the one”? Their editors state their reasons openly: they judge the LXX influence, the shift to third person in the following clause, or a conjectural emendation more congenial to English style or to their preferred critical text. They do not deny that the Masoretic consonants say “me”; they simply weigh other factors more heavily, confident that nothing in the verse threatens the deity of Christ that their churches already profess elsewhere. In other words, their choice is stylistic or text-critical, not confessional. JWs face a different situation. Their theology cannot allow any line in which Yahweh speaks as the One pierced, because their system excludes the possibility that the crucified Jesus is true God, and not Michael. Where other translators acknowledge a jagged Hebrew construction and decide—rightly or wrongly—that the LXX’s smoother reading may represent an earlier Vorlage, the NWT must reject “me” on dogmatic grounds; if it admitted the Masoretic reading here, it would undercut its own anti-Trinitarian platform. Therefore, the real issue here is that what is at most a bug in the other translations cited as "precedents," is a conscious and intentional feature in the NWT.
Catholic versions, therefore, are not “agreeing with the NWT” in any theological sense; they simply do not see this verse as the lynch-pin of Christology, since the Church’s belief in the consubstantial Son rests on the whole biblical witness and the consistent rule of faith. By contrast, the Watchtower’s denial of Christ’s deity obliges it to neutralize every text that even hints at theophanic suffering. That is why its translators alter John 1:1, truncate Acts 20:28, and relocate “worship” offered to the Lamb. In each case the adjustment moves in a single, predictable direction—away from anything that might identify Jesus with Yahweh. Zechariah 12:10 is simply another casualty.
John’s own use of the prophecy exposes the difference. When he refers to Zechariah, he writes, “They will look upon Him whom they pierced,” yet he applies that line without hesitation to the crucified Jesus while calling Him “the Lord of glory” and affirming that the Son shares "the Name above every name." Besides that, it is a well-known fact, that the NT authors quoted and adopted texts freely, not verbatim, from the OT, so how they quoted it is less relevant to establishing the correct meaning of the Hebrew text. Furthermore, the apostle can shift the pronoun in Greek because, in his mind, the pierced One and Yahweh are inseparable; the communicatio idiomatum lets him speak of the sufferings of the man Christ Jesus as the self-giving act of God. It is precisely that seamless identification that Arianism cannot tolerate and the NWT must obscure. (Of course, if someone doesn't understand the communicatio idiomatum, the question is how they can explain biblical passages like Luke 1:43, Acts 3:15, Acts 20:28, 1 Corinthians 2:8.)
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of translations that preserve the traditional Christian reading—rendering Zechariah 12:10 as “me whom they have pierced,” directly supporting the dramatic force of the Hebrew and the identification of the pierced one with the LORD Himself:
- New International Version (NIV): “…They will look on me, the one they have pierced…”
- New Living Translation (NLT): “…They will look on me whom they have pierced…”
- English Standard Version (ESV): “…when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced…”
- Berean Standard Bible: “…they will look on Me, the One they have pierced…”
- King James Version (KJV): “…they shall look upon me whom they have pierced…”
- New King James Version (NKJV): “…then they will look on Me whom they pierced…”
- New American Standard Bible (NASB): “…they will look at Me whom they pierced…”
- NASB 1995/1977: Same as above.
- Legacy Standard Bible: “…they will look on Me whom they have pierced…”
- Amplified Bible: “…they will look at Me whom they have pierced…”
- Christian Standard Bible (CSB): “…they will look at me whom they pierced…”
- Holman Christian Standard Bible: Same as above.
- American Standard Version (ASV): “…they shall look unto me whom they have pierced…”
- English Revised Version: Same as above.
- World English Bible: “…they will look to me whom they have pierced…”
- Majority Standard Bible: “…they will look on Me, the One they have pierced…”
- Literal Standard Version: “…they have looked to Me whom they pierced…”
- Young’s Literal Translation: “…they have looked unto Me whom they pierced…”
- Smith’s Literal Translation: “…they looked to me whom they pierced…”
- Douay-Rheims Bible (Catholic): “…they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced…”
- Catholic Public Domain Version: “…they will look upon me, whom they have pierced…”
- Lamsa Bible (from Aramaic): “…they shall look upon me whom they have pierced…”
- Peshitta Holy Bible Translated: “…they shall gaze upon me, The One whom they pierced through…”
- NET Bible: “…they will look to me, the one they have pierced…”
And that’s not even counting the various older English Bibles, such as the Geneva Bible, Bishops’ Bible, and Coverdale Bible, which all agree.
So, according to your logic, are ALL these major translation committees, ecumenical scholars, Catholic and Protestant and Orthodox experts, as well as the overwhelming manuscript evidence, simply wrong? Are they all hopelessly confused—are the NIV, ESV, KJV, Douay-Rheims, and even your beloved Peshitta all just “pretentious farts” too?
Let me get this straight: when a translation (or a thousand of them) preserves the unambiguous first-person “me,” the problem isn’t with your theology—it’s with all of them? Are you seriously going to claim that everyone from Reformed Protestants to conservative Catholics to the Peshitta translators got it wrong for 2,000 years, but the Watchtower and a few modern “correctors” are the only ones finally to see the light?
Do you realize how laughable that is? If translation is a democracy, you’ve just lost by a landslide. Or does your “reasonableness” only kick in when a translation suits your sectarian dogma?
So the issue is not how many translators have chosen to follow the LXX, nor whether Catholics or Protestants appear on one side of a modern column-count. The issue is whether the Hebrew prophet presents Yahweh Himself as the object of the piercing. The Masoretic text says He does; the earliest Christ-followers embraced the scandalous implication and worshiped the Crucified as “my Lord and my God.” That confession, not the shifting tides of English renderings, remains the touchstone of orthodoxy.