Comments on Jason BeDuhn's view of NWT and question?

researcher

Any opinion on the Philip's Transalation??

I Believe there was an article recently, in the Dec 1, 2004 WT, about a Jason BeDuhn who commented on the NWT in a very positive light. Anyone know what the other Translations he examined???

KJV, Amplified Bible, Living Bible, New American Bible, New Revised Standard Version, New American Standard Version, New International Version, Today's English Version, NWT. In the Appendix, he has a consideration of the divine Name in the NWT NT. (He explains why it is improper: it is simply 237 interpolations...)

mrsjones5

this is what I found when I googled:

"The Watch Tower Society will want to selectively quote BeDuhn's book because he compliments portions of the New World Translation. On the other hand, considering what Truth in Translation also says about the New World Translation in areas of its weakness, the Watch Tower Society will need to proceed cautiously when quoting Truth in Translation. BeDuhn devoted an entire appendix (The Use of "Jehovah") to the 237 occurrences of "Jehovah" in the New World Translation Greek Scriptures (New Testament). In that appendix he essentially denies the most prominent feature of the New World Translation's Greek Scriptures when he disputes the appropriateness of using Jehovah in the New Testament."

http://www.tetragrammaton.org/truthintrans.htm

Josie

AlmostAtheist

I happened upon an article in the Awake! about the NWT that mentioned BeDuhn's work:

December 1, 2004 issue of Awake!
The second paragraph says, "While critical of some of its translation
choices, BeDuhn called the New World Translation a 'remarkably good'
translation, 'better by far' and 'consistently better' than some of the others
considered. Overall, concluded BeDuhn, the New World Translation 'is one of
the most accurate English translations of the New Testament currently
available' and 'the most accurate of the translations compared.' - Truth in
Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament."

I sent him an email asking if the quotes were accurate and if they were taken in context, explaining that the Watchtower often misquotes people. I told him I wasn't questioning his opinion, only wanting to verify that he was accurately quoted. He wrote back:

"Thank you for your message. The quotes are accurate, and do not misrepresent
my assessment."

Wuddayaknow, they actually got one right... and even admitted that it was "critical"!

Dave

Cygnus

BeDuhn seems like a good and balanced, fair dude. I wonder if he has any religious affiliation; I know he's not a JW.

Spook

I don't think any of those versions are very good, personally. But he is right that the divine name in the Greek scriptures is fallacy. That produces the question

"If the bible could be tampered with enough such that something so fundamental as the divine name were removed from it, how can we possibly trust that other changes were not made?

That, and Jesus never used the divine name or that would have been a primary accusation against him.

Leolaia

You might be interested in the extensive debate between Jason BeDuhn and Robert Bowman on translational issues:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evangelicals_and_jws