Mad Sweeney:
"While the original New World Translation was rendered from the ancient biblical languages , all editions in different contemporary languages never were.
Also, the part above in bold is incorrect. There was nobody on the original NWT committee who knew the ancient Biblical languages."
That is NOT totally correct. Some in the NWT Committee had more than a working knowledge of Hebrew and Greek. All it takes to disprove the common assumption that the NWT was incompetent to do translation work is to "get our hands dirty" and go straight to the Hebrew and Greek, and the more we learn, the more we'll see that someone did have sufficient knowledge to do it. I don't believe those common claims, because I have done myself some digging in the guts of the NWT itself.
Ray Franz, with whom I spoke personally with, told me he was miffed about evangelicals taking his footnote on one of his books and concluding Fred had zero knowledge, and that their motives were inappropiate. He personally was confident that Fred was knowledgeable enough to produce a "creditable" translation. Those were his words. Then he told me of Fred Franz spending hours with a WT Hebrew translator (a female) native in Israel who was surprised at Fred's depth in the Hebrew department. She was able to help her with some translation issues, even though she was experienced translating WT publications from Hebrew to English. Ray himself has told quite a few people that Fred was always able to help him with the Hebrew and Greek difficulties he encountered while preparing Aid to Bible Understanding. Guess what: Ray was no dummy himself. He is an excellent and careful writer who relied on Fred Franz superior knowledge in the language dpt. Ray said he was "unusually disciplined in the language department."
A few scholars who teach Greek use the Kingdom Interlinear in their colleges with their students, and have stated that the KIT is the best interlinear on the market. Guess who worked on the KIT? Ray told me that it was Freddy. Yes, Freddy. And think about this:
E. J. Goodspeed who was quoted by the WTS stating that ‘the NWT exhibits sound serious learning, as he could testify,' and said the "NWT was a scholarly work," was pressured by many evangelicals to come out and condemn the NWT. He never condemned the Greek NT. The only thing negative they were able to get came from an ex-Bethelite, about the grammar of the Hebrew-English portion was "regrettable (in the sense of un-English)." But he translated the Greek NT, not the Hebrew OT. Goodspeed added that 'evidently you WT translators are good scholars.’ BTW, George Gangas spoke Greek, something many trained bible scholars cannot do. Yes, I know that his Greek was Modern not Koine, but it is not that difficult to adapt to their differences.
Frankly, I am puzzled that so many ex-Witnesses fall prey in readily believing the mostly "evangelical" attacks on the NWT without doing deep research themselves.
Also, the WT publication saying that translators need not know Hebrew and English to do translation work must be taken within their context. I have checked the NWT in various languages, and I have seen many cases where the translators didn't just translate from the English carelessly, but went right into the Hebrew and Greek for the translation. They did not use a straight translation from the English. Their translation teams are quite impressive. I know so. Spanish in some cases is closer to Hebrew and Greek and when that is the case, the translation teams cleverly went with the original language instead of the English base.This may sound strange, but I think the WT is more careful with bible translation than with other publications.
So please, let us not be parroting questionable "evangelical" perceptions here for the sake of WT organizational failures.
