• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Serious Problems With New World Translation

katiemygirl

CHRISTIAN
According to the NWT, Jesus is the one who sent the angel to John in Revelation 1:1.

I agree this is what the verse says.

1 A revelation by Jesus Christ, which God gave him, to show his slaves the things that must shortly take place. And he sent his angel and presented it in signs through him to his slave John,"
(NWT)


According to the NWT, Revelation 22:16, it is Jesus who sent his angel.

I agree that this is what this verse says.

"I, Jesus, sent my angel to bear witness to you about these things for the congregations. I am the root and the offspring of David and the bright morning star."
(NWT)


According to NWT, Revelation 22:6, it is Jehovah who sent the angel.

This is a contradiction. I disagree, not only because the name Jehovah is not found in any extant Greek manuscript, but it is a direct contradiction of Rev. 1:1 and Rev. 22:16.

Compare Revelation 22:6 in the NWT to the NASB rendering.


Revelation 22:6

And he said to me, "These words are faithful and true"; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.

It is Jesus who is the Lord (kyrios), the God (ho Theos) of the spirits of the prophets according to the apostle John.

The NWT is not trustworthy!
 
Last edited:

LegionOnomaMoi

Veteran Member
Premium Member
[QUOTE="katiemygirl, post: 4164666, member: 29151"The NWT is not trustworthy![/QUOTE]
No translation is (or rather, they are all inaccurate). Learn Greek & Hebrew, and then you won't have a problem here.
 

katiemygirl

CHRISTIAN
="LegionOnomaMoi, post: 4164708, member: 35259"][QUOTE="katiemygirl, post: 4164666, member: 29151"The NWT is not trustworthy!
No translation is (or rather, they are all inaccurate). Learn Greek & Hebrew, and then you won't have a problem here.

I don't have a problem here. The NWT does. I've shown that with my OP.
 
Last edited:

Nietzsche

The Last Prussian
Premium Member
[QUOTE="katiemygirl, post: 4164666, member: 29151"The NWT is not trustworthy!
No translation is (or rather, they are all inaccurate). Learn Greek & Hebrew, and then you won't have a problem here.
Yes! You won't regret it. Or at least, you won't regret it too much. Learning Hebrew might just drive you insane because Jesus ****ing christ buy a vowel.
 

LegionOnomaMoi

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Learning Hebrew might just drive you insane because Jesus ****ing christ buy a vowel.
Seriously. Writing was invented maybe twice. So who the f thought "You know, I think the best way to represent words in our language is with an alphabet that can't tell you how to pronounce the word unless you already know it". Cuneiform may be even harder to decipher, but that's because of the writing utensil and material used. But Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, & Syriac (the only Semitic languages I know) have no such excuse. Even they realized it because both Hebrew and Arabic have writing systems that include diacritics for vowel sounds, only these aren't generally used except for learning the language.

You know what? I'm going to turn my marginally on-topic, smart-@ss reply into a completely off-topic rant because I chose to study languages that are mostly dead and present particular difficulties I knew about ahead of time, and somebody besides me has to bear the blame.

Ancient Greek as it exists in modern editions of Plato, the NT, Homer, etc., has a nice, easy script. This is not true of ancient manuscripts, where there were no spaces between words or letters and all the letters were "uppercase" (majuscule). Worse still, the oldest form of extant Greek writings uses a totally different alphabet (Linear B). However, the Greeks recognized that this alphabet (stolen from one used for another language) wasn't adequate for their language because the symbols didn't match the sounds of their language very well. So they stole and adapted the Phoenician alphabet like everybody else (it was the in thing). This is the same alphabet that formed the basis for Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac (among others). Sure, early on there were variants early on (in particular, the digamma, which looks like an F but was pronounced like a "w", not only dropped out of use but presented a problem for Homeric scholars for a while). But over time the Greeks developed minuscule forms for all the letters, they put in diacritics to aid pronunciation, and by the time the printing press was developed the only think lacking was standardized fonts. While not as drastic, Latin also became much more readable as authors started to insert spaces between words and use minuscule and so forth.

Hell, even Egyptian (or rather Coptic, the Egyptian language that began around the 1st century), whence the Phoenician alphabet was derived, turned around and adapted the Greek alphabet to the very readable Coptic script.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that Hebrew was a dead language for centuries but continuously learned and spoken (like Latin) by learned Rabbis, and despite the development of similar improvements to the script, today remains as annoyingly undecipherable if you don't already know how to pronounce the word at it was thousands of years ago.

Arabic is even worse. It's like they thought it a contest to see who could create the most difficult alphabet to use. Almost every letter has 4 different ways of being written, it's all "cursive" (almost all the letters are joined together, which is reason for the different forms for different letters). I mean, seriously people! You can develop an alphabet with 3 extra letter forms for nearly every letter but it's too much to ask to put in some vowels? Or to decide that just maybe the diacritics that were developed to stand-in for vowels should be included in the written language all the time!!!?

I think that's a decent enough rant. I feel a little bad for not going off on Syriac and I apologize to any Semitic language alphabets that I didn't insult.
 

catch22

Active Member
The NWT is for those who follow the doctrines of the JW/Watchtower. If you don't follow that, uh, particular version of Christianity, you should not bother with the NWT.

It's well known they altered the texts to fit their theology. John 1:1, John 10:30, etc.
 

lockyfan

Active Member
Or maybe it was other translaters who messed things up.

its funny how you make a point in rev 1:1 that it was God who told Jesus to send the message, yet it is a contradiction for Jesus to have sent the message?

Maybe it could be both, as God told Jesus to send the message. After all Jesus is the word of God!
 

VitoOFMCap

Member
According to the NWT, Jesus is the one who sent the angel to John in Revelation 1:1.

This is a contradiction. I disagree, not only because the name Jehovah is not found in any extant Greek manuscript, but it is a direct contradiction of Rev. 1:1 and Rev. 22:16.
...


The NWT is not trustworthy!

I'm with @LegionOnomaMoi . The use of the word Jehovah as the representation of יהוה is already an expression of interpretation that has occurred because of translation (but that's another issue altogether, lest anyone accuse me of derailing this thread). If you're going to do Biblical literary criticism, go to the Greek.

Θεός is used in the New Testament writings 1364 times, including the Gospels where it is used as a direct reference to God: Ὁ θεός μου ὁ θεός μου, εἰς τί ἐγκατέλι πές με; (Mark 15:34). The tetragrammaton is never used. However Θεός is used by the new testament authors enough times to show that it is not exclusively a direct reference to Jesus. Therefore, while the liberal use of Jehovah is an interpretation that is added to the NWT Bible, it can be justified from a literary point-of-view. Whether or not you agree/disagree with it in light of other verses is an interpretive discourse, comparing one translation to the next.
 

Pegg

Jehovah our God is One
According to the NWT, Jesus is the one who sent the angel to John in Revelation 1:1.

I agree this is what the verse says.

1 A revelation by Jesus Christ, which God gave him, to show his slaves the things that must shortly take place. And he sent his angel and presented it in signs through him to his slave John,"
(NWT)


According to the NWT, Revelation 22:16, it is Jesus who sent his angel.

I agree that this is what this verse says.

"I, Jesus, sent my angel to bear witness to you about these things for the congregations. I am the root and the offspring of David and the bright morning star."
(NWT)


According to NWT, Revelation 22:6, it is Jehovah who sent the angel.

This is a contradiction. I disagree, not only because the name Jehovah is not found in any extant Greek manuscript, but it is a direct contradiction of Rev. 1:1 and Rev. 22:16.

Compare Revelation 22:6 in the NWT to the NASB rendering.


Revelation 22:6

And he said to me, "These words are faithful and true"; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.

It is Jesus who is the Lord (kyrios), the God (ho Theos) of the spirits of the prophets according to the apostle John.

The NWT is not trustworthy!


read any of the writings of the prophets of the hebrew scriptures and they clearly state the name of the one who inspired them to write.....Jehovah.
ie Eze 24:20 I replied to them: “The word of Jehovah has come to me, saying, 21 ‘Tell the house of Israel: “This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says, ‘I am about to profane my sanctuary

Jeremiah 1:13 The word of Jehovah came to me a second time

And Jesus himself was also speaking by the spirit of Jehovah his God for he said:
John 6:
16 Jesus, in turn, answered them and said: “What I teach is not mine, but belongs to him who sent me

According to the scriptures, the one who inspired all the prophets is Jehovah. Therefore, by inserting the name Jehovah at Rev 22:6, it clearly identifies who that Lord is. True, Jesus is Lord...but he is not the Father Jehovah....and he himself was sent by the Father Jehovah. We must recognise that and ensure that the scriptures reflect that.

NWT Rev 22:6
6 He said to me: “These words are faithful* and true;+ yes, Jehovah,* the God who inspired the prophets,+ has sent his angel to show his slaves the things that must shortly take place.

American Standard Version (ASV)
6 And he said unto me, These words are faithful and true: and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angels to show unto his servants the things which must shortly come to pass.

King James Version (KJV)
6 And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.

Modern English Version (MEV)
The Coming of Christ
6 The angel said to me, “These words are faithful and true. The Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show to His servants the things which must soon take place.”

Young's Literal Translation (YLT)
6 And he said to me, `These words [are] stedfast and true, and the Lord God of the holy prophets did send His messenger to shew to His servants the things that it behoveth to come quickly:

Good News Translation (GNT)
The Coming of Jesus
6 Then the angel said to me, “These words are true and can be trusted. And the Lord God, who gives his Spirit to the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must happen very soon.”

1599 Geneva Bible (GNV)
6 And he said unto me, These words are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy Prophets sent his Angel to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be fulfilled.

J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS)
The angel endorses the revelation
6 Then the angel said to me, “These words are true and to be trusted, for the Lord God, who inspired the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must shortly happen.”


All the above say the same thing.... the angel was sent by the one who inspired the prophets. If we are honest, we have to agree that the God of the prophets is Jehovah. So there is nothing inaccurate about inserting the name Jehovah into the text...it actually helps us have a correct understanding which none of the other translators do because they all view Jesus as being the God who inspired the prophets which is unscritpural.
 

Kolibri

Well-Known Member
Recognized Bible translators have used God’s name in the Christian Greek Scriptures. Some of these translators did so long before the New World Translation was produced. These translators and their works include: A Literal Translation of the New Testament . . . From the Text of the Vatican Manuscript, by Herman Heinfetter (1863); The Emphatic Diaglott, by Benjamin Wilson (1864); The Epistles of Paul in Modern English, by George Barker Stevens (1898); St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, by W. G. Rutherford (1900); The New Testament Letters, by J.W.C. Wand, Bishop of London (1946). In addition, in a Spanish translation in the early 20th century, translator Pablo Besson used “Jehová” at Luke 2:15 and Jude 14, and nearly 100 footnotes in his translation suggest the divine name as a likely rendering. Long before those translations, Hebrew versions of the Christian Greek Scriptures from the 16th century onward used the Tetragrammaton in many passages. In the German language alone, at least 11 versions use “Jehovah” (or the transliteration of the Hebrew “Yahweh”) in the Christian Greek Scriptures, while four translators add the name in parentheses after “Lord.” More than 70 German translations use the divine name in footnotes or commentaries.

Bible translations in over one hundred different languages contain the divine name in the Christian Greek Scriptures. Many African, Native American, Asian, European, and Pacific-island languages use the divine name liberally Some of these translations of the Christian Greek Scriptures have appeared recently, such as the Rotuman Bible (1999), which uses “Jihova” 51 times in 48 verses, and the Batak (Toba) version (1989) from Indonesia, which uses “Jahowa” 110 times.

- A5 The Divine Name in the Christian Greek Scriptures — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

RESTORING
THE DIVINE NAME

Throughout the centuries many translations of parts or of all the Christian Greek Scriptures have been made into Hebrew. Such translations, designated in this work by “J” with a superior number, have restored the divine name to the inspired Christian Greek Scriptures in various places. They have restored the divine name not only when coming upon quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures but also in other places where the texts called for such restoration.

To know where the divine name was replaced by the Greek words Κύριος and Θεός, we have determined where the inspired Christian writers have quoted verses, passages and expressions from the Hebrew Scriptures and then we have referred back to the Hebrew text to ascertain whether the divine name appears there. In this way we determined the identity to give Ky′ri·os and The·os′ and the personality with which to clothe them.

To avoid overstepping the bounds of a translator into the field of exegesis, we have been most cautious about rendering the divine name in the Christian Greek Scriptures, always carefully considering the Hebrew Scriptures as a background. We have looked for agreement from the Hebrew versions to confirm our rendering. Thus, out of the 237 times that we have rendered the divine name in the body of our translation, there is only one instance where we have no agreement from the Hebrew versions. But in this one instance, namely, 1Co 7:17, the context and related texts strongly support rendering the divine name.—See 1Co 7:17 ftn, “Jehovah.”

- 1D The Divine Name in the Christian Greek Scriptures — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

As the reference edition was copy-written in 1984, I do not know if there has been found an outside source for the one exception to the rule regarding the use of Jehovah in the Christian Greek Scriptures. One exception. One. Compared to how my additions that have been found to be spurious in the KJV, the question turns on which translation is more accurate. If the vehemence is still so strong against the one exception, why is there not similar vehemence against the KJV with all it's problems?
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
No translation is (or rather, they are all inaccurate). Learn Greek & Hebrew, and then you won't have a problem here.
Are you actually suggesting that a personal translation would be more accurate than what scholars and those with better access to sources have come up with? That would take one vicious ego. In any case, I think the best way to look at the various versions of the Bible is to recognize they were constructed to satisfy the powers that commissioned them. Not that one's own translation would necessarily be worse than the others, but simply one of many variations, which holds no more truth than any of the others---I suspect that true truth (
wink.gif
) in the Bible is pretty scarce, or a real hit and miss affair. So, take your pick of the one, or more (cherry picking is allowed*) versions that best satisfies your needs and run with it. There are no right or wrong translations, just an assortment of alternatives.

* This is my modus operandi, usually using those versions of a passage that occur most often among the various translations. For instance, in the King James version of Isaiah 45:7 god says "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." But, for whatever reason (we can probably guess why) other versions such as the New International Version god doesn't use the word "evil," but say "I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things." As it turns out, in the thirty versions of this passage I looked at "evil" occurrs 47%, of the time, calamity 26%, disaster 21%, bad times 5%, So I go with "evil." Not that this is necessarily what the original author had in mind---maybe he meant to convey the idea of bad times instead of evil---but lacking any evidence one way or the other I choose the most popular.
 
Last edited:

LegionOnomaMoi

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Are you actually suggesting that a personal translation
You raise an important point. There are some languages I am familiar with such that given a reference grammar and lexicon I can work my way through a text written in that language (Portuguese, for example, or Ugaritic). I am not reading these texts, I am producing a translation that is bound to be inferior to any produced by one who knows the language enough to read it without depending upon such tools.

When one is able to read a language, one is not translating. In fact, when I have translated lines from Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Sanskrit, German, French, Latin, and (if any exist) any other language for which I have provided translations of some line or lines of some text, I tend not to provide a single translation. That is, I will frequently translate a work in e.g., Greek or Hebrew by noting various words or phrases in English that all are somewhat akin to some original word but none of which encapsulate its meaning even in context. That is, I provide alternative renderings in order to better communicate what the line or lines mean.

This is considered bad form even in exams, and is basically forbidden in any actual translation. It is considered bad form because I am not providing a translation but multiple translations, which is far easier than trying to decide the best way to inaccurately render a given line in the source language into a single translation in the target language.

If one can read the language, one is not only free of the bounds to pick a single way to render a given line, but free of picking any particular rendering at all. In short, one isn't translating but reading.

A decent student of the Biblical languages can, the standard two semester introductory courses and two semester intermediary courses, take a text written in one such language and (with some help from tools such students use) better understand the original text than if the same student relied on translations.


That would take one vicious ego.
No, simply an understanding of how translating works (and the fact that there is no one way in which it works, as different theories exist as to what makes a better translation, but everybody agrees that translations are inevitably inaccurate).

In any case, I think the best way to look at the various versions of the Bible is to recognize they were constructed to satisfy the powers that commissioned them.
By "versions", do you mean translations? And if so, there aren't always any such powers, and most of the time the "power" that "commissioned" the translation is either identical to the group of translators or the latter are members of the former (e.g., the "scholar's version" (SV) was a product of the Jesus seminar, whose members translated the NT into the SV).
 

Kolibri

Well-Known Member
This is my modus operandi, usually using those versions of a passage that occur most often among the various translations. For instance, in the King James version of Isaiah 45:7 god says "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." But, for whatever reason (we can probably guess why) other versions such as the New International Version god don't use the word "evil," but say "I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things." As it turns out, in the thirty versions of this passage I looked at "evil" occurrs 47%, of the time, calamity 26%, disaster 21%, bad times 5%, So I go with "evil." Not that this is necessarily what the original author had in mind---maybe he meant to convey the idea of bad times instead of evil---but lacking any evidence one way or the other I choose the most popular.

Translations come with different varieties. Paraphrase Bibles are free translations, meaning they only care about how easy the end product is to read. They are not at all accurate, but can be useful. The Aramaic Targums in particular are very old paraphrases that give translators insight into how the Jews understood some otherwise difficult to translate passages.

For example, at Job 38:7, “sons of God” is explained to mean “bands of the angels.” At Genesis 10:9, the Targums indicate that the Hebrew preposition used in describing Nimrod carries the hostile meaning “against” or “in opposition to” rather than simply meaning “before” in a neutral sense.

The weakness of this particular type of translation is that opinions are much easier to insert and certain details can very easily be dropped out as well. But at times the wording is easy to understand and still carries the same thought as what would be found in a more literal translation. The Today's English Version is a an example of this type of Bible.

On the other extreme are Interlinear translations. These give you a word-for-word rendering as close as possible when considering the target language's rules for grammar. The weakness in this type of translation is that each language thinks differently. So a word-for-word translation of the Bible will result in unclear passages or might even convey the wrong meaning. One of the more commonly remembered examples of this literal word-for-word is Mt 5:3's "poor in spirit". A literal rendering of this expression is obscure in many languages. In some cases, a strictly literal translation even implies that “the poor in spirit” are mentally unbalanced or lacking in vitality and determination. However, Jesus was here teaching people that their happiness depended, not on satisfying their physical needs, but on recognizing their need for God’s guidance. (Luke 6:20)

A third type of translation tries to strike a balance between the two extremes. The New Testament in Modern English renders Mt 5:3 as “those who know their need for God”, and conveys accurately the meaning of this verse. Likewise the New World Translation puts it as "those conscious of their spiritual need".

All and all, I can understand why it is good to compare renderings along with checking interlinears as we try to get a fuller understanding of scripture.
 
Last edited:

lockyfan

Active Member
There is a difference between a version and a translation.
A version is printed and written from a translation, whereas a translation comes from the original text
 

LegionOnomaMoi

Veteran Member
Premium Member
There is a difference between a version and a translation.
A version is printed and written from a translation, whereas a translation comes from the original text
We don't have any original texts here. We have manuscript copies which disagree (albeit an unprecedented wealth of such textual evidence, at least in terms of NT manuscripts).
 
Top