My personal fave has been eph 4:8 Where the NWT renders it gifts [in] men while most other bible render it gift's to men. As we all know this is the scripture they use to certify their power over the congo. There is more debate about it here.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/125435/1.ashx
Another interesting NWT corruption of extant scripture.
by oompa 27 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
darth frosty
-
oompa
Greendawn:
I don't understand what do they stand to gain by putting the word other in the way eg "through him all things were created" or "through him all other things were created". He obviously didn't create himself.
Yes you do understand it GD you just dont realize it yet. "He obviously didn't create himself" is the entire point of adding the word [other]. If he did create himself so to speak, that would make him God, the only one with no beginning. Heaven forbid anyone be even given the opportunity to have that thought or debate it, so just add [other]. smarter than you think....oompa
-
TD
oompa,
How would it be possible to translate highly inflected languages like the ancient Greek dialects into a relatively uninflected language like English without making many interpolations? There are too many English words subsumed by the Greek noun cases and verb conjugations.
Many English translations don't bother to bracket their interpolations at all. Is this dishonest? I don't think so because the idea that added words are a corruption of extant scripture is simplistic. As Narkissos has pointed out, if you want to be a purest and bracket every addition, about a third of the text would have to be bracketed.
The NWT rendering of Col 1:16 makes sense and is arguably necessary if you accept their understanding of the phrase ...prwtotokoV pashV ktisewV
(That topic has been beat to death on B-Greek several times with no resolution and neither side giving an inch.)
-
naphach
I view all English translations as paraphrase. I can't speak directly about translations from the Greek but from the Hebrew it is quite apparent. There are very few Hebrew words that have direct equivalents in English. Even simple words fail to cross over. For instance there is no Hebrew word that can be properly translated as 'am' it must be supplied by translators to make sense. If someone wants to say 'I am David' in Hebrew he says 'I David'. So technically anytime the word 'am' occurs in the English OT it should be bracketed, if we want to see all added words. This process is abused by translators to support their doctrines and occurs in all bibles. As for translations that claim to be literal, they are also paraphrased. Here is Genesis 1:1 translated as literally as it can be translated into English. 'When the supreme power began fattening up the place of the sky and the fragmentation'. This makes sense in Hebrew thought but not so much in English. If anybody published a truly literal translation they would be flamed off the planet. The NWT takes things a step further by changing verb tense to support their beliefs, even after they make a big deal about how accurate they convey Hebrew verb tense. One of the most blatant examples of this is at Genesis 2:3 "he has been resting from all his work" (NWT) where the Hebrew clearly shows this to be completed action 'he ceased from all His work'. What's amusing is that they acknowledge this in the footnote. This was done to support their calculations of the length of creative days as well as to allow for the myriad of end times calculations that have proved to be as false as their rendering of the verse.
-
oompa
TD- How would it be possible to translate highly inflected languages like the ancient Greek dialects into a relatively uninflected language like English without making many interpolations? The NWT rendering of Col 1:16 makes sense and is arguably necessary if you accept their understanding of the phrase ...prwtotokoV pashV ktisewV
Geeze TD, they also argue it is necessary to REPLACE Kyrios and Theos 237 with Jehovah don't they? Surely the vast amount of translations can't all get it Col 1:16 wrong, and NWT is the only one getting it right. Interpolations can not be done at the expense of accuracy. I would learn more Greek and Hebrew but, oops, that is also now discouraged by the FDSC.
stuck with sucky english....oompa
-
Narkissos
Shalom naphach, barukh ha-ba'
Good points, especially about Genesis 2:3.
A few details though
there is no Hebrew word that can be properly translated as 'am'
Well, there is ('ehyeh), but it is very rarely used and hence implies special emphasis.
Here is Genesis 1:1 translated as literally as it can be translated into English. 'When the supreme power began fattening up the place of the sky and the fragmentation'.
I think here you are mixing up the (admittedly dubious) notion of literal translation with distinct problems, involving polysemy, synonymy and confusion of (possible) etymology with semantics. In sound Biblical Hebrew lexicography 'lhym doesn't mean "power," br' doesn't mean "fattening," shmym doesn't mean "place of the sky," 'rç doesn't mean "fragmentation".
-
naphach
Shalom Narkissos Thank you for the reply. I'm not sure how to highlight things on these pages so I just use Quotation marks. I'm not sure also how to get things in format, so I apologize for the no paragraph format in my other post. Maybe this time will be better. "Well, there is ('ehyeh), but it is very rarely used and hence implies special emphasis." Since you have some Hebrew I won't go into large detail. ehyeh (will be), (which occurs upwards of 50 times) is not same as to 'am'. To imply the word 'am' requires this verb be absent. In translation Exodus 3:14 in most bibles (I am) is impossible as the sense of being itself already expressed in the verb fully as 'I will be'. Only in new Hebrew does a real present tense happen, In classical Hebrew only implied in participle. "I think here you are mixing up the (admittedly dubious) notion of literal translation with distinct problems, involving polysemy, synonymy and confusion of (possible) etymology with semantics. In sound Biblical Hebrew lexicography 'lhym doesn't mean "power," br' doesn't mean "fattening," shmym doesn't mean "place of the sky," 'rç doesn't mean "fragmentation". I don't know how you say the Elohim doesn't mean power, it is the basic root sense of el. For bara you need to consider the root 'br' it refers to grain which fills or fattens those that it eat. Bara and Its derivatives bria and briah all say fat or full. Similar saying can be said of the other two words mentioned. I am not sure what means by "sound Biblical Hebrew lexicography". does that refer to grammatical revisionist as James Strong, Gesenius, BDB, Keil & Dlitzsch and schools that make word smiths perverting the Hebrew language almost unrecognizable in support of their Christian interpretation of Hebrew? The writing of Genesis 1:1 as I did was showing what word by word literal looks like, as some like to say all translation be literal. I would not translate like this since it is not conveying Hebrew thought into good English. By translation, recognizing the construct structure of the words, I would write, 'When God began creating the heaven and the earth,'. After many years with mindlessness as jw I find this site and others that are helpful but not in discussion for me usually, as to discuss in English detail, this requires much thought as its flow is not naturally to me and then some one for prove reading. So I apologize if any offense is heard.
-
Narkissos
Hi naphach
ehyeh (will be), (which occurs upwards of 50 times) is not same as to 'am'. To imply the word 'am' requires this verb be absent. In translation Exodus 3:14 in most bibles (I am) is impossible as the sense of being itself already expressed in the verb fully as 'I will be'. Only in new Hebrew does a real present tense happen, In classical Hebrew only implied in participle.
Actually both the imperfect 'ehyeh and the perfect hayiti overlap with the English present tense in particular syntaxical constructions, e.g. Ruth 2:13: we'anokhi lô' 'èhyèh ke'achath shiphchotéykhâ, "even though I am not one of your servants" (the imperfect here has subjunctive, not future, nuance; mood, not tense).
However, that was just a side technical note: I agree with you that the most normal way of expressing the copulative "to be" in predicative sentences is verbless, 'an(okh)i X = "I (am) X".
I don't know how you say the Elohim doesn't mean power, it is the basic root sense of el.
Here's the central problem: because some "basic sense" may be ascribed to a root (and this is only guesswork from comparative philology), it doesn't follow that every word which may be traced back to this root has the same meaning, or that somehow the "root sense" would be "hovering" over the clear meaning of particular words.That's semantic nonsense (!) -- a common flaw in popular, and sometimes scholarly exegesis, that James Barr, for instance, has cruelly pointed out. Meaning is only ascertained by context, and I can't think of any use of 'elohim in the whole BH corpus which might possibly mean anything else than "god(s)". (Of course, we might debate whether the word "god(s)" exactly denotes what the Ancient meant by 'elohim or theoi, but that interesting debate largely exceeds the scope of linguistics).
For bara you need to consider the root 'br' it refers to grain which fills or fattens those that it eat. Bara and Its derivatives bria and briah all say fat or full.
There are at least three possible "root senses" for br': besides "create," "fatten" and "cut" (Joshua 17:15) -- plus br' = brh in 2 Samuel 12:17. Whether you construct them as polysemy (the usual Gesenius-BDB way) or homonymy (the Koehler-Baumgärtner-HAL way) it remains impossible to reduce them all to one "root meaning". The "creative" sense of br', btw, is comparatively late and abstract, and tracing it back to one particular metaphor, whether "fattening" or "cutting," is moot. Cf. the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ad loc.
I am not sure what means by "sound Biblical Hebrew lexicography". does that refer to grammatical revisionist as James Strong, Gesenius, BDB, Keil & Dlitzsch and schools that make word smiths perverting the Hebrew language almost unrecognizable in support of their Christian interpretation of Hebrew?
A very unfair ad hominem imho. All those works, as well as those I mentioned above, simply reflect the contemporarily available data and methods of general linguistics -- as Jewish scholars generally agree. This simply has nothing to do with Christianity.
By translation, recognizing the construct structure of the words, I would write, 'When God began creating the heaven and the earth,'.
That's Orlinsky's suggestion, which has been accepted by many others (e.g. the French TOB), but, I think, forcefully refuted by most (e.g. Westermann's commentary of Genesis, ad loc.).
After many years with mindlessness as jw I find this site and others that are helpful but not in discussion for me usually, as to discuss in English detail, this requires much thought as its flow is not naturally to me and then some one for prove reading. So I apologize if any offense is heard.
No offence at all, and I hope I haven't offended you either. I sincerely hope to read more from you.