New World Translation, is it the best bible translation?

by littlebuddy 177 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  isaacaustin

  and I answered it Spike
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  Spike Tassel

  PSacramento: Spike,

  Augmenting the BACKGROUND of the NT with the OT is just fine, REPLACING the meanings on the New Covenant with the meaning of the Old one is not.

  Spike Tassel: what proof do you have of THAT, Paul?
• 

  Pistoff

  Face it; the NWT is good if you like literal transliteration type readings, devoid of colloquial meaning; it a technical, dull translation.

  The idea that an accurate technical translation gives us the meaning of the oral history behind the written is dubious at best.

  P
• 

  PSacramento

  Spike, well, since it was mentioned before, Romans 10:13 for example.

  It is clear by all pf Pauls' writing that Jesus is Lord and that it is Jesus's name that gives salvation, this is repeated by Peter in acts also.

  Many OT scriptures are used by Paul to show how Jesus is no "in the role" of YHWH.
• 

  TD

  Since most bible scholars are religious (their interest in bible scholarship often born from religious origin in belief) and so have christian faith they will natually seek to support their churches theology in regards to the bible.

  Koine Greek was only taught here where I live as part of a seminary program. The professor I had was so rabid a Trinitarian that he would mark your exercises down by half a point if you failed to capitalize "Son" when it referred to Jesus. When he found out that I had no interest in the ministry whatsoever and was not even terribly religious, he took it as a personal insult.

  People criticize old Fred Franz all the time because most of the formal education he received was in Classical (Attic) Greek and not Koine. I don't know exactly why he made that choice and I'm not defending him, but if his experience was anything like mine, I can empathize at least. The atmosphere is entirely different in a Classical Greek course.
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  PSacramento

  TD,

  Can you seperate theology from the Koine Greek in the NT?

  I think most are critical of FF's LACK of Greek training, not so much what type it was.
• 

  TD

  Can you seperate theology from the Koine Greek in the NT?

  Probably not entirely, but I think those that come the closest are those that see the Bible is just another piece of literature.

  I also think it's possible even for those with strong religious beliefs to learn to hold those beliefs in abeyance. (You would never know that from reading JWD though....)

  For example, the discussions on the B-Greek mailing list revolve almost entirely around grammar and word use in contemporary literature. No one is allowed to bring theology into the discussion. Over the years, my observation is that the JW's who participate have gotten reprimanded the most for this, so maybe they have a harder time than others...

  I think most are critical of FF's LACK of Greek training, not so much what type it was.

  Freddy took two years of Greek and got mostly A's

  http://www.geocities.com/paulblizard/transcript2.html

  The criticism that this was Classical rather than Koine Greek is also fairly common:

  http://www.wordfamine.com/fred_franz.htm

  Of course those two years would not have qualified him as a 'scholar' by any means, but I've observed that 99.9% of the time, those that make a huge screaming deal over Freddy's lack of formal education know little to nothing about biblical Greek themselves and probably just feel helpless at being unable to criticize the NWT on it's own merit.
• 

  PSacramento

  TD,

  I don't think that 2 years of any language qualifies one to be a translator, much less a scholar.

  I doubt that anyone would say he was qualified, heck I graduated from HS in Portugal, that is alot more than 2years of Portugues and if I was to be a translator I would need post secindary work to qulaifiy.

  But that isn't here or there really, liek I said I don't know of anyone that things FF was wualified to be a translator of Biblical scriptures.

  You are right that those that view a text in a pure literal sense can come up with the most "correct" translations in a grammatical sense, but as we know, that is only part of the picture, context is everything and theological scripture must be translated based on the context of Theology or at least it has to be taken into account.

  Look at the case of P66 and P75 in the translation of the gospel of john, tha passage that referes to begotten Son ( I forget which chapter and verse), the oldest documents P66 and P75 show God instead of Son as being written, but sence those documents were from the Alexandian line, where Gnostics were prevelant, most modern translation follow the "younger" maniscripts that shoe Beggoten Son, not God.

  Context made the translators favor one over the other.

  I know not exatly what we are discussing, but it points out the importance of context and how it can effect a literal translation, a not theological translator would have accepted the oldest text as the one to work from.
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  TD

  The situation with the NT is unique. The vocabulary used in the NT is not large and every single word and every single phrase in the NT has been endlessly discussed and debated among scholars for hundreds of years.

  There is so much of that literature available today that almost anyone familiar with biblical Greek could produce their own translation. As long as they kept careful notes about which scholar's opinion supported which rendering, they would even be able to defend that translation.

  Of course randomly accepting the conclusions of scholars without any great regard for the reasons those scholars have arrived at those conclusions is not terribly honest, but there is nothing to prevent a person from doing this.
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  PSacramento

  TD, very true, one can find commentaries on every sinle verse in the NT, though the majority do seem to mesh well with each other.