A WAR you never heard about: judge for yourselves THE TRUE STORY (page 2)

HappyGuy

I don't know what the big fuss is all about. Anyone with half a brain knows that the King James Bible, written by Jesus brother James, is totally without errors. Just use that one.

thetrueone

Its when someone has an agenda to push.

Especially when it revolves around sales and marketing of literature.

Arrogance, pride, combined with self assertive marketing aggression has always been the cornerstone in the progressive

development of the Watchtower Publishing Corporation.

Atheists have always had the advantage because they don't have to partake in this war of inspired inerrancy .

PSacramento

thetrueone,

Very true, people that believe the bible to be THE WORD of God will always want the more "correct" version and translation.

There will always be people willing to capitalize on that desire.

villabolo

Outlaw: I remember the Big Ta-Do..

When the WBT$ NWT came out..

Really Outlaw? I thought it started coming out in the 1950s? You must be one old dog.

villabolo

donny

Thanks Terry. Good timing, I had just posted a question on your "Ask Terry" thread regarding the NWT.

Donny

Earnest

While I do not hold with the doctrine of inerrancy the claims of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy are qualified in a subsequent exposition :

Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant transmission of Scripture, it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text of the original documents was inspired and to maintain the need of textual criticism as a means of detecting any slips that may have crept into the text in the course of its transmission. The verdict of this science, however, is that the Hebrew and Greek text appear to be amazingly well preserved, so that we are amply justified in affirming, with the Westminster Confession, a singular providence of God in this matter and in declaring that the authority of Scripture is in no way jeopardized by the fact that the copies we possess are not entirely error-free.

Similarly, no translation is or can be perfect, and all translations are an additional step away from the autographa. Yet the verdict of linguistic science is that English-speaking Christians, at least, are exceedingly well served in these days with a host of excellent translations and have no cause for hesitating to conclude that the true Word of God is within their reach. Indeed, in view of the frequent repetition in Scripture of the main matters with which it deals and also of the Holy Spirit's constant witness to and through the Word, no serious translation of Holy Scripture will so destroy its meaning as to render it unable to make its reader "wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:15).

Further, the very meaning of the word "inerrant" is qualified :

So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth. Differences between literary conventions in Bible times and in ours must also be observed: since, for instance, non-chronological narration and imprecise citation were conventional and acceptable and violated no expectations in those days, we must not regard these things as faults when we find them in Bible writers. When total precision of a particular kind was not expected nor aimed at, it is no error not to have achieved it. Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed.

While your account is very interesting I do not think the NWT had such an earth-shattering effect on Bible translation except in the eyes of Jehovah's Witnesses. Since Jerome produced the Vulgate there have always been upheavals when the words of tried and trusted translations are changed to better reflect the meaning of the originals. Erasmus complained of this also when he produced what became known as the Received Text (Textus Receptus). The only reason the King James Version was readily accepted is because it was the Authorised Version...authorised by King James who everyone knew was divinely appointed as king. And if you wished to keep your head when all about you were losing theirs you didn't make too much of a fuss about how much better Tyndale's translation was.

Last but not least I should mention that the wonderfully named "International Council on Biblical Inerrancy" disbanded in 1988.

OUTLAW

Really Outlaw? I thought it started coming out in the 1950s? You must be one old dog.

villabolo

I was just a little kid..

But..

I remember the controversy..

How there was no other Bible like the WBT$ NWT..

Being told how all the top experts agreed..

This Bible was the ONE!

Little kids remember a lot..

The problem is..

They eventually learn how to read..

............................ ...OUTLAW

ziddina

What a delightful thread! I'm going to mark it for further reading and future reference!!!

By the way, that bit about the King James bible being the only one inspired... Hilarious irony; King James, who commissioned the writing of his namesake bible, was a notorious pedophile. In point of fact, his preference for young boys was so strong that there was initially much concern among his advisors about the issue of a royal heir... Zid

Then there's the squabbling over the Dead Sea Scrolls - and the discrepancies between the scrolls and the bible as it exists today...

sooner7nc

Great thread Terry! I've often found it laughable how some JW's preach the superiority of the NWT when in fact they've never read any other version except in passing. Again, great thread.

By the way, I prefer the Revised Rick James version of the Holy Scriptures.

"I am Rick James yon bitch, holdeth my drink bitch."

GLTirebiter

Interesting thread! Here is another bit of this history.

Only the NT was translated by the Watchtower in the 1950s. Wikipedia says the complete NWT was not published until 1961. (Maybe Outlaw isn't quite as old as we thought!)

The NWT was translated at approximately the same time as the RCC project leading to the Jerusalem Bible. Knorr proposed a new translation in 1946, three years after pope Pius XII wrote Divino Afflante Spiritu encouraging translations of the Bible from original languages rather than the Vulgate Latin version.

Both the complete NWT and the first (French) version of the Jerusalem Bible were published in 1961. Consistent with the theme of this war, two groups claimed to do the same thing (translate the Bible from the oldest extant sources), and each produced results consistent with their theology.

GLT

A WAR you never heard about: judge for yourselves THE TRUE STORY

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