by Leto 12 Replies latest watchtower bible
I remember when I was a witless, I spouted the words "It's the most accurate translation".... I'm sure you did too :)
I've been researching the topic of just how badly the NWT is mistranslated. I keep finding more and more examples of blatant mutilation of scriptures in the NWT.
For the record, I love to know just where are they finding these "scholars" to prop up their assertions that their joke of a bible is the "most accurate"? Does anyone know of any?
Jason BeDuhn...and was totally wrong and unqualified to say so due to his lack of training in any biblical language.
Here's a review of Jason BeDuhn and his qualifications:
If he teaches greek at a university, as the site to which you linked asserts, then he does have training in a biblical language.
Almost every website addressing the accuracy of the NWT is listed here and very few defend its accuracy.
http://www.144000.110mb.com/directory/new_world_translation_bible_holy_scriptures.html
But what kind of Greek does Jason BeDuhn teach? That's important.
BeDuhn's approval of the NWT was hardly unqualified.
He based his comparison on a very small sampling of contested renderings and said himself that the results would probably have been different with another sampling.
He also including a scathing critique on the NWT's use of the name Jehovah in the NT without a textual basis.
I have said it before ... BeDuhn's Truth in Translation was very helpful to me in reading the New World Translation with a different slant. I wanted to believe it was accurate so I read Truth in Translation, it made me appreciate the accuracy of the texts that he did compare, but the additional information he provided and reading between the lines made even the NWT take on a new meaning for me.
Example ... John 1:1, BeDuhn says the NWT is MORE accurate in it's rendering, but, he says it would be even better to say "... and the Word was divine", to me, this neutralizes John 1:1 for both trinitarians and JW's. Also, of course, his chapter on why he thought it was going beyond a translation to include Jehovah in the NT and how the NWT translation committee chose not to follow their own rule about rendering Lord as Jehovah a few times. However, the study edition does show Jehovah in the footnote. I felt the NWT study edition was honest in that even in the scriptures that prove problematic with alternate renderings, they do show the alternate in the footnote.
Since an Awake quoted BeDuhn's work on their use of John 1:1, I thought it only fair to take into consideration his criticisms as well. This helped open my eyes to Watchtower bias.
The one scholar that I know of who had only favorable things to say about the New World Translation was Alexander Thompson.
Thompson, apparently, was "Advisor to the Queen" (i.e. of England) on Biblical Languages.
(Presumably, the King or Queen of England requires such an advisor, because he/she is automatically head of the Church of England?)
Anyway, I - along with most other publishers I knew when I first "came into the Truth" - always carried a photocopy of Alexander Thompson's praise of the NWT. When anybody disputed the accuracy of that "green" bible we all carried, this document would be waved in their faces!
That 7 x 5 inch card, though, did not list Thompson's academic qualifications - so I have no idea of what his background actually was:
This photocopy seemed to think that being "Advisor to the Queen" more than qualified him to know what he was talking about!
Bill.
The NWT is NOT a bad translation it is heavily baised in many regards, more so than most translations but then again it is translation for JW's and not for Christians per say.
The issue od inserting Jehovah in the NT aside and the incorrect rendering of "a god" in John 1:1, it is actually a pretty good one, considering what it was created for.
The writers of the NWT can thank the many copies of the many other bibles they used to create the NWT, since none of them were qualified to make it from "scratch".
