NWT 2012 Revision - Your Suggestions Please (page 2)

Gayle

where could they squeeze in,"overlapping" generations? maybe a footnote? with a scripture reference of Joseph & his brothers?

I got a suggestion for the updated NWT: Let it be translated like the NRSV, the NABRE, and the CEV, with 100 of the best textual scholars from different denominations and faith traditions--Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant--to ensure a balanced translation.

Oh, silly me! I forgot that the Watchtower doesn't need scholars or anyone to ensure that their translation will be balanced. In order for it to be a true update of the NWT requires that it neither be scholarly or balanced.

Carry on Watchtower! Just forget I said anything. I'll go back to sitting in my corner searching for bellybutton lint...Ooo, this one looks like C.T. Russell!

Bobcat

I think I missed the point of this thread. I was proposing much needed improvements. There are a lot of things I would hope they wouldn't change about the NWT.

One of the more fascinating things to me is to see the specious and long-winded reasoning they sometimes resort to whilst trying to get around or nullify what the NWT accurately says. They tried to make an accurate translation (generally speaking), and then spend much effort in the WT trying to explain why it doesn't mean what it actually says.

Case in point:

John 1:12 (NWT) says: "However, as many as did receive him, to them he gave authority to become God's children, because they were exercising faith in his name."

Today's WT lesson (which is nothing new) revolved around the idea that only the 144,000 - chosen only by God, with no human choice involved - are "God's children (or Sons)." Completely contradicting the simple statement in John 1:12.

(I try not to immerse myself in WT propaganda so much (anymore), but I often study the WT lesson to try to keep my mind sharp by picking thru the flawed reasoning. But today's lesson was very much like trying to read 'spagetti' computer code.)

Much of the 'twisting' of the Scriptures done by the Society is accomplished by programming alternate meanings for phrases that have been accurately rendered in the NWT. (e.g. "other sheep," "little flock," Christ's brothers," "Sons of God," "Seed of the woman," and on and on ...)

If the talk about adding a more explanatory appendix to the NWT is true, then, I imagine there is where the above sarcastic proposals would actually be found. And the indoctination would ensure that readers would apply the meanings of the appendix to what is said in the Bible text. That's how the WT version of "Newspeak" works. Having it right in the back of the Bible would be all the better because it would lesson the physical distance between the Bible and the 'traditions of men.'

man oh man

Maybe they can just burn the thing and tell everyone to go out and get a real Bible.

Amelia Ashton

"Paradise earth" might get inserted somewhere too as I am pretty sure it is not actually written in the Bible anywhere.

nugget

Perhaps they'll make it smaller and add pictures. There will soon come a time when many witnesses will struggle to read the standard text they will need to do something.

cantleave

I think they should have an instruction page "How to roll a spliff from the pages of this book"

Room 215

Are they really planning to release a revised NWT? I think it's a measure of how desperately they're rummaging around to come up with something fresh -- and substantial in appearance -- to satisfy the expectations of the rank and file. Gone forever, it seems, are the days when one or two large multi-hundred-page books with newly minted ideas full of dazzling "New Light", etc. would be released at one convention.

Yes, indeed, Freddie is a tough act to follow!

cedars

On a serious note, I really hope they DON'T release a new NWT, because I'm almost certain they would spuriously insert "Governing Body" and various other JWisms all over the place if they did. This will make it harder to reason with thinking Witnesses against such concepts. However, perhaps equally damning will be the fact that they've changed the scriptures to suit their ideas. Even so, it will be a nightmare for people like jwfacts to update all the scriptural references on his website. I'm already getting a headache thinking of my own blog articles, so I can imagine how frustrated he would be.

I actually can really see it happening.

I was once told by a bethel translator that if the English NWT was being translated now, it would be far different. So much of the language used in the older version is already outdated (remember, it was written in the 1950s). More recent translations in other langauges have learned to compensate for this, but the English version is lagging behind considerably when it comes to being easily understandable by the masses. The Society obviously considers 'readability' as important, or they wouldn't be publishing the Watchtower Study Edition in 'English Simplified'.

Cedars

wasblind

Good mornin' cedars

I just love readin' your post, as for reasonin' wit the JW's, when they come knockin' on my door

I would show them the old NWT and compare it with the changes in the newer one

and then I would ask them, " y'all do adhere to Bibile scripture right???? "

then I would show them

Revelation 22: 18,19 States

" I AM BEARING WITNESS TO EVERYONE THAT HEARS THE WORDS OF THE PROPHECY OF THIS SCROLL: IF ANYONE MAKES AN ADDITION TO THESE THINGS, GOD WILL ADD TO HIM THE PLAGUES THAT ARE WRITTEN IN THIS SCROLL.

AND IF ANYONE TAKE AWAY FROM THE WORDS OF THE SCROLL OF THIS PROPHECY, GOD WILL TAKE HIS PORTION AWAY FROM THE TREES OF LIFE."

Jehovah Wtinesses claim that the King James Bible is a "version" of the scrolls

NWT Bible is the original " Translation "

If that is the case, why would the WTS need to add or take away from an original translation ???

as stated from the scripture above they will be condeming themselves for messin' wit

their so-called " Original translation" of the Holy scriptures

I did not read through this thead so I hope I'm not repeatin' anyone

NWT 2012 Revision - Your Suggestions Please