by aintenoughwiskey 23 Replies latest watchtower bible
Agreed Bobcat, epi can mean :
What is revealing is that under the word epi in this verse in their Interlinear the WT have favoured "upon", but in the Text of the NWT they have put "over" to fit in with their Theology.
Extremely interesting Bobcat and Phizzy. Isn't it amazing that at one point in our lives we didn't need to know what Greek words meant? We trusted that the words in the NWT were a hand written message to us? We believed that god had chosen every translated word in the NWT. There were no questions needed since god himself had ensured the wording was perfect for us.
This begs the question: Why couldn't GOD have simply written the Bible in a language that was less ambiguous? It's the most important book in the friggin Universe for Christ's sake!!!
DD
1. Compare the NWT's rendering of Hebrews 4:12 and Revelation 6:9 with Revelation 20:4.
Hebrews 4:12 and Revelation 20:4 accurately translates a Greek phrase as "the word of God". But for some strange reason, the same Greek phrase used at Revelation 20:4 is rendered as "speaking about God". There is definitely something wrong or at the very least, suspiciously inconsistent, with their translation of this Greek phrase in Revelation 20:4. "speaking about God" is clearly not the same as "the word of God". Can you imagine Hebrews 4:12 being rendered as: "for the speaking about God is alive and exerts power..."? "Speaking about God" is telling of an action. "The word of God" is telling of an object - a noun. They are not the same.
2. The NWT's rendering of Matthew 24:39 says that the people of Noah's day "took no note". But the Greek actually says that they "did not know".
From the context, it is clear that Jesus was actually drawing a comparison between people not knowing the day of his presence and the people of Noah's day not knowing in advance the day of the flood. Watchtower evidently translates it as "they took no note" to insinuate that the people were not paying heed to the signs of the times nor to Noah's preaching. But that is clearly not the point that Jesus was making as he was expanding on the point of no one knowing the day of his presence. (Matthew 24:36) Also, there is another Greek word that pertains to taking note. So both the Greek word and the context disagrees with the rendering "they took no note".
3. The NWT's rendering of 2 Peter 2:11 spuriously adds the phrase "not doing so out of respect for Jehovah". That entire phrase cannot be found in the Greek text!
4. The NWT's rendering of Romans 14:8 is corrupt. It replaces kurios ("Lord") with "Jehovah". But what is said in the very next verse (Romans 14:9) makes it very clear that "kurios" referenced in at Romans 14:8 is Jesus and not Jehovah.
Also in the same chapter, their rendering of verse 6 seems questionable to me. In the NWT, Paul speaks of "Jehovah" and "God" as if these are two different persons.
"He who observes the day observes it to Jehovah. Also, he who eats, eats to Jehovah, for he gives thanks to God; and he who does not eat does not eat to Jehovah, and yet gives thanks to God."
Why would Paul be using "Jehovah" and "God" in such an awkward way as if speaking about two different people, rather than more naturally using only one of these together with the pronoun "him", like so:
"He who observes the day observes it to Jehovah. Also, he who eats, eats to Jehovah, for he gives thanks to him; and he who does not eat does not eat to Jehovah, and yet gives thanks to him."
So I believe Paul was in fact using "Kurios" to refer to Jesus and God to refer to Jehovah. But Watchtower foolishly renders Kurios as "Jehovah" and making Paul out to be an awkward writer instead realizing that he's in fact refering to two different people - Jesus and Jehovah.
Just some quick notes about your post, Island Man:
1. There's nothing inherently wrong with translating a given phrase in different ways according to context in order to render something clearly. Even the old NWT is not a literal rendering. I think the reason Rev. 20:4 is rendered that way is that most Bibles express it as the KJV does:
and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God,
which leaves the question of why the word of God got these Christians executed. It can only be because they were speaking about it, can't it? That's probably why Darby renders it "on account of the testimony of Jesus, and on account of the word of God". What the Society did here was turn a noun into a verb; this is a common practice in English, often called verbifying. What matters is whether the message of the verse was changed. Do you think that it was?
2. Wow, this is new to me. Very interesting! I will have to file this away in my memory in case I talk about it with a JW some day.
3. Actually, it's the phrase "not doing so out of respect for" which is unusual here, though it's not entirely an "addition"; it's a longer rendition of the phrase that most Bibles render as "before God". I think the Society was simply trying to clarify that when angels do not rebuke glorious ones "before God" it means that they are avoiding rebuking them because they are conscious that they are in view of God.
However, if you were to say this is a strange translation choice, I would agree, because I'm not sure the verse meant that. Do you see a doctrinal bias here? I don't understand the reason for this change. It seems to me that probably the writer meant that angels, when giving an account before God (a report to him), do not speak badly of "glorious ones". If so, then the Society has definitely changed the sense of the passage.
4. Totally agree with you here. 14:8 is a good verse to show to JWs that it does matter when "lord" is replaced with "Jehovah".
"which leaves the question of why the word of God got these Christians executed. It can only be because they were speaking about it, can't it?"
No, there are clearly other possibilities apart from speaking about the bible or speaking about God. It could also be becaue of:
~ obeying the word of God above and in defiance of what the government or apostate religious authorities say.
~ translating the word of God to make it available to all, in defiance of apostate church authorities.
So given that these other possibilities exist, it is wrong to take a very vague verse that simply says "the word of God" and make it very specific to "speaking about God" when that is only one of several possible reasons as to why they were killed for "the word of God".
When a bible verse is vague or lacking in detail and multiple specific interpretations are possible, the translator should preserve the verse's vagueness and leave it up to the reader to discern the multiple possible specific meanings. It is in my opinion, dishonest to mislead trusting bible readers into thinking the bible says something specific when it really does not.
A faithful translator sticks as closely as possible to the text and should not inject his personal speculations or explanations into the text. Who is he to correct the word of God? Did God make a mistake by not causing the inspired writers to be more specific? Did God appoint the translator to edit his word for him? Is the translator inspired? Contrast the great care that scribes took in copying the scriptures letter by letter, with the liberties that Watchtower and other sloppy translators are taking with the text. What Watchtower and others are doing is clearly wrong.
I see, those are some alternate possibilities. I believe that they're less likely than the odds that the writer of 2 Peter was simply lumping together the related concepts of 'witnessing about Jesus' and 'speaking the word of God', but I'm not inclined to argue about this at length.
I disagree that it's wrong to lengthen phrases that are terse in the original text when translating. This is a basic part of translation, all the time, everywhere. Some languages are simply naturally terse in comparison to others, as I was saying here recently. At any rate, the translator should see it as his duty to render a phrase clearly. Clarity is the number one goal, not strict literal accuracy. If you want a literal rendering, then you should read Young's Literal or an Interlinear. But that's not how translators are taught to do their job normally.
Great post Island Man. I agree. I honestly thought that the translations meaning was specific on purpose. That it was the exact way it had happened and that god had decided to use the words used in the NWT.
This scripture in Greek also states they are reigning on the earth as priest and not ruling over the earth as kings. This I believe is a take from the scripture in Duet. where it states that Israel will become a "holy nation a kingdom of priests" No ruling over other people since in Romans and Acts and other scriptures it says there is no "favoritism" with God, so no Christian is better or elevated above another...This holds true I believe because in verse 9 of chapter 5 of Rev. its describing the great crowd and not the 144k also nowhere in the greek scriptures in Greek does it say Christians would become kings Nowhere!
In connection with Rev 20:4 ("the word of God" vs. "speaking about God"), there is an interesting thematic thread running through Revelation that might explain what is meant by "the word of God":
Rev 1:2 . . . [John] bore witness to the word God gave and to the witness Jesus Christ gave . . .
Rev 1:9 . . . because of the word of God and the testimony about Jesus . . .
Rev 6:9 . . . because of the word of God and because of the witness work that they used to have . . .
Rev 12:17 . . . who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus.
Rev 14:12 Here is where it means endurance for the holy ones, those who observe the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
Rev 19:10 . . . you and of your brothers who have the work of witnessing to Jesus. Worship God; for the bearing witness to Jesus is what inspires prophesying
Rev 20:4 . . . those executed with the ax for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God [lit. the word of God].
Comparing these verses which use a similar formula for describing Christians, I would venture that "the word of God" is equivalent to Rev 12:17, "observe the commandments of God." The rendering, "speaking about God," would seem to take it in a different direction. (Although, to be fair, at least one other translation, the NLT, has something similar to the NWT - see here)
