What Are changes reflected in New Bible teach book?

by Joshua.r 15 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Apognophos
    Apognophos

    It's clear to me now that the rNWT capitalizes several words that were previously not capitalized in the NWT, and this is why they are capitalized in the Teach book too (another example is that "heavenly kingdom" is now "heavenly Kingdom").

    An amusing error on page 71 was fixed. "Countless trillions of stars fill the universe, yet God gives the name of each one! (Isaiah 40:26)".  That must be a long Bible verse!  In the new edition of the book, "gives" was changed to "knows".

    On the same page, "Jehovah actually yearns to bring the dead back to life" now reads, "Jehovah longs for the time when he will bring the dead back to life".  Not sure what the intent was in this change.

    A remark explaining what Hades is, on page 72, was removed since the quoted scripture now says "the Grave".

    On the same page, "we may be freed from any dread of dying" was changed to "we do not have to be afraid of dying", an editorial improvement.

    On page 74, a sentence about Jesus' resurrection was split into two sentences so that the scriptural backup could be placed after the statement it actually serves, not the unsupported statement that follows.

    An amusing change on page 78: "Would you want to have a ruler like that?" is now "Would you not want to have a ruler like that?" to make the intent of the question clearer.

    On page 82, "the battle of Har-Magedon, or Armageddon" now reads "the war of Armageddon".

    The next sentence, "What will God's Kingdom achieve by means of Armageddon?" now reads "What will God's Kingdom achieve by means of the war of Armageddon?"  This is probably because Armageddon is a place, not an event.

    Doctrinal statements not changed include the heavenly calling still being open, and remarks about 1914.

    It seems that the minimum justification (word spacing) in the book was raised, so that some lines are less cramped than they used to be.

  • Apognophos
    Apognophos

    The pictures of human suffering on pages 88-91 were colorized.  The angry yelling man looks oddly like Stephen Lett, but this is not a change.

    The image of a woman holding a Bible on p. 113 was colorized and updated with the rNWT via Photoshop, but now her forefinger is not resting on the spine of the Bible, but on empty space, because the rNWT spine folds inward when the Bible is open and the old NWT did not.

    A couple "language" statistics were updated.  Page 92's "more than 400 languages" is now "hundreds of languages".

    Another change from 'take in knowledge' to 'come to know' on p. 94 and the sentence was clarified to mention that this knowledge comes from studying the Bible.

    Another dubious Bible-swapping Photoshop job on page 132.

  • Apognophos
    Apognophos

    Two new scriptural citations have been added to a statement about the end times on page 151: Revelation 16:14 and 19:19-21.

    The word "on" is now preferred to "upon".

    The meaning of the Greek word rendered "baptize" is now given on page 175 as "dip under water" instead of just "dip".

    "It if appears that you qualify for the public ministry" is now "If it appears that you qualify to participate in the witnessing work" on page 177 and "public ministry" on p. 177-178 is now "field ministry".

    The phrase "being baptized" on p. 178-179, 182 is now more correctly "getting baptized".

    Holy Photoshop, Batman!  Four or five NWTs on page 180 were changed to rNWTs, but they forgot to update the appearance of the Bible Teach book itself, which is still gold.

    The pictures on p. 184-185 are now color.

    Lots more "come to know"s in place of "take in knowledge"s.

    The sentence on p. 197 "So Jehovah can become whatever is needed in order to fulfill his purposes" now has the additional statement tacked on, "and he can cause to happen whatever is required with regard to his creation and the accomplishment of his purpose".

    The material on the 2,520 years is completely unchanged.

  • Apognophos
    Apognophos

    The statement on p. 205 that "it would not be proper for Christians to decorate their homes with images of Christ impaled" now says "images of Christ on a cross", which actually changes the meaning.

    On p. 206, "The first observable new moon nearest to the spring equinox marked the beginning of Nisan" now says "the first day of Nisan".  "Passover came 14 days later, after sunset" now says "Passover began 13 days later".

    The statement on p. 208 that the NWT "consistently" renders nephesh and psykhe as "soul" now says that they are rendered "soul" "either in the main text or in footnotes" since the rNWT often uses the word "life" now instead. Subsequent to this, various references to the footnotes were added for the same reason.  This makes this section of the Appendix much more awkwardly-phrased.

    The same problem occurs with the following section on Sheol and Hades since the words are not used in the main text of the rNWT, only the footnote.

    On p. 208-209, "the life that a person or animal enjoys" is now "the life that a person or animal has".

    The 1914 chart on page 216 is now in color but otherwise unchanged except for an update to a NWT quote.

    On page 220, a statement about Babylon the Great was reworded from:

    "Her fornication refers to the alliances she has made with the rulers of this earth and explains why she is called 'the great harlot.'" to

    "She has practiced such immorality by forming alliances with the rulers of this earth and has done whatever is necessary in order to gain power and influence over them. That is why she is called 'the great prostitute.'"

    I think it's interesting to note that there's a number of references to page numbers of the Reasoning book. If the Reasoning book is to be updated, it may alter these numbers.

    The ending page of the book used to read:

    "Would you welcome more information? You may contact Jehovah's Witnesses at www.jw.org."

    And now reads:

    "For more information, visit www.jw.org or contact Jehovah's Witnesses."

    ...which is amusing to me because the phrase "contact Jehovah's Witnesses" now offers no advice on how to do so.

    -------------

    Well, that's it.  No doctrinal tweaks, just lots of updates concerning the simplified language of the new NWT.  The changes on pages 71, 74 and 205 were most interesting to me personally, as well as the Photoshop work and mistakes that I noted.

  • Bobcat
    Bobcat

    Does anyone have, perchance, a link to a similar PDF comparison of the old NWT with the rNWT?

    Bobcat

  • Apognophos
    Apognophos

    Yes, see towards the end of this thread, but unfortunately the comparison is much harder to read.

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