Governing Body Exit Doors (page 2)

Moxy

Im just repeating what was always said... and perhaps by juxtaposing it with the 2 other statements about his state of mind and mental agility, i was allowing the reader to draw conclusions about their veracity as well...

mox

slipnslidemaster

I myself am questioning the entire new corporation arrangement. How is the Governing Body retaining control?

. o O (slipnslidemaster)

Tina

Hi,
I think it's a long time JW myth about Franz's ability and acumen with those languages. I also saw the court transcripts where he couldn't answer basic questions about those languages,,,regards,tina

AlanF

I see it's time to clear up a few things about Fred Franz's abilities in Greek and Hebrew.

According to several people I've talked to, one of whom actually worked with Fred Franz, another of whom had access to Franz's personal files, and according to Ray Franz, old Freddie certainly was academically competent in Greek and Hebrew. Back in the 1950s he was the only person in Bethel capable of doing the translation work for the New World Translation. Other NWT committee members mostly did necessary busywork, like doing cross references, critiquing the English usage, and making sure that manuscripts were in good shape to send down to the type setters. Certain people working with the committee did proofreading and secretarial work, including making sure that the names of the NWT committee never appeared on any written material going out of the inner chambers of the NWT committee.

Aside from Fred Franz, the committee consisted of Nathan Knorr (who was just the administrator), George Gangas (who was a Greek and knew modern but not biblical Greek), and Albert Schroeder (who was mainly responsible for the cross referencing). I've probably left out some people but I'm not too sharp today.

Fred Franz took a bit of Greek in college back around 1914, but not enough to become competent in it. He eventually taught himself to be competent in Greek and Hebrew. How he managed that, I don't know. While the man was a religious nut and intellectually dishonest, there is no denying his intellectual brilliance.

As for that court case where Freddie was asked to translate something, what actually happened was that he was asked to translate an English sentence into Hebrew. For someone who is trained only in reading another language, and not in speaking it, it is notoriously difficult to translate from the native language into the target language, even if the person is very competent in going from the written target language into the written native language. I know how this works, having learned a little bit of French when I lived in Switzerland. It was much easier to go from French to English than the other way round.

This actual situation has been distorted by certain JW-critics into a claim that Fred Franz was incompetent in the biblical languages. The distortion has been repeated ad nauseum, and continuing to repeat it simply gives JWs who know the real story that much more ammunition to claim, "JW critics always lie about us!"

The fact is that the Watchtower Society managed to produce a workable bible translation. Someone had to do the work. At a bare minimum, that someone had to have enough knowledge of Greek and Hebrew to pore over lexicons and other reference material, and translate the words. Also remember that the Society suffers severely from "not invented here syndrome", i.e., they consider all outside religious material extremely suspect. Given that, it's perfectly logical that they would use in-house people to make a bible translation. That someone was Fred Franz. Also remember that Franz was a ghost writer for J. F. Rutherford, so it was logical that he would also tackle a bible translation. Doing translation work for years would certainly have made Franz familiar enough with his own translation that he would have committed large chunks of it to memory, although it's obvious that you need a damned good memory to begin with to memorize large chunks of written material.

Finally, remember that one of the Society's goals in making the NWT was to use a single English word to translate a single Greek or Hebrew word as much of the time as possible. This is a stupid way of translating because it ignores the fact that words in both languages often have a number of meanings, only some of which may correspond across the languages. This is a strong indication of someone who is self-taught in biblical languages, since they didn't have feedback from competent professors who could have explained these things and enforced learning them by giving failing grades to those who didn't learn them.

AlanF

Englishman

Skimmer,

Sorry, I mis-read your post.

I thought it read Governing Body Exuding Odours!

HOHOHOHOHO (Sorry, Venice)

Englishman.

metatron

Your analysis of Fred Franz and his abilities is probably
the most accurate I've ever read. He was a highly intelligent
and eccentric fanatic. He DID have an excellent memory
and a strong sense of humor.

As to translations, things could have been worse. The Society
got the rights to the Byington bible and that was really
awful!

metatron

Moxy

thx alan for clearing some of that up

moc

Tina

Hi Alan,
How ya doin'?
Thanks for clarifying that,regards,T

crossroads

Alan-I am not a faithful follower of the "Mighty Quinn".
I believe he's every bit as evil as Hitler or Stallin.
I worked with two Germans in the 80's who swore
there was no holocust and that 'little Nazi' was a
great man. How many innocent lemmings has the
"Mighty Quinn" led off the cliff to certain death.
He was 'accedemically competent' so is the doctor
who graduates last in his glass with a bong in his
hand. But he sure is not the one I want operating
on my 10 year old son. You are right in a lot of
what you say, you discredit all the others and
to some degree the "Mighty Quinn" himself.
They came up with a workable translation I love
this. Workable for who? Is it possible after Rutherford
gave that speech about the new name-all the others
looked around and said oh s**t now what are we going
to do. The Quinn's eye's came to life-he calmly
said not to worry I'll take care of it.
You yourself said Quinn was the ghost writer for most of
the study articles. Now it's time for the "Mighty Quinn"
to appear and rewrite the text book. Pretty good gig if
you can get it . NWT=money and power.
After all Wbts is a publishing co.What a nice way to make
more money more money more money but to force all
faithful followers to buy a new bible. Yes there perfectly
fine KJ version is no longer good enough. Doesn't have that
name in it. Sad to say many other christian faiths are not
backed by publishing co. Nope only the LORD. The LORD-
The LORD it seems that most of the time "Mighty Quinn"
translates the LORD as Jehovah problem is Jehovah is
not scriptual. But thats "all right ma I'm only bleeding".
If Jehovah is not scriptual you no what you can do with
NWT. As for me I was excited as all other eskimos were
to see the "Mighty Quinn" appear . But now I'm
"gonna wanna doze"
Love and Peace-Mark
p.s. could his memory been so good at the end because
he had to keep all his lies striaght for so long.
OK i'm done now-pass the brandy

Governing Body Exit Doors

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