The Emphasized Bible (Rotherham) is now included in the WT Library under "Other Bibles."
Therefore it joins KIT, KJV, ASV, & The Bible in Living English in such group.
Any thoughts?
The Emphasized Bible - Now included in WT LIbrary
by Wonderment 13 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
Wonderment
-
Bobcat
I wonder if this will be included in the JWLibrary app?
I'm glad. You don't usually see the Emphasized Bible online like at BibleHub.
-
slimboyfat
Good development. It was an important translation for the Bible Students, and some peculiarities of the NWT can plausibly be traced to its influence.
For example, the 1950 edition of the NWTTCGS used the word “originally” instead of “in the beginning”, in common with Rotherham’s Emphasised Bible, at John 1:1.
Another common turn of phrase, which has in this instance survived right up to and including the 2013 NWT, is Romans 15:10, “be glad you nations with his people”, which wording from Rotherham had already made it into a popular Kingdom Song before the NWT was produced.
Rotherham shared Russell’s view of the soul as comes out in verses like Like 23:43.
Rotherham also used “seized” at Phil 2:6 and the NWT uses “seizure” whereas other versions tend to go with robbery or grasped.
What other rendering indicate the influence of Rotherham on the NWT?
Might Watchtower expand further their range of out of copyright translations on the website, for example, to include the translation by Herman Heinfetter?
-
dropoffyourkeylee
Awesome, I am both pleasantly surprised and shocked. The connection that JWs will latch onto mainly is that Rotherham elected to use the Divine name Yahweh in the Old Testament. I think they used to sell a non-WT printed Rotherham's at the back counter in the old days, before the donation arrangement. The copy I have is more recent and I do like the version, though the language is dated now and a bit hard to follow for contiguous reading.
I just looked at the WT online library and the Rotherham version they have there doesn't have either the Introductions or Appendices, which are really interesting and an education in themselves. Also, Rotherham's is the best I have seen for grouping the text so that the poetic passages are clearly identified, (indentations, etc) and the online copy is unfortunately missing these features. On the other hand, the online copy omits the various different fonts, italics and emphasis marks, which I always found more aggravating than helpful.
-
Nikolaus
They could also include the NT by Johannes Greber.
-
HowTheBibleWasCreated
I think they published this version in the past. The fact that it includes the divine name as Yahweh is a plus but it still uses old language.. a minus.
I glanced through it. It is really almost the same as the bible in living English I suspect it will be on JW library app soon under translations. As for Johannes Greber sure I could see that people make a big thing out of his religious views but who cares. The WT did not produce the KJV, ASV, etc. Who cares what he believed. if the translation is within acceptable standards it's fine., Even the NWT fits nowadays in modern critical biblical study.
-
forzaitalia
Great news!
-
dropoffyourkeylee
The Rotherham is on the JW app now, I just noticed.
-
-
slimboyfat
Apparently Julius Mantey, scholar of New Testament Greek, accused the translators of the New World Translation, or the Kingdom Interlinear in particular (the intent of singling out the KIT seems obscure) of using Rotherham as their base text and altering it to suit their teachings, rather than translating fresh from the Greek text. Here is a quote from a website, which quotes a book by Christian apologist Ankerberg, that in turn quoted Mantey.
"I have never read any New Testament so badly translated as The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures. In fact, it is not their translation at all. Rather, it is a distortion of the New Testament. The translators used what J.B. Rotherham has translated in 1893, in modern speech, and changed the readings in scores of passages to state what Jehovah's Witnesses believe and teach. That is distortion, not translation."
https://truthbomb.blogspot.com/2017/07/what-do-greek-scholars-think-of.html
The accusation intrigues me, but I have not seen any evidence produced to support the claim. It is likely that Franz consulted a variety of translations and reference books on Greek grammar during the process of translation. This seems self evident because he often justified his renderings by referring to such works, including a range of translations, not just Rotherham’s translation.
It would be interesting to compile a list of translations and their frequency in Watchtower literature in the 40s and 50s when the NWT was produced. From memory the Douay version, Goodspeed, the Diaglott, Lamsa, and Moffatt featured often.