What kind of translation is this?
In conclusion, I have to express why I have such a bad opinion of the translation. Unfortunately, my job is not difficult. The slightly more well-read (those who have read their own publications) Jehovah's Witnesses know that the translation - as with the preparation of any other translation - starts with a base text. Today and back to the middle of the 20th century, the traditional base text is the text prepared by Nestle (for the New Testament), which has also been corrected in the meantime. This base text is usually translated into national languages. Jehovah's Witnesses used the Wescott-Hort base text. The interlinear version of this text was published by the Watchtower Society in 1985 under the name Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures. This is exactly where my problems begin.
When the Wescott and Hort text became known, criticisms appeared with titles like "The text of Wescott and Hort: the modern perversion", and similar. The text received a lot of professional criticism, and later the authors themselves. It is not a coincidence that their base text did not become so widespread and the Watchtower Society was able to buy it.
My other problem is exactly that I know the text in question. I particularly have no problem with it, but it did not meet the expectations of Jehovah's Witnesses. For example, in some places, the text of Wescott and Hort sharply refutes the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses, just like other base texts. Just a few well-known Bible verses:
"Hallow thy name" - not people hallowing it
"Our Father who art in heaven" - not Jehovah; the text of Wescott and Hort nowhere uses the terms Jehovah, JHVH and similar; however, it uses the words Kyrios (Lord), Theos (God), and Pater (Father).
"Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in Paradise" - Christ does not tell the right thief on that very day that he will be with him in the distant future.
The members of the Jehovah's Witnesses Committee rewrote all these places according to their own interpretation. When someone handles the original text so lightly, I have very little confidence in them. When translating the Word of God, one simply cannot alter the text without a compelling reason. A compelling reason could be scientifically evaluatable evidence that the given expression in the original text and language, and in the world of thought, was not according to the original text, but differently. Jehovah's Witnesses' publications have not been able to bring up a single such instance since 1961, when their full translation existed in one volume. This does not mean that they never tried, just that all their arguments have failed miserably.
It would be painful for me if God were only kind, not merciful - yet the NWT teaches this. The opposition to the name Jehovah is not against the name of God, but because none of the manuscripts we have contains this name. There is simply no slightest trace of the JHVH being in the Greek manuscripts, who and when they disappeared from every Christian region of the world at the time. The fact is that by 150 AD it was no longer in use (if ever used at all) and also that God Himself did not take care to preserve this name along with its pronunciation. The arguments could be lined up nicely, but as I hinted at, we have already done this on this website.
Why?
In summary: this translation is entirely Jehovah's Witnesses' own and no other, professional translation follows its solutions. It also happened that they used a spiritualist translation to support their own solutions, which again takes away from its value. What I thought a lot about was what could be the cause of these serious errors or deceptions?
As a believer, I feel and think that the members of the Committee, who created this translation, did not really get to know the nature of God. Perhaps God's grace and love did not touch their hearts, and they projected their image of God onto their work. In addition, between 1947-1961, the leaders of the time were much more influenced by the Adventist-Millerite cultural environment from which the Russell movement started, and this background showed in their perceptions.
According to one popular view at the time, the ordinary person can understand and explain the Bible without any priestly help. I do not argue with this idea (although I do not fully accept this position according to the interpretation of Jehovah's Witnesses), but translating the Bible cannot go this way. Even if someone has translation experience, translating into different languages is a separate profession, especially if it is between modern and ancient languages. There is a source and a target language and both worlds need to be well known.
Specific example: Brother Gangas was raised in a Greek family in the USA. He had no problem translating English sayings or expressions characteristic of English into Greek using the appropriate words. When Greek brothers wrote a complaint letter and Brother Gangas translated it into English, he was immediately able to translate Greek complaints into English, perhaps replacing them with another English saying that expresses the same thing, or simply paraphrasing what they thought. Why was he able to do this? Because he knew the language, thought world, culture, and customs of the Greeks and the Americans alike. One needs to feel just as much "at home" in Ancient Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew to translate the entire Bible! Among the 5 members of the committee that prepared the NWT for 14 years, Frederick Franz is the only one who fits this description.
This kind of expertise is also necessary when someone is translating a literal raw text into common language. A classic example from the Watchtower's translators is the phrase "bite your tongue". In some languages, this saying means "please be quiet" (in a polite way), in others, it means "shut up" (a forceful, somewhat harsh command), and in several languages - for example, in English - it has no abstract meaning. Therefore, both languages must be known to avoid serious misunderstandings through literal translation. And here comes the exposure of the Committee! In their publications, they commend the NWT as the "most literal" translation! By doing so, they are signaling to professionals that this is a translation unsuitable for congregational use...
In other words, this translation is made by non-experts and is biased, which is precisely why it is an incorrect translation. That they have never encountered the facts I have described due to their lack of training.
So why do some scholars praise it?
This question was asked by many Jehovah's Witnesses I was able to talk to about their translation. I admit, it was shocking to realize that the leadership of the Watchtower Society was able to bring even renowned experts to their side, apparently for the purpose of gaining acceptance among its members. I learned even before the publication of the New Testament part of the NWT that its Hebrew base text is much more acceptable than the text of Westcott and Hort. The Hebrew base text was a widely used text in the past, which indeed was used by many translators. For this reason, professionals easily speak positively about the Old Testament part of the NWT. However, it should also be known that the Society often uses quotes from its own correspondence when they approached these professionals with some question. The respondent, out of politeness, could have easily given appreciative words to the literature (possibly NWT) sent as a gift, which then just had to be incorporated into the publications, omitting what the appreciation or praise was exactly about. Often the praise is for the Old Testament part that does not contain major errors, with which no one has a particular problem, but it is presented as if it was stated for the entire NWT.
Others truly praised the New Testament part, but among them, you won't find anyone who is an expert in the translation. The fact that a scholar, researcher or even a professor praises something does not mean any real recognition until the person is an expert in that field. Jehovah's Witnesses' publications have been praised by many archaeologists, which the Watchtower has published. However, these archaeologists were not theologians, so their praise is worth as much as that of any other non-theologian person. In many cases, these praises are presented as if they were for the linguistic part of the NWT, while they are simply for a text part or generally for the work of the Watchtower Society, its printing and publishing activities. It breaks my heart that there have been cases where the Society itself falsified the statements made by professionals.
More than hundreds million copies of the NWT have been published. I cannot estimate how many of these are in the printer's warehouse, or in the literature servant's cupboard and on the bookshelves of Jehovah's Witnesses or among their books for distribution. I very much hope that the errors of this translation will open the eyes of thousands more Witnesses regarding their misleaders.
Westcott and Hort, who are they?
Regarding their own Bible translation, Jehovah's Witnesses only recognize two people, mysterious individuals called Westcott and Hort. The Witness community knows almost nothing about these two men and their work.
Brooke Foss Westcott was born in Birmingham, Great Britain in 1825. He was ordained as an Anglican priest at the age of 26 in 1851. Fenton John Anthony Hort was born in 1828 and became a priest in 1856, also Anglican. In 1853, Hort and Westcott jointly prepared a study on the Greek text of the New Testament. This study was just a regular treatise, it did not contain any novelty, except that the authors had some radical new proposals, for which their church warned them. Despite this, Westcott and Hort continued to work until they published their great masterpiece in 1881 titled "The New Testament in the Original Greek", which Jehovah's Witnesses publications refer to as the Westcott-Hort base text. This work was met with outrage by Christian churches due to inaccuracies and unfounded changes in the text. The two authors were accused of unscientific behavior, or even scientific perversion. They made changes to the text in places compared to the previous base text, for which there was no scientific evidence. They tried to form a pleasant text according to their opinion, but it went badly wrong. It is worth noting that the text changes of Jehovah's Witnesses were far from Westcott and Hort, because they neither used the name Jehovah, wrote Christ as God, and in their text, the good thief went to Paradise that day - just like in other translations. It should also be noted that Westcott and Hort were highly skilled professionals, whose mistakes originated from completely different sources than the creators of the Watchtower translation. While the latter lacked the appropriate expertise, Westcott and Hort incorporated their beliefs and ideas into the text.
Their published work quickly sold out and a second edition was published in 1881. Due to the popularity of the work, the authors did not face any church sanctions. Westcott became the Bishop of Durham in 1890. Hort died at the age of 64 in 1892, Westcott at the age of 76 in 1901.
Behind the work of Westcott and Hort, as mentioned, their peculiar faith had a great influence. They professed that the Bible was not perfect. They also believed that one can communicate with the deceased, pray to them, and they attended the meetings of societies that dealt with this topic. Hort has often stated that he is not far from Darwin's idea (which suggests God created the first living thing, and the rest evolved from it).
After such a background, it is understandable why articles do not appear in Witness publications about Westcott and Hort.
Cross
The translation justifies in a separate appendix the changes made in the texts compared to other translations. One very striking difference is the method of Jesus' execution.
It must be stated immediately that the cross could have been a pagan symbol before Christ as well. However, it is not entirely logical that the pagan Romans used a pagan symbol for execution?
It is easy to decide what the Greek words might mean. An average New Testament dictionary clearly articulates it. The word stauros indeed means a post or beam. However, the cross is basically this. Even if the traditional representation is not an exact copy of the original, we shouldn't jump to conclusions.
The appendix cites the book 'De cruce libri tres' written by Justus Lipsius as confirmatory evidence. One of the figures in the book was also included in the appendix. If Jehovah's Witnesses leafed through the quoted work, they would be greatly surprised. Justus Lipsius outlined several probable execution tools. Only one figure was included in the appendix, suggesting that 'even Justus Lipsius' supports us. But no. The other figures contain not a post, but a cross! However, the Watchtower Society conceals this.
The explanation prepared for the figures tells that several perpendicular beams had to be nailed to the beam. This resolves the contradiction between the meaning of the Greek word and the representations of the cross. Yet the controversial question remains: was Jesus crucified in the manner depicted in the appendix? The Bible answers this question.
The first argument is John 19: 19, 20. We learn that a 3-language plate was placed on the execution tool, with this inscription: "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews". The inscription was made in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, which, according to verse 20, was read by many, so it was not written in small letters. Matthew 27:37 says that the title plate was placed over Jesus' head. It is worth examining their depictionin light of these. Would such a large plate have fit over Jesus' head? Let's put our hand in a similar situation! What size of plate would fit? Would that particular sentence fit on it in a way that the arms don't cover anything and it's readable (font size matters)? According to the Bible, the plate was placed not over his hand, but over his head.
Another guiding Bible verse is John 20:25. Thomas wanted to see the marks of the nails in Jesus' hands. Not the mark of the nail, but the marks of the nails! How many nails are in Jesus' hand in the picture? How many would be there if they nailed his hand to the side and not above his head? It's redundant to ask how many nails can be seen on their portrayal of Jesus' exection, and where the plate is: above his head or his hand.
The Name
Jehovah's Witnesses' own Bible translation, the New World Translation, has a very debatable feature: it uses the name Jehovah in the New Testament as well, which they call the Christian Greek Scriptures. Witnesses have a hard time defending this stance, because:
- There is not a single New Testament manuscript left to us that contains the name Jehovah.
- The organization's Wescott-Hort text also does not use the name Jehovah.
- No contemporary work mentions that the name was in the New Testament.
- Even in the works of Christian writers, there is no trace of this.
The topic of the divine name has already produced several studies from the critics. The foundations of the argument are not solid. The Society's argument (as a recent study pointed out) is based on some assumptions. We would like to highlight a few of these.
One assumption is that the Septuagint (LXX) translation quoted by Christians used the divine name. There is insufficient evidence for this. The appendix contains 12 fragments, but these prove: there were LXX versions that included the divine name. However, many other LXX fragments do not use it. When the New Testament writers quote the LXX, they used several versions, not just one. But the JHVH name is indeed in the original Scriptures, so this assumption can be overlooked.
The main question is whether Jesus' disciples used the Name? Not a single Christian writer, not a single early Christian group's surviving writings contain the Name. Why?
According to the appendix, some have falsified the New Testament writings. However, this is just a theory, as the Society acknowledges (although a theory cannot be treated as a historical fact...). George Howard invented this theory, but he himself did not dare to declare it as a fact. Why not? Because there is no evidence for it. A step as significant as the editing of the Gospels would have required a joint resolution, a joint conspiracy. There would have been traces of this, the Jewish religious leaders would have attacked immediately. But nothing like this happened.
Few Jehovah's Witnesses can look up the Greek base text used, although the Society published it in 1985. Even it does not contain the divine name!!! The Watchtower Society refers to so-called 'J sources'. The problem is that the 'J sources' are all late (1385–1979) translations, not copies made from the Greek text.
The evidence that the organization has brought up over the years in favor of this characteristic of the translation has all been refuted. The July 15, 2001 issue of The Watchtower came up with a new "proof" that quickly turns out to be, to put it mildly, misleading.
The article starting on page 29 deals with Origen. On page 31, there is a picture showing a part of Origen's work Hexapla, with the Greek transcription of JHVH circled. The explanatory text next to the picture says:
"Origen's work titled Hexapla proves that the name of God was used in the Christian Greek Scriptures."
The article no longer makes this claim, only that the Hexapla contains the name of God and this is the proof that the Christians used the name Jehovah.
A research-minded Witness might be satisfied with this and be reassured that something still confirms the Governing Body's position. Is this really the case?
The magazine itself provides the answer on page 30, where it honestly acknowledges what the Hexapla is. It writes, "The Hexapla is a large fifty-volume edition of the Hebrew Scriptures." So, it is an OLD TESTAMENT! Nobody disputes that the name Jehovah has a place in the Old Testament. But the fact that the Old Testament and its translations use the name Jehovah does not prove that it was also in the New Testament. Therefore, the caption on page 31 is highly misleading and does not reflect reality.
God or god? The J-sources
Many Witnesses enjoy reading Bible verses in the new translation because in the previous ones it was not clear whether the expression God refers to Jesus or to Jehovah. The NWT (New World Translation) writes the word God with a small 'g' if it refers to Jesus. Examples of this are John 1:1, or John 1:18 (but they did not do this in John 20:28). The question is whether it is fair to write most of the word God referring to Jesus with a small 'g'?
This distinction was needed because in the Greek text, the word Theos, which means God, is also used in the aforementioned places. However, it is difficult to accept the small 'g' because the koine language did not use small letters in the first century, only capital letters (see the images made from the Greek text in the appendix)! The Westcott-Hort base text, on which the NWT was based, uses both small and capital letters. All Theos words are written with a capital initial letter! In the Greek text and the Westcott-Hort text, even in 1 Corinthians 8:5 there is a large T (more precisely, theta) in front of the so-called gods! The same is in John 10:34 and 35.
What are these so-called J-sources? Several in-house Witnesses asked us. This was partly our fault because we used a designation that the Witnesses do not know. Therefore, we owe an explanation. To prepare a translation, texts are needed on which we base the translation into a given language. These are the sources we use. There are several thousand manuscripts available for the New Testament. These texts had to be distinguished from each other. Therefore, each of these usable source materials received an individual code with a combination of a letter and a number. The earliest material in time, for example, is P52, made in AD 125. Each papyrus manuscript received a P sign. The book mentions the New Testaments translated into Hebrew. The Watchtower Society (but not others!) refers to these with a J letter.
What's wrong with these J-marked sources? The P-marked sources were created between AD 100 and 300 (these are copies of copies made from the original writings and their copies, etc.). The Hebrew alef-marked Codex Sinaiticus is also from the 4th century AD. The A-marked Codex Alexandrinus is from the 5th century AD, etc. What are the J sources? New Testament translated into Hebrew. So these are not copies, but translations, which is a significant difference. Translations are generally less accurate (more distorted) than copies. It is generally not professional to justify a translation process with another translation when talking about deviation from the copies! It's like justifying my wrong action with someone else's wrong action.
Another big mistake is that the copies marked with P, Hebrew alef, A, B, C, and D are fairly early. The time gap between them and the original Writings is between 25 and a few hundred years. The reader may smile at a few hundred years. But do they know how many years are between the translations marked with the letter J and the original Writings? The Society lists 27 such translations. The earliest translation is from 1385 (distance 1287 years), the latest is from 1981 (distance 1883 years); so a few hundred years really is a trifle compared to this.
But why is this important? Because the J sources are the most fundamental from the point of view of the NWV. Only these use the divine name. Not a single copy, only these translations! We think it is understandable how significant this is. The English New World Translation reference version lists these translations in detail.
Grace and Paradise
"Undeserved kindness". This phrase appears in the Christian Greek Scriptures' New World Translation instead of grace. The basic meaning of the word that should be translated from Greek in the New Testament is grace, but it can indeed be translated as kindness. However, possible is not equal to correct! Kindness is fundamentally a quality. Grace, on the other hand, is completely different, it is an act. It matters whether a head of state is kind or merciful to a person sentenced to death. If he is kind, the sentenced person still dies. If he is merciful, his life is saved. The Bible verses where kindness appears instead of grace take on a completely different meaning (although the Creator is both kind and merciful, his kindness alone does not mean grace). This includes John 1:17. It matters whether we receive kindness or grace through Jesus. Romans 5:21 is also like this. What should rule through Jesus? Grace or undeserved kindness? Therefore, since grace is not equal to undeserved kindness, this solution of the NWV is also unacceptable to a Christian. This 'translation technique' forces people to think. Isn't this a concealment of God's love? Isn't it designed to constantly fill sincere people with the feeling of repentance, thus making them easily controllable? Or why is it so important to hide that God forgives us in Jesus?
Another interesting solution is Luke 23:43, which reads:
"...Truly I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise."
It's interesting to read this in the Westcott and Hort text as well. In addition to the Koiné language, the Westcott and Hort text contains a literal English translation, which without a comma reads:
"Truly I say to you today with me you will be in the Paradise"
Translated (it can be done differently as well):
"Truly, I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise."
Where should the comma be placed? In the Greek text, it is between the words say and today, in English between saying and today (I tell you, today with me). Accordingly, it can be translated correctly from Greek (Westcott-Hort) as:
"Truly, I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise."
Since 'amen' is also a foreign word in Greek, it could be correct to leave 'amen' instead of 'certainly', but it is not mandatory. Jesus' promise, even according to the original text deemed authentic (and used) by the Society, was clearly not, "I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise"; but rather: "I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
Jehovah's Witnesses immediately argue that there are no commas in the original documents. This is true, so it depends on the translator where they place it (but they should not forget that there was no lowercase 'theos', that is, the word God in Greek either). But translators do not place the comma as the Witnesses imagine. Although there is no translator who is completely unbiased from a theological point of view, they try to downplay this. In terms of commas and sentence segmentation, they proceed by examining all similar parts of the text to be translated and then making a decision. Jesus uses the expression 'I tell you' 74 times. In 73 other cases, 'I tell you' is separate from the rest of the words. The NWT also translates these places this way. Only in Luke 23:43 did they proceed differently. Who was then theologically biased indeed?
Here are a few occurrences of the phrase 'I tell you' in Luke's gospel: 5:24, 7:9, 7:14, 7:28, 7:47, 9:27, 10:12, 10:24, 11:8, 12:4, 15:10, 17:34, 19:26, 19:40, and 23:43. In each case, it stands apart from the rest of the sentence.
So, what did Jesus want to say? Does John 20:17 contradict this statement?
In John 20:17, Jesus says at most that He has not yet gone to His Father. In this case (at most), the evildoer's place in paradise is not equal to the Father's residence.
Another possibility: Witnesses interpret Jesus' words to mean that they will not be fulfilled literally (Jesus and the evildoer will never meet face to face). Compared to this, the interpretation that the evildoer reached Paradise that same day, while Jesus was possibly somewhere else, is more acceptable.
Other Witnesses who acknowledge that the comma is before 'today', argue that the expression 'TODAY' does not always mean the same day. An example of this is the warning given to Adam in Genesis 2: "The day you eat from it, you will surely die." After Adam ate, he lived for several hundred more years. Therefore, 'today' does not always mean 'that day' in the Bible. They also point out that it is advisable to compare the answer given by Jesus with the request of the robber, then explain Jesus' consolation in this light.
Jehovah's Witnesses accuse other Bible translators of being led by their theological bias in the wording of the text. From this example, it is clear that the Witnesses' translators were no different. Despite this, their theological view led them, even though the acceptance of the correct solution would not necessarily have required the abandonment of their doctrine of death.