by El blanko 17 Replies latest watchtower bible
Has anybody spotted this scripture before in the NWT. If you compare other versions of the Bible there is a clear difference in meaning. Shoddy workmanship or what?
NWT:
Lamentations 3:38 - From the mouth of the Most High bad things and what is good do not go forth.
NIV:
Lamentations 3:38 - Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?
Moffat
"Are not weal and woe alike decreed by the Most High?"
Very different from NWT
From the New American Bible:
"Except it proceeds from the mouth of the Most High, whether the thing be good or bad!"
Another one that disagrees with the NWT.
It would be interesting to find out what translations, if any, agree with the NWT.
Here's the context from www.blueletterbible.org:
3:37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
3:38 Out of the mouth of the most HIgh proceedeth not evil and good?
3:39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
The verses are a series of questions about someone who speaks or acts against God. So "evil" or bad WOULD come from God in such a case, IF you read the context.
But we should believe that all the other translations are mistaken because the Watchtower (NWT) translators were aided by Jehovah himself !!
Well, there is no question mark in Hebrew, so both translations are strictly possible.
Only the NWT's is almost ruled out by the context.
For parallel thoughts, cf. Isaiah 45:7; Job 2:10; Ecclesiastes 7:14.
Isaiah 45:7
Yep - I was thinking about that scripture earlier as well. I think the NWT has a hole in it
I think the NWT has a hole in it
Is that why the NWT is a "hole-y" Bible?
I can hear the groans now.
Isaiah 45:7 NWT:
Forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating calamity, I, Jehovah, am doing all these things.
Not that bad...
In the NIV Interlinear translation of this verse it reads :
from-mouth-of Most-High not she-comes the-calamities and-the-good
This is translated as :
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come? - NIV
From the mouth of the Most High bad things and what is good do not go forth. - NWT
So it seems that the difference in translation revolves around whether not qualifies "the mouth of the Most High" or the "coming of calamities and good". A straight-forward reading of it suggests that the NWT is the more obvious translation although I believe both meanings can be derived from the Hebrew.
Earnest
Hello Earnest,
In the Hebrew phrase mippi `èlyôn lô' téçé hara`oth vehattôv, the negative lô' can only apply to what follows. However the NIV translation is only a stylistic adaptation which does not change the meaning of the whole sentence.
The real question is whether the negative has to be interpreted as interro-negative (= halô') from the context, as most translators believe. In this the NWT differs. The solution does not lie in syntax but in the general exegesis of the passage.
