Accuracy,
I agree with you 100%. It is sad that people like Ray Franz can stoop so low to go against God's name.
Accuracy of Bible Translation
by ruffian 29 Replies latest jw friends
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Marvin Shilmer
Finally, the NWT is also not honest in another respect. At Colossians 1 for example, they insert the word "other" in brackets like this [other], to imply that Jesus was not the sole creator. This is explained away in either footnotes or appendixes as to 'clarifying' the language. However, not matter how well intended, the original text does not use the word [other] and therefore its insertion is an example of dishonesty to support their non-Trinitarian dogma. I have no opinion on God's nature, be it Triune or not, but to insert little tiny [clarifiers] is not in keeping with good translation when it makes a wholesale change to the text.
Hi, Amazing.
I’m not sure just how to gauge what you call a wholesale change, but you might want to rethink that criticism about the bracketed "other." At least the NWT translation provides a mechanism to readily identify supplemental text, some translations do not. Which do you think is more honest. Why don’t you compare the following texts from the NWT with other reputable translations, like maybe the RSV.
Colossians 1: 5, 19.
About the bracketed "other" in Colossians of the NWT: since it is identified as supplemental, this seems more a question of appropriateness gauged by the text’s context rather than by the words found in the original language text. Context indicates Christ was "the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation." To many this is plain language that Christ did not create God, which means Christ created all other things. I believe a reader would only find offense in the bracketed "other" if they failed to conclude Christ was created. In their case, since the NWT has identified "other" as supplemental, they are not confronted with a contradiction.
For me the NWT is just another translation. Since there is no translation that can completely satisfy the original language, many must be referenced.
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Eusebius Hieronymus
<Believe it or not, the King James is actually based on more reliable texts, even though not the oldest. But I will explain that another time>
Suggest you inform yourself more than superficially, and read Metzger and other authorities before you attempt to do anything like that.
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Yerusalyim
I still can't decide if Scholar is in ernest or just a troll. To hard to tell these days, and I'm so cynical anymore.
Unless the WTS will produce the names and credentials of their so called translators, we have the word of Ray Franz as to who was responsible for this travesty of a "translation" without contradiction.
Darth Fred, No one is going against the name of God, least of all Ray Franz, we only oppose it's IMPROPER use.
Accuracy, you said,Just a question to those who say the name "Jehovah" has no place in the NT: How about those places where the writers quoted from the Hebrew scriptures, which did contain the name?
The fact that we can not find any manuscripts before the 16th century that contain the Tetragrammton in the NT speaks VOLUMES. Most of the NT quotes from the OT come from the Sepuagint translation. There were as many of those floating around that had Kyrios and Adonai instead of the Tetragrammaton as not. However, IF the Society would stop at only including the divine name in direct quotes from the OT I wouldn't mind too much. However, they add it in many places that are not quotes from the OT.And, if use of the name "Jehovah" is "proof" of JW bias, how about the other, non-Witness versions which use or have used the name in the NT, from the 16th century on, and the many Hebrew translations which use it in the NT? None of these people were Jehovah's Witnesses
There is no scholarship involved in the NWT, only theological bias which insists often using the most obscure possible translation of a word to prove it's point.
For all you NWT defenders, here's a question. The society insists on using "torture stake" as the only correct translation of stauros and xylon. If this is the case, then what word did the greeks commonly use to mean the "T" shaped cross that was NORMALLY used in Roman crucifixion?
Yeru
YERUSALYIM
"Vanity! It's my favorite sin!"
[Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"] -
Yerusalyim
Come on WTS defenders, ANSWER ME!
YERUSALYIM
"Vanity! It's my favorite sin!"
[Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"] -
scholar
Ruffian
It is true that Raymond Franz in his book Crisis of Conscience names the members of the NWT committee, but is this reliable? Franz is able to provide much documentation for many of the issues he deals with in his book. I somewhat surprised that a person in his position would not have been able to access the Society's archives or the NWT files which no doubt contain all the necessary documentation for the NWT project. In short, why does Franz not provide evidence for the identity of the committee rather than giving hearsay information?
Regarding the policy of introducing Jehovah into the NT, the Society provides clear and incontrovertible reasons for such a courageous position. Interestingly, there is an article which discusses for the first time in any biblical reference work on this subject. This first appears in the prestigious Anchor Bible Dictionary and the article is written by George Howard.
scholar
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Yerusalyim
Scholar,
Yes, the society provides CLEAR reasons for including the Divine name in the NT, but these are HARDLY incontrovertible. In fact, the Society's position is HIGHLY suspect.
Scholar, feel like tackling the Starous verses cross issue I mention above??
Thought so.
Yeru
YERUSALYIM
"Vanity! It's my favorite sin!"
[Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"] -
AlanF
To Amazing:
I don't think that it's dishonest to use brackets around helper words like [other]. Honest translators render passages according to their understanding of the passage, which may be strongly influenced by their theological bias. Ambiguous passages are particularly fair game for this, and there are plenty of them. Using brackets is arguably better than just sticking the word in without them, as many translations do.
To scholar and accuracy:
Given the fanatical devotion to secrecy, you can hardly expect anyone to possess written documentation proving who the members of the NWT translation committee were. However, a number of people who were intimately familiar with the committee have come forward during the past five decades, and are unanimous in stating that Fred Franz was the only actual translator. The other members of the committee took care of auxiliary work such as footnoting. One wonders why JW defenders object so strongly to the notion that Franz was THE MAN.
I consider the NWT to be among the most literally accurate translations around in general, except in a few places such as where certain doctrinal considerations have biased the translation. Not being a Hebrew or Greek scholar, my opinion isn't worth much, but I've made that conclusion based on researching many passages of interest to me, controversial and not.
One example of bias is John 17:3, where the NWT uses the phrase "their taking in accurate knowlege" of God. The original Greek word certainly can mean "take in knowledge", but more often it means "come to know" in a personal sense. The context indicates that the latter is the correct meaning, so that the proper rendering is more like "their coming to know God". But because the Society has its doctrine that only "the anointed" can really "come to know" God, old Freddie watered the passage down by using an incorrect (in context) meaning. The NWT rendering is also convenient for increasing WTS book sales by emphasizing the aspect of "taking in" knowledge, which is largely done by reading WTS books.
That some JWs understand that the NWT's rendering is wrong is proved by taking a look at the French edition of the NWT. In contrast with other non-English versions, the French translators sometimes went back to the original languages and corrected the meaning. In John 17:3 the French word used is the equivalent of "coming to know personally", which is a different word from the related "taking in knowledge". The former is normally used in French in the sense of getting to know a person, whereas the latter in the sense of getting familiar with non-personal information.
Another problem area for the NWT is its translation of the Greek parousia as "presence". Since Adolph Deissman published his "Light from the East" around 1900, which contained much material that clarified the precise meaning of koine Greek words, there has been no question that parousia as used in many NT passages mean's "coming" or "advent", and not "presence". This is particularly true of Matthew 24. The Society has been extremely dishonest in its defense of the NWT's usage, which is reprehensible. For example, a 1996 Watchtower article indicates that Josephus used parousia in the sense of "presence" five times in all his writings, and the article gives the impression that this is the only way Josephus uses the word. However, an exhaustive look at Josephus' use of the word (which can be done using a concordance to Josephus' works) shows that he used parousia some 33 times. Of those, the only five occasions were the ones that the WT article referred to. The other 28 occurrences had the sense of "arrival", "coming", or "arrival with consequent presence". Thus it is clear that the writer of the WT article specifically selected only the passages that 'proved' his contention, and deliberately hid from the reader the many more passages that disproved his contention. Again we find reprehensibly dishonest 'scholarship' on the part of the Society. This kind of dishonesty is found in a number of places in the NWT, which shows that Fred Franz was dishonest.
As for using "Jehovah" in the NT, the Society might not be formally dishonest, in the sense that explanations for its practice can be extracted from various editions of the NWT, but here again we find that the casual reader is led to the conclusion that all uses of "Jehovah" are justified because they are quotations from the OT. Since most JWs are casual readers, most get the wrong impression. That's the impression I had the first 40 years of my life as a JW, until I really took a close look at what was said in the various explanations.
Whenever something is written in a way that deliberately tends to lead readers to a wrong conclusion, we may conclude that the writer is dishonest -- even though his writing might survive a formal test of honesty. "Formally honest but deliberately misleading" as opposed to "strictly honest" can be illustrated this way: suppose you and your wife are standing in a room near an outside door, and the telephone rings. She picks it up and realizes that the caller is someone you don't want to talk to, so she motions for you to step outside the door. The caller asks, "Is scholar in?" She answers, "No, he's out." The caller concludes that you're not home. Was your wife honest? In a formal sense, yes, because you were in one sense "out", and she said that. But she was deceptive, because she knew perfectly well that the caller wanted to know if you were available for him to speak to, and she knew that saying "he is out" would be interpreted as "he is not available". Thus, she lied by telling the truth. The Watchtower Society has fully perfected this technique.
AlanF
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1 Peter 3:15
Check out this page - http://www.freeminds.org/history/NWTauthors.htm
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run dont walk
Fred Franz was the principal translator, and probably everything went through his office, but certainly there were many, many other persons involved who went unnamed that performed research and helped along the way.
Exactly !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Read COC. by Ray Franz