Ok so I am like at page 170 in this book.
There are a lot of good sources on the Net if you want to spend some time. I found these links interesting:
http://www.ibs.org/bibles/translations/index.php
http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/bible/englishbible.htm
http://www.bessel.org/bibles.htm
http://www.bible.ovc.edu/terry/interpretation/translat.htm
This last link is really interesting as it places the New World Translation very close ot the "literal" end of the spectrum.
Regarding the NWT:
I have to say that in reading this book which is very enlightening and comparing what Dr. Comfort (the author) is saying about what is "good" and what is "bad" in some translations with the renderings in the NWT, the NWT is not coming off very bad. In fact in many ways it is very good.
Two of the most outstanding ways seems to be in word-choice and the source texts/editions used.
For example in discussing why the RSV failed to really gain acceptance he explains for example that its rendering of Isaiah 7:14 reads "young woman" instead of the KJV version of "virgin" and that many fundamentalists/conservative christians spurned the RSV specifically for its translation of this scripture. Dr. Comfort notes that the Hebrew word there is 'almah which "generally refers to a young girl who has passed puberty and thus is of marriageable age" and that another Hebrew word (not used) in the Isaiah scripture of bethulah specifically means a virgin. Dr. Comfort notes that despite this the Septuagint trnaslators translated 'almah as parthenos which denotes a virgin.
I thought that it was very interesting that as an aside he states that the english word "maiden" is the best equvalent word for 'almah. So I looked up the scripture in the NWT and yup, they used "maiden". (This is just one example of what seems to be the case over and over with the NWT which is why it appears to me that in some ways the NWT is superior when it comes to word choice than some other translations.
I find it very interesting that the NWT gets extremely bad reviews by everyone out there but such negative viewpoints are based upon two chief criticisms
1. the lack of academic credentials of the translation committee. This criticism is actually quite weak because it ignores the real history of the Bible and previous persons who have had a hand in bringing forth the bible from bible times to today, many of whom were unlettered themselves. This is just simply an ad hominem attack. The NWT should be judged on the product or on its text itself not on the basis of who created it.
2. Secondly almost every negative view of the NWT cites supposed "theological" bias that was incorporated by the WTS. This argument is just nonsense.
First every other translation and translators also have/had some theological bias of their own, no bible translation was ever prepared in a political or religious vaccum.
And second, these critics never bother to actually point out just WHERE in the NWT such "theological bias" is supposedly evident but in every case that supposedly there is such bias, for example the rendering of John 1:1, there are at least a few translations prepared by others that have the same rendering or meaning. Thus are these other bibles just reflective of Watchtower theology too?
No this argument/criticism stems more from the critic's own biases against the Witnesses than it does from an honest appraisal of the translation.
The summary is that the NWT only failings are what other "literal" translations are sometimes guilty of doing, namely a sacrifice and loss of meaning from the original language.
With Regard to Translating the Bible:
The basic point is that there is no perfect translation and that such is impossible. It is also impossible for ANY translation to claim to be Divinely Inspired or representing faithfully God's Word or the actual autographs of the bible writers.
Bible Translators are faced with a dilemma because they must choose either to lean towards formal equivalence (that is word-for-word or also called "literal translation") as an approach to their work at the sake of losing the beauty and sometimes the meaning of the original language.
Or they must choose dynamic equivalence also called functional equivalence which seeks to translate thought-for-thought but this poses its own problems since we can never be sure of the original writers' meanings not having any extant autographs and such translations are prone to incorporating the biases of the translators even subconsciously.
With Regard to the Two Families of English Translations:
Apparently from what I gather from this book there are two general families of English translations.
The first is that of the King James Version, all of its revisions, and all the other translations that stem from Luther's German translation and Tyndale's English translation.
All of these translations base their translation on what's called the "received text" (Textus Receptus) which came from the work of Erasmus who compiled the first Greek text to be produced on a printing press.
The roots of TR go back to "Lucian of Antioch who produced an edited version of the Greek New Testament which was a definite recension (i.e. purposely created edition.)" Lucian's edited text became the standard in Byzantine which was what Erasmus used. In turn both Tyndale and Luther prepared their respective translations based upon the Erasmus' text and later the KJV scholars/committee used a version of Erasmus' text.
(And needles to say the Hebrew scholarship of the King James translators was incomparable to later Hebrew language scholarship and actuallly quite limited.)
So one could say that all of these translations suffer from the same faults and also posses much of the same beauty when it comes to the ornate and flowery language used. But it is the faults that should worry a Bible Student or Christian because many of these are simply eggregious.
I would say that the translations of this family are not the best and referenced only for the "traditional" rendering or because one enjoys the particular prose involved.
The second family arose when new Greek texts were prepared after the discovery/access to several important codexes and papyri and other writings became available (Codex Alexandrinus -dated ca. 400, Codex Sinaiticus - dated ca. 350 and Codex Vaticanus -dated ca. 325 just to name a few) which occurred after the KJV and as late as the 19th century (not including the discoveries of the 20th century of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi). These new texts starting with John Mills in 1700, Johannes Albert Bengel in 1730s, Karl Lachman (1831), Samuel Tregelles (1852), and Westcott & Hort (1881) just to mention some of the biggies.
Most modern translations, including the New World Translation I might add, are far superior to the first family because they incorporate this tremendous amount of improved scholarship and body of findings and it is these modern translations that should be used in understanding God's Word and for the basis of theology.
-Eduardo
