How fast you learn a language varies dramatically based on ability and motivation. There are plenty of indications that Fred Franz had ability and was highly motivated. He was known to be a language geek. He knew German from childhood, he attended a Spanish congregation and gave talks in Spanish and other languages. He continued to study Greek while Watchtower editor at the headquarters from 1928 onwards as evidenced by references to scholarly works in the literature. That’s not to say he was at a level comparable with leading scholars. But was he good enough to complete translation of the NWT? It seems so, because he did complete the NWT. Scholars who reviewed the translation when it was published offered criticisms of its wooden English and alleged bias in certain passages, but didn’t question that the translator knew enough to complete the translation. For example he adopted some views about how Hebrew aspects should be translated that have not aged well. That might be viewed as a mistake based on adoption of ideas floating around at the time, but it is also evidence that he knew enough about the language to adopt such a position in the first place.
It is ‘a’ translation mostly borrowed from extant English translations.
Which translations did it borrow from? If that was the case it would be easy to prove, especially with modern plagiarism software and AI. Have you ever done this, or know of it being done with the NWT?
Fred Franz’s style was pretty unique, some would say uniquely bad, but for better or worse I think his translation was clearly his own effort, completed in a serious manner involving a lot of hard work. It took him around 13 years to complete his translation of the entire Bible. The result is a Bible translation one might expect from someone who had some formal training in Greek, who had a lot of dedication and spent a lot of time on the task, and who worked outside the Trinitarian tradition that has influenced Bible translation since the 4th century. Trinitarians obviously hate it because it doesn’t follow the orthodox line, but that doesn’t mean Franz wasn’t competent in Bible languages. Non Trinitarian scholars such as Jason BeDuhn and Benjamin Kedar have complimented the NWT. Some Trinitarian scholars have acknowledged that the NWT is a competent translation even if they accuse it of bias.
