i guess there will be lots of interesting little changes, but perhaps the most significant change in the new version of the nwt is overall readability.
there were many, many passages of the old nwt that were virtually incomprehensible unless you had read some watchtower commentary explaining what on earth they were trying to say.
take 1 cor 7:36 in the old nwt for example:.
Slimboyfat:
Thank you for posting this. I usually appreciate your comments.
In regards to the NWT, some on this board seem to get carried away by WT hatred and lose balance. They have difficulty seeing any good from the WT translator's efforts, while at the same time, have a tendency to glorify everyone else's translation work.
I am looking forward to review the version personally. I often find myself agreeing with many of your comments. Thanks again!
as already posted im agnostic... but i find the texts of the bible the world's most famous book.. .
check jeremiah 5:8 out in the nwt.
while thismight now be shocking in the judean prophets what is shocking is this is a mojor addtion to the text to make it sound vile.
The NET Bible has this to say on Jer. 5:8 which says: "They were like well-fed stallions wild with desire, each lusting for his neighbor's wife." (New Simplified Bible)
NET Bible: "The meanings of these two adjectives are uncertain. The translation of the first adjective is based on assuming that the word is a defectively written participle related to the noun “testicle” (a Hiphil participle ??????????? [ma’ashikhim] from a verb related to ??????? [’eshekh, “testicle”]; cf. Lev 21:20 ) and hence “having testicles” (cf. HALOT 1379 s.v. ??????) instead of the Masoretic form ?????????? (mashkim) from a root ?????? (shakhah), which is otherwise unattested in either verbal or nominal forms. The second adjective is best derived from a verb root meaning “to feed” (a Hophal participle ????????? [muzanim, the Kethib] from a root ???? [zun; cf. BDB 266 s.v. ????] for which there is the cognate noun ?????? [mazon; cf. 2 Chr 11:23 ]). This is more likely than the derivation from a root ????? ([yazan]reading ??????????? [mÿyuzzanim], a Pual participle with the Qere) which is otherwise unattested in verbal or nominal forms and whose meaning is dependent only on a supposed Arabic cognate (cf. HALOT 387 s.v. ?????)."
the society in appendix 1a of their 'kingdom interlinear translation of the christian greek scriptures' refers to nine other greek manuscripts as containing the divine name, and they quote from jerome as referring to certain 'greek volumes' containing the tetragrammaton.
can anyone shed any light on what these greek manuscripts and volumes are and their dates of writing?
here is what the society says in full: .
adamah said:
More disturbing is the deliberate mistranslation of words and phrases from the Hebrew Torah which significantly change the meaning of the Biblical accounts, in order to remove certain pesky details, eg their ignoring the Hebrew phrase (le haskil, 'to make one wise') from Genesis 3:6 (which is found in both the Masoretic and Samaritan Torah), which explains WHY Eve desired to eat the fruit.
The NWT is the only modern translation to 'cherry-pick' from the Septuagint (Hebrew to Greek) or Vulgate (Greek to Latin) specifically for this verse, probably because they wanted to ignore the element which explained Eve's motivation for eating the fruit : Eve wanted to be wise!
The NWT is not the only modern translation to render Gen. 3:6 as it did.
Check:
The Five Books of Moses; The Bible in Living English; Moffatt's Bible Translation; Lamsa's Translation; The Clear Word; Biblia Peshitta; The New English Bible.
It is not unusual for Bible translators to cherry-pick from the Septuagint and the Vulgate throughout the Old Testament, not only in Gen. 3:6.
k j cronin.
a website dedicated to the interpretation of exodus 3v14.. .
'' exodus 3v14 is universally recognised as being amongst the greatest interpretive challenges in the bible.. .
To unstopableravens:
Actually Jesus made reference to "I am" on various occasions, however, he never stated he was "the" I am. That is quite different.
this particular article was discussed or touched on a couple months ago regarding the wt society's statement concerning jw's putting " jehovah above everything else- including the family bond " .
so i won't address those points in this thread, but there are many other points to address where the wt society uses guilt and black & white cult reasoning to control jw's minds with this information from the article titled, " let nothing distance you from jehovah ".
first off in paragraph 5 the wt tries to make people feel guilty looking for work and insists that if you get any job that takes you away from family- it will distance you from jehovah !
The way I see it, if someone is going to make me feel guilty for the way I use my time, I'd say this:
If you don't help me pay my bills, shut the f*** up!
It's easy for WT writers come up with all these "godly" suggestions, but some of them have no idea what it is to live in the real world. We have to pay the rent, buy food, pay car expenses, clothing, and all the other little things we can't do without in the real world, like paying a phone bill, and feminine napkins for the ladies. Some of the WT leaders live in their own bubble, where everything is served to them in a golden platter. No wonder many of them live past their nineties, where the rest of us mortals are lucky if we hit 70's.
Wait, I forgot the WTBTS have to pay their bills too. And it is the millions of naive zombies all-ready to answer the Saturday call (Read: "shills"), that makes it all possible for them to greatly sustain their already generous coffers... while we struggle to buy underwear and toothpaste.
did they really start from teh greek, hebrew and aramaic texts and translate or did freddy and the friends simply take other bibles and reword each and every sentence.
naturally during this exercise they would have altered the text to make it comptaible with their eschatology.
i think this best explains what really happen during those sessions as they had no literary skills they honestly couldnt read the originals.. .
james_woods: "I have absolutely no confidence that the NWT was actually a word by word translation from original language records - as the original poster says, they really did not have the scholarship available to accomplish such a thing."
Certainly, you have plenty of company who agree with you. However, some scholars say the opposite. My personal research have led me to side with those scholars that see scholarly value in the translation.
did they really start from teh greek, hebrew and aramaic texts and translate or did freddy and the friends simply take other bibles and reword each and every sentence.
naturally during this exercise they would have altered the text to make it comptaible with their eschatology.
i think this best explains what really happen during those sessions as they had no literary skills they honestly couldnt read the originals.. .
slimboyfat: "Which translation starts "originally" in the gospel of John? Is it Goodspeed's translation?
"Originally" was used by Rotherham, and the early editions of the NWT, probably in answer to the question? ...How should we render the first two words of John 1:1 (en arche) lacking the article?
As I stated in another related post, I can see where some translators influenced the NWT translation choices in some places (such as Rotherham, ASV, Emphatic Diaglott, Concordant, Goodspeed and Moffatt), but overall, the NWT went their own way.
The NWT did not choose anyone version to go by verse by verse. A close comparison of the NWT with the original texts show that the NWT was made directly as they say, from the Hebrew and Greek Texts, and not from another version.
it may seem like a stupid question but who was responsible for translating their version of the bible?
i heard it was ray franz, several governing body members.
does anybody have any legitimate info that can prove who exactly translated it?
james_woods:
"Perhaps they "could have" done it in two years, Wonderment - but they didn't. How long they took proves nothing."
It may not "prove" anything, notwithstanding, any major Bible translation project takes more than 5 years. The NIV project had a cost of millions of dollars and many years of work to accomplish what they did. But the 6 simple steps suggested by a poster here is not realistic with what we know of the time the NWT project took. Even for a corporation of the magnitude of the WTBTS, projects requiring a long time and resources are weighted carefully.
it may seem like a stupid question but who was responsible for translating their version of the bible?
i heard it was ray franz, several governing body members.
does anybody have any legitimate info that can prove who exactly translated it?
Pterist:
I ask of you:
Can you or someone else here show me just one scripture in the Bible where it says:
"God himself took this human flesh upon him." (William Barclay; Many Witnesses, One Lord, p27 )
it may seem like a stupid question but who was responsible for translating their version of the bible?
i heard it was ray franz, several governing body members.
does anybody have any legitimate info that can prove who exactly translated it?
Jeffro:
How to 'translate' the Bible, Watch Tower Society style:
If the NWT Committe had done what you are suggesting, they could have done their version in two years, not fourteen, which is the time they took to do their original version. Besides, had you done a thorough comparison of the NWT version with the Hebrew and Greek Texts, you would have found out that there are thousands of particulars which cannot be answered by your six suggestions. Thus, I cannot take your suggestions seriously.
I don't agree with all the translation choices of the NWT, just as I do not agree with other Bible versions translation choices all the time. But overall, most translators are sincere, and do a pretty good job at it, the NWT included. All translations fall short somewhere, because they are done by imperfect humans with limited knowledge.
