David Jay,
I appreciate your response. You make some valid points.
When I said: "Also, the NWT has a Hebrew
edition of the New Testament, first published in S e l t e r s / T a u n
u s (Germany) in 2012. They are presumably working on the Old Testament
counterpart."
The first part of the statement is a fact, no question about it. The second statement is not a fact, just speculation. I based my speculation on past WT trends of targeting completion of the Bible to include both the Hebrew and the Greek Scripture portions whenever feasible.
Now, you mention some provocative points. First of all, Israel does not have many JW publishers in the country, so the WT would have to count on a larger target -- the diaspora of Jews worldwide. Still, it would be costly and time-consuming to engage in such a project (Biblical Hebrew to NWT OT Hebrew edition).
To that, we would have to consider whether it makes sense to do so as you pointed out. If they were to engage in doing an adaptation from Biblical Hebrew to NWT OT Hebrew edition, it would pose many a challenge for any translator. You are so right about that. It may not make sense at all.
A better guess, perhaps, for what the WT would or could do is to include their NWT NT Hebrew edition with the Hebrew Bible (OT) now extant within the pages of one volume, like they have done in the past with some languages, as someone here mentioned with the Tagalog language. Considering the WT is obviously going through some financial crisis, that would be a better option for them. What do you think?