My slip: Robert Young’s Commentary where he writes John 1:1 means: "more lit[erally] "and a God (i.e. a Divine Being) was the Word" was published in 1865, not 1985. Thus, he preceded Colwell’s article of 1933.
Wonderment
JoinedPosts by Wonderment
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Colwell’s Rule must die!
by Wonderment incolwell, a trinitarian methodist, was apparently affected by various translators of his time and before, that were translating john 1:1 differently from the norm: "the word was god.
" you had moffatt’s version saying "the word was divine" (1922); a french bible, "a divine being" (1928); belsham, "a god" (1808); benjamin wilson: "a god" (1864); robert young: "a god" in his commentary of 1985. colwell likely knew that various french and german bibles were being published challenging the traditional rendering "god" of john 1:1 as well.. so he set out to prove them wrong.
he began by formulating a "rule" regarding predicate nouns and the greek article, whether they occurred after or before the verb.
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Wonderment
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Colwell’s Rule must die!
by Wonderment incolwell, a trinitarian methodist, was apparently affected by various translators of his time and before, that were translating john 1:1 differently from the norm: "the word was god.
" you had moffatt’s version saying "the word was divine" (1922); a french bible, "a divine being" (1928); belsham, "a god" (1808); benjamin wilson: "a god" (1864); robert young: "a god" in his commentary of 1985. colwell likely knew that various french and german bibles were being published challenging the traditional rendering "god" of john 1:1 as well.. so he set out to prove them wrong.
he began by formulating a "rule" regarding predicate nouns and the greek article, whether they occurred after or before the verb.
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Wonderment
E.C. Colwell, a Trinitarian Methodist, was apparently affected by various translators of his time and before, that were translating John 1:1 differently from the norm: "the Word was God." You had Moffatt’s version saying "the Word was divine" (1922); a French Bible, "a divine being" (1928); Belsham, "a god" (1808); Benjamin Wilson: "a god" (1864); Robert Young: "a god" in his Commentary of 1985. Colwell likely knew that various French and German Bibles were being published challenging the traditional rendering "God" of John 1:1 as well.
So he set out to prove them wrong. He began by formulating a "rule" regarding predicate nouns and the Greek article, whether they occurred after or before the verb. He was looking for Scriptures he understood were "definite" in the English translation, but were lacking the article in Greek when they occurred before the verb, but had it after the verb. In all, he examined 367 predicate nouns. He was influenced by Scriptures such as Matthew 12:48,50 (where one noun, "mother," had the article after the verb and the other before the verb did not), John 1:49 and John 9:5, where this last one didn’t have the article but in John 8:12 did, and he concluded that they were definite all the same. Bingo, someone finally had the weapon to destroy those "heretics," so he thought.
He concluded, "Kai theós en ho lógos" looks much more like "And the Word was God" when viewed with reference to this rule." This was only a "theory" as he labeled it. However, Trinitarians the world over rejoiced in having the ultimate weapon to neutralize the opposition. Walter Martin, Robert H. Countess, and Bruce Metzger, to name three scholars, were ecstatic, and used it repeatedly against the JWs to "prove" their error.
The problem was that the rule was flawed from the beginning, and it didn’t prove these predicate nouns were definite. After the NWT (which ignored the rule) was published, other translators too disregarded Colwell’s Rule, and went on to translate John 1:1, as "divine," "divine being," "god" (instead of God), etc. Not only that, some scholars of repute, like C.H. Dodd, have admitted publicly, that grammar-wise, you could translate both ways.
Grammarians too have pointed out the error of Colwell’s Rule, such as Turner and Wallace. Nonetheless, there are a few remaining scholars who won’t let the "rule" die in peace, like David A. Black, and Köstenberger, Merkle, and Plummer in their book, Going Deeper with NT Greek, who still quote Colwell like it were the Bible. Not so fast!
The problem with Colwell’s Rule is that he went in looking for definite predicate nouns, when from the start it was not clear they were definite to begin with, like in John 1:1. In other words, he used his own criteria or interpretation to determine they were definite. And that ladies and gentlemen is the crux of the problem. What is a definite predicate noun for him, may be qualitative or indefinite to another.
Worse, he did not consider in the main qualitative and indefinite nouns in his study. He also ignored in his paper prepositional phrases, relative clauses, proper nouns, etc. Colwell admitted his "rule" had 15 exceptions in the New Testament. What kind of rule is that, with 15 exceptions? That’s not counting all the ones he considered "definite," which potentially may not be.
In all, Colwell’s Rule should be thrown in the trash heap where it belongs.
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New World Translation REVISED Editions
by Wonderment ini have noticed some posters (with frustration) asking for information regarding the nwt in various language editions.
here is a list of some of the nwt revised language editions published so far:.
albanian; arabic; armenian; chinese traditional 2017; danish 2017; dutch-netherlands 2017; estonian; haitian creole; italian 2017; korean 2014; modern greek 2017; norwegian 2017; portuguese 2015; romanian; russian; swahili 2017; swedish 2017; ukrainian; vietnamese.. not yet published: .
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Wonderment
In the WT publication below of 2017, Lessons You Can Learn From the Bible in Spanish, you can see that the Society is quoting or basing their Scriptures on the 2013 English Edition. Some have been paraphrased. Which leads me to believe that they are well ahead in the translation of this Revised Edition.
Las citas bíblicas se han traducido de la versión en
lenguaje moderno Traducción del Nuevo Mundo de
las Santas Escrituras (edición del 2013 en inglés).Muchas de ellas han sido parafraseadas para que
los niños puedan comprenderlas más fácilmente.
Lecciones que aprendo de la Biblia
Lessons You Can Learn From the Bible
Impresión de octubre de 2017
Spanish (lfb-S)
̆ 2017
Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
of Pennsylvania
Editores
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of
New York, Inc., Wallkill, New York, U.S.A.
́
Testigos Cristianos de Jehova ́
Ctra. Torrej on-Ajalvir, km. 5
28864 Ajalvir (Madrid)
Made in Spain
Hecho en España -
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New World Translation REVISED Editions
by Wonderment ini have noticed some posters (with frustration) asking for information regarding the nwt in various language editions.
here is a list of some of the nwt revised language editions published so far:.
albanian; arabic; armenian; chinese traditional 2017; danish 2017; dutch-netherlands 2017; estonian; haitian creole; italian 2017; korean 2014; modern greek 2017; norwegian 2017; portuguese 2015; romanian; russian; swahili 2017; swedish 2017; ukrainian; vietnamese.. not yet published: .
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Wonderment
Corney,
Thanks for bringing this up. I went to jw.org and checked various language pages, and when I saw the Gray Bible, I assumed it was revised. I was wrong. Apparently, the WT is also using gray color for previous editions.
Now, those with dates on the list, I think are revisions, as I saw them on their website. I myself downloaded the Greek version of 2017. Also, there is this other list: https://www.jw.org/download/?fileformat=PDF&output=html&pub=nwt&option=TRGCHlZRQVNYVrXF
Not sure if this is up to date, though.
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New World Translation REVISED Editions
by Wonderment ini have noticed some posters (with frustration) asking for information regarding the nwt in various language editions.
here is a list of some of the nwt revised language editions published so far:.
albanian; arabic; armenian; chinese traditional 2017; danish 2017; dutch-netherlands 2017; estonian; haitian creole; italian 2017; korean 2014; modern greek 2017; norwegian 2017; portuguese 2015; romanian; russian; swahili 2017; swedish 2017; ukrainian; vietnamese.. not yet published: .
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Wonderment
Drearyweather,
I was looking at the 2015 Service Report which had one publisher in Bangladesh for 631,355. I rounded it off to 7,000. Is your number based on a newer report?
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New World Translation REVISED Editions
by Wonderment ini have noticed some posters (with frustration) asking for information regarding the nwt in various language editions.
here is a list of some of the nwt revised language editions published so far:.
albanian; arabic; armenian; chinese traditional 2017; danish 2017; dutch-netherlands 2017; estonian; haitian creole; italian 2017; korean 2014; modern greek 2017; norwegian 2017; portuguese 2015; romanian; russian; swahili 2017; swedish 2017; ukrainian; vietnamese.. not yet published: .
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Wonderment
One more thing, do all countries work on voluntary donations, or are there still some on the old method of charging for the literature? I ask just in case there is a correlation between donations in the decision making for publishing or not publishing the Bible in speedier delivery for different countries.
Does anyone know for sure?
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45
New World Translation REVISED Editions
by Wonderment ini have noticed some posters (with frustration) asking for information regarding the nwt in various language editions.
here is a list of some of the nwt revised language editions published so far:.
albanian; arabic; armenian; chinese traditional 2017; danish 2017; dutch-netherlands 2017; estonian; haitian creole; italian 2017; korean 2014; modern greek 2017; norwegian 2017; portuguese 2015; romanian; russian; swahili 2017; swedish 2017; ukrainian; vietnamese.. not yet published: .
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Wonderment
SBF,
The Russian web page shows the Gray Bible, but not in front page. In the case of Polish and Finnish languages, those two have a reputation of being complex. They may need more time, unless is cost again for the delay.
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45
New World Translation REVISED Editions
by Wonderment ini have noticed some posters (with frustration) asking for information regarding the nwt in various language editions.
here is a list of some of the nwt revised language editions published so far:.
albanian; arabic; armenian; chinese traditional 2017; danish 2017; dutch-netherlands 2017; estonian; haitian creole; italian 2017; korean 2014; modern greek 2017; norwegian 2017; portuguese 2015; romanian; russian; swahili 2017; swedish 2017; ukrainian; vietnamese.. not yet published: .
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Wonderment
slimboyfat,
You may be right that the WT is holding back from releasing the NWT in these three popular languages.
I doubt very much that their delay is due to technical difficulties in the translation process. The may have put less people to work on these languages, comparatively speaking. Releasing the Spanish version, in particular, will be costly.
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45
New World Translation REVISED Editions
by Wonderment ini have noticed some posters (with frustration) asking for information regarding the nwt in various language editions.
here is a list of some of the nwt revised language editions published so far:.
albanian; arabic; armenian; chinese traditional 2017; danish 2017; dutch-netherlands 2017; estonian; haitian creole; italian 2017; korean 2014; modern greek 2017; norwegian 2017; portuguese 2015; romanian; russian; swahili 2017; swedish 2017; ukrainian; vietnamese.. not yet published: .
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Wonderment
Thank you so much for pulling this up for us Dreary weather. I missed that page. I should have come to you first. LOL!
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45
New World Translation REVISED Editions
by Wonderment ini have noticed some posters (with frustration) asking for information regarding the nwt in various language editions.
here is a list of some of the nwt revised language editions published so far:.
albanian; arabic; armenian; chinese traditional 2017; danish 2017; dutch-netherlands 2017; estonian; haitian creole; italian 2017; korean 2014; modern greek 2017; norwegian 2017; portuguese 2015; romanian; russian; swahili 2017; swedish 2017; ukrainian; vietnamese.. not yet published: .
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Wonderment
Jehovah’s Witnesses have been successful in attracting members of other churches in the Western world, mainly Catholic.
Here in the US, JWs hardly make a convert from Evangelical Protestants. Their growth comes from immigrants mainly.
JWs have a dismal record in countries where Islam predominates. With the exception of a few countries like Japan, Philippines, and Korea, their record in making converts in the Middle and Far East are very poor. Even in Israel, after so many decades in presence there, they have only like 15 hundred publishers. In Bangladesh, they only have one publisher for every 7 thousand people (7,000).