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The
"NEW WORLD TRANSLATION" –
Scholarly and Honest? B J Kotwall (Investigator 19, 1991 July)
Recently a Jehovah's Witness (JW) and I were discussing the NWT's translation of John 1:1 which I was trying to point out to the JW was incorrect. The JW promptly thrust THE WATCHTOWER of March 1, 1991 into my hands and told me to read for myself how correct the WATCHTOWER SOCIETY is in translating the verse accurately and how scholarly the NWT is. I read the article (pages 26-30) thoroughly. The article is titled THE NEW WORLD TRANSLATION – SCHOLARLY AND HONEST. The article is deceptive, self-praising, and even dishonest. Let us start with the title. Obviously a self-praise, as no recognized New Testament (NT) or Old Testament (OT) scholar would say that the NWT is scholarly or honest. In fact the NWT has been roundly condemned by many renowned scholars. Let's see what one NT and one OT scholar have to say about the NWT. This is what a
recognized
NT scholar has
to say:
NEW WORLD
TRANSLATION OP
THE CHRISTIAN
GREEK SCRIPTURES must be viewed as a radically biased piece of work. At
some points it is actually dishonest. At others it is neither modern
nor
scholarly. And interwoven throughout its fabric is inconsistent
application
of its own principles enunciated in the Foreward and the Appendix…
Biased
and manipulative foundation. From a purely literary viewpoint NWT
suffers
from woodenness of style that makes sustained reading of it a chore.
(The Jehovah's Witnesses' NT. Dr. Robert H. Countess, p. 93)
And this is
what a
renowned OT scholar
has to say about the NWT of the Hebrew Scriptures:
The
translators have
their own views on
Hebrew tenses, but prefer to offer them to the uninstructed readers
before
submitting their justification of them to the scrutiny of scholars.
This
is probably wise. They profess to offer a rendering into modern English
which is as faithful as possible. In fact the jargon which they use is
often scarcely English at all... The translation is marked by a wooden
literalism which will only exasperate any intelligent reader – if such
it finds – and instead of showing reverence for the Bible it is an
insult
to the Word of God… From the beginning to end this volume is a shining
example of how the Bible should not be translated, and a reminder that
the Bible is great literature, which deserves to be translated by those
who have a feeling for style…
(How Not To Translate The Bible. The Expository Times, November 1953 pp. 41-42. The Christian Century October 5, 1955, October 3 1953. Dr. H. N. Rowley.) In the WATCHTOWER article two writers are quoted, with approval, who appear to support the NWT. The first is a theologian – C. Houtman. No information is provided regarding the theologian's religious affiliation, qualifications or the source from which the quoted sentence is derived. Such lack of information makes it difficult for readers to check up what the complete write-up says. Houtman's quote reads: Various
traditional
translations of important
terms from the original text have been discarded apparently in order to
arrive at the best possible understanding.
JW publications sometimes cite Professor George Howard (J. of Biblical Literature, Volume 96, 1977) in a way that makes it seem that he agrees with the introduction of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) into the New Testament. For example see:
His theory is that the writers of the New Testament retained the Tetragrammaton whenever they quoted extracts from the Old Testament that contained it. This theory applies to references in the NT from the OT. It has no relevance to most of the 237 instances where the JW translators inserted "Jehovah" into their NT.
The second "scholar" quoted is one "Prof. Benjamin Kedar of Israel". Again no further information on the writer or his write-up is provided. The quote reads
in part:
In my
linguistic
research in connection
with the Hebrew Bible and translations, I often refer to the English
edition
of what is known as the New World Translation… But I have never
discovered
in the New World Translation any biased intent to read something into
the
text that it does not contain.
Some German translators are named on p. 28 who have apparently used the "a god" translation in John 1:1, and who have used the word "Jehovah" in the text of the NT. (We are not told how many times the word "Jehovah" is used in the texts by the German translators.) Without any information on these translators no comments can be made. On top of p. 29, in a box, Habakkuk 1:12 "O my God, my Holy One, you do not die" is quoted from the NWT as a radical and accurate translation. The article says: "The New World Translation has restored the original text." This is of course nonsense. Many modern versions of the Bible have the verse translated in like manner. To discuss all the other examples from the NWT given in the article is superfluous. Suffice it to say that their translation of, for example, Matthew 26:26 and John 1:1 and the completely unjustifiable insertion of "Jehovah" into the NT not only "depart from the traditional renderings" but were made because of doctrinal considerations. In conclusion it should be said that any encounter with the JWs should never be undertaken with only the deceptive NWT at hand. https://ed5015.tripod.com/ https://investigatormagazine.net Dictionary of Jehovah's Witnesses at: https://ed5015.tripod.com/jwdictionary/ |