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THEOLOGICAL
DICTIONARY |
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The Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures -
Part 1
by Dr.
John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon |
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The
Jehovah’s Witnesses constitute a large and aggressive sect which has
opposed the doctrines of biblical Christianity from its inception.
Many
fine works have already detailed the history and doctrines of this
group and contrasted the latter with biblical teaching. 1
It is our goal in this article to briefly critique the English
translation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society’s The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
(NWT).
Our purpose
will be to determine the legitimacy of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ claim
to respect and honor the Bible as divine revelation. If the Witnesses
have not translated God’s revelation with care and accuracy—but
instead have incorporated their own doctrinal bias in disregard of the
Greek text—then it is unlikely that the Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society (WBTS) is, as widely proclaimed, God’s sole channel for
communicating His will to mankind today.
Indeed, the
combined weight of four indisputable facts proves the Watchtower
Society has no regard at all for the Word of God. These four pillars
of disproof of Watchtower claims include their 1) pervasive unbiblical
theology, 2) clear bias in translation, 3) numerous false prophecies
historically, and 4) changes and contradictions in their doctrine,
history and important dates.2
The Emphatic
Diaglott
Before we
begin our analysis of the NWT, we should note that for about 70 years
the NWT was preceded in use by the Emphatic Diaglott, published
in 1864 by Benjamin Wilson and based on the 1806 recension of J. J.
Griesbach. Unfortunately, in utilizing this translation, the Witnesses
never informed their members that the translation was flawed or that
Wilson was a Christadelphian, who, holding similar doctrines with
Jehovah’s Witnesses, naturally sought a translation in harmony with
Christadelphian bias. For example, the Diaglott translates
Matthew 25:46 "agelasting cutting-off" and John 1:1 "the Word was a
god," both in harmony with Christadelphian (and Watchtower) denials of
eternal punishment and Christ’s deity respectively.3
Professor Edmond Charles Gruss of the Master’s College in southern
California, author of a standard work on Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Apostles of Denial, and a former member of the group, observes how
the Diaglott fits the needs of the newly formed Russellite
(Jehovah’s Witness) religion:
Wilson was self-educated;
his work shows that he certainly was not a scholar. Neither did he
have the respect of those who were scholars. Obviously, his purpose
was not to translate, but to justify his theological views…. It may
be concluded, then, that the Emphatic Diaglott was adopted
because of its Christadelphian bias which agreed almost perfectly
with the new Russellite group that was forming. The Russellites
accepted the renderings of Wilson, for they did not have the
linguistic ability either to evaluate or to determine their
correctness, nor did they wish to question that which so perfectly
supported their theories….4
In spite of
his bias and errors in translation, Wilson had claimed "scrupulous
fidelity" to the original languages:
Scrupulous fidelity has
been maintained throughout this version in giving the true rendering
of the original text into English; no regard whatever being paid to
the prevailing doctrines or prejudices of sects, or the peculiar
tenets of theologians. To the Divine authority of the original
Scriptures alone has there been the most humble and unbiased
submission.5
As we will
see, the Jehovah’s Witnesses also make similar claims to scholarly
objectivity—and yet also fail to live up to them.
The New
World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
Eventually
the Watchtower Society produced its own translation, The New World
Translation of the Holy Scriptures. The alleged manner in which
this translation was produced is relevant to note. We cite Professor
Gruss who quotes from a legal case wherein testimony was being given
under oath. F. W. Franz was the Society vice-president who testified
before the Court of Session, Edinburgh, November 23, 1954. F. W. Franz
and N. H. Knorr headed the secret committee of seven translators. The
Scottish Daily Express, November 24, 1954, records that Franz
testified that 1) he and Knorr have the final word in translation; 2)
he, Franz, was head of the Society’s Publicity Department, and 3)
translations and interpretations come from God in such a way that they
are invisibly communicated to the Publicity Department via "angels of
various ranks who control witnesses."6
This is a rather startling admission, for the actual control of men by
"angels" or spirits sounds more like spirit possession than divine
inspiration. And perhaps it is instructive to note here that one
mediumistic translation which claims to originate in the spirit world
has translations similar to those of the NWT. The 1937 NT translation
by spiritistic medium Johannes Greber has similar translations for
John 1:1 and Hebrews 1:8 and is even quoted by the WBTS in several of
its books.7 Given
the serious errors of translation in the NWT, if Witnesses were
actually controlled by "angels" of various ranks, these spirits would
of necessity have to be immoral angels; i.e., demons. This fact would
indeed explain the theological bias and anti-Christian nature of their
translation.
Whether the
origin of the NWT was from a supernatural source or not, the
Watchtower Society clearly made similar claims to translation accuracy
as that of Wilson cited previously. Of course, if Witnesses really
believed the translators were possessed by "angels," it would be easy
to assume the translation was divine and hence accurate even when the
translators themselves did not know the original languages.
Regardless, we find the WBTS claiming absolute fidelity to the Greek
and Hebrew text. Their Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek
Scriptures declares:
Sincere searchers for
eternal, life-giving truth desire an accurate understanding of the
faith-inspiring Greek Scriptures, an understanding that will not be
confused by sectarian, denominational religious teachings but that
is fortified by the knowledge of what the original language says and
means. To aid such seekers of truth and life is the purpose behind
the publishing of The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the
Greek Scriptures. Its literal interlinear English translation is
specially designed to open up to the student of the Sacred
Scriptures what the original Koine Greek basically or
literally says, without any sectarian religious coloration.8
And their
New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures is even more assertive:
It is a very responsible
thing to translate the Holy Scriptures from their original
languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, into modern speech.
Translating the Holy Scriptures means a rendering into another
language the thoughts and sayings of the heavenly Author of this
sacred library of sixty-six books, Jehovah God, which holy men of
long ago put down in writing under inspiration for our benefit
today. That is a sobering thought. The translators who have a fear
and love of the divine Author of the Holy Scriptures feel especially
a responsibility toward Him to transmit his thoughts and
declarations as accurately as possible. They also feel a
responsibility toward the searching readers of the modern
translation who depend upon the inspired Word of the Most High God
for their everlasting salvation. It was with such a sense of solemn
responsibility that the committee of dedicated men have produced the
New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, over the course of
many years.9
In their
text, All Scripture is Inspired of God and Beneficial, the
Jehovah’s Witnesses make similar claims. Note their assertions to
grammatical accuracy:
The New World
Translation… conveys accurately the action or state expressed in the
Hebrew and Greek verbs…. The conveying of the state of the Hebrew
verb accurately into English is most important, otherwise the
meaning may be distorted…. Similar care has been exercised in the
translating of the Greek verbs…. The New World Translation…is
accurate and reliable… a faithful translation of God’s Word.10
The
loftiness of these claims is important to document in light of the
New World Translation’s repeated failure to live up to them. When
one realizes the magnitude of the claim and the impoverished result,
one must conclude that the Watchtower Society is engaging in
purposeful bias in its translation. As we will now document, at the
point of their own doctrinal distinctives, they have little concern
with what the Greek text actually says. Their only desire is to
conform it to their own preconceived and unbiblical theology.
Our analysis
is divided into two parts. Part one documents representative comments
on the NWT by those familiar with the original languages who have made
a study of the Jehovah’s Witnesses a scholarly pursuit, or are Greek
scholars themselves. Part two documents the accuracy of these claims
by citing specific examples of mistranslation from the NWT.
Notes
1 Note: all Jehovah’s
Witness texts are published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society (WBTS, 25 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY 11021). Standard
works include Edmond Gruss, Apostles of Denial (Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker, 1976) (unless noted otherwise, all references to Gruss
are from this text); Walter Martin, Jehovah of the Watchtower
(Chicago, IL: Moody, 1974); Anthony Hoekema, Jehovah’s Witnesses
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981). (Also published in The Four
Major Cults.)
2 See our The Facts On
the Jehovah’s Witnesses (Eugene, OR: Harvest House); also Gruss,
discusses each of these, cf., his The Jehovah’s Witness and
Prophetic Speculation (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1972).
3 Benjamin Wilson, The
Emphatic Diaglott New Testament (Interlinear Edition, Brooklyn,
NY: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1942), pp. 106, 372.
4 Gruss, pp. 194-96.
5 Wilson, p. 3 "Preface."
6 Gruss, pp. 32-33, 219.
See also The Watchtower, September 1, 1932, p. 263; Light,
Vol. 1, 1930, pp. 106, 120, 218; Vol. 2, 1930, pp. 12, 20;
Vindication, Vol. 3, 1932, p. 250, Preparation, 1933, pp.
36, 67.
7 For documentation see
William and Jean Cetnar, Questions for Jehovah’s Witnesses
(Kunkletown, PA: 1983), pp. 48-55.
8 The Kingdom
Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (Brooklyn, NY:
WBTS, 1969), p. 5.
9 The New World
Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Brooklyn, NY: WBTS, 1961),
p. 5.
10 All Scripture is
Inspired by God and Beneficial (Brooklyn, NY: WBTS, 1963), pp.
226-30.
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ANKERBERG SHOW |
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Copyright 2006, Ankerberg Theological Research Institute
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