New world translation errors list

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IS THE JEHOVAH’S WITNESS BIBLE,
THE NEW WORLD TRANSLATION
, A GOOD TRANSLATION?


The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is known as a religion that denies the Deity of Jesus Christ. To this end, when they produced their own translation of the Bible (
The New World Translation
), they went to great lengths to make it appear that the Scriptures do not support the idea that Jesus Christ is God (Jehovah). In an attempt to shift the emphasis off of Jesus Christ as God, they inserted the derivation “Jehovah” (an adaptation from the original Hebrew “YHWH” for God’s Name) in place of
theos
(God) and
 Kurios
(Lord) in multiple verses in the Christian Greek Scriptures (New Testament). Thus, they created a distinction between Jehovah God and Jesus Christ that is not warranted in the text. In addition to inserting God’s Name where it is not supported by the text, they have also mistranslated many verses that support the Deity of Jesus Christ to justify their own anti-Trinitarian dogma. The following list (prepared by Life After Watchtower Support Ministries) provides a record of the verses where the Watchtower Society’s anti-Trinitarian bias can be

Four examples of where the New World Translation gets it wrong



This is the last in a three-part series on Jehovah’s Witnesses


Jehovah’s Witnesses regard The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures as “an accurate, easy-to-read translation of the Bible” (jw.org). What many don’t realize is that four of the five men on the translation committee producing the complete 1961 edition had no Hebrew or Greek training whatsoever.

The fifth, who claimed to know both languages, failed a simple Hebrew test while under oath in a Scottish court.

What all this means is that the Watch Tower’s official version of the Bible is “an incredibly biased translation,” writes Ron Rhodes in
Reasoning from the Scriptures with Jehovah’s Witnesses
.

British scholar H.H. Rowley calls it “a shining example of how the Bible should not be translated,” classifying the text as “an insult to the Word of God.”

Revisions in 1984 and 2013 have not improved the translation.

So, what’s wrong with the NWT? In a phrase, the translators consistently have sought to conform the text to Watch Tower theology, particularly with respect to the person and work of Christ.

A few examples should make this clear.


The Top Ten Errors of Jehovah’s Witnesses


1.Only the Father is God Almighty.

The WTS has consistently rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, and its understanding of the second and third Persons of the Trinity is radically different from our own. It claims that the Trinity doctrine had its origins in paganism and hence must be vehemently rejected by Christians. In its literature, the WTS often makes an emotive appeal that is based on a misrepresentation of the Trinity, such as “Can you imagine a freakish-looking, three-headed god?”

Naturally, such caricatures of the Trinity are not helpful, but JWs sometimes get traction from them with otherwise unsuspecting Christians who might not be as familiar with the doctrine of the Trinity as they should be, especially considering that it is the foundational belief of the Christian faith.

JWs maintain that only the Father is “Almighty God,” and thus only he is divine (in our sense of the word) and only he possesses divine attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and virtues in perfection. For JWs, Jesus is the first being God created, and while they do afford him a place in creation second only to the Father, he


Is the New World Translation a valid version of the Bible?



Answer


The
New World Translation
(NWT) is defined by the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ parent organization (the Watchtower Society) as "a translation of the Holy Scriptures made directly from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek into modern-day English by a committee of anointed witnesses of Jehovah." The NWT is the anonymous work of the “New World Bible Translation Committee.” Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that the anonymity is in place so that the credit for the work will go to God. Of course, this has the added benefit of keeping the translators from any accountability for their errors and prevents real scholars from checking their academic credentials.

The New World Translation is unique in one thing – it is the first intentional, systematic effort at producing a complete version of the Bible that is edited and revised for the specific purpose of agreeing with a group’s doctrine. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watchtower Society realized that their beliefs contradicted Scripture. So, rather than conforming their beliefs to Scripture, they altered Scripture to agree with their beliefs. The “New World Bible Translation Committee” went