The NWT: Is the Watch Tower Economical With the Truth?

 

On their website, the Watch Tower define their New World Translation Bible 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. These expressed themselves regarding their work as follows: “The translators of this work, who fear and love the Divine Author of the Holy Scriptures, feel toward Him a special responsibility to transmit his thoughts and declarations as accurately as possible. They also feel a responsibility toward the searching readers who depend upon a translation of the inspired Word of the Most High God for their everlasting salvation.” This translation was originally released in sections, from 1950 to 1960. Editions in other languages have been based on the English translation.’ (Reasoning From the Scriptures, p.276)

Their stated aim (italicised) is laudable, however we judge things not by intentions but by results.

We can’t build a reputation on what we are going to do but on what we have done.

Translators

By far the biggest question as they unpack their definition is, ‘who worked on this translation?’ The official position of the translation committee was stated in the September 15 1950 Watchtower magazine, and has never changed:

‘It [the NWT] is issued to glorify or memorialize the names of no men. Therefore the men who compose the translation committee have indicated their desire to the Society’s boards of directors to remain anonymous, and specifically do not want their names to be published while they are in life or after death.’

In the Reasoning Book article we read:

‘When presenting as a gift the publishing rights to their translation, the New World Bible Translation Committee requested that its members remain anonymous. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania has honored their request. The translators were not seeking prominence for themselves but only to honor the Divine Author of the Holy Scriptures.’

However, the identity of the translators is important for two reasons:

1. It has long been known that the original translation committee was woefully underqualified (putting it kindly) to produce something as important as a new Bible translation. The original translation committee included Nathan H. Knorr, Fredrick W. Franz, Albert D. Schroeder, George Gangas, and Milton Henschel. Only Fred Franz had even a basic understanding of koine Greek. Are today’s translation committee any better equipped? We have every reason to doubt it, but no way of finding out.

2. Bible translation is an academic exercise. If the translation committee is anonymous then the Bible reader has no way of knowing for themselves whether these translators can be trusted, both in competence, as well as in trustworthiness.

Reputation

It is not unreasonable for a reader to want to know the names and academic qualifications of those claiming competence for the task of Bible translation. Believers put a huge amount of trust in scholars and translators and anonymity is hardly reward for that trust. The Watch Tower tries to get around this by quoting the dust jacket of the New American Standard Bible (NASB) 1971:

Over the years other translation committees have taken a similar view. For example, the jacket of the Reference Edition (1971) of the New American Standard Bible states: “We have not used any scholar’s name for reference or recommendations because it is our belief God’s Word should stand on its merits.”

Note the plural, ‘other translation committees have taken a similar view.’ I cant find any others, but if you can... Anyway, this has been the consistent policy of the Lockman Foundation, publishers of the NASB, since they produced the American Standard Bible in 1901. The problem with the Watch Tower claim compared with the publishers of the NASB is one of reputation.

The Lockman Foundation is known and respected across the Christian Church and among Bible translators as trustworthy, as having a sound reputation. Christians may prefer other translations, but there is no question the Lockman Foundation is respected. Further, you can find the story of the New American Standard Bible as well as a list of translators here.

The ASB was based on the English Revised Version (RV), published by Oxford and Cambridge universities. Again, weight of reputation is not in doubt. in turn, the RV was a revision of the King James Bible of 1611. The man who put together the ASB translation committee was Philip Schaff, a theologian and ecclesiastical historian of considerable reputation. He would not have surrounded himself with incompetence. The work of the Lockman Foundation has been embraced by millions of Christians and Christian leaders over generations.

The reputation of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society is questionable to say the least. Nobody outside the Society uses the New World Translation, a work that has come in for considerable criticism from genuine Bible scholars and translators since its introduction. The Society likes to quote sources that support their translation but they are either fellow Unitarians (that’s cheating), or they are scholars selectively quoted (that’s lying) See more here. Some scholars get quite upset about it.

Looks Good…

The rest of the article in the Reasoning book is pretty impressive, emphasising the claim the NWT is scholarly. It talks about sources – Bibllia Hebraica, Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, the Dead Sea Scrolls and, of course, Westcott and Hort and ‘other master texts.’ They talk about the NWT being ‘an accurate, largely literal translation from the original languages’ and explain what is different about it (basically, it’s better than all the others).

The problems are compounded by these claims to scholarship:

Since the translators are anonymous we can’t judge whether they are competent to deal with these sources.

We are not allowed in on the process so cannot know if they consulted these sources, approached them through secondary documents, or even consulted them at all.

Watch Tower leaders notoriously talk down to their faithful members and are not in the habit of letting anyone in on the leadership process. Their attitude is always, ‘trust us, we are Jehovah’s anointed.’

Scholars outside the organisation have plenty to say:

Dr William Barclay Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow wrote, ‘The deliberate distortion of truth by this sect is seen in their New Testament translations, John 1:1 is translated: ‘the Word was a god,’ a translation which is grammatically impossible. It is abundantly clear that a sect that can translate the New Testament like that is intellectually dishonest.’

Dr. Bruce Metzger, Professor of New Testament at Princeton University wrote, ‘Far more pernicious in this same verse is the rendering… ‘and the Word was a god’ … It must be stated quite frankly that, if the Jehovah’s Witnesses take this translation seriously, they are polytheists. In view of the additional light which is available during this age of Grace, such a representation is even more reprehensible than were the heathenish, polytheistic errors into which ancient Israel was so prone to fall. As a matter of solid fact, however, such a rendering is a frightful mistranslation.’

To coin a phrase, ‘Philip Schaff I know, William Barclay and Bruce Metzger I know, but who are you?’