Overall ReviewEdit
In its review of Bible translations released from 1955 to 1985,
The HarperCollins Bible Dictionarylisted the
New World Translation as one of the major modern translations.
[68]
The
New Catholic Encyclopedia says of the
New World Translation reference edition: “[Jehovah’s Witnesses]’ translation of the Bible [has] an impressive
critical apparatus. The work is excellent except when scientific knowledge comes into conflict with the accepted doctrines of the movement.” It criticizes the NWT’s rendering of
Kyrios as “Jehovah” in 237 instances in the New Testament.
[69]
In 2004, Anthony Byatt and Hal Flemings’s anthology
‘Your Word is Truth’, Essays in Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (1950, 1953) was published. It included essays responding to criticism of the
New World Translation from non-Witnesses, and included a bibliography of reviews of the work.
[70]
Old TestamentEdit
Regarding the
New World Translation‘s use of English in the 1953 first volume of the NWT (
Genesis to Ruth), biblical scholar
Harold Henry Rowley was critical of what he called “wooden literalism” and “harsh construction.” He characterized these as “an insult to the Word of God”, citing various verses of Genesis as examples. Rowley concluded, “From beginning to end this [first] volume is a shining example of how the Bible should not be translated.”
[71] He added in a subsequent review that “the second volume shows the same faults as the first.”
[72] Rolf Furuli, a Jehovah’s Witness and a former professor in Semitic languages, notes that a literal translation that follows the sentence structure of the source language rather than target language must be somewhat wooden and unidiomatic. Furuli adds that Rowley’s assessment based on his own preference for idiomatic translations ignores the NWT’s stated objective of being as literal as possible.
[73]
Samuel Haas, in his 1955 review of the 1953 first volume of the
New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, in the
Journal of Biblical Literature, states: “this work indicates a great deal of effort and thought as well as considerable scholarship, it is to be regretted that religious bias was allowed to colour many passages.”
[74]
In 1981, biblical scholar
Benjamin Kedar-Kopfstein stated that the Old Testament work is largely based upon the formal structure of biblical Hebrew.
[75]
New TestamentEdit
In 1952, religious writer
Alexander Thomson wrote of the
New World Translation: “The translation is evidently the work of skilled and clever scholars, who have sought to bring out as much of the true sense of the Greek text as the English language is capable of expressing. … We heartily recommend the
New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, published in 1950 by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.”
[76] In 1959, Thomson added that on the whole the version was quite a good one, even though it was padded with many English words which had no equivalent in the Greek or Hebrew.
[77]
In 1953, former
American Bible Society board member
Bruce M. Metzger concluded that “on the whole, one gains a tolerably good impression of the scholarly equipment of the translators,”
[78] but identified instances where the translation has been written to support doctrine, with “several quite erroneous renderings of the Greek.”
[79] Metzger noted a number of “indefensible” characteristics of the translation, including its use of
“Jehovah” in the New Testament.
In 1954,
Unitarian theologian
Charles F. Potter stated about the
New World Translation: “Apart from a few semantic peculiarities like translating the Greek word
stauros as
“stake” instead of “cross”, and the often startling use of the colloquial and the vernacular, the anonymous translators have certainly rendered the best manuscript texts, both Greek and Hebrew, with scholarly ability and acumen.”
[80]
F. E. Mayer wrote: “It is a version that lends support to denial of doctrines which the Christian churches consider basic, such as the co-equality of Jesus Christ with the Father, the personhood of the Holy Spirit, and the survival of the human person after physical death. It teaches the annihilation of the wicked, the non-existence of hell, and the purely animal nature of man’s soul.”
[81][82]
In his review in
Andover Newton Quarterly Robert M. McCoy reported in 1963, “The translation of the New Testament is evidence of the presence in the movement of scholars qualified to deal intelligently with the many problems of Biblical translation. One could question why the translators have not stayed closer to the original meaning, as do most translators. … In not a few instances the
New World Translation contains passages which must be considered as ‘theological translations.’ This fact is particularly evident in those passages which express or imply the deity of Jesus Christ.”
[83][84]
In 1963, theologian
Anthony A. Hoekema wrote: “Their New World Translation of the Bible is by no means an objective rendering of the sacred text into modern English, but is a biased translation in which many of the peculiar teachings of the Watchtower Society are smuggled into the text of the Bible itself.”
[85]
Julius R. Mantey, co-author of
A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament and
A Hellenistic Greek Reader, said about the New Testament of the NWT that it’s “a distortion not a translation.”
[86]
In 1982, Robert H. Countess in his critical analysis
The Jehovah’s Witness’ New Testament wrote that the NWT “must be viewed as a radically biased piece of work.”
[87]
Theologian
William Barclay concluded that “the deliberate distortion of truth by this sect is seen in the New Testament translation. … It is abundantly clear that a sect which can translate the New Testament like that is intellectually dishonest.”
[88]
Theologian
John Ankerberg accused the
New World Translation‘s translators of renderings that conform “to their own preconceived and unbiblical theology.” John Weldon and Ankerberg cite several examples wherein they consider the NWT to support theological views overriding appropriate translation.
[89]
In 2004, historian
Jason BeDuhn examined New Testament passages that he believed “bias is most likely to interfere with translation” from nine of “the Bibles most widely in use in the English-speaking world”.
[90] For each passage, he compared the Greek text with the renderings of each English translation, and looked for biased attempts to change the meaning. BeDuhn states that the
New World Translation was “not bias free”, adding that whilst the general public and various biblical scholars might assume that the differences in the New World Translation are the result of religious bias, he considered it to be “the most accurate of the translations compared”, and a “remarkably good translation”. He also states that “most of the differences are due to the greater accuracy of the NW as a literal, conservative translation”. Despite his positive review, BeDuhn said the introduction of the name “Jehovah” into the New Testament 237 times was “not accurate translation by the most basic principle of accuracy”, and that it “violate[s] accuracy in favor of denominationally preferred expressions for God”.
[90] In his rebuttal, Thomas Howe strongly criticizes BeDuhn’s positive review of the
New World Translation, stating that BeDuhn’s main goal is to deny the deity of Christ.
[91]
Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek ScripturesEdit
Thomas Winter considered the
Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures to be a “highly useful aid toward the mastery of
koine (and classical) Greek,” adding that the translation “is thoroughly up-to-date and consistently accurate.”
[92]
MeekSpaceNG 