How and why is the Jehovah's Witness' translation of the Bible different than some more common translations?

[Jack Ryan]

...

[Evacuated]

What? More common than the New World Translation?   

How do you define common?

[Melinda Mills]

It restores the Divine Name in the places where God and Lord were substituted and it is very understandable as it is in the everyday language, just like the Septuagint was the language of the Greek common people in Jesus' day.

[Claudia Sanchez]

I heard that you guys add words that aren't in the manuscripts making it your "interpretation" .... and in your latest version you also conveniently added the word "Governing Body" to it that was not there in your previous versions.... supposedly to make everyone think your current corporate structure is somehow scripturally based. 

Do you know what the scriptures say will happen to someone that even "adds a word"? 

[Evacuated]

7 hours ago, Claudia Sanchez said:

I heard........you also conveniently added the word "Governing Body"

That's interesting. Where did you hear that? Do you have the reference?

7 hours ago, Claudia Sanchez said:

Do you know what the scriptures say will happen to someone that even "adds a word"? 

Yes indeed. Revelation 22:18-19.

I wonder if the Catholic Church has noted that text as well?

[TrueTomHarley]

8 hours ago, Claudia Sanchez said:

I heard that you guys add words that aren't in the manuscripts making it your "interpretation"

You heard wrong.

8 hours ago, Claudia Sanchez said:

and in your latest version you also conveniently added the word "Governing Body" to it that was not there in your previous versions

You heard wrong.

[Alzasior Lutor]

 English old 500 years  is very different from now. Imagine old Greek of 2 000 years ago...  And old Hebrew 5 000 old,,,, "word to word" .... Incomprehensible....

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

How and why is the Jehovah's Witness' translation of the Bible different than some more common translations?

The ENGLISH translation was theoretically accurately translated into the New Word Translation of the Bible. 

This worked well pre-2013 with the old NWT and produced a Bible that was highly respected even by critics ... well, some critics who were demonstratively objective in their analysis, such as Jason BeDunn.

THEN, they got the idea to paraphrase the Bible, and fit it to the previous policy statements of the 2010 Top Secret Elder's Handbook which made it a punishable offense to have "brazen conduct".

A catch-all that could mean anything.

With this "Silver Sword" post 2013 paraphrased Bible Translation Centers were established all over the world .... where whatever folks were available could take this simplified, paraphrased English version ... and translate it into local Languages by whoever was available that would work for free, and spoke both English and any of several hundred other languages.

The selection of translators criteria and qualifications to do this kind of work is a closely guarded "military secret". The quality control is totally unknown by ANYBODY.

Many translation centers all over the world were closed down. and the staff dispersed.

Some went home... others just disappeared mysteriously.

The pre-2013 (1962 to 2013) New World Translation is in my considered and educated opinion the finest Bible Translation ever produced by the mind of man ... into English.

I wish I had stocked up on them before they were discontinued.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Remember ... Bible Translation is NOT a science ... it is an ART ... and some are good artists, and some are bad artists, and I have seen an Elephant trained to paint a picture.

https://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/elephantpainting.asp

 

[TrueTomHarley]

10 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

where whatever folks were available could take this simplified, paraphrased English version ... and translate it into local Languages by whoever was available that would work for free, and spoke both English and any of several hundred other languages 

Well, now that you put it that way, the work stinks. 

But you shouldn't put it that way. It is a ridiculous description. 'Brazen' is nebulous whereas 'loose' is crystal clear? You're just beating a familiar dead horse, possibly one that has thrown you.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Two wrongs don't make a right ... but three lefts, do.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

On 2/24/2018 at 9:16 AM, TrueTomHarley said:

But you shouldn't put it that way. It is a ridiculous description. 'Brazen' is nebulous whereas 'loose' is crystal clear? You're just beating a familiar dead horse, possibly one that has thrown you.

The point is, TTH, that the word BRAZEN first showed up in the 2010 supposedly super-secret Elders Handbook in 2010, as a way to make anything at all punishable , if it was "Brazen" (What the hell does that even mean, anyway?)

It is not in the Emphatic Diaglott, or the Kingdom Interlinear Translation.  It was not in any English Bible Translation, anywhere in the world.

for 50 years It was not even in the 1962-2012 New World Translation ... and that was a GOOD thing.

It was CHANGED in the 2013 "Silver Sword" Bible translation to agree with WTB&TS POLICY, codified in 2010 ... made up from THIN AIR.

...which was specifically designed to be able to cut people off at the knees for ambiguous, foggery and mopery, with mirrors.

For those in Rio Linda.... that means anything they decide it means ....  that they don't like.