Serious Research?

[tigger2]

Hoghead1 wrote in post 148 of “What is a soul?�

FYI: [A] I've done some serious research on the NWT, which is precisely why I say it is bogus. For one thing, the translators are kept secret. this is the only translation of teh Bible I have ever found where nobody wants to reveal who the translators were. [C]More importantly, the text, key points, has been unduly corrupted to suit the biases of teh WatchTower Society. For example, in the prologue to JN. the indefinite article "a" is inserted, so that the text is mistranslated as "and the Word was a God." The rules of Greek grammar rule out the use of teh indefinite article here, which is why it is absent in the solid, standard translations. The reason why the WatchTower Society want the "a" in there is that this will support their anti-Trinitarian bias. [D]Also, in passages that speak of Hell and torment, the NWT reads "annihilation." That was done to bludgeon Scripture to fit their bias about the afterlife. It is one thing to disagree with Scripture. I respect that. it is quite another to corrupt the translation so that it agree with your position. [E]Also, "Jehovah" is a serious mistranslation. And that is Hebrew 101 material. So I feel I have very good reason to write off the NWT as bogus and corrupt.

I intend to discuss the individual parts (A-E) of the above.

I’ll save part A for last.

B. You wrote:

“For one thing, the translators are kept secret. this is the only translation of teh [sic] Bible I have ever found where nobody wants to reveal who the translators were.�

For the first 30 years at least, the publishers of the NASB kept their translators anonymous:

“The Fourfold Aim of The Lockman Foundation
1.These publications shall be true to the original Hebrew and Greek.
2. They shall be grammatically correct.
3. They shall be understandable to the masses.
4. They shall give the Lord Jesus Christ His proper place, the place which the Word gives Him; no work will ever be personalized.� - page v., NASB, Ref. Ed., Lockman Foundation, 1971.

“For many years the names of the NASB translators and editors were withheld by the publisher. But in 1995 this information was finally disclosed.� - http://www.bible-researcher.com/nasb.html

Bible translations of the OT and NT texts should be judged according to their accuracy - not the person(s) who did the translation.

[bjs]

[Replying to tigger2]

Technically, the term “Jehovah� is a mis-transliteration based on the same Jewish custom that causes some translators to use the word “LORD� when translating “YHWH.�

Some Jews considered the name of God to be too holy to say out loud. While reading from the Torah, when they came across the word YHWH they would instead say adoni, which is the Hebrew word for lord. To remind people to do this, when copying the text down they would sometimes place the vowels for adoni around the consonants for YHWH. Later, people transliterated that mixture of YHWH and adoni into English, which is how we get the English word Jehovah.

This is not that big of a deal to me. Neither “Jehovah� nor “LORD� are technically accurate, but people who use either word know the God they are talking about. Those who have studied the language and the history know the accurate transliteration, but that knowledge is of no practical use when it comes to knowing and serving the living God.

So both “Jehovah� and “LORD� are equally inaccurate and equally accurate for the purpose they serve.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to tigger2]

Technically, the term “Jehovah� is a mis-transliteration based on the same Jewish custom that causes some translators to use the word “LORD� when translating “YHWH.�

Straight of the bat you seem to not know the difference between a transliteration and a translation. Are you suggesting that LORD is a transliteration or a translation of YHWH?

[onewithhim]

E. You wrote: “

Also, ‘Jehovah’ is a serious mistranslation. And that is Hebrew 101 material

.�

It is a transliteration of YHWH as established in the English language as far back as 1300 A.D. Many translators and scholars (far above the “Hebrew 101� level) use it today:

“ Jehovah , the special and significant name (not merely an appellative title such as Lord) by which God revealed himself to the ancient Hebrews� - p. 330, Today’s Dictionary of the Bible, Bethany House Publ., 1982.

“Jehovah denotes specifically the one true God, whose people the Jews were, and who made them the guardians of his truth. .... The substitution of the word Lord is most unhappy, for it in no way represents the meaning of the sacred name.� - p. 220, Smith’s Bible Dictionary, Hendrickson Publ.

“5. ‘Jehovah’ - The name most distinctive of God as the God of Israel is Jehovah .... The meaning may with some confidence be inferred ... to be that of the simple future, yahweh, ‘he will be.’ It does not express causation, nor existence in a metaphysical sense, but the covenant promise of the Divine presence, both at the immediate time and in the Messianic age of the future.... It is the personal name of God.... Characteristic of the OT is its insistence on the possible knowledge of God as a person; and Jehovah is His name as a person. It is illogical, certainly, that the later Hebrews should have shrunk from its pronunciation, in view of the appropriateness of the name and of the OT insistence on the personality of God, who as a person has this name. [The ASV] quite correctly adopts the transliteration ‘Jehovah’ to emphasize its significance and purpose as a personal name of God revealed.� - The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, p. 1266, Vol. 2, Eerdmans, 1984.

And even trinitarian translator and scholar Jay P. Green writes in the Preface of his The Interlinear Bible:

“The only personal name of God that belongs to Him alone was rendered Jehovah or, in its shortened form, Jah. We preferred the transliteration JHWH (thus Jehovah) over YHWH (or Yahweh) because this is established English usage for Bible names beginning with this letter (e.g., Jacob and Joseph). - p. v, Baker Book House, 1982.

Nearly all personal names in the Bible are “a serious mistranslation.� More accurately, they are serious mistransliterations (they are not written in English as they were pronounced in Hebrew/Greek.)

For example, the personal name of the person who most of Christendom declares to be God (Jesus) is a terrible mistransliteration! His name was probably pronounced as Yehoshua (or something similar) by the people who knew him. Greek transliterations of his name are Iesous (Yay-soos) which was then transliterated into English as ‘Jesus’ (Gee-zuz). Should we stop using it and rewrite our Bibles with ‘Yehoshua’ in place of ‘Jesus’ (and all the other Biblical names with strange-sounding transliterations that we think may be more accurate)? Until we do that “Jehovah� is the traditional transliteration and an honest use (whereas “LORD� and “GOD� replacing God’s personal name in most Bibles truly are “a serious mistranslation�).

The translators of the highly-praised American Standard Version (ASV) wrote about their translation:

“The change ... which substitutes ‘Jehovah’ for ‘LORD’ and ‘GOD’ (printed in small capitals) - is one which will be unwelcome to many, because of the frequency and familiarity of the terms displaced. But the American Revisers, after a careful consideration, were brought to the unanimous conviction that a Jewish superstition, which regarded the Divine Name as too sacred to be uttered, ought no longer to dominate in the English or any other version of the Old Testament.... This personal name, with its wealth of sacred associations, is now restored to the place in the sacred text to which it has an unquestionable claim.� - Preface, p. iv, American Standard Version, Thomas Nelson and Sons. So “Jehovah� transliterates YHWH into English many thousands of times in the ASV.

Commenting on this restoration of God's personal name in the ASV, The Presbyterian and Reformed Review:

"We cannot understand how there can be any difference of opinion as to the rightness of this step. This is the Lord's personal name, by which He has elected to be known by His people: the loss suffered by transmuting it into His descriptive title seems to us immense. To be sure there are disputes as to the true form of the name, and nobody supposes that 'Jehovah' is that true form. But it has the value of the true form to the English reader; and it would be mere pedantry to substitute for it Yahwe or any other forms now used with more or less inaccuracy by scholastic writers. We account it no small gain for the English reader of the Old Testament that he will for the first time in this popular version meet statedly with 'Jehovah' and learn all that 'Jehovah' has been to and done for His people."


“God said further to Moses, You tell the Israelites: JEHOVAH ... has sent me to you. This is My name forever and by this I am to be remembered through all generations.� - Ex. 3:15, MLB (Cf. NEB, LB, ASV, KJIIV).

“Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, [O Jehovah - ASV] .... That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.� - Ps. 83:16, 18, KJV

Tigger, I was doing research on translations of the Bible yesterday, and learned from George M. Lamsa (in the Introduction to The Holy Bible from the Ancient Eastern Text, George M. Lamsa's Translation from the Aramaic of the Peshitta), that the entire Bible was originally written in Aramaic, and that Jesus and his disciples spoke it, and Jesus was not called "Jesus," nor was he called "Yeshua" or anything approximating that, but he was called ESHOO.

How about that? I wonder if hoghead will take issue with that. Everyone on Earth that speaks English or one of several European languages calls the Son of God "Jesus," yet if you were to call his name in a crowded room, "Oh, Jesus..." he probably wouldn't turn around!!! In Aramaic it is "Eshoo." I was amazed at this.

Anyway, the nonsense of the objection to pronouncing God's name "Jehovah" is so ridiculous it is pathetic. It has never been problematic to call Jesus "Jesus." It shouldn't be a problem to call Jehovah "Jehovah."


Keep up the good work. Your studying and your results are excellent. I enjoy tour posts very much.

[bjs]

[Replying to tigger2]

Technically, the term “Jehovah� is a mis-transliteration based on the same Jewish custom that causes some translators to use the word “LORD� when translating “YHWH.�

Straight of the bat you seem to not know the difference between a transliteration and a translation. Are you suggesting that LORD is a transliteration or a translation of YHWH?

Well, in the post you quoted from I did write, "Neither “Jehovah� nor “LORD� are technically accurate..." which strongly suggests that I do not think of either of these terms as a transliteration or a translation of YHWH.

Both come from the Jewish tradition of saying adoni (lord) instead of YHWH.

[onewithhim]

A. You wrote:

I've done some serious research on the NWT, which is precisely why I say it is bogus. …. So I feel I have very good reason to write off the NWT as bogus and corrupt.

Your comments in the OP above show that you may have gone to an anti-JW site and read some of their distortions. But you obviously have not done any serious research on the NWT itself. Your misunderstanding of the reasons for the NWT translation of John 1:1c speaks for itself. I don’t claim that the NWT perfect. But as for an honest translation, it is among the best.

Yes, it is. For anyone who is interested in solid points on translations, Jason BeDuhn's book, Truth in Translation is well worth the money. I found it to be excellent. He is not affiliated with any particular religion, and is an associate professor of religious studies at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. He thinks the NWT is THE best, with the New American Bible coming in second.

Also, that anyone gets their undies in a twist over "the Word was a god" is sad, because that is the correct rendering of John 1:1. The following link will take a serious Bible student to an article about John 1:1 and the Coptic Versions---"Translating 'the Word was a god,' 1700 Years Ago"! So it's not just the New World Translation.

http://nwtandcoptic.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... s-ago.html


The Emphatic Diaglott (Benjamin Wilson, 1864) also has rendered John 1:1 with "and a god was the word."

[/u]

[2timothy316]

It shouldn't be a problem to call Jehovah "Jehovah."

If it was a problem, then I think the creator of Heaven and Earth could correct the pronunciation of a name.

[JehovahsWitness]

Well, in the post you quoted from I did write, "Neither “Jehovah� nor “LORD� are technically accurate..." which strongly suggests that I do not think of either of these terms as a transliteration or a translation of YHWH.

Fair enough.

Those who have studied the language and the history know the accurate transliteration.

No they don't. That's the point, the exact pronounciation of the The Divine name has been lost, ie nobody today knows for sure.

Technically, the term “Jehovah� is a mis-transliteration .

Technically no it is not. To know whether something is wrong (or been "mis" wrongly transliterated) we would have to know what is right. Since we cannot know for sure we cannot say whether the vowels used were right or wrong. I feel confident you won't however want to argue about this since "This is not that big of a deal to [you]"

So both “Jehovah� and “LORD� are equally inaccurate and equally accurate for the purpose they serve.

That is far from true. While one is a reasonable transliteration of the tetragrammaton the latter is a substitution of the Divine name with a completely different word, which happens to be a generic title. This is like saying referring to Pierre as "Peter" is equally as "inaccurate" or "accurate" as calling him MAN. This may be fine for the purpose they serve to you (I do not know if you are an atheist or a believer) but it certainly is not to God's people who view it as an honor and a privilege to represent "his name" (Act 15:14).


JW

[bjs]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness]

You are correct that this issue is not a big deal to me in that the name of God is found in His character, not in spelling. If this is just a discussion for the sake of accuracy then we can be reasonably certain that the vowels associated with “Jehovah� were chose because they are the vowels of the word adoni and that they were not the vowels originally spoken for the tetragrammaton.

If we are going to compare the words “Jehovah� and “Lord� to the name “Peirre then a more accurate analogy would be this:

If the original sentence is “This is Peirre� then one has us writing, “This is Paorru� and the other has us writing, “This is my FRIEND.� Neither is technically correct. One maintains the original consonants while knowingly using the incorrect vowels. The other substitutes a description of Peirre instead of mixing accuracy with inaccuracy.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages. If you prefer “Jehovah� to “Lord� then more power to you. It might be good to keep tucked in the back of your mind the knowledge that neither is technically accurate, but that knowledge does not change the nature of the living God in any way.

[bjs]

On the general topic, I will point out that the NWT does repeatedly add the term “Jehovah� where it is not found in the text. For instance, the NWT translates Romans 14:8 as, “For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah.�

In all three cases where the term “Jehovah� appears in that verse, every single Greek manuscript of the verse uses the word kurio (or kurion in the last use of the term). Kurio (like kurion) is a form of the Greek word for “lord.�

These are not examples of translators substituting the term “LORD� in place of YHWH. These are examples of the translators for NWT substituting the term “Jehovah� in place of the kurio (lord).

This is a problematic change to the text since, in context, Paul was almost certainly using the term “lord� to refer to Jesus. As I understand it (I am not an expert of JW theology), JW’s do not consider Jesus to be Jehovah. So changing “lord� to “Jehovah� does makes a significant change to the meaning of the text.

[onewithhim]

On the general topic, I will point out that the NWT does repeatedly add the term “Jehovah� where it is not found in the text. For instance, the NWT translates Romans 14:8 as, “For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah.�

In all three cases where the term “Jehovah� appears in that verse, every single Greek manuscript of the verse uses the word kurio (or kurion in the last use of the term). Kurio (like kurion) is a form of the Greek word for “lord.�

These are not examples of translators substituting the term “LORD� in place of YHWH. These are examples of the translators for NWT substituting the term “Jehovah� in place of the kurio (lord).

This is a problematic change to the text since, in context, Paul was almost certainly using the term “lord� to refer to Jesus. As I understand it (I am not an expert of JW theology), JW’s do not consider Jesus to be Jehovah. So changing “lord� to “Jehovah� does makes a significant change to the meaning of the text.

Yes, we know that. The NWT felt that in the cases where the N.T. verse is quoting from the O.T., and "Jehovah" appears in the O.T. verse, then it would be more accurate to include God's name in the N.T. verse. Now the one you quote from Romans is not quoting the O.T., as far as I know, and I understand the objection to placing Jehovah's name there, since it doesn't appear in the Greek text (nor in the Peshitta). In this case, in Romans, I don't think it matters much who is being referred to there in that verse, but to be fair I also feel that it could have been left alone by the NWT committee.

Professor Jason BeDuhn in his book Truth in Translation writes that he thinks the NWT is the best translation, but he objects to the placements of Jehovah's name into the N.T. where it doesn't appear in the Greek MSS. I respect that view. He realizes that God's name appears in the Aramaic text of the O.T. and often is being quoted, but he still feels that it shouldn't be put into the quote in the N.T. because it isn't in the Greek text. Fair enough. But I really don't think that the NWT should be skewered for doing so. There was no malice or deception intended.