You can read part 1 at: http://www.marketfaith.org/2020/10/more-light-on-the-new-world-translation-the-jehovahs-witnesses-bible-part-1-tal-davis
Time was, about the only English Bible you could find was the King James Version of 1611. As you probably know, there are now dozens of modern English Bible translations available for sale in bookstores and online. Some of the more popular newer versions are: the New King James Version (NKJV); the New American Standard Bible (NASB); the Revised Standard Version (RSV); the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV); the New International Version (NIV); the Christian Standard Bible (CSB); the New American Bible (NAB – a modern Roman Catholic edition); and many others. Those versions can all be accessed free online on the BibleGateWay website at www.biblegateway.com. The NAB is at www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-American-Bible-Revised-Edition-NABRE-Bible. All of those are competent and faithful translations of the original language texts. Their footnotes and commentaries, nonetheless, may favor certain denominational theological perspectives.
One version that you will not find on the BibleGateWay website, or in your favorite Christian bookstore (what’s left of them), is the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT). That translation is only available at the online bookstore and website at www.JW.org . The reason is, as we discussed in installment one of this two-part series, the NWT is the official translation of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WBTS), that is, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is regarded by nearly all Bible scholars as the most biased and distorted translation ever done.
In part one we looked at several key passages where the NWT translators clearly and consciously mistranslated the texts to support WBTS theology – which denies the full Deity of Jesus Christ. In this installment we will continue to examine other verses and passages where they have made their false textual emendations. We will also look at what may be the most egregious distortion ever made in any New Testament version of the Bible.
COLOSSIANS 1:15-20 – Another of the key passages in the New Testament regarding the full deity of Jesus is Colossians 1:15-20. We will analyze this passage and show how the NWT blatantly mistranslates several clauses in it.
First, let’s look at how it is accurately be rendered. “15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. 19 For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” (NASB)
In its 1984 NWT the WBTS had it like this: “15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 because by means of him all (other) things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, no matter whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All (other) things have been created through him and for him. 17 Also, he is before all (other) things and by means of him all (other) things were made to exist, 18 and he is the head of the body, the congregation. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that he might become the one who is first in all things; 19 because (God) saw good for all fullness to dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile again to himself all (other) things by making peace through the blood (he shed) on the torture stake, no matter whether they are the things upon the earth or the things in the heavens.”
The 2013 online edition renders it like this: 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All other things have been created through him and for him. 17 Also, he is before all other things, and by means of him all other things were made to exist, 18 and he is the head of the body, the congregation. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might become the one who is first in all things; 19 because God was pleased to have all fullness to dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all other things by making peace through the blood he shed on the torture stake, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens.
Did you detect the changes the new NWT translators made in the later edition? One phrase they did not change is in verse 15. The WBTS always interprets the word “firstborn” (prototokos) in verse 15 to mean “first-created.” As we stated, Jehovah’s Witnesses’ theology asserts that Jesus was Jehovah’s first created being and is not eternal God. However, in this context that term refers to privilege and superiority, not to priority in time. The phrase means that Jesus, as God, is superior to all creation. The verses that follow (vss. 16-19) make this interpretation the only one possible and the WBTS’ impossible.
Now look again carefully at the 1984 NWT rendering of the passage above. Notice how the WBTS inserted in verses 16-20 the word “(other)” five times in several verses (vss. 15, 16, 17, and 20). As we indicated earlier, when a word is in parentheses in the text, it does not appear in the Greek text. So “(other)” is an unwarranted addition to the text. So why did they do that? Obviously so the passage will conform to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ theological position about the preexistent Jesus. The WBTS contends that Jesus was not the creator of “all things” (panta or pantas), i.e.: literally everything that exists in the whole universe! According to WBTS theology, Jesus only assisted Jehovah to make all “other” things. The WBTS’ own Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, however, proves the words were added without explanation in the NWT. (https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/int/51/1#study=discover )
Curiously, the newer NWT 2013 revision leaves the unwarranted words “other” in those five places in the text. However, note that they inconspicuously removed the parentheses! In other words, the revision editors (whoever they were) decided that leaving the parentheses on the words “other” brought undue attention to the fact they are not in the Greek text and so should not be there (which would present a really big problem for their theology). So, rather than remove the words, they just took out the parentheses.
Anyway, the clear teaching of the passage, when translated as it is in Greek, is that everything that exists was created by and for Jesus, was reconciled by Jesus, and is sustained by Jesus Christ, who is the fullness of God (vs. 19 and the next verse analyzed below).
COLOSSIANS 2:9 – On the heals of Colossians 1:15-20, this verse is, of course, a most profound statement concerning the full Deity of Jesus Christ. The NWT (2013) renders it: “because it is in him that all the fullness of the divine quality dwells bodily.” The word they translate as “divine quality” is theotetos. It is found only here in the New Testament. It is a genitive noun, not an adjective, that literally means “of Deity” or “of the Godhead.” The NASB correctly has it, “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.” The NIV renders it: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” The New King James Version has it: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”
Again, the NWT uses their biased translation to diminish the full implication of Christ’s Deity and make Him appear as merely a godlike being, but not God Himself.
TITUS 2:13 – Another key verse the NWT translators badly mangled is Titus 2:13. The NASB renders it: “Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.” The Christian Standard Bible (CSB) has it: “while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” The verse, as properly translated, calls Christ Jesus “our great God and Savior.”
The 1984 NWT rendered it: “While we wait for the happy hope and glorious manifestation of the great God and of [the] Savior of us, Christ Jesus.” The WBTS actually added two words to the text not found in the Greek: “of (the).” They did put “(the)” in parentheses because it is not in the in the Greek text. But, then, neither is the word “of.” They also eliminated the word “our” from before “great God” and put “of us” at the end of the sentence. Their purpose evidently was to distinguish “the great God” from “[the] Savior of us” since in WBTS theology Jesus cannot be God.
The 2013 NWT has it rendered a bit better: “while we wait for the happy hope and glorious manifestation of the great God and of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” Notice that they removed entirely “[the]” in the last clause and removed “of us” near the end of the sentence. They then added the word “of” before “our Savior,” even though “of” is not in the Greek text at that place. They also moved the word “our,” not before “great God and Savior,” as in the NASB and all other standard translations, but before “Savior, Jesus Christ.” The effect of this change is significant theologically. By relocating the words “of our” before “Savior, Jesus Christ” from where it belongs, before “great God,” the WBTS is still clearly trying to distinguish “the great God” from “our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
REVELATION 3:14b – Another key verse mistranslated in the NWT is Revelation 3:14b. This is part of a letter dictated by the Apostle John from the risen Jesus. It is addressed to the church in Laodicea, one of the seven congregations in Asia Minor the glorified Jesus wrote to in Revelation 1-3. The NASB translates that phrase like this: “The Amen (i.e.: the risen Jesus), the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God.” Both the 1984 and 2013 NWT editions render the phrase as, “the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God.” The WBTS maintains that the verse’s reference to Jesus as “the beginning of the creation” is proof that Jesus (Michael) was the first created being by Jehovah in the preexistent era.
That understanding, however, misses the theological principle Jesus Himself was trying to get across to his hearers. The word rendered “beginning” in the NWT (and traditionally in many other standard English translations: egs: KJV; NKJV; NASB; RSV; NSRV) is the Greek word arche. That term can also be translated accurately as: “source” (New English Bible); “ruler” (New International Version); originator (CSB); or “origin” (Good News Bible). Jesus’ point is that He identifies Himself as creation’s “beginning” – not as the first created thing in time, but as the very source or origin of all being (i.e. God Himself). It is actually an allusion to Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1.
Another error in the WBTS’ translation of this verse concerns their translation of the last clause tou Theou as “by God.” That Greek genitive grammatical usage requires it to be “of God,” meaning being a possessor or source. “By God” would require the noun to be grammatically instrumental, meaning He was only a tool of God. Every other standard English translation renders that phrase “of God.” This further suggests that Christ is the prime source or origin of God’s creation, not that He Himself was created “by God.”
Now we come to what may be the most audacious corruption of the New Testament ever foisted on people serious about studying the Bible.
LORD OR JEHOVAH? What is that awful fallacy we speak of? Just that, incredibly and inexplicably, both the 1984 and 2013 editions of the NWT translate the common Greek words for Lord (kurios) and God (Theos) as “Jehovah” 237 times in their NWT “Christian Greek Scriptures” New Testament. This totally unwarranted use of the Old Testament name of God (badly transliterated by the WBTS as “Jehovah”) is made, however, only when kurios is used in the context of a reference to God in a generic sense, or when used in a passage that quotes from the Old Testament. Never in the NWT is kurios translated as “Jehovah” in the nearly 400 other times in the New Testament when it is applied as a title to Jesus Christ. In those cases it is always rendered correctly as “Lord” or “Master.”
There is simply no justifiable textual or linguistic bases for rendering kurios as “Jehovah” or for making that distinction. The Greek word kurios should always be accurately translated, according to context, as either “Lord” or “Master.” The Greek word Theos is always translated as “God.” Neither Greek word can ever be translated legitimately as “Jehovah.”
The New Testament writers, following Jewish tradition and the 3rd Century BC Greek Septuagint’s translation of the Old Testament, understood the term kurios (Lord), in most cases, to be a reference to deity in the fullest sense. Thus, when New Testament writers called Jesus kurios (Lord or Master), they were directly identifying Him with the God of the Old Testament (Yahweh). (Note: the Hebrew divine name should accurately be transliterated as Yahweh, not “Jehovah.”)
It is obvious that the NWT’s illegitimate use of “Jehovah” to translate kurios (Lord) or Theos (God) 237 times in generic reference to God, but never as a title of Jesus, is to reinforce the distinction between God and Jesus in the minds of uninformed Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is amazing that the NWT translators have managed to get away with this fraudulent corruption of Scripture among their own people for so long. One has to wonder, how many Jehovah’s Witnesses, after doing even a modicum of objective textual study, have noticed this problem in the NWT. What is sad is that most members of the WBTS are completely deceived by the WBTS about this textual deviance.
As Dr. Rudolph Gonzalez remarks, Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught that the name of God (Yahweh) was actually in the original texts of those 237 New Testament passages. They are led to believe that sometime in the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD, copyists changed them to “kurios” (Lord). New Testament textual scholars all agree that such an assertion is without historical or textual basis. Dr. Gonzalez points out that the copyists who made multiple hand-written copies of Scripture and other texts were professionals who were extremely precise in their work. He also indicates that recent critical research shows that the original New Testament manuscripts were probably still in existence as late as the 4th century AD. So, if changes were made earlier, they would have been disavowed by the church fathers. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd398oz_HLE )
Conclusion
In this two part article, we have again provided ample evidence that the translators of the 1952, 1984, and 2013 editions of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) were biased and purposely altered key texts to fit their cultic theology. We strongly warn all Christians, and any courageous Jehovah’s Witnesses who read this information, to reject the NWT as a legitimate translation of God’s Word. We urge you to use a standard modern translation that is widely recognized as faithful to the original languages (see list above). This is a critical issue because your eternal destiny depends a upon it. You want a Bible that clearly declares who Jesus is (the Eternal God the Son – Second Person of the Trinity) and how to find salvation through Him only.
© 2020 Tal Davis