Is the New World Translation Accurate?

I have previously blogged about "Is the NWT Accurate?" here. But this question was also asked at JW.ORG on it's opening page which reads, "Have the Jehovah's Witnesses Changed their Bible to Fit their Beliefs." Look at the right-hand column, "Related Articles," and you will find article #2, "Is the NWT Accurate" here. I read over the WT article and this is my point by point response. It would be helpful if you have opened the WT article and compare what the WT wrote with my response.

Reliability. WT claim--we use older, more reliable manuscripts than the KJV of 1611. However, if those older, more reliable manuscripts do not support WT beliefs, those manuscripts are ignored. In the WT world, WT doctrine ALWAYS trumps Bible truth. EXAMPLE: The oldest, most reliable manuscripts concerning John 14:14 tell us that you CAN PRAY to Jesus. Yet WT doctrine tells us that you cannot pray to Jesus because Jesus is NOT GOD, he is a creation of God. Therefore, the NWT has ignored the oldest, most reliable manuscripts discovered in the 1950's in favor of the manuscripts used by the KJV of 1611. I have blogged about this here.

Faithfulness. The WT has gone to great lengths to “prove” that God’s personal name is “Jehovah.” The incontrovertible evidence is  that  God’s  name  COULD  NOT BE   JEHOVAH.  I   have   blogged   about   this   topic   here.  Yet  the  WT  clings   to “Jehovah,” another  example   of   doctrine  over older  more reliable manuscripts. Go here for recent manuscript discoveries concerning God's name.

Literalness. Good  Bibles  will tell you up front if they are literal, word for  word  translations or  thought  for  thought  or  paraphrased.  Each  has  its  own particular uses. The NWT which   allows   its   doctrine   to   trump   manuscript   evidence  IS  a paraphrase, exactly what they condemn.

Differences between the New World Translation and other translations

Missing books. The WT rightly points out that some churches include books known as “the Apocrypha” in their Bibles. The Apocrypha were not accepted into the Jewish canon (Old Testament) and should be excluded from any reliable Bible.

Missing verses. I agree with the WT. Some translations add verses and phrases that are not in the oldest, most reliable, available Bible manuscripts. However, a good translation, such as the New American Standard (NASB), will indicate which verses are questionable.

Different wording. The WT is engaged in over-reactive, histrionic behavior (making a mountain out of a mole hill.) Occasionally, word-for-word translations are unclear or misleading but a good translation, such as the NASB, will give you alternative renderings in the footnotes. 

Positive comments about the New World Translation from non-Witness scholars

Here  the  WT  engages  in  its  most  deceptive  practices  (giving  an  appearance  or impression  different  from  the  true  one;  i.e.  misleading).  I have blogged about this here. As  you read my take, have the JW.ORG section  on  this  topic open so you can clearly see what the WT is attempting to do—bamboozle you.

Edgar Goodspeed. This is reported to be a quote in a personal letter from Goodspeed to the WTBTS that appeared in the Awake! of March 22, 1987, page 14. However, the letter does not bear a written signature and appears to be a copy of the original, if such ever existed (to date, the Society has not produced a signed original). Also, though the letter was dated 1950, it was not used by the Society as an endorsement of the NWT until 1982. Goodspeed died in 1962 so when the WT started using this quote from a personal letter, Goodspeed was not alive to refute their claim.

Dr. Allen Wikgren does not go on to define which “independent readings” of the NWT he finds to be “of merit.” We do not know what Dr. Wikgren thought about the NWT’s more controversial renderings, such as John 1:1 or Colossians 1:16.

Alexanader Thomson, it should be noted had no formal training in Greek or Hebrew. His articles on the NWT in The Differentiator, cannot be found and The Differentiator was not considered a scholarly publication.

Charles Francis Potter was an Unitarian minister. He founded the First Humanist Society of New York and the Euthanasia Society of America. He also was Advisor to Clarence Darrow in his defense of John Scopes, a teacher charged with teaching evolution.

Robert M. McCoy was so well know that I was unable to find any information on him using Google search.

S. MacLean Gilmour was selectively quoted by the WT. He also said, “The New Testament translation was made by a committee whose membership has never been revealed. It is clear that doctrinal considerations influenced many turns of phrase. . ."

Thomas N. Winter’s positive comments are almost all directed towards the literal translation in the KIT – very little is said of the NWT. The literal translation in the KIT is generally very good and often may be used to demonstrate problems with the NWT. My series of blogs entitled Presto Change-O! (Part 1 is here) shows where the WT has deviated from the KIT.

Benjamin Kedar received his PhD from Yale in 1969, but not in Hebrew. It will be noted that he limits his comments to the Hebrew Bible. Few scholars have complained about the Watch Tower inserting its dogma into the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jason David BeDuhn received his Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. This degree requires an intermediate level of competence in Greek. BeDuhn’s PhD from the U. of Indiana is in Comparative Religious Studies, not in Biblical languages. He is not recognized in the scholarly community as an expert in Biblical Greek.

I have added the following.

What do TRUE BIBLE SCHOLARS think of the NWT?

Dr. Bruce M. Metzger, professor of  New  Testament at Princeton University, calls  the NWT "a frightful mistranslation," "Erroneous" and "pernicious" "reprehensible," "If the Jehovah's Witnesses take this translation seriously, they are polytheists."

Dr. William Barclay, a leading Greek scholar, said, "it is abundantly clear that a sect which can translate the New Testament like that is intellectually dishonest."

British scholar H.H. Rowley stated, "From beginning to end this volume is a shining example of how the Bible should not be translated."

Dr. Julius Mantey, author of “A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament,” calls the NWT "a shocking transliteration." "Obsolete and incorrect." "It is neither scholarly nor reasonable to translate John 1:1 'The Word was a god.'"

"I have never read any New Testament so badly translated as The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of The Greek Scriptures.... it is a distortion of the New Testament. The translators used what J.B. Rotherham had translated in 1893, in modern speech, and changed the readings in scores of passages to state what Jehovah's Witnesses believe and teach. That is a distortion not a translation." (Julius Mantey, Depth Exploration in The New Testament (N.Y.: Vantage Pres, 1980), pp.136-137)

The translators of the NWT are "diabolical deceivers." (Julius Mantey in discussion with Walter Martin).

On the opening page of JW.ORG, is the article, "Have Jehovah's Witnesses Changed Their Bible to Conform to their Beliefs." On the right side is "Related Articles" and the third related article is "Has the Bible Been Changed or Tampered With? I have no problem with this article and therefore, did not write a response.