Do Jehovah's' Witnesses Have their Own Bible?

If you went to JW.ORG on today's date (12-28-2020), the opening article is: "Have Jehovah's Witnesses Changed the Bible to Fit their Beliefs." I have blogged about this topic, Part 1 of 4 is here. On the Right Side of "Have Jehovah's Witnesses Changed . . . " there are three "Related Articles." This blog is about the first article, "Do Jehovah's' Witnesses Have their Own Bible?" I have already blogged about the second article: "Is the New Word Translation Accurate?" which can be found here. The third article, "Has the Bible Been Changed or Tampered With," is accurate and I will not be blogging about it.

I do not believe in Reinventing the Wheel and Got Questions, here has a great answer which I edited for brevity and added to for clarity and posted below.

The New World Translation (NWT) is defined by the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ parent organization (the Watchtower Society) as "a translation of the Holy Scriptures made directly from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek into modern-day English by a committee of anointed witnesses of Jehovah." The NWT is the anonymous work of the “New World Bible Translation Committee.” Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that the anonymity is in place so that the credit for the work will go to God. Of course, this keeps the translators from any accountability for their errors and prevents real scholars from checking their academic credentials.

The New World Translation is unique in one thing – it is the first intentional, systematic effort at producing a complete version of the Bible that is edited and revised for the specific purpose of agreeing with a group’s doctrine. 

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society realized that their beliefs contradicted Scripture. So, rather than conforming their beliefs to Scripture, they altered Scripture to agree with their beliefs. The “New World Bible Translation Committee” went through the Bible and changed any Scripture that did not agree with Jehovah’s Witness theology. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that, as new editions of the NWT were published, additional changes were made to the biblical text. As biblical Christians continued to point out Scriptures that clearly argue for the deity of Christ (for example), the Watchtower Society would publish new editions of the NWT with those Scriptures changed. Here are some of the more prominent examples of intentional revisions.

NWT renders the Greek term word staurós ("cross") as "torture stake" because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe that Jesus was crucified on a cross. NWT does not translate the words sheol, hades, gehenna, and tartarus as "hell” because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in hell. The NWT gives the translation "presence" instead of “coming” for the Greek word parousia because Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Christ has already returned in the early 1900s. In Colossians 1:16, the NWT inserts the word “other” despite its being completely absent from the original Greek text. It does this to give the view that “all other things” were created by Christ, instead of what the text says, “all things were created by Christ.” This is to go along with their belief that Christ is a created being, which they believe because they deny the Trinity. I have blogged about Colossians 1:16 here."

The most well-known of all the NWT perversions is John 1:1 and I have blogged about this verse here. The original Greek text reads, “the Word was God.” The NWT renders it as “the Word was a god.” This is not a matter of correct translation, but of reading one’s preconceived theology into the text, rather than allowing the text to speak for itself. (See my related blog, "Reverse Engineering and the WT Bible" here.) There is no indefinite article in Greek (in English, "a" or "an"), so any use of an indefinite article in English must be added by the translator. This is grammatically acceptable, so long as it does not change the meaning of the text. 

In the 1st Chapter of John's Gospel, God, without "the" occurs nine times. Seven times it is translated "God" (the one true God) and twice, when referring to Jesus, it is translated "god" (meaning not the one true God.) Below are the instances in verses 1-13.

John 1:1 = Word was with the God (ho θεού)—"the God" (the one true God.)

John 1:1 = Word was a god (θεός)—No "the" thus rendered “a god.”

John 1:6 = beside God (θεού)—No "the" but rendered God (the one true God.)

John 1:12 = children of God (θεού)—No "the" but rendered God (the one true God.)

John 1:13 = from God (θεού)—No "the" but rendered God (the one true God.)

Why is this done? The Watchtower, has no hard textual grounds for their translation—only their own theological bias. The fact is that the NWT does not translate the same Greek phrases elsewhere in the Gospel of John in the same way. It is only the pre-conceived heretical rejection of the deity of Christ that forces the Watchtower Society to inconsistently translate the Greek text, thus allowing their error to gain some semblance of legitimacy in the minds of those ignorant of the facts.

It is only the Watchtower’s pre-conceived heretical beliefs that are behind the dishonest and inconsistent translation that is NWT. NWT is most definitely not a valid version of God’s Word. There are minor differences among all the major English translations of the Bible. No English translation is perfect. However, while other Bible translators make minor mistakes in the rendering of the Hebrew and Greek text into English, the NWT intentionally changes the rendering of the text to conform to Jehovah’s Witness theology. 

    The New World Translation is a perversion, not a version, of the Bible.