Without inspiration from God, why do Jehovah Witnesses believe the New World Translation Bible is true?

Question

Since several JW prophecies have failed, Jehovah Witnesses now claim they do NOT receive direct inspiration from God similar to a PROPHET. Instead, they state they are learning, and will correct errors in their organization when made aware of them.

With this in mind, how can the witnesses be sure their New World Translation Bible is accurate, when they eventually revealed(though previously they had chosen to keep it secret), that only ONE of the five men who wrote their Bible translation had any experience with Greek and Hebrew translation?

This ONE gentleman was Fred Franz who ONLY had 2 years of Greek in college. These are the names of all the men credited with translation the NWT Bible:

Nathan Knorr
Albert Schroeder
George Gangas
Fred Franz
M. Henschel

Without direct prophetic instruction from God, imperfect men with limited experience, are bound to make errors when translating. Also, why did the witnesses choose to keep the names of these men secret?

The witnesses claimed they originally chose to keep the names of the men who wrote the NWT Bible secret so that full credit would be given to God. However, God and the bible clearly revealed names of the men who were originally inspired to write scriptures. So I don't understand the reasoning behind the secrecy.

The difference between the Apostles of Christ who wrote scripture without previous education, and the five men who wrote the Jehovah Witnesses NWT Bible, is that they received direction directly from the Lord. Franz and the other four gentlemen responsible for the NWT have not as explained from the Watchtower & Tract Society. Otherwise there would be no need to correct errors over the years as witnesses have done.

Answer 1

I think you've hit the nail on the head. There are more hard questions about JW doctrine and Watchtower history at the first link below.

Answer 2

Good Q. to start with, we don't have any modern day "prophets" in a MAN but the Bible AND your Bible will say pretty much the same thing. the word "lord" in YOUR Bible will usualyy be spelled in all caps :LORD. this is where Jehovah's name was removeed. Satan has all sorts of ways to TRY to injure God's name and sometimes succeeds but mostly not. When we study with people, we encourage you to use your OWN Bible to see that we didn't just make 1 up. But afterwards, I Gurantee you you'll WANT to use NWT. It doesn't speak in Old English, giving you a headache. It's modern language but means the same thing. I'm not sure about who translated the Greek/Hebrew but I know it was MANY men who DID have high education in languages. And as you said, we're ALL imperfect and are bound to mess up sometimes. We have been wrong about things before in the past...but we admitted they were misread or misinterpreations. However, as the BIBLE supports, during the time RIGHT before Armageddon, God's true people would stand out & will have prophecies made known to them by God's Holy Spirit. Does anybody stand out more than the Witnesses? No. We do NOT meddle w/ politics, war, immorality, etc. And regarding prophecies, there aren't too many more to be fulfilled. Basicaly just Armageddon. Sometime VERY soon. History has proved that we have interpreted God's Word right by Many things that have occured. We have entire BOOKS on the Bible's prophecy: Daniel's Prophecy, Isaiah's, a new 1 that has all the minor prophets' books, and sooo many more. Please look at the website or visit our meetings. we never ask for money or try to intimidate you. "you recieved free, give free" :Christ Jesus' words

Answer 3

Since the publishing of the NWT, there have been witnesses schooled in Greek and non-witness bible scholars (that know the original languages) that have confirmed the NWT's accuracy.

In my case, I left the religion for some time and did my own secular research on many subjects (WITHOUT the aid of the Watchtower or any Watchtower publications. My research directed me right back to the Kingdom Hall. There are others that have had the same experience.

We are not a people that sits back in church and just believes what we are told from the pulpit. We are all bible students to the best of our personal abilities (some of us are more academic than others).

Answer 4

The original bible writers were inspired by God, and Christians understand those original writings to be infallible. Sadly, however, none of the original manuscripts has ever been discovered.

While many of the humans who worked over the centuries to preserve and translate the bible must have been blessed with holy spirit, that holy spirit could only lead them to what was available; holy spirit does not directly communicate messages from heaven. Thus, no bible currently available can be assumed to be entirely perfect, and no one translation can claim to be particularly inspired above others.

Jehovah's Witnesses have never claimed that any of their publications were infallible or inspired, including "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures", which is distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses. There are more than 130 million copies of this modern-language bible in print, in dozens of languages.
http://watchtower.org/languages.htm

The entire text of NWT is freely available at the official website of Jehovah's Witnesses, and a personal printed copy can be requested at no charge:
http://watchtower.org/bible/
https://watch002.securesites.net/contact/submit.htm
http://watchtower.org/how_to_contact_us.htm


Jehovah's Witnesses certainly like NWT, but they are happy to use any translation which an interested person may prefer, and in fact Jehovah's Witnesses themselves distribute other translations besides NWT. Jehovah's Witnesses attach no particular infallibility or inspiration to NWT, and note that the New World Translation Committee has always been anonymous.

Since the same manuscripts used by the NWT translators are still widely available for study, and since there are dozens of alternate translations for comparison, anyone who chooses to use NWT does so informedly.

It seems that the vast majority of the criticism against the New World Translation is actually as a proxy for blind hatred against Jehovah's Witnesses. The hatred must be "blind" since secular experts of biblical Hebrew and Greek have consistently refused to condemn any particular verse or phrase as an unacceptable translation. Instead, it is religionists with preconceived theologies who bigotedly insist upon particular wordings, since these are necessary to prop up the shakey tenets of their false worship.

(2 Timothy 4:3-5) For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the healthful teaching, but, in accord with their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves to have their ears tickled; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, whereas they will be turned aside to false stories. You, though, keep your senses in all things, suffer evil, do the work of an evangelizer, fully accomplish your ministry.

It seems signficant that the relatively small religion of Jehovah's Witnesses are the ones best known for their worldwide preaching work. Yet Jesus commanded that ALL who would call themselves "Christian" perform this public work:

(Matthew 28:19,20) Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you. And, look! I am with you all the days until the conclusion of the system of things.

Answer 5

As far as I am aware, aside from the original writers, NO ONE was told by Jehovah how to translate the Bible. That being kept in mind, one realises that no translation is Perfect. I find the NWT to be rather accurate. There is always more to learn. Who knows as time goes by there may be a better translation, so far the NWT seems best to me.

Answer 6

NO it is not even considered a real bible it is a cult document. Bad Translations of the Jehovah's Witness Bible, the New World Translation (NWT). 1. Gen. 1:1-2 - "In [the] beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of [the] watery deep; and God's active force was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters," (New World Translation, emphasis added). 1. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society denies that the Holy Spirit is alive, the third person of the Trinity. Therefore, they have changed the correct translation of "...the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters," to say "...and God's active force was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters." 2. Zech. 12:10 - In this verse God is speaking and says, "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son" (Zech. 12:10, NASB). 1. The Jehovah's Witnesses change the word "me" to "the one" so that it says in their Bible, "...they will look upon the one whom they have pierced..." Since the Jehovah's Witnesses deny that Jesus is God in flesh, then Zech. 12:10 would present obvious problems--so they changed it. 3. John 1:1 - They mistranslate the verse as "a god." Again it is because they deny who Jesus is and must change the Bible to make it agree with their theology. The Jehovah's Witness version is this: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god." 4. Col. 1:15-17 - The word "other" is inserted 4 times. It is not in the original Greek, nor is it implied. This is a section where Jesus is described as being the creator of all things. Since the Jehovah's Witness organization believes that Jesus is created, they have inserted the word "other" to show that Jesus was before all "other" things, implying that He is created. 1. There are two Greek words for "other": heteros, and allos. The first means another of a different kind, and the second means another of the same kind. Neither is used at all in this section of scripture. The Jehovah's Witness have changed the Bible to make it fit their aberrant theology. 5. Heb. 1:6 - In this verse they translate the Greek word for worship, proskuneo, as "obeisance." Obeisance is a word that means to honor, show respect, even bow down before someone. Since Jesus, to them, is created, then he cannot be worshiped. They have also done this in other verses concerning Jesus, i.e., Matt. 2:2,11; 14:33; 28:9. 6. Heb. 1:8 - This is a verse where God the Father is calling Jesus God: "But about the Son he says, 'Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.'" Since the Jehovah's Witnesses don't agree with that they have changed the Bible, yet again, to agree with their theology. They have translated the verse as "...God is your throne..." The problem with the Jehovah's Witness translation is that this verse is a quote from Psalm 45:6 which, from the Hebrew, can only be translated as "...Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom." To justify their New Testament translation they actually changed the OT verse to agree with their theology, too! The NWT translation is not a good translation. It has changed the text to suit its own theological bias in many places.

Answer 7

The men who were inspired to write the actual words should be made known. There are thousands of "translators out there". Not a comparison if you ask me.

I don't personally care who the "translators" are. I just care that side by side my bible says virtually the same thing as yours. When there are differences, I can go to the Hebrew or Greek writings and see why ours is different.

Why do you have to be a prophet to have God's holy spirit? These men worked long and hard to give us this translation. I believe they had God's holy spirit.

This is in answer to another posters comments:

As a basis for translating the Hebrew Scriptures, the text of Rudolf Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica, editions of 1951-1955, was used. The 1984 revision of the New World Translation benefited from updating in harmony with the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia of 1977. Additionally, the Dead Sea Scrolls and numerous early translations into other languages were consulted. For the Christian Greek Scriptures, the master Greek text of 1881 as prepared by Westcott and Hort was used primarily, but several other master texts were consulted as well as numerous early versions in other languages.

Answer 8

Christ did not say, "Sit down and write Bibles and scatter them over the earth, and let every man read his Bible and judge for himself." If Christ had said that, there would never have been a Christianity on the earth at all, but a Babylon and confusion instead, and never one Church, the union of one body. Hence, Christ never said to His Apostles, "Go and write Bibles and distribute them, and let everyone judge for himself." That injunction was reserved for the Sixteenth Century, and we have seen the result of it. Ever since the Sixteenth Century there have been springing up religion upon religion, and churches upon churches, all fighting and quarreling with one another, and all because of the private interpretation of the Bible.


One cannot have God for his Father, who will not have the Church for his Mother, and likewise, one cannot have the Word of God for his faith who will not have the Church for his teacher. It is the infallible teaching authority of the Church, as promised by Christ, which alone preserves God's Word from erroneous interpretation.

It is Divine Faith alone by which we give honor and glory to God, by which we adore His infinite wisdom and veracity. That adoration and worship is necessary for salvation.

Answer 9

You need to review the honesty of your source materials.

Please note:

Old Testament:
In fact, the New World Translation is a scholarly work. In 1989, Professor Benjamin Kedar of Israel said:
"In my linguistic research in connection with the Hebrew Bible and translation, I often refer to the English edition as what is known as the New World Translation. In doing so, I find my feeling repeatedly confirmed that this kind of work reflects an honest endeavor to achieve an understanding of the text that is as accurate as possible. Giving evidence of a broad command of the original language, it renders the original words into a second language understandably without deviating unnecessarily from the specific structure of the Hebrew....Every statement of language allows for a certain latitude in interpreting or translating. So the linguistic solution in any given case may be open to debate. But I have never discovered in the New World Translation any biased intent to read something into the text that it does not contain."

New Testament:

While critical of some of its translation choices, BeDuhn called the New World Translation a “remarkably good” translation, “better by far” and “consistently better” than some of the others considered. Overall, concluded BeDuhn, the New World Translation “is one of the most accurate English translations of the New Testament currently available” and “the most accurate of the translations compared.”—Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament.

“Here at last is a comprehensive comparison of nine major translations of the Bible:
King James Version,
New American Standard Bible,
New International Version,
New Revised Standard Version,
New American Bible,
Amplified Bible,
Today's English Version (Good News Bible),
Living Bible,
and the New World Translation.
The book provides a general introduction to the history and methods of Bible translation, and gives background on each of these versions. Then it compares them on key passages of the New Testament to determine their accuracy and identify their bias. Passages looked at include:

John 1:1; John 8:58; Philippians 2:5-11; Colossians 1:15-20; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8; 2 Peter 1:1

Jason BeDuhn
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, and Chair
Department of Humanities, Arts, and Religion
Northern Arizona University

Yes, Jehovah God! Why should any one give credit to man? The Bible was inspired by God. (2 Tim. 3:16) Over 100 Greek & Hebrew manuscripts were used in translating this literal text. This effort was bless by Jehovah in view of the fact that many across the earth can now actually read their Bible, bais free, in their own language.

Sadly in recent years a number of modern Bible translations have been published that have done much to help lovers of God’s Word to get to the sense of the original writings quickly. However, many translations have eliminated the use of the divine name from the sacred record. On the other hand, the New World Translation dignifies and honors the worthy name of the Most High God by restoring it to its rightful place in the text. The name now appears in 6,973 places in the Hebrew Scripture section, as well as in 237 places in the Greek Scripture section, a total of 7,210 places all together.

Now see the results: Favourable Comments on the NWT:

J.D. PHILLIPS: (J.D. Phillips was a Church of Christ Minister, schooled in the original tongues). "Last week I purchased a copy of your New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures of which I take pride in being an owner. You have done a marvelous work...I was happy, indeed, to see the name Jehovah in it. But you have made a marvelous step in the right direction, and I pray God that your Version will be used to His glory. What you have done for the Name alone is worth all the effort and cost!"

ALLEN WIKGREN: (Allen Wikgren was on the New Revised Standard Version committee, as well as on the committee which produced the UBS Greek text). "Independent readings of merit often occur in other modern speech versions, such as...the Jehovah's Witnesses edition of the New Testament(1950)." (The Interpreter's Bible, 1952 Vol. 1 page 99)

WILLIAM CAREY TAYLOR: (William C. Taylor was a Southern Baptist Minister schooled in the original tongues). "Just when the infidel universities of this land thought they had laughed out of court the very name Jehovah, up...surges.. "Jehovah's Witnesses". ...And with considerable scholarship they get out their own New Testament and lo and behold, they put Jehovah into the New Testament two or three hundred times...It ought to be there [in the entire Bible] many times" (The New Bible Pro and Con, 1955 Page 75)

and the list can go on.

Answer 10

How many of the Apostles of Christ had a religious education, or any education?

Just one, and his advance education showed him that Christians were a cult and false religion, so having an education doesn't mean much. He had to be blinded in order to see the light.

Saul of Tarsus, was a highly educated individual, repeatedly proved they were a false religious sect, creating their own scriptures (Bible) instead of relying on the only true scriptures which had been used by the Jews for hundreds of years. He stood by as the true people of God stoned these so-called Christians.

Saul saw them as having been started by a lower class, uneducated Carpenter, who was executed for cause by the governing authority. These followers were also lower class, uneducated individuals, such as Peter, a failed fisherman, and Matthew, a hated tax collector.

I imagine there are witnesses here who may give you a better answer, but I would recommend buying an Interlinear Greek Translation of the New Testament. Check it yourself. You will note that John used a different spelling for the word god when referring to the Word, as he used in referring to God Almighty. God is spelled four ways in Greek. He did use the same spelling for the word god when referring to The Word and Satan as a god, and men who consider themselves a god. Should we also consider Satan and men to be God?

As for the King James Version, it was revised four time, during a 150 year time period, by different individuals, before it properly matched the beliefs of the Church of England and could be AUTHORIZED. The only reason it is called the King James is to immortalize him for removing the death penalty, hanging over the head of those doing the work, by the Catholic Church.

There are also many, non-witness Bibles that agree with it.

Answer 11

with over 6 million witnessess all coming from differant churches of christendom and other religions around the whole world we enjoy using any bible to tell the truth of gods kingdom with jesus as our king and messiah.just compare the nwt with any word for word translation and you will see not a differance but a complement to each other.