Why does the New World Translation insert the word [other] in Colossians 1:16-17?

Question

That appears to change the meaning of the verse

Answer 1

It does change the meaning. The Jehovah's also change a number of versus to fit their beliefs. For example in John 1:1 they change the wording from, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god (lower cased), and the word was 'A' god. They added the word 'A' in their "book" giving the idea that there is more than one God. As christians we believe in only one God. I would not take it to heart what their book has to say.

Answer 2

He was the only creation that God produced directly, and he was endowed with great wisdom. In fact, a later writer, a king renowned for his own wisdom, described this Son as “a master worker,” who was employed in all subsequent creative works. (Proverbs 8:22, 30)

Does Colossians 1:16, 17 (RS) exclude Jesus from having been created, when it says “in him all things were created, all things were created through him and for him”? The Greek word here rendered “all things” is pan′ta, an inflected form of pas. At Luke 13:2, RS renders this “all, other”; JB reads “any other”; NE says “anyone else.” In harmony with everything else that the Bible says regarding the Son, NW assigns the same meaning to pan′ta at Colossians 1:16, 17 so that it reads, in part, “by means of him all other things were created, All other things have been created through him and for him.” Thus he is shown to be a created being, part of the creation produced by God.

Jesus could not possibly be God himself, for Jesus was created by God. Note how Benjamin Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott renders Apocalypse (Revelation) chapter 3, verse 14: “These things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness [Jesus], the beginning of the creation of God.” Similarly, Colossians 1:15, 16 says of Jesus: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, All other things have been created through him and for him.”

So in heaven almighty God directly created his Son and then “by means of him,” or “through him,” created other things, much as a skilled workman might have a trained employee do work for him. Those things created “by means of him” did not include Jesus himself, for God had already created him. Thus, he is called the “firstborn,” the “only-begotten.” When a child is the firstborn, the only-begotten, it never means that the child is the same as the father. It always means that there are two different personalities involved, father and child.

So the New World Bible along with many others has the correct meaning.

Answer 3

The New World Translation Bible is a word for word translation of the Holy Scriptures. Any words that were inserted are there to help with understanding the verse and do not detract at all from the meaning of the scripture.

And the verse at John 1:1 does not have an "a" inserted, it was there originally and it was taken out in different 'versions' of the Bible. There's a difference between translations and versions, look up the meaning of each in the dictionary.

Answer 4

Dogma. Not everything the JWs changed in their Bible is unfounded. They have a strong grammatical argument in Jn. 1.1. They don't have any here, though. Greek grammar has no rule that supplies the word "other," and what's more, it had multiple concepts of "other."

They attempt to justify this by using examples where "other" is implied, but these are always contextual. It means the same thing with or without the word. If supplying the word changes the meaning of the passage, then it is not contextual. That's a really simple rule to see if a word is "implied" in a passage (quite distinct from discussing a variation in the meaning of a term).

Thus, they have changed the text here without any foundation at all but their own dogma. For those who love the KJV, it has quite a few places like this as well.

Answer 5

They put it in brackets, so they don't claim it's part of the translation. The only sense I can make of it is that they want to say He did not make himself. They use [other] three times in there.

I'll be interested to see what others say. I've never read the NWT, but just looking at this bit, I find they use bracketed words a lot, which I cannot approve. I want to read the words. If I want commentary or opinion, I'll search for that elsewhere.

Answer 6

The New World Translation is a Jehovah's Witness Bible. They have changed much of the Bible that way. Just look at the inside cover pages...it states that this Bible was translated for the Jehovah's Witnessess.

Answer 7

The New World Translation was created by the Watchtower Society. Personally, I would not trust that translation.

Answer 8

Where exactly do they insert the word into? The JW bible also inserts [a] God into John 1:1-6 so they probably did it on purpose.

Answer 9

It also changes John 1:1... and the Word was with God and the word was God is changed to say
The Word was with God and the word was a god.

The JW's believe that Jesus was created by God the Father.

Answer 10

.Lay the king James Bible and the New World Translation side by side . Read them and you will know how to change doctrine to what you desire by moving punctuation. This is one of the complaints of Hermeneutic.