Where are the differences in the King James Bible and the Jehovah's Witnesses Bible?

Question

Who wrote the JW bible?
I have one, it doesn't seem so different from the KJV but the truth is that I've never taken the time to read both of them at the same, but I've heard that the JW's has been added and deleted things of the KJB.
My JW aunt said that in the Bible (she duuuh! has the JW version) says that Jehovah Witnesses is the name of God's selected people. Where is it? is it in the King James Version too?
Why don't they use the King James version too like all other Christians?


PS: For those who are not JWs, no bashing allowed... let's all be tolerant ^_^

Hey! I love you all... the answers have been great so far. Thanks! ^_^
....but man!!! all answers are way too long, lol but they are helpful, thanks again

Answer 1

hi, and thanks for a thoughful question

without getting too very deep, let me take you back a bit. Arius (sp) about 380ad was upset about being denied a promotion in the church and he turned on the deity of Jesus and began to teach that he was God's wisdom proverb chapter 8, he was the first of God's creation 1 col. 1:11 I think, going on memory here and other things that are contrary to the bible as a whole. One of the cardinal teachings of him, is that Jesus was the archangel micheal.

He also taught, and this is important, that he became a god. That is in direct opposition to all that the LORD is, there will be no other god, yet they teach jesus became a god....that should be a show stopper but it is not. The word god means to hold the office of worship. Jehovah witness should worship Jesus because he holds that office according to their bible, the new word translation of the holy scriptures.

Darius, about 400 ad, a roman emperor also attacked the diety of Jesus and just added fuel to the fire.

now as for the scripture, when the Watch tower Track and bible society undertook the editing of the bible, they merely made changes to reflect what they thought would destroy the deity of Jesus once and for all, according to what they want to believe. The probem they have is this. The bible is the testimony of Jesus, you have to edit all of it. they did not

even out of their bible, you can still conclusively prove that Jesus is the second person of the trinity, which they deny. You can prove that the Holy Spirit is a person, which they deny

the jehovah witness believe that God is a single person, single holder of office. The bible states that God consists of 3 persons in perfect unity, harmony and in purpose and plan. I can't understand that and I dont think anyone can. We can only accept that God reveals himself to us that we might worship him in spirit and truth.

Jehovah witness deny the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus did not rise bodily from the grave then his message is of no value. His message was that he was God. If he is in the grave he is a liar and nothing more

Jehovah witness by and large are good people doing what they think is God's work, They have been lied to, and accepted the lie.

I can give you more info if you want to email me.

I am
always at your service

Answer 2

I found it curious that one poster said: "The JW has replaced Lord with Jehovah God which is an insult to God. They dont know the English language."

Um . . . in the King James Version the name Jehovah is found at Psalm 83:18; Exodus 6:3; Isaiah 12:2 and Isaiah 26:4. Jehovah's Witnesses didn't translate the King James Version, did they? Does that mean that the King James translators replaced Lord with Jehovah? Does that mean that the King James translators insulted God? Does that mean that the King James translators don't know the English language? I was just curious.

Jehovah's Witnesses due use the King James Version. And yes, as you can see from above, the name Jehovah is found in the King James. Now if you look at the New King James, you will not find it. They finished removing God's name entirely. Imagine, removing the name of the author from his own book. If we do not find this egregious, I would like to ask: how would professed Christians feel if somebody came along and made a new translation, removing the name "Jesus" entirely?

Hannah J Paul

Answer 3

A group of anonymous translators who did not wish for personal glory (which is why they didn't state their names) took the name New World Translation Committee (I'm pretty sure that's it). They labored extensively to translate from the oldest known manuscripts of the scriptures to produce the most accurate version possible in today's English.

The King James Version was accurate for it's time, but the development of the English language since the 17th century has made it necessary to come up with another version.

The name Jehovah's Witnesses comes from Isaiah 43:10-12 where Jehovah says that all of his servants are his Witnesses; they bear witness to his name and good works. The name applies equally to true Christians and those who served God faithfully before Christ.

Where you come across verses that are only partially rendered or that have been deleted, those parts were not found in the oldest existing manuscripts, which is proof that some of them were added later on by translators with certain biases (such as 1 John 5:7 supporting the Trinity doctrine)

Answer 4

The only difference I can see is that instead of GOD or Lord in the KJV, TNWT actually mentions GOD's name Jehovah, which used to be in the Bible thousands of times but for some reason is only in the KJV once. Other then that the translations are the same, the NWT has been translated in an easier way to understand.

Answer 5

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

(Please note that according to Dr. Jason BeDuhn, only the NWT translated John 1:1 correctly)

===

Why did the recently published “New International Version” (NIV) of the Bible fail to use the name of God where it appears about 7,000 times in ancient Bible manuscripts? In response to a person who inquired about this, Edwin H. Palmer, Th.D., Executive Secretary for the NIV’s committee wrote:

“Here is why we did not: You are right that Jehovah is a distinctive name for God and ideally we should have used it. But we put 2 1/4 million dollars into this translation and a sure way of throwing that down the drain is to translate, for example, Psalm 23 as, ‘Yahweh is my shepherd.’ Immediately, we would have translated for nothing. Nobody would have used it. Oh, maybe you and a handful [of] others. But a Christian has to be also wise and practical. We are the victims of 350 years of the King James tradition. It is far better to get two million to read it—that is how many have bought it to date—and to follow the King James, than to have two thousand buy it and have the correct translation of Yahweh. . . . It was a hard decision, and many of our translators agree with you.”

Concerning the NIV:

Bruce Metzger: (NIV) "It is surprising that translators who profess to have 'a high view of scripture" should take liberties with text by omitting words or, more often, by adding words that are not in the manuscripts."


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Answer 6

I only have one thing to say on this subject. The JWs have been around for a long time. The NWT hasn't. So if there are errors in doctrine, they were derived from the KJV of the bible, so how anyone can say the NWT was translated to support the JW doctrine is ludicrous. After reading the KJV, discrepancies in doctrine were noted, and attempts to rectify were supported with the new translations. In main, the restoration of God's proper name as we understand it was accomplished. No translation is perfect, but what we need to know can probably be found in any translation.

Answer 7

The three main differences between the KJV and the NWT are that the NWT is in modern English, has restored God's proper name where it was in the earliest available manuscripts, and it corrects a number of translation errors that are in the KJV.

The KJV was the version used most often by JWs prior to the NWT becoming available and JWs are not adverse to using it or any other version of the Bible in conversing with interested persons.

As for the accuracy of one translation over the other, the NWT is definitely a more correct translation. This has been attested to by many scholars who are not JWs or affiliated in any way. It has been used in one college Greek language class in Michigan as a study aid because of its correctness and accuracy in word / grammar translations from Greek to modern English.

Answer 8

The JW's Bible was translated not transliterated.

The King James Bible was written by a gay King to keep his people happy (after all, he was a famous pederast and he really liked his boys YOUNG). No big deal about being gay, I am too although I think liking boys is gross, 21 or over only! But those days WERE different, since girls were getting married at 12 and engaged at birth for Nobles.

The Kings James Bible was transliterated (meaning that at times the 'best guess' method was actually used to translate certain words, sense some of the words they had no actual translations for. So, the Kings James, not so reliable. Also, the original Hebrew Bible (see Dead Sea Scrolls for verifications) had used God's PERSONAL NAME of Jehovah OVER 6,000 times! While King James "translation" only KEPT it 4 times. A MERE 4 TIMES OUT OF 6,000!

When I grew up I always thought, "The LORD is my Shepherd" was Jesus, but NO, turns out it should read, "Jehovah is my Shepherd." Christ hadn't and wouldn't be born FOR A LONG TIME after that was written! So it does make a difference in studying the Bible.

Of course God's name is sacred, however even the Witnesses will tell you that both Yahweh AND Jehovah are EQUALLY correct. However, you can only use ONE without sounding stupid, and the bestest transliteration for English IS: Jehovah.

One day, Jehovah will correct it if it is wrong, but for now he seems to be truly happy with that decision.

The problem is: ancient Hebrew has/had no vowels (aeiou, etc.) so when they wrote it, it became YHWH or JHVH depend on where you lived. Then you had to decide on vowels to use . . .

Answer 9

To start with one small correction, all Christians do not use the KJV exclusively. Many do, but many others do not.

As for the New World Translation, published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society - that's their formal name. It was written anonymously, but propbably for good reasons. It is mainly little more than a modification of already existing English versions. However, the changes they made, though subtle, support their distinct beliefs and theology. Some of the changes biblical scholars have argued are not consistent with the Greek. Therefore, if JW's used the KJV, they might draw different conclusions compared to WBTS teachings.

As for the King James Version, obviously it is written in an archaic style of English. This makes it difficult to understand at times for many. It's merrits are that it is a literal translation and therefore good for study purposes. There are errors that more modern versions such and the Revised Standard Version have corrected. These errors were not an attempt of the authors to comform the Bible to their ideology though.

Answer 10

Since I don't have a JW Bible on hand, I just have one question...Is it copyrighted? The original King James has never had a copyright.


Now to your question...I have several different versions of the Bible and NONE of them read like the JW in John 1:1. Their doctrine teaches that one day when they die they will become 'little gods' thus the addition of the 'a' in that verse lends itself to be 'scriptural proof' to support their doctrine. That one little letter makes a BIG difference since as Christians we are taught that there is ONLY 1 God. (Many people say that that is why they don't believe in the trinity however I submit to you H2O...water, just plain simple water...if frozen it is H2O solid, if room temperature it is H2O liquid and if heated it is H2O steam....but all three are still H2O...water...God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit...three but still one =)

It is my humble opinion that this is why they don't use the King James and have their own. The rest of the 'talk' about the name of Jehovah and the sort just seems to be smoke and mirrors to divert the attention away from the root of the issue. When we die WE DO NOT BECOME 'little gods'.

Answer 11

The KJV, and other Clementine Bibles such as the Douay, are based on the Textus Receptus, which had 1846 doctrinal errors discovered in it,

The NWT is based mainly on the Vatican Codex 1209 and the Septuagint.

Westcott and Hort did the critical text on the Vatican Codex 1209. The WBTS, during the 1984 revision of the NWT, checked their work against the Nestles Greek Testament for accuracy.

The NWT is the most accurate Bible you will find.