Jehovah's Witnesses: What do you think of the English Standard Version (ESV)?

Question

one came to my door once and was so impressed by it he said he wanted to buy one.

i have the book "what does the bible really teach." it didn't say anything about the ESV in there.

Answer 1

I personally have one. We are not "encouraged" to stick to any translation. We use the New World Translation, yes, but I have 40+ different Bible translations in my collection. It is the inspired Word of God so it truly doesn't matter. I do love the ESV though.

Answer 2

Sadly, the English Standard Version of the bible hides the personal name of Almighty God. Few Witnesses of Jehovah would be comfortable relying upon any translation that altogether disrespects the Divine Name thusly.

Here is a quote from the preface of English Standard Version:
[quote]
God, the Maker of heaven and earth, introduced himself to the people of Israel with the special, personal name, whose consonants are YHWH (see Exodus 3:14-15). Scholars call this the “Tetragrammaton,” a Greek term referring to the four Hebrew letters YHWH. ...When the vowels of the word adonai are placed with the consonants of YHWH, this results in the familiar word Jehovah that was used in some earlier English Bible translations. As is common among English translations today, the ESV usually renders the personal name of God (YHWH) with the word Lord
[unquote]


ESV leaves unmentioned that the Divine Name has almost SEVEN THOUSAND occurrences in the bible. Even the King James Version uses the name "Jehovah" four times (Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; 26:4), along with a few place-names which include "Jehovah" (see Genesis 22:14; Exodus 17:15; Judges 6:24).

Interestingly, ESV purports to be the successor to American Standard Version. Ironically, ASV and English Revised Version both use the name Jehovah.

Learn more:
http://watchtower.co.uk/e/na/index.htm?article=diagram_04.htm
http://watchtower.co.uk/e/na/index.htm?article=article_05.htm
http://watchtower.co.uk/e/20040122/article_02.htm

Answer 3

Actually witnesses can use any Bible as long as they understand the changes made and why. It's wise to get a hold of the "Transliteration of the Greek Scriptures"
and "The diolot of the Vatican" A Catholic dictionary. and an expounded dictionary and expounded set of encyclopedias to get a thorough understanding of why translators either inserted or took out certain words, names, spellings, periods, comas, or false teachings through mistranslating of words and English definitions of words. Such as Hell, Gehenna, Lake of fire,
God's personal name Jehovah, Trinity doctrine, the cross, tithing and so on.

A good book to read that I would be happy to send to any one is called
"What Does The Bible Really Teach"?
It's free no catches or obligation.
Sincerely yours,
fred M. Hunter
[e-mail]

Answer 4

Jehovah's Witnesses use any and all bibles but most of the public use the King James version so many of the quotes are likely will be taken from that translation.

Answer 5

JWs will be strongly advised to stick to their Bible - New World Translation. It is totally different to any other Bible. On the surface it looks the same but it has hundreds of little differences from the ESV or any other standard Bible.
I use the ESV and NASV

Answer 6

I went to biblegateway.com, but I didn't have enough time to throughly read much of it.

At quick glance, seems like a cross between the KJV and the NASB.

I was disappointed when I see they took God's name out of their translation, (Ps 83:18, and the other 6800 times it appears.)

.