Bible of the Month - New World Translation

[Rodejong]

The following is translated from German of a Swiss Catholic Website.

 

June 15, 2023

 “BIBLE OF THE MONTH OF JUNE”: THE “NEW WORLD TRANSLATION” OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES

 

 Their theology, their missionary zeal, their strict rules are usually not particularly popular.  However, her Bible translation, presented as “Bible of the Month” for June 2023, is exciting and profitable to read.

 

 It may be surprising to find a Jehovah's Witnesses translation here as the Bible of the Month.  They form a Christian religious community that is completely geared towards the end-time expectation and rejects the dogma of the Trinity, the Trinity of God, i.e. the doctrine of the ONE being in THREE persons from the Council in Nicaea and Chalcedon and describes it as heresy.  They develop their teaching based on the Bible.  The New World Translation, with all its peculiarities, is of good quality and not at all dangerous to read.  The sectarian bias lies in the interpretations and explanations, from the appendices of the printed edition to the Bible course materials on the websites.

 

 What is the text scope (canon) of this translation?

 

 The New World Translation contains the 39 scriptures of the Jewish TaNaK and the 27 scriptures of the Christian New Testament.  It titles the two parts “Books of the Hebrew-Aramaic Writings” and “Books of the Christian-Greek Writings”.  In this way, it avoids the terms First/Old Testament and New Testament, which are always problematic in interreligious conversation.  It is the canon of the translators of the Reformation: Luther, Zwingli and Calvin - contrary to the tradition of the Catholic Church, which counts seven other Greek writings as part of the First Testament - also agreed on this canon, which corresponds to the Jewish one for the First Testament.  The New World Translation arranges its writings in the order usual for the Reformers - i.e. different from the Jewish TaNaK and essentially the same as the Catholic standard translation.

 

 How is the name of God rendered?

 

 A big question in every Bible translation is the reproduction of God's name in the Hebrew Bible, which is written there with the four Hebrew consonants YHWH and whose pronunciation is unclear or is not normally pronounced by Jewish believers today.  Jewish translators use euphemisms such as “Eternal”, “Living”, “Ha-Shem” or simply use the pronouns HE, YOU, I according to the speaking situation.  In many Christian translations - a notable exception is the Bible in fair language - the capital LORD is used as a replacement for the name of God, but this obscures and conceals the fact that no salutation or title is meant, but really a name with all its intimacy and  relationship is used.

 

 The New World Translation renders the four consonants of the name YHWH with the vowels in the form “Jehovah.”  Connecting the vowels of the Masoretes with the letters of the consonant text and rendering them as “JeHoVaH” is actually scientifically incorrect.  Saying the name also violates the sense of piety of many Jewish brothers and sisters today.  Apart from that, it makes sense and is to be advocated to reproduce the name of God as a NAME and not as a TITLE.  At this point I think the solution of the New World Translation is better than that of the Standard Translation.

 

 Winfried Bader

 

Translated with Google Translate

https://www.kathluzern.ch/meine-kirche/news/artikel/bibel-des-monats-juni-die-neue-welt-uebersetzung-der-zeugen-jehovas