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  • From: Schmuel <schmuel AT nyc.rr.com>
  • To: "b-hebrew-lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] NWT's approach of consistent translation
  • Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 20:19:00 -0500

Hi b-hebrew,

James C Read wrote:
>The vast majority of renderings of Jehovah in the NWT NT are as a
>result of the fact that the text is quoting directly from the OT

Schmuel
This is simply incorrect.
Not the vast majority, not any majority.

http://www.tetragrammaton.org/tetrapdxo.htm
... a total of 144 references (from the 237 total) to Jehovah in the NWT
Greek Scriptures (NT) which have no Hebrew Scripture precedent of any kind.
The remaining 93 are quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures which use in the
Hebrew Scripture text but (Lord) in the Greek text

And in terms of the consistency issue I do not mind if we consider only the
verses
that are NOT quotations from Tanach, where the Tanach has the Tetragrammaton.

Those verses are clearly less tinged and charged in the discussion, and can
be
simply put aside. (I do not believe it is right to translated them as
Jehovah, however
it is clearly understandable.)

Here is a discussion of their inconsistency.

http://www.tetragrammaton.org/nwtandhvs.htm
According to their own grammatical rule, haAdohn [] is translated as Jehovah
at 1 Corinthians 4:19 and 1 Corinthians 7:17. .....the New World Bible
Translation Committee did not follow their own rule at 1 Corinthians 11:23,
Philippians 2:11, or Luke 24:34. From the appendix information given at the
end of this book, we see that from just 1 Corinthians alone, haAdohn appears
19 times. Of these 19 occurrences, however, it is translated as Lord 16 times
in the New World Translation, and as Jehovah 3 times.


1 Corinthians 12:3
Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God
calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is Jehovah, but by
the Holy Ghost.

Philippians 2:11
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Jehovah, to the
glory of God the Father.

Luke 24:34
Saying, Jehovah is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.

Note also the following --

John 20:28 -
And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Jehovah and my God.

James Read
>....Also fragments of the LXX show that it was commonly practised to
>transliterate the name YHWH into the text up until some revolutionary point
>in time.

Schmuel
No, that shows us nothing about a text that was originally written in Greek

It only shows insight on some issues about translation methodologies from
Hebrew to Greek, under Jewish provenance. Those are two totally different
issues.

James Read
>I find it highly likely that at some point in time the use of the name YHWH
>was
>banned and kurios was used as a subsititute in both the NT and the LXX.

Schmuel
There is no indication whatsoever, in any book or text in any language that
the Hebrew
YHWH was ever used in the NT, which was most assuredly entirely or almost
entirely
written in Greek.

Therefore there is no issue of kurios being a "substitute" for something that
never was.

James Read
>However, there are examples of inconsistency with the NWT NT and Matthew 5:3
>which is a highly idomatic translation with the obvious intention of
>enforcing a particular doctrine.

Schmuel
The inconsistencies are humongous. They simply chose to put in Jehovah where
it fits their doctrine, and not put it in where it does not fit.

Selective unsupported translation with a doctrinal motive, tampering of this
sort,
is the very worst type of inconsistent translation.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic






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