Now make up your mind. Are you using paraphrase as Peter is or as the
dictionary is- because you seem to be changing your mind. A paraphrase is
taking words and simplifying them for a wider audience- which is what the
NWT does. It is not a translation- as I have already said. It is a
paraphrase. A translation renders, as closely as possible, words from one
language into another. The American Standard Version is a translation; the
NIV is a paraphrase, as are most modern renderings. Why? because their
interest is not in translating words- but "ideas" and hence they
paraphrase. The KJV is a paraphrase as well, seeing as how it simply
paraphrased Wycliffe and other english versions (while of course pretending
to consult the originals). If you want to translate hebrew into english
that's one thing. Something totally separate is taking what you think the
words mean and rendering them in another way in order to simplify for the
unwashed masses.
There is, in sum, a great difference between translating,
translations; paraphrasing, and paraphrases.
Jim
++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
Adjunct Professor of Biblical Studies
Quartz Hill School of Theology