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The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) is a modern-language translation of the Bible published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. and the International Bible Students Association of Brooklyn, New York (corporations in use by the religious organization commonly known as Jehovah's Witnesses). It was not the first, nor the last translation to be published by them, but it was their very first original translation of the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic texts.

History

Until the release of the NWT in 1950, Jehovah's Witnesses in English-speaking countries generally used the King James Version or American Standard Version of the Bible. In the literature they have produced, Jehovah's Witnesses have quoted liberally from the King James Version and many other translations of the Bible over the years.

According to the publishers, one of the main reasons for producing a new translation was that the majority of existing Bible versions in common use employed archaic language. The English language has undergone significant changes since 1611, when the Authorised (King James) Version was first published and many words in the KJV are no longer in common use today, or are used in a sense different from that in which the translators intended them. The stated intention was to produce a fresh translation, free of archaisms.

Additionally, over the centuries since the King James version was produced, more copies of earlier manuscripts of the original texts in the Hebrew and Greek languages have become available. Better manuscript evidence has made it possible to determine with greater accuracy what the original writers intended, particularly in more obscure passages. Additionally, certain aspects of the original Hebrew and Greek languages are perhaps better understood by linguists today than they were previously.

In October 1946, the president of the Watch Tower Society, Nathan H. Knorr, proposed a fresh translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures. Work got under way on December 2, 1947 when the "New World Bible Translation Committee" was formed. On September 3, 1949, Knorr convened a joint meeting of the board of directors of both the Watch Tower Society's New York and Pennsylvania corporations to announce that work on a modern-language English translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures was completed and had been turned over to the Society for printing. It was assigned to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania for publication.

The translators wished to remain anonymous, their stated intent being "to honor Jehovah God, the Divine Author of his inspired Word". This fact is very frequently cited by critics of the translation in order to suggest that its scholarship is of inferior quality, as the credentials of the translators could never be verified. However, Raymond Franz, a former member of the Society's Governing Body, later identified the members of the translation committee as being his uncle Fred Franz, Nathan Knorr, Albert Schroeder and George Gangas.

The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures (New Testament) was released at a convention of Jehovah's Witnesses at Yankee Stadium, New York, on August 2, 1950, to the 82,075 present. The translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) was released in five volumes in 1953, 1955, 1957, 1958, and 1960, and the complete New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures was released as a single volume in 1961. Since then, it has undergone minor revisions on a number of occasions, most recently in 1984.

Characteristics of the translation

The Old Testament as found in the New World Translation is based on Codex Leningradensis B 19A as published in Rudolf Kittel's Biblia Hebraica (7th, 8th, and 9th ed.), while the New Testament is based on Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in the Original Greek. Also considered were texts by Bover, Merk, and Nestle. Newer editions make use of newer texts, such as Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1967/1977) and Novum Testamentum Graece (1983), as well as newer lexicons and dictionaries such as Zorell's Lexicon Hebraicum Veteris Testamenti (1984) and Würtwein's Der Text des Alten Testaments (1988).

The New World Translation is intended to be a literal rendering rather than a paraphrase. To a very great extent, one English word has been selected for each Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic word and effort has been made to adhere to this rendering, context allowing. Some maintain that this makes the translation sound wooden, stiff or verbose, whereas others feel that it favors accuracy, facilitates cross-reference work and helps preserve the flavor of the original texts.

The translation does not contain any of the Apocryphal books, as the translators believed that any claim for canonicity on the part of these writings is without solid foundation.

Jehovah in the Old Testament

The most common of the many Hebrew proper names of God, the Tetragrammaton ("YHWH"), is found in Masoretic versions of the Old Testament 6,828 times, but not in the older Septuagint. Most English translations of the Old Testament follow the standard convention of rendering the Tetragrammaton as "God" or "LORD" in all capitals. A few versions (such as the King James, Living Bible, or Holman Christian Standard Bible) render the Tetragrammaton as either "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" only a handful of times. The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) differs significantly here from most other Bibles. Following the example of Young's Literal Translation, Rotherham's Emphasized Bible, the American Standard Version (and later the Catholic Jerusalem Bible), the NWT consistently renders all 6,828 instances of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (divine name) as a proper name: "Jehovah." They chose the translation "Jehovah" because: "Jehovah is the best known English pronunciation of the divine name."

In addition to the 6,828 instances of the Tetragrammaton, the NWT translators introduce 145 more instances where they believe the name should be, but is not. They cite the works of C.D. Ginsburg (1831-1914) as justification for the additional 145 instances. Such consistent use of the name is done out of what they believe to be a deep respect for the "Author of our salvation."

Jehovah in the New Testament

See main article: Jehovah in the New Testament.

Jehovah is an older rendering of the Hebrew word YHWH, which does not appear in any original, Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Moreover the New Testament overwhelmingly quotes the ancient Septuagint version of the Old Testament (Greek), not Medieval Masoretic versions (Hebrew). The Septuagint does not contain forms of the word YHWH and so neither does the New Testament when quoting it.

The New Testament is one of the best attested of all ancient writings with over 5,000 Greek extant manuscripts. Furthermore, discovery of papyrus fragments of the New Testament dating back to the middle of the second century. One of the most ancient fragments, the papyrus codex designated Chester Beatty Papyrus No. 2 is dated prior to 200 AD and contains nine of the apostle Paul's letters. Of all 5,000 extant manuscripts, none contains either the Hebrew (YHWH) or Greek transliterations (Iabe) of the Hebrew.

The New World Bible Translation Committee theorised that the divine name was removed from NT manuscripts over the first century, post Christ, due to superstition. With this theory in mind, they introduce 237 instances of the divine name into the New Testament. In none of these instances does the Watchtower Society's Greek Kingdom Interlinear Translation use the Tetragrammaton. In 223 of the 237 Jehovah references the Greek word Kyrios is used. In 13 other instances the word is Theos, but never the Tetragrammaton. The Committee used several reasons as justification for the inclusion:

• Passages where the NT writers directly quote Old Testament Scriptures that contain the divine name. However, these passages quote the Septuagint, not to be confused with other Greek versions of the Old Testament that were not used by the early Church.
• New Testament scriptures that suggest, according to Jehovah's Witness doctrinal beliefs, that the name would be there if 1st century manuscripts were discovered, most notably Jesus' words as recorded by John (John 17:6): "I have made your name manifest to the men you gave me out of the world..." However, this is supposition.
• Some post-Christian Greek versions of the Old Testament that contain the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebraic script within the Greek text. The Name was indeed known by some Greek speaking Jews of the time, albeit not readable to the average Greek reader. If indeed any exist, their lateness does not indicate the form of the originals.
• Modern Hebrew translations of the New Testament contain the Tetragrammaton in some New Testament passages. The citation of Hebrew translations of the New Testament which use the Tetragrammaton is selective as some of these also use the Tetragrammaton in reference to Christ (as at Hebrews 1:10, 1 Corinthians 12:3 and 1 Peter 2:3.) These texts were written over 1000 years after Jesus' death and no more indicate the state of the original manuscripts than any other modern translation.
• Four instances in the book of Revelation that contain the abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton as the exclamation: "Hallelujah!" (Literally: "Praise Yah!") (Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6). However, "Hallelujah" does not contain the tetragrammaton (YHWH), and although "jah" is a possible derivative, that is not the tetragrammaton either.

These beliefs are the basis to consistently include "Jehovah" throughout the Old Testament and New Testament of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures despite the evidence to the contrary. The Watchtower Society's view is that the perpetuation of Jewish superstition to render the proper name as an ambiguous title culminates into the quasi-consistent use of "God" (or "LORD") throughout the Old and New Testaments of other Bible translations. "Quasi-consistent" in that many of these mainstream translations do render the name, in some form, in a handful of Old Testament passages, thus not entirely consistent in either usage. This is summed up by Dr. BeDuhn (Truth in Translation pg. 170): "Both practices violate accuracy in favor of denominationally preferred expressions for God." However, this begs the question of whether YHWH was in the New Testament in the first place.

Rendering of σταυρός (staurós)

The Greek word "staurós", rendered "cross" in most other translations, is rendered "torture stake" in the NWT. Jehovah's Witnesses maintain that "staurós" refers to a single piece of timber or pole, as it did in other ancient Greek literature such as the writings of Homer, and that there is nothing in the New Testament itself that says that two pieces of wood were used to crucify Jesus Christ.

The Anchor Bible Dictionary says about "crucifixion":

The act of nailing or binding a living victim or sometimes a dead person to a cross or stake (stauros or skolops) or a tree (xylon) ... Under the Roman Empire, crucifixion normally included a flogging beforehand. At times the cross was only one vertical stake. Frequently, however, there was a cross-piece attached ... – Volume 1, pp. 1207, 1208

Comments by such scholars as W. E. Vine in his Expository Dictionary support this, as do others, such as A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament, by E. W. Bullinger, which states:

Used here for the stauros on which Jesus was crucified. Both words disagree with the modern idea of a cross, with which we have become familiarized by pictures. The stauros was simply an upright pale or stake to which the Romans nailed those who were thus said to be crucified. Stauroo , merely to drive stakes. It never means two pieces of wood joining each other at any angle. Even the Latin word crux [root of the English word "cross" means a mere stake. – p. 819

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