The New World Translation

(All scripture quotes are from the NASB unless otherwise noted)

     The New World Translation is the primary bible translation used by Jehovah's Witnesses today. History shows that at one time, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (the official headquarters of the Jehovah's Witnesses) use to publish the King James Bible and was used by their followers. As time went on, Jehovah's Witnesses began to have their doctrines challenged by Christians using the King James Bible, which they found hard to refute using that version. The Watchtower made the decision to make a translation of their own, which in my opinion was done to alleviate the problems of using the King James Bible to support their doctrine. The major changes in the Watchtower's translation will be discussed later.

     If you ask a Jehovah's Witness today who the translators of their bible is, they will probably tell you that they don't know or that the translators did not want to be recognized because it would take away from the glory of God. The truth of the matter is that the Watchtower doesn't want anyone to know who the translators are because each person's educational background could be checked and possibly call into question the accuracy of the New World Translation based on those credentials.

     Fortunately for us today, enough time has passed that despite the Watchtower's diligence in trying to conceal the identity of the translators, the list of men (6 in total) has surfaced for anyone to investigate. It was under Nathan Knorr's leadership that the "New World Translation" was published. The translators of this new bible were: Frederick W. Franz, Nathan H. Knorr, Milton G. Henschel, Albert D. Schroeder, Karl Klein and George D. Gangas. This translation, published in six volumes between 1950-1960, supports many Jehovah's Witnesses doctrines while ignoring accepted rules of language translation. We have been able to get some information on each man as to his educational background that would either support or disprove their ability to be able to translate the bible from it's original languages (Hebrew and Koine Greek) to English. Listed below is the Biblical training and education of each translator:

Frederick W. Franz: Main translator...Took liberal arts sequence at University of Cincinnati; 21 semester hours of classical Greek, some Latin. Partially completed a two-hour survey course in Biblical Greek in junior year; course titled "The New Testament--A course in grammar and translation." Left in spring of 1914 before completing junior year. Self-taught in Spanish, biblical Hebrew and Aramaic. Entered Brooklyn headquarters facility of Watchtower Society in 1920. Probable ghost writer for J. F. Rutherford (2nd president of WTS) from late 1920s through 1942. Vice president of WTS from 1942 to 1977, president from 1977 until death in 1992 at the age of 99.

Nathan H. Knorr: No training in biblical languages. Entered Brooklyn headquarters in 1923; 3rd president of the Watchtower Society from 1942 to 1977. Died in 1977 at the age of 72.

Milton G. Henschel: No training in biblical languages. Private secretary and traveling companion to N. H. Knorr from late 1940s until early 1970s. 4th president of the Watchtower Society from 1992 to 2000. Died in 2003 at the age of 83. 

Albert D. Schroeder: No training in biblical languages. Took 3 years of mechanical engineering, unspecified language courses in college, dropped out in 1932 and soon entered Brooklyn headquarters. Registrar of "Gilead School" from 1942 to 1959. Died in 2006 at the age of 95.

Karl Klein: No training in biblical languages. Entered Brooklyn headquarters in 1925; member of Writing Dept. since 1950. Died in 2001 at the age of 96.

George D. Gangas: No training in biblical languages. Greek-speaking Turkish national, entered Brooklyn headquarters in 1928 as a Greek translator from English to modern Greek publications. Died in 1994 at the age of 98.

     Franz was the only man capable of doing translation work. Gangas was a native Greek speaker, knew little of Koine Greek, and apparently helped out with a variety of non-translation tasks including reviewing the English grammar for continuity of expression. From all information published about him personally, one readily concludes that Knorr was the business administrator for the Translation Committee. Henschel might have been on it to take care of legal/secretarial matters. Schroeder and Klein did the copious footnotes (which included textual sources) and cross references and marginal notes, which in the original six volumes of the NWT were more extensive than in the 1984 edition.

     As previously stated in this article, the most glaring reason for the Watchtower to have a bible translation of their own was to have a reference place to go to for support of their doctrines. One of the things that Jehovah's Witnesses love to deny is the biblical teaching of the Trinity. The Watchtower teaches their followers that God is not Triune in nature, and go to great lengths to try and disprove this. For the sake of time, we will only look at one passage to show how the Watchtower has altered the word of God...Colossians 1:16-17 (I will compare the King James to the New World Translation because the King James is what the watchtower use to produce at their headquarters in Brooklyn, NY):

     If you compare the (2) versions, you can probably see the main difference between them...the insertion of the word OTHER. What is the significance of inserting this one word? Well, if you know anything about the Watchtower's teaching on Jesus, you will know that they believe Jesus is the first of God's creation. They do not believe Jesus is eternal, and that there was a point in time when Jesus did not exist. The Jehovah's Witnesses actually believe that Jesus was and is now Michael the Archangel. If you would like to read more on the subject of Jesus as Michael the Archangel, please click here.

     By inserting the word "other" into the text, it agrees with the Watchtower's teaching that Jesus was created, because they believe that Jesus created all "other" things. But if we take out the word "other", it changes the context of the passage to the way that Christianity has always seen Christ...as the creator of ALL things. If Jesus is the creator of ALL things then that puts Him outside the realm of creation, and thus disproves the Watchtowers teaching. Christ cannot create ALL things if He is a creation Himself. So who has the right translation?

     Well, let's look at another resource that the Watchtower has produced which will help us to answer this question. The resource that we will be looking at is the Kingdom Interlinear Translation (or KIT). The KIT is a translation of the New Testament with a twist. The twist is that along with the Watchtower translation from the NWT (on the right-hand side), there is also the Greek original with the English rendering underneath (on the left-hand side). This will be very important in our research.

     First, let's take a look at page 5 of the KIT to see what it says about this translation:

     Here is a close up view just in case you have a hard time reading the scan above:

     As you can see, the Watchtower states that the accuracy of any modern translation can be determined by comparing it to the word-for-word interlinear translation, which is the Greek rendering with the English underneath it. With that being said, let's look at Colossians 1:16-17 from the KIT:

     I have highlighted the Greek on the left with the NWT on the right so we can see the differences. If you compare the two, you will see that the left-hand side, which contains the Greek, does NOT have the word "other" in it. The original Greek has the word ALL (panta - panta) which is the correct translation. So, using the Watchtower's statement from page 5, we see that their insertion of the word "other" in the NWT is inaccurate. The proper rendering should be "all things", not "all [other] things" in Colossians 1:16-17, which is what every modern translation has in these verses. The NWT is the only version that I have seen that inserts the word "other", which goes to show you that they have done this to try and conform God's word to their beliefs, when it should be the other way around (conform your beliefs to God's word).

     So what have we learned about the New World Translation? We've learned that it's not a scholarly translation by looking at the educational background of the six man translation committee. We've also seen that the Kingdom Interlinear Translation shows the inaccuracy of the Watchtower's New World Translation and thus demonstrating that they will stop at nothing to try to suppress the truth of God's word. What the Watchtower doesn't know is that no human being can ever stop God's truth from being revealed to His people. I hope this article has helped you see some of the errors of the Jehovah's Witnesses Organization and will be a testimony to you that you should ALWAYS test all things (2 Cor 13:5) when it comes to God's revelation to see if you are in the TRUE faith. (Share this article with a friend)

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