Jehovah's Witnesses and the New World Translation

This evening we're looking at the Jehovah's Witnesses New World Translation.

The translators, interestingly enough, you'll search in vain through your

New World Translation looking for the names of the translators. The reason is, according to the society anyway, is that they do not want to give any glory to any particular man.

I'm not sure if that's really the complete reason. In 1980, Raymond Franz, who was on the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses, was disfellowshipped.

In a book he wrote entitled Crisis of Conscience, he reveals the names of the people who served on the translation committee of the

New World Translation. Of the people who served on the committee, only one man had any training in biblical languages whatsoever.

About a year and a half of Greek. It's unclear whether that was classical or koiné, I have a feeling it was classical

Greek. It wasn't even the Greek of the New Testament, as I understand. But this was the only official training that any of these people had received.

And so though most Jehovah's Witnesses really feel that this translation here is extremely scholarly, it's the most accurate, so on and so forth, the fact of the matter is they have no credentials to back up the claims that they're making at that point.

Now the New World Translation is known for the fact that most of them will have numerous appendices in the back.

And these appendices will address various translational questions, and I would say mistranslations, in the

NWT. And many of them will quote true scholars of the Greek language,

A .T. Robertson, Danan Manti, other true scholars of the Greek language in the appendix.

What is interesting is the fact that the writing department of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has access to a library that is one of the largest in the world as far as religious literature goes.

They have access to just about everything that there is. And what is unfortunate is that they search high and low for any kind of quotation from this mountain of literature that would support their position while passing over vast amounts of quotations that completely and totally disagree with their presentation and their position.

And it must be a hard thing for a person to work in the writing department and have to ignore the vast majority of the references they look up because they don't support a particular position taken by a society.

But this we see over and over again when we examine the New World Translation. The Greek text utilized by the

Watchtower Society is Westcott and Hort's text of 1881. There are more modern texts, which it might have been better if they had followed, but I have no particular problem with the

Westcott and Hort at all. Now realize that in the forward of the 1984 edition of the

NWT, we read that the translators attempted to render things as accurately as possible.

And what I'd like to examine in that is whether they did a very good job of rendering things as accurately as possible.

And as we're looking through these, I'd like you to keep in mind what is it that is being spoken of in each of these passages that we examine.

Is there a common thread, doctrinally or in a theological realm, between these what we will call mistranslations or very tortured translations or something like that?

See if there is some type of a reason possibly behind these translations.

I think after we do just a few of them, you'll see that there is indeed a common thread between all of them.

And one last thing before we actually get into examining some mistranslations. You might wonder, why in the world would you take the time even to examine this?

You're going to be talking about some complicated issues. You're going to be getting into some things that most Christians would never deal with.

Why do this? The main reason is Christianity is based upon the teachings of the

Bible. The Bible is our guidebook. The Bible provides us with the information that we have concerning who

Jesus is and what his work was. And so if you can change the Bible, if you can in some way alter its message, you can alter the very fabric of the faith that is based upon it.

And so it is an important thing to accurately translate the text of Scripture.

Paul did not read or write English. In fact, English didn't even exist at the time that Paul lived.

We are reading translations of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament.

And so we must be able to examine the credentials and the accuracy of those people who would translate the

Scriptures for us, unless we're going to take the time to learn the Greek language ourselves or Hebrew or something like that, so that we don't have to rely on someone else's translation.

And of course, that takes many hours of study and work. Most people don't have the opportunity of doing that, and so they must rely on translations.

And so what we're going to do is we're going to examine just how accurately the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has translated the things from Scripture.

So if you'll take your Kingdom Interlinear Translation and look with me first at Matthew chapter 25, verse 46.

Matthew chapter 25, verse 46. Now, most people, at least for a while, will probably still have the purple edition of the

Kingdom Interlinear Translation. So I'm not giving you page numbers in the purple one.

The page numbers are different. The page number in the New 85 Kingdom Interlinear is page 137.

It is not that in the old purple edition. It is page 153 in the old purple edition.

So as you can see, there's a few pages different there. So when I give you a page, that will be in the new blue 1985

Kingdom Interlinear. The New World Translation, which you'll find along the right -hand side of the page, says in Matthew 25, verse 46,

And these will depart into everlasting cutting off, but the righteous ones into everlasting life.

The word that is questionable here is the Greek term kolosin, which you see in your interlinear portion, translated cutting off, or in the interlinear portion, it says lopping off.

Now it is true that at one point in history, kolosin meant cutting off or lopping off.

Unfortunately, that was hundreds of years before the period in which the New Testament was written. At the time the

New Testament was written, the Koine period, it meant punishment, punishment.

Almost every translation I've ever read contains that meaning of punishment, not cutting off.

Now you say, well, why might you mention this? Well, the fact of the matter is that the

Ouachitara -Waban Tracticide does not believe in eternal punishment. And if you'll look at the text here, you'll see that you have eternal life and you have eternal punishment, and they're parallel to each other.

However long life is, so is punishment. And I have a feeling that to cloud this issue, to be perfectly honest with you, this mistranslation has been introduced into the text, cutting off instead of punishment.

Now, undoubtedly, the most famous translation, if we can use that term in the

New World Translation, is John chapter 1, verse 1. John 1, verse 1.

John chapter 1, verse 1. Here on the board I have written from the Greek text, John 1, verse 1, which says, Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the

Word was God. Now, as you can see in the New World Translation, the

NWT translates it, In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a

God. Society has expended great time, money, and effort to substantiate this translation.

They have quoted out of context numerous scholars, including Dana and Manti from Immanuel Grammar of the

Greek New Testament, to attempt to substantiate this. Let's look at the actual text and see what is being said.

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος. In the beginning was the Word. This word ἦν is the imperfect form of Ἀιμί.

Ἀιμί is a simple existence verb. It means I am. It simply states that the

Word was in existence in the beginning. It is timeless. It does not point to any point of origin or beginning whatsoever.

Whenever that beginning was, the Word was already in existence. In fact, all the way through the first 14 verses of John, the writer of John is very, very careful to differentiate between two verbs.

This verb right here, ἦν, and another verb, γένομαι, or as it is found in this passage in the

Aorist form, ἐγένοτα. You say, what does that have to do with the price of butter in Russia? ἐγένοτα refers to a point of origin, a source, a beginning.

When he talks about all things, when he talks about John, he says these things became, they started.

But when he talks about the Word, ὁ λόγος, he says ἦν.

He does not use a verb that points to a point of origin or a beginning. Now, the only time this changes is in verse 14, when it says the

Word became flesh. Here, he uses ἐγένοτα. Well, of course he does.

Because there was a point in time at which the Word became flesh. The Word was not eternally flesh.

The Word became flesh at a point in time. So, this use of the verbs is very important in John's thinking.

So, what he says here in the first clause of John 1 .1 is that the Word is eternal. The Word has always been.

However far you want to push ἦν, ἦν, back. You can take it back to the beginning of creation if you wish.

The Word is already in existence. You can push it as far back into eternity as you want. The Word still is.

This is his first part of this verse. The second phrase says, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν, and the

Word was with God. Now, this is interesting. A person reading the first phrase would get the idea, well, the λόγος is eternal.

Now, to a monotheistic Jew such as John, the only thing that was completely and totally eternal, that was not a creation of God in any way, shape, or form, was

God Himself. And so, we have this idea of the Word here being eternal, and in the very next phrase he says, and the

Word was with God. And we see here two persons. We have the

Word, and of course we know that in John 1 .14 this Word is identified as Jesus Christ.

The Word was eternally with God. Now, if you stopped right there, you'd get the idea that the

Word may be eternal, but the Word is to be completely and totally distinguished from God. And there is indeed a distinguishing here between λόγος and θεὸν.

But, he didn't stop there. He added the next phrase, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, and the

Word was God. So, there is a, here in the second word, we have a second phrase, clause, we have a word, πρὸς, πρὸς.

Πρὸς means face -to -face. It indicates communication. It indicates fellowship.

The Word was eternally face -to -face in fellowship with God. And then the third clause says, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, the

Word was God. Now, the society's contentions have revolved on the fact that this word θεὸς does not have what is called an article.

An article in Greek would appear such as right here, ὁ. Λόγος has the article in each phrase, right here, right here, and right here.

Θεὸν has the article right here, τὸν, τὸν θεὸν. But here θεὸς does not have an article, which in English would be the.

And so they say this makes it indefinite, and hence should be translated a god. Now, this is not the case.

Instead, what you have here, this phrase, is called a copulative phrase. And I know

I'm taking you back to the good old days of grammar in English class, but it's very important.

The subject of the sentence is the Word. You could not translate it, God is the Word. You could not translate it that way because when you have a sentence like this, that little mark right there, the article, points out what the subject of the sentence is.

So it is, the Word was, and we have θεὸς. Now, if θεὸς had an article, if θεὸς had an article, then you could translate either

God was the Word, or the Word was God, either one. It would be interchangeable, and what it would say was, all of God was the

Word, and all of the Word is God. They are identical things. Now, if John had said that, what he would be saying is, the

Word is all of God. God and the Word are the same person. That is an ancient heresy known as Sabellianism or Modalism.

Teaching that there is no Trinity, there is no three persons, but the Father is the Son, the Son is the

Father, and the Father is the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is the Father, and so on and so forth. That is not the case. And so here, what could

John have done? If he had put the article in, he would have basically been teaching heresy, which he did not do.

Why, then, did he write it in this way? Basically, when, this is called a predicate nominative, when the predicate nominative precedes the verb, and does not have the article, it takes on a characterizing effect.

Kenneth Wiest, in his expanded translation, brings this out when he says, the Word was, as to His nature, absolute deity.

John's point is that, though you can differentiate between the Word and God, the

Word's nature is the same nature as God's. In fact, one translation translates it, what

God was, the Word was. John is not attempting to say that Jesus is the

Father, that Jesus is Theon. What he is saying is, Logos, Jesus' nature is the same as the

Father's. They both share the one essence, the one being that is God. A translation of a

God is false and misleading.

It does not do justice to the context of the language in any way, shape, or form.

It also teaches polytheism. For this would teach that you have a big

God, Jehovah, and a little God, Jesus. Now, Jesus said that there is only one true

God. And hence, if big God, Jehovah, is the one true God, then that makes Jesus a false

God. Obviously, that is not the case from John's viewpoint. If a student, for example, in one of my

Greek classes that I teach at church were to translate this phrase and put, and the

Word was a God, I would have to mark it wrong because it is just simply against the rules of Greek grammar.

And so we have here an example of a mistranslation at this point.

The extent to which society has gone in an attempt to defend this is beyond the realm of our research this evening.

Though it is fascinating to see how many times true scholars have been quoted out of context, falsehoods have been produced, we've even gone so far as to find out that society utilized translation by a spirit medium by the name of Johannes Grieber who also translated this, the

Word was a God, but he got his translation from the spirit world, which should say something about the seriousness of what we are dealing with here.

So John 1 .1 is a major mistranslation. He is saying, how am

I going to explain that to a witness, friend, or relative of mine? I can't spew back all that copulative sentence material.

Well, let's look at a few things here. In the Kingdom Interlinear Translation, 282 times the word theos appears without an article.

And if that rule that the society has seemingly made up about John 1 .1

holds true, then 282 times we should find them translating it a God. However, you will find out that only 16 times they translate it that way.

In other words, they break their own rule 94 % of the time. They are inconsistent to their own rule 94 % of the time.

For example, in verse 6 of John 1, we have theu and some might go, well see that's a different word.

It is not. Theu is just simply the genitive -adjective form of theos. And the society itself has admitted that.

Theu has no article and yet look how they translate it in verse 6. There arose a man that was sent forth as a representative of God with a capital

G. If they were consistent, they would have to translate it a God. But they did not. There are numerous other examples.

In 2 Corinthians 5 .19 you have theos appearing without an article. It is translated in the

NWT as capital G God. This happens over and over and over again.

Also, do not be taken in by a very common witness ploy of taking you to Acts 28 verse 6 where Paul is bitten by a serpent and they say see look right here they said that they thought him to be a

God. The problem is the construction in Acts 28 .6 is not in any way parallel to what we have in John 1 .1.

And without going into a lot of detail, there is a passage in your Kingdom Interlinear translation there that is exactly parallel to John 1 .1

which you can show a witness and demonstrate how the NWT correctly translates the other passage while mistranslating

John 1 .1. Let's take a look at that. It is Mark chapter 2 verse 28

Mark 2 .28 Mark 2 .28

is a parallel construction to what we have right here. In other words, we have a noun preceding the verb without an article.

According to society, it should be translated indefinitely. Let's look at Mark 2 .28

Hence the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Now if you look at your

Greek you will see Hoste Kourios Notice Kourios Kourios is a nominative.

It is before the verb esten and if the society's contentions are right and if they stuck to their own rule you would have to translate this

Hence the Son of Man is a Lord even of the Sabbath. But they do not because that would be patently absurd obviously.

And yet why do it in John 1 .1? I'd have to say it is because of a theological bias against the deity of Christ obviously and I think that has been substantiated over the past 36 years in the fact that numerous scholars have written articles showing the fact that John 1 .1

has been mistranslated in the NWT and yet they try to stick to the translation Only a person who has a point to prove is going to do that when faced with true scholarship against their position

And so John 1 .1 is a mistranslation and can be demonstrated as such from the text

Let's look at another one that has caused a lot of raised eyebrows in the scholarly community is

John 8 .58 John chapter 8 verse 58 Now this evening

I handed out to you and those people who are listening by tape do not have benefit of this but I will ascribe to you it is a photocopied sheet giving the footnote from the

NWT from 1951, 1969 and 1984 at John 8 .58

You will notice that it has changed numerous times In 1951 the

NWT had as a footnote I have been ago

I me after the aorist infinitive clause and hence properly rendered in the perfect indefinite tense.

It is not the same as haon meaning the being or the I am in exodus 3 .14 and LXX means the septuagint

Now it was immediately pointed out by Christian scholars world around that there was no such thing as a perfect indefinite tense in Greek The witnesses were just about as quickly to respond that they didn't mean in Greek even though that's obviously how it seems to have been written

They meant in English and there is a perfect indefinite tense in English However, it was dropped very quickly because of course they could provide no evidence for what they were saying

And so you'll notice that in the 1969 edition of the NWT all the way up till just last year, this second note was put in which says

I have been ago I me after the aorist infinitive clause and hence properly rendered in the perfect tense

It is not the same as haon meaning the being or the I am in exodus 3 .14 in the septuagint

Now this has been changed in the 1985

I know I put 84 down there the 1985 NWT notice something has disappeared it now says

I have been ago I me the action expressed by this verb began in the past is still in progress and is properly translated by the perfect indicative well, they're getting closer but the problem is they're missing the entire point of the passage many times context is a guiding light to translation let's look at what was going on in John chapter 8

Jesus is talking to the Jews and he has told them in John 8 .24

unless you believe that ago I me I am you shall die in your sins he wasn't pulling any punches here and he comes to 8 .58

and says before Abraham came into existence or came into being I am notice what happens in verse 59 therefore they picked up stones to hurl them at him but Jesus hid and went out of the temple now the

Jews took great offense at Jesus' use of ago I me there are some real reasons for this ago

I me is used both in Deuteronomy and Isaiah as a euphemism another terminology for Yahweh God this is used for example in Isaiah 43 .10

where Jehovah's Witnesses even get their name in the Septuagint translation and the Jews understood what

Jesus was saying the Jews comprehended that he was claiming to be their God and they accused him of blasphemy and picked up stones to hurl at him

I mean they only had two reasons to stone you it was either blasphemy or adultery and obviously his saying before Abraham was

I am was not adultery they considered it to be blasphemy and so society has missed this point and I personally believe to hide the obvious claim by Jesus at this point they have mistranslated a simple present indicative active ago

I me as I have been instead of I am now it is true that obviously it means that in the past he was that's true here is a comparison between Abraham and notice the verb there

Genestai, it's Genemi again the exact same comparison that John was making way back in John 1 is continuing here in John chapter 8

Abraham came into existence at one point Jesus present indicative, continuous action has always been ago

I me the same comparison is made in the Septuagint translation

Psalm 90 verse 2 where before the mountains were bought forth, wherever thou hast formed the earth and the world even from everlasting to everlasting thou art

God the mountains came into existence God has always been it's the same comparison in the

Greek of Psalm 90 verse 2 in the Septuagint as we have here in John chapter 8 verse 58 the

Jews knew all of this and so the best translation of course is I am

I have been is contained in the meaning certainly in the past yes but the translation is

I am and I have to figure that the reason we've stuck with I have been in the society for the past 36 years is mainly to hide a point on the bottom of the page here

I have from a beginning grammar of the Greek New Testament by William Hersey Davis section 458

John 8 58 comes up as an example and he says is frequently used with the infinitive for example

William Hersey Davis studied under the greatest

American Greek scholar who has ever lived Dr. A .T. Robertson and William Hersey Davis was a colleague of his so you can't get a much greater authority than William Hersey Davis or A .T.

Robertson at this point so John 8 58 has figured rather largely in this discussion

Acts chapter 10 verse 36 we'll pick up the pace a little bit here Acts chapter 10 verse 36

Acts chapter 10 verse 36 says that he sent out the word of the sons of Israel to declare to them the good news of peace through Jesus Christ this one is the lord of all others the society has a penchant for adding the word other into the scriptures the word other is nowhere in the

Greek text as you can see only a theological bias causes it to be added where it is at this point we will see numerous other examples of this 2

Corinthians chapter 13 2 Corinthians very last verse of the letter says the undeserved kindness of the lord

Jesus Christ and the love of God and the sharing in the Holy Spirit be with all of you you might say so what?

well when you read it in the Greek you'll notice that what we have here is a Trinitarian passage we have reference to the lord

Jesus Christ, the father God and to the Holy Spirit and yet, even though the construction is identical of the lord

Jesus Christ, of God and it should be of the Holy Spirit society has broken up this triune passage and translated a simple genitive as a locative and said in the

Holy Spirit now any first year Greek student would recognize that this is a genitive form and yet they are translating it as a locative with really no reason at all especially due to the fact that it is obviously parallel with of the lord

Jesus Christ and of God above and I think again the reason revolves around theological differences society doesn't believe in the trinity the thing that worries me is you need to come to the scriptures and derive your theology from the scriptures rather than taking your theology and impressing them upon the scriptures themselves and changing the scriptures to fit your theology and yet we see this happening over and over again look at Philippians chapter 1

Philippians came in for a lot of this for some reason, I'm not sure why but Philippians contains a high number of questionable translations,

Philippians chapter 1 verse 23 is an example Paul says I'm under pressure from these two things but what

I do desire is the releasing and the being with Christ for this to be sure is far better now the word is onalusi which is an infinitive and simply means

Paul is saying I wish to be released I wish to be released now if you look at the appendix that the society provides concerning this, what they try to say is that Paul was talking about something way down the road someplace when in fact what

Paul is talking about here is I want to go home and be with the Lord I want to be in the

Lord's presence but why would the society have any problem with that? Well if you know what the society teaches concerning that they do not teach a conscious existence in the afterlife you are literally recreated by God at the time of the resurrection and so instead of Paul saying

I want to be released and to be with the Lord we have a different translation which would make that a little bit harder to see

Philippians 2 .9 Philippians 2 .9 gives us another example of the word other being inserted into the text.

For this very reason also God exalted him to a superior position and kindly gave him the name that is above every other name.

Now the 1985 edition of the Kingdom of the Millennium translation has the word other in brackets.

It did not in the 1969 edition the 1969 edition, the purple people leader as we called it, that word other is not in brackets.

They have now decided to bracket it mainly due to the fact that what

Philippians 2 .9 says is that his name is above every name. Now you can understand why we put the word other in there from the witnesses viewpoint.

Every name but the name Jehovah of course. What they don't realize is that Jesus is

Jehovah. Jesus is identified as Jehovah over and over and over and over again in the scriptures. But this is not seen in the

NWT. Philippians 3 .11 Philippians 3 .11

gives us another example where a doctrine of the society is smuggled into a translation.

Philippians 3 .11 says to see if I may by any means attain to the earlier resurrection from the dead.

The Greek term is ex -anastasin. Ex -anastasin does not mean earlier resurrection.

It just simply means a resurrection out of. It is the Greek term anastasis, resurrection, and ex, out of.

It has nothing to do with earlier whatsoever. Why is this translated this way?

Well, as you understand witness doctrine, you can see why it is translated in this way.

And again, it is a doctrinal consideration. More tampering with the text can be seen, and it is one of the most obvious obvious passages, is

Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1 verses 16 through 17 in the

NWT reads because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and upon the earth.

The things visible and the things invisible. No matter whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities.

All other things have been created through him and for him. Also he is before all other things, and by means of him all other things were made to exist.

Now, notice the word other is in brackets. It originally was not. If you will look at the 1950 or the 1951

NWT, the word other was just put right in the text, no brackets whatsoever. Such an outcry was raised concerning this that obviously, very quickly, the society inserted the brackets but they didn't take the word out.

Now, why has this word been put in there? Well, obviously if Jesus Christ created all things, ta ponta is the

Greek term, and it means all things. If he created all things then he is the creator, not a creation.

If I create all things, then I am not a creation. But if I am a creation then

I have to say I created all other things and exclude myself from that category. The society has realized this, and to take away the clear indication of the fact that Jesus Christ created all things, he is before all things, and by his very power all things hold together, the word other has been inserted.

Other groups have taken different tracks. For example, the Wayner National Victor Paul Werewolf group, who also deny the deity of Christ, take a much less scholarly approach,

I should say, not that this is scholarly, but a much less likely approach by saying verses 16 and 17 are an excursus that are in reference to the

Father, not the Son. Sort of like in parentheses or something along those lines. Every group has to do something with the fact that Jesus Christ, according to Colossians 1, 16 -17, is the creator, not a creation.

It's a very, very important distinction. The next passage to look at is

Colossians 2 verse 9. Colossians 2 9, an extremely important verse in presenting the deity of Christ to anyone, obviously, but Colossians 2 9 says in the

New World Translation, because it is in him that all the fullness of the divine quality dwells bodily.

Now, the Greek phrase is hati in auto katoikai ponta pleiroma teis theatetas somaticos, because in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.

The word theatetas means deity. Now notice, in the 85

Kingdom Interlinear Translation, there's been a change. In the 1969 Purple People Leader, it read godhead, godship, godship.

Now it's been changed to divinity, which is, in actuality, a weaker form.

It is a step in the wrong direction. Now, you will find, however, divinity in various lexicons as a meaning.

But to the witness, divinity means not deity. They have a complete difference between divinity and deity.

Theatetas means that which makes God God, the very essence of being of God. It's a very strong term.

In fact, it's the only time it's used in the New Testament at all. And it's in reference to Jesus Christ. Divinity to a witness is something much less.

You will never find in any lexicon the meaning divine quality for theatetas. That is a mistranslation to hide the fact that Colossians 2 .9

teaches very clearly that Jesus Christ is in the state of being

God, deity. That's from Thayer's Greek lexicon. B .B. Warfield defined it as that which makes

God God. It's a very strong, very clear term that, unfortunately, if I were to read this as my regular translation, and how many witnesses do you know that do that?

This is the only translation they read on a regular basis. I wouldn't see it. I could read over that verse a hundred times and not see the clear teaching that Jesus Christ was deity, he was

God. And the fact is also most witnesses are very ignorant of the background to these passages.

You see, Paul was writing against an error called Gnosticism. Gnosticism taught that God was all good and that matter was all evil.

Spirit was good, matter was evil so that you have a God up here that could never have created matter. And from God were a number of emanations called eons.

All those emanations together were the Pleroma. And each eon, each emanation was a little bit farther away from God, a little bit lower until you got down to the bottom and you had what was called a demiurge, a real vile being which the

Gnostics identified as Jehovah of the Old Testament who created all things. One of these emanations along the way was

Jesus. And the Gnostics worshipped angels as these emanations and Paul mentions this here in Colossians.

And so when you realize that he's writing against that, you can see how important Colossians 2 .9 really is. For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.

They thought bodily was evil, terrible, corrupt. And yet Paul's point is all the fullness of deity, that which makes

God God, exists in Jesus in bodily form. Now up until this change that they've now made here, there was one other word in the

New Testament which they translated in the interlinear portion as Godship and that was over at Romans 1 .20

Thyatatos. It is a different word. It uses an iota in there. It's a completely different word.

It comes from a completely different word and yet they had the same translation in the interlinear. Thyatatos does mean divine quality.

That's what it refers to. It refers to the divine attributes. It's much less of a specific term. And it's different than what is here at Colossians 2 .9

Thyatatos. Let's move on from here to 1 Timothy 2 .6 1

Timothy 2 .6 Here is another example of basically smuggling a doctrine into a translation.

1 Timothy 2 .6 NWT reads, Who gave himself a corresponding ransom for all, this is what is to be witnessed to at its own particular times.

Corresponding ransom comes from the Greek term antelotron. Antelotron. Antelotron simply means a ransom, not a corresponding ransom.

But when you realize the witness's doctrine of the corresponding ransom that Adam, the perfect man lost.

So Jesus, the perfect man, gave his perfect life and that obviously shows that Jesus could never be

God because he couldn't be more or less than Adam and so on and so forth. You see why the translation of antelotron as corresponding ransom.

Hebrews chapter 9 verse 27 in the NWT says,

And as it is reserved for men to die once for all time but after this a judgment.

Once for all time. The phrase for all time does not appear in the Greek. Of course when you realize the witness's doctrine that when you die you cease to exist, you can understand how that would be rational and consistent from their viewpoint.

But again it is simply smuggling a doctrine into the scriptures. Hebrews chapter 12 verses 9 and 23.

Hebrews chapter 9 verse excuse me, Hebrews chapter 12 verse 9 has in the

NWT toward the end of the verse, Shall we not much more subject ourselves to the father of our spiritual life and live?

Notice that in the Greek it is pneumaton pneumaton it is the genitive plural spirits and it is translated spirits in the interlinear portion of the kingdom interlinear translation.

Somehow we get from spirits to our spiritual life and a similar translation is done in verse 23 of the same chapter where we know that it says in general assembly and the congregation of the firstborn who have been enrolled in the heavens and God the judge of all and the spiritual lives of righteous ones who have been made perfect.

What Hebrews chapter 12 is talking about is spirits of righteous men. Well society doesn't believe in that spiritual being that spiritual essence to man existing on past death and so we change from spirits to spiritual lives.

First Peter 1 .11 is interesting to me. First Peter 1 .11

says in the NWT They kept on investigating what particular season or what sort of season the spirit in them was indicating concerning Christ when it was bearing witness beforehand about the sufferings for Christ and about the glories to follow these.

Now this passage is in reference to the prophets. Prophets of the Old Testament. And there was a spirit in them witnessing about Christ.

Now if you'll look at any other translation if you'll look at your New American Standard or something like that or if you'll just simply look at the interlinear

Greek portion you'll see Numa Christu Spirit of Christ It was the spirit of Christ that was testifying in the prophets of old.

Now when you look at the Old Testament you see the Old Testament clearly says it was the spirit of Yahweh Spirit of Jehovah that spoke to the prophets.

Now First Peter 1 .11 is saying it was the spirit of Christ that was doing this. Well, you can see why we need to do something with this translation.

Because this would be another one of the many places where Jesus is identified as being Jehovah. And so here we have a very simple construction

Numa Christu simple translation Spirit of Christ and yet we translate it again

I believe in reference to theological rather than grammatical reasons.

Revelation 3 .14 is another example. The book of the Revelation. Chapter 3 verse 14 says

And if the angel of the congregation lay out a seerite, these are the things that the Amen says.

The faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God. Now witnesses were very quick to point this out and say, see this says that Jesus is the beginning of the creation by God.

He was God's first creation. Now the word translated beginning is the same word we had up here in John 1 .1

RK. That same word is used in description of God.

God who is the beginning and the end. So if using the word RK of Jesus makes him a creation,

I guess Jehovah is too. Obviously that's not what it says. The phrase under consideration is of God.

He is the beginning or the RK of the creation of God, not by God.

By God is simply an interpretation by the society. What Revelation 3 .14 is in reference to is that Jesus Christ is the

RK, the origin, the source, the beginning. The ruler of the creation of God.

He is not the first created thing because we've already seen in Colossians 1 .16 -17 that he created all things.

Here again is a translation that is based upon the theological preference of the society and it is a mistranslation.

Now the next few passages we're going to look at all tie together. They're all examples of a particular kind of Greek construction.

You're going, oh no, another Greek construction. I think we can go through it to where you can understand exactly what it is we're looking at.

What we're looking at in the next few passages is what's called Granville Sharpe's Rule.

Granville Sharpe's Rule. And what Granville Sharpe's Rule says is this.

When two singular nouns describing a person are found in the same case and are connected by the word and which in Greek is chi with the first noun having the article the and the second lacking it, both nouns refer to the same person.

What that means is when you have two nouns they're singular and they're describing a person and they're connected by the little word and the first one has the article, the second one doesn't.

The rule says both of them are describing the same person. Let's look at some examples of this so we can get this firmly into our mind.

Let's look for example at 2 Peter 3 .18 2 Peter 3 .18 2

Peter 3 .18 is correctly translated by the New World Translation. It says

No, but go on growing in the undeserved kindness and knowledge of our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

Now, what I want to look at is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ in the Greek that is tu kuriu hemon kai soteros

Iesu Christu. This is a Granville Sharp construction.

That is, you have two nouns. The first is kuriu and the second is soteros,

Lord and Savior. They are connected by the word kai and the first, kuriu has an article, too.

Soteros does not. This is a classic Granville Sharp construction correctly translated by the

NWT as Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Both Lord and Savior refer to the one person,

Jesus Christ. Correctly translated. Let's look at another example.

2 Peter 1 .11 Same book. In fact, you will find there are five, count them, five

Granville Sharp constructions in the short little book of 2 Peter. He uses it very frequently.

2 Peter 1 .11 says In fact, thus there will be richly supplied to you the entrance into the everlasting kingdom of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Lord and Savior. Lord has the article, Savior does not, connected by kai, describing one person.

It is not Our Lord and Our Savior, Jesus Christ, as if Our Lord is one person, and Savior, Jesus Christ is somebody else.

That is not what it means. Again, correctly translated by the NWT. Now you have 2

Peter 1 .11 on the little sheet that I gave you. On the sheet you have there, you have 2.

Of the Lord of us, and of the Savior, Jesus Christ. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now let's go to 2 Peter 1 .11 Notice this is only one page away from 2

Peter 1 .11 2 Peter 1 .11 Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, those who have obtained a faith, held in equal privilege with ours, by the righteousness of our

God, and the Savior, Jesus Christ. Notice the word the is in brackets. Now let's look at the

Greek. In fact, on your sheet of paper you have seen I have made a comparison to There is only one word difference between 2

Peter 1 .1 and 2 Peter 1 .11. In 2 Peter 1 .1 the word Theou, God appears.

In 2 Peter 1 .11 it is Kouriou, Lord. They are identical in form.

These 2 passages are identical to each other. Now if you could translate 2

Peter 1 .11 as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, then consistency demands that you translate 2

Peter 1 .1 as our God and Savior Jesus Christ, and understand that both God and Savior apply to the one person

Jesus Christ. If you do not translate it that way which the NWT obviously does not what you are saying is that Peter used the same construction 5 times in his letter 4 times he meant it one way, and this is the only exception to the rule.

Now a couple years back I undertook project

I -Strain which was a project for a Greek class

I was taking at that time in which I examined all the writings of Peter and Paul and found every single

Granville -Sharp construction in those writings. I realize Paul wrote 13 of the books in the

New Testament and so that was a lot of searching and what I did is I examined every

Chi in all those books it's this little three letter word Chi there are a lot of Chi's in all of Paul's and Peter's writings

I can guarantee you that and so I've seen every example of Granville -Sharp's rule that Paul or Peter ever utilized and I found something very unusual in that study most rules seemingly were meant to be broken there are almost always exceptions to a rule in Greek I found no exceptions to Granville -Sharp's rule

Paul did not do it Peter did not do it you can't find an exception to it that means something to me it means it was definitely something they understood let's look at another passage

Titus 2 .13 Titus 2 .13 Titus 2 .13

here again we have another classic Granville -Sharp construction

Titus 2 .13 in the NWT reads while we wait for the happy hope and glorious manifestation of the great

God and of the, in brackets Savior of us, Christ Jesus again notice

God Chai Soteros that you as the article

Soteros does not the article is on the preceding page it is a classic

Granville -Sharp construction here Jesus is described as our great

God and Savior by the Apostle Paul notice also it is the appearing of our great

God and Savior the epiphanion the epiphany is used only of Jesus Christ in the

New Testament if you look up that word epiphanion and look at every time it appears it is only used of Jesus it is never used of anyone else and so to be consistent this must be in reference to Jesus also it is also interesting to note that in the very next verse you have some references to the

Old Testament that were in reference to none other than Jehovah here applied to Jesus Christ consistency and many different lines of information point to the fact that if you are going to understand this passage you must realize that Paul believed that Jesus was our great

God and Savior there is no other way to understand it now the next group of verses that we are going to go a little bit through a little bit faster are what

I call strained, biased, contorted or tortured translations which means that it is not necessarily correct to say that they are a complete and total mistranslation you can translate it that way if you are very poor at translation and ignore the context and how the words are used in their normal usage so on and so forth for example

Matthew chapter 24 verse 3 is one of the many examples of the

Greek term parousia parousia the NWT consistently translates parousia as present you will notice most of your bibles are translated as coming here the disciples asked

Jesus what will be the sign of your coming now the society translates it present because they believe that Jesus has already come in 1914 which of course is based upon the fallacy that Jerusalem fell in 607 which it didn't it fell in 586 but that is just another one of the many factual errors that most witnesses don't know about the definition of parousia

I am taking this from Milt Milligan's vocabulary of the Greek testament which is based upon the papyri it is based upon how people used these words at that time it says, quote, the visit of a king emperor or other person in authority the official character of the visit being further emphasized by the taxes or payments that were exacted to make preparations for it so it was used of the entire process of the coming as well as the actual visit of a king now here again

I see a theological bias on the part of the society to hide the coming and emphasize the presence, you can't take either or, it is both together he is talking what they are talking about is what will be the sign of your coming, when you come what will be the signs of that, not an invisible presence someplace that no one knows about, and of course the context would support that idea,

Luke 23 43 gives you a real example of how just a little bit of tampering can do a great deal

Luke 23 43 in the NWT reads and listen closely, and he said to him truly

I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise truly

I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise there is a little footnote that says, today, the

Westcott and Hort text has a comma in the Greek text before the word for today, but commas were not used in Greek unsealed manuscripts hence in keeping with the context we omit what they don't point out is they don't omit the comma, they move the comma they move it so that it appears before or excuse me, it appears after the word today rather than after the word you we are used to hearing, truly

I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise but that completely contradicts the witness

I'm saying in the passage now I must ask you, how many times did Jesus say, truly

I say to you today I'll answer the question for you he never did, I mean obviously he wasn't saying, truly

I say to you yesterday, I mean, that's pretty obvious here is a man who is dying upon a cross probably from suffocation wasting his breath saying a word that means absolutely nothing, truly

I say to you today, well obviously it's today no, he said, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise, that was the great hope that he offered that theme on the cross obviously here we just have a little textual changing around to hide something that is rather obvious,

Romans 9 5 is another example of this in the 9th chapter Romans, verse 5, the

NWT reads, to whom the forefathers belong and from whom the Christ sprang according to the flesh colon

God who is over all be blessed forever amen, now the NWT is joined here by the

Revised Standard Version, which I do not suggest or support in any way but at any rate by making a break after the word all the

NIV I believe has the best rendering where it talks about he who is

God over all blessed forever the natural sense of the passage here ascribes the word

God to Jesus Christ who is God over all blessed forever, here again the

NWT obviously chooses the inferior translation the next passage

I want to look at is undoubtedly one of the most tortured translations I've ever seen

Philippians 2 .6 Philippians 2 .6 and the NWT reads, who although he was existing in God's form gave no consideration to a seizure namely that he should be equal to God now that's pretty sad, to be perfectly honest with you,

Philippians 2 .6 reads who although he was existing and notice that we have a participle there, who parkon eternally existing in the very morphe to theo, the form of God did not give consideration they say, gave no consideration the

New American Standard says who although he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped the point of the passage is gone into in detail in our tape on the deity of Christ and I'm not going to go into that right now the fact of the matter is this translation in the

NWT is so tortured, so twisted that they actually reference this in a denial of the deity of Christ when the verse in properly understood and properly translated teaches the deity of Christ in a very clear and easily understood manner but you know if you can change things around you're going to be able to do a good job on that one

Philippians chapter 2 in for example Colossians chapter 2 verses 6, 7, and 10 you'll find how free and loose the society plays with things in Colossians 2, 6, 7, and 10 you have the phrase in alto, in him translated three different ways and that all within four verses obviously if a writer is going to repeat a phrase three different times in four verses he's trying to get a point across but a person reading the

English translation in the NWT would never see it in him is extremely important to Paul a

Christian is in him but in the society a Christian really isn't in him or at least one of the great crowd is not truly in him in the biblical way look at Hebrews chapter 1 this one is really interesting to me

Hebrews chapter 1 is in reference to the superiority of Jesus Christ over the angels

Hebrews chapter 1 verse 6 says but when he again brings his firstborn to the inhabited earth he says and let all

God's angels do obeisance to him now aside from the fact that making firstborn possessive his firstborn is questionable the main point is let all

God's angels do obeisance to him now if you have the 69 the purple kingdom in the

NWT it will say worship him because in 1971 is when the society went through the scriptures found the

Greek term proskuneo and when it applies to God the father they allowed it to be translated in it's proper sense worship but when it's applied to Jesus Christ now it's do obeisance to I wonder why basically because the society doesn't believe you can worship

Jesus Christ because worship is only for God and yet we find here that all of the angels of God are to worship

Jesus Christ now of course the society believes Jesus Christ is Michael the Archangel he's one of the angels and how he's supposed to worship himself or even do obeisance to himself

I'm not sure but this has been a change even since the NWT was originally translated verse 8 also provides us with a tortured translation but with reference to the son

God is your throne forever and ever and the scepter of your kingdom is the scepter of uprightness

King James, New American Standard, NIV say in reference to the son he says

God he identifies the son as being God thy throne

O God is forever and ever instead of God is thy throne a much clearer translation in the modern translations now the last section of verses

I want to look at very quickly is textual emendations or omissions or inconsistencies for example one that I frequently point out to Jehovah's Witnesses is

John 14 .14 John 14 .14 is a very interesting passage as long as you can use the

NWT to look at it John 14 .14 in the

NWT reads if you ask anything in my name I will do it now the

King James reads the exact same way however the difficulty here is in reference to a textual variant and if you will look at the

Greek text of the NWT you will see that it says if ever anything you should ask me in the name of me this

I shall do now the textual variant that points to all modern versions do have that first me there it is very strongly supported the

King James is based upon the TR the text of Septus which deletes that however it is really strongly understood that word me is there it's interesting the society puts no footnote on it it is not in brackets but they have completely deleted the word me

Jesus said if you will ask me anything in my name I will do it this is an example of prayer to Christ we have many other examples of prayer to Christ in NWT Acts 7 -59 1

Corinthians 1 -2 and so on and so forth but here even though the Greek text they use

Westcott and Hort has the word me they don't translate it it's gone it's been deleted

I have to wonder why I think I know why Romans chapter 10 verses 12 -13 provides another interesting example

Romans chapter 10 verses 12 -13 and this brings up the point that the

New World Translation in the New Testament inserts the word Jehovah they remove either

Theos or Kurios and that's not really all bad when a quotation is taken from the

Old Testament where the word Yahweh or Jehovah appeared I have no problem with indicating that in the

New Testament I would like to point out that there is not one Greek manuscript in the New Testament anywhere in the world that contains of the

New Testament that contains the name Jehovah society believes it was taken out there is absolutely positively no evidence of that whatsoever in fact all the evidence completely and totally contradicts that position that is completely and totally false and you could challenge anyone you could walk right into the

Bethel headquarters and challenge anyone to provide you one shred of evidence to the contrary and they would be unable to do so at any rate

Romans chapter 10 verses 12 -13 says for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek for there is the same

Lord over all who is rich to all those calling upon him for everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved now that is true everyone who calls upon the name of Jehovah will be saved the problem is it said everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved Jehovah has been inserted into it and the context of the passage makes it very clear that Romans chapter 10 verse 13 is in reference to the name of the

Lord and the Lord in this context is Jesus Christ calling upon the name of Jesus is how one is saved is that not what

Acts 4 .12 says there is no other name given to heaven by which men can be saved in the name of Jesus this is true and if you look up the word

Anima, name and follow it through the New Testament you will find the name in the New Testament is not

Jehovah it is Jesus and so here we have putting in the word Jehovah taking out kurios and confusing people away from the fact that it is in the name of Jesus that we have salvation it is in the name of Jesus 1

Peter 3 .15 is interesting 1 Peter 3 .15

says in the NWT but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts always ready to make a defense before everyone who demands of you a reason for the hope in you but doing so together with a mild temper and deep respect now they do have a footnote on this at least giving the textual things here but here we have the word kurios sanctify

Christ as Lord now why don't they be consistent and here insert the tetragrammaton

Y H W H sanctify Christ as Jehovah in your hearts why do they not do this

I think I know why it is they don't put Jehovah in here though they should because this is a quotation from the

Old Testament Isaiah 8 .13 to set apart Jehovah to sanctify

Jehovah here Peter is quoting this in reference to Jesus Christ another one of the many references the fact that Jesus is

Jehovah and yet the NWT hides it by just putting in Lord instead of Jehovah this happens again in Philippians 2 .10

-11 which we have already looked at but in Philippians 2 .10 -11 we have here a quotation from Isaiah 45 .23

which is in reference to Jehovah and yet in Philippians 2 .10

we read so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and those on earth and those on the earth and every tongue should openly confess that Jesus Christ is and in the

Greek text kurios is even capitalized in the KDL in your translation but they don't put in Jehovah they leave it

Lord now if they were consistent they would have to put in the Tetragrammaton and they would say that Jesus Christ is

Jehovah to the glory of God the Father that's the confession Jesus Christ is Lord Jesus Christ is

Jehovah that's true, this is Paul's point but it's hidden in the NWT it's not there for the average witness to see that a person is to know that Jesus Christ is

Jehovah the same thing happens back in 1 Peter 2 .3 provided you have tasted that the

Lord is kind again it should be that Jehovah is kind, this is taken from Psalm 34 .8

but the context clearly shows we're talking about Jesus the NWT cannot allow Jesus to be identified as Jehovah which he is over and over again and so we don't put

Jehovah in for kurios it's inconsistencies inconsistencies in their usage of the

Tetragrammaton one of the most obvious ones that I use a lot to talk to Jehovah's Witnesses this is

Hebrews chapter 1 back to Hebrews 1 again verse 10, look at Hebrews 1 .10

now Hebrews 1 .10 through verse 12 is obviously in reference to Jesus Christ notice that the

NWT starts off and quote you at the beginning O Lord laid the foundations of the earth itself they do not put the

Tetragrammaton in here if you will look you will see that Hebrews 1 .10

-12 is a direct quotation of the 102nd

Psalm verses 25 -27 which are in reference to Jehovah a direct quotation what is almost even worse is the fact that in the 1984 reference edition with all these references in the middle here is a direct quotation of the

Old Testament and they do not reference it in the center column so you can go back and find out that the

Psalmist is writing about Jehovah the writer of Hebrews is talking about Jesus they are talking about the same person but it is not referenced for you

I wonder why I think I know why that is just complete straight out dishonesty let's look at Romans 10 -9

I have already mentioned that here we have a reference to Jesus being

Lord Romans 10 -9 Romans 10 -9 notice there is a footnote on Lord and it mentions

Lord and it mentions a number of the J documents I am not going to go into depth about what the

J documents are they are basically Hebrew translations of the New Testament notice it says NOT Jehovah they are trying to point out that the confession was not that Jesus was

Jehovah well that is interesting they reference all these J documents and they are trying to make their point try to keep you from believing

Jesus is Jehovah I wonder why over in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 3 we don't have a footnote too let's look at 1

Corinthians 12 -3 1 Corinthians 12 -3 therefore I would have you know that nobody when speaking by God's Spirit says

Jesus is accursed and nobody can say Jesus is Lord except by Holy Spirit notice there is no footnote on the word

Lord there there should be one of their very own J documents

J14 Reichart's 1846 edition New Testament Hebrew at this very point reads

Jesus is Jehovah why HWH the

Tetragrammaton why don't they let you know that one of their J documents here says Jesus is Jehovah I think

I know I think I know why because they simply don't want you to know how often

Jesus is identified as being Jehovah now at the beginning of this brief run through and I certainly have not gone into depth on almost anything and there is so much more that could be looked at at the beginning of this

I asked you to see if you could identify some common theological threads that run all the way through these mistranslations did you notice some things

I did I noticed that the vast majority of the passages that are mistranslated have to do with the deity of Christ many others had reference to life after death others had reference to the

Trinity or to eternal punishment doesn't it say something to you that the mistranslations are almost all with reference to the doctrines at which point society leaves historic

Christianity and in fact faults and attacks you as a

Christian you see it would be one thing to say the men who translated the

NWT were not scholars and they weren't they were not and the

NWT is not a scholarly translation in any way shape or form it has been written in such a way to try to make it look like it is but it is not and so it would be one thing to say they didn't know any better and so the mistranslations were not purposeful they were just simply well, you know,

I have people in my first year Greek class that I am teaching who will mistranslate things simply because they don't have a lot of practice or a lot of training, fine

I understand that you can just chalk that up to ignorance but if that were the case we would find mistranslations all through the text and they would not be within certain bounds they would be in reference to almost anything and yet the major mistranslations we find are in reference to particular subjects, which means there is a plan behind it there is purpose behind it you cannot simply say well, they just didn't know better they do know better I myself have taken the time to send registered letters to for example

Albert Schroeder of the Governing Body who had a part in translating this very book I sent him my study on Granville Sharp's rule and refuted the material in the

NWT where they try to support their mistranslation of Titus 2 .13 and 2 Peter 1 .1

I know he has gotten that ignorance cannot be used as an excuse at this point

I think it is very important when we are talking about the text of Scripture that we realize that this is purposeful tampering and I have a feeling

God takes it very serious because not only is it purposeful tampering, but the society itself is so structured that it teaches its people that they cannot examine for example the information that you can pick up off the table this evening there is our tract entitled as accurately as possible the title of this tape documenting many of the mistranslations we have looked at this evening, they could not examine that March 15, 1986

Watchtower shows a picture of a Jehovah's Witness throwing apostate material away don't even look at it you are not to have an open mind in society, though the

November 22, 1984 Awake magazine said you were to have an open mind that was mainly meant for people outside the

Watchtower examine our teachings be open and examine the Watchtower's teachings but once you get inside the

Watchtower oh no, you are never to examine anything outside the Watchtower, you cannot question it in any way shape or form what if an individual witness were to examine the

NWT, what would they find? they would find it is not scholarly, it is mistranslated so you are told not to and so here is a witness most witnesses are extremely and totally sincere, they really believe this is true but they don't have the facilities, they don't have even the ability to examine opposite viewpoints that would demonstrate to them that the

NWT is not a translation of the Bible it is a perversion of the Bible and so not only is society guilty of mistranslating

God's Word, they are also guilty of placing their own people in such a position that they can't find it, hence we are faced with a very dangerous attack upon the very basis of Christianity and it is used to help substantiate false doctrines taught by the

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and most witnesses will never have the opportunity of knowing what

God's Word really says of knowing that Colossians 1 .16 -17 says Jesus Christ is the creator, not a creation and in Colossians 2 .9

in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form Philippians 2 .5 -6 does not teach that he was not

God, teaches he was and that Jesus in John 1 .1 has the very being of God, he is not a

God most do not know and will not have the opportunity to that makes the