The New World Translation Bible: The New World Translation was released in 1961. Significantly, although the publishers claim that their translation is the work of qualified scholars, they have not revealed these scholars’ names or credentials.
It is unique in one thing – it is the first intentional, systematic effort at producing a complete version of the Bible that is edited and revised for the specific purpose of agreeing with a group's doctrine. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watchtower Society realized that their beliefs contradicted Scripture. So, rather than conforming their beliefs to Scripture, they altered Scripture to agree with their beliefs.
The New World Translation makes subtle changes in the text of the Bible to support Jehovah’s Witness doctrine. For example, it adds “a” to John 1:1 so that the text reads, “the Word was a god.” However, the correct translation of this important verse is, “The Word was God.” This is not a matter of correct translation, but of reading one's preconceived theology into the text, rather than allowing the text to speak for itself. There is no indefinite article in Greek (in English, "a" or "an"), so any use of an indefinite article in English must be added by the translator. This is grammatically acceptable, so long as it does not change the meaning of the text.
There is a good reason why theos has no definite article in John 1:1 and why the New World Translation rendering is in error. There are three general rules we need to understand to see why.
The most revealing evidence of the Watchtower's bias is their inconsistent translation technique. Throughout the Gospel of John, the Greek word theon occurs without a definite article. The New World Translation renders none of these as “a god.” Just three verses after John 1:1, the New World Translation translates another case of theos without the indefinite article as "God." Even more inconsistent, in John 1:18, the NWT translates the same term as both "God" and "god" in the very same sentence.
The only translation interpreting John 1:1 in the way that Jehovah’s Witnesses interpret it is, in fact, the lone New World Translation offered by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Why shouldn’t we trust the multitude of historic translations?
It is unique in one thing – it is the first intentional, systematic effort at producing a complete version of the Bible that is edited and revised for the specific purpose of agreeing with a group's doctrine. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watchtower Society realized that their beliefs contradicted Scripture. So, rather than conforming their beliefs to Scripture, they altered Scripture to agree with their beliefs.
The New World Translation makes subtle changes in the text of the Bible to support Jehovah’s Witness doctrine. For example, it adds “a” to John 1:1 so that the text reads, “the Word was a god.” However, the correct translation of this important verse is, “The Word was God.” This is not a matter of correct translation, but of reading one's preconceived theology into the text, rather than allowing the text to speak for itself. There is no indefinite article in Greek (in English, "a" or "an"), so any use of an indefinite article in English must be added by the translator. This is grammatically acceptable, so long as it does not change the meaning of the text.
There is a good reason why theos has no definite article in John 1:1 and why the New World Translation rendering is in error. There are three general rules we need to understand to see why.
- In Greek, word order does not determine word usage like it does in English. In English, a sentence is structured according to word order: Subject - Verb - Object. Thus, "Harry called the dog" is not equivalent to "the dog called Harry." But in Greek, a word's function is determined by the case ending found attached to the word's root. There are two case endings for the root theo: one is -s (theos), the other is -n (theon). The -s ending normally identifies a noun as being the subject of a sentence, while the -n ending normally identifies a noun as the direct object.
- When a noun functions as a predicate nominative (in English, a noun that follows a being verb such as "is"), its case ending must match the noun's case that it renames, so that the reader will know which noun it is defining. Therefore, theo must take the -s ending because it is renaming logos. Therefore, John 1:1 transliterates to "kai theos en ho logos." Is theos the subject, or is logos? Both have the -s ending. The answer is found in the next rule.
- In cases where two nouns appear, and both take the same case ending, the author will often add the definite article to the word that is the subject in order to avoid confusion. John put the definite article on logos (“the Word”) instead of on theos. So, logos is the subject, and theos is the predicate nominative. In English, this results in John 1:1 being read as "and the Word was God" (instead of "and God was the word").
The most revealing evidence of the Watchtower's bias is their inconsistent translation technique. Throughout the Gospel of John, the Greek word theon occurs without a definite article. The New World Translation renders none of these as “a god.” Just three verses after John 1:1, the New World Translation translates another case of theos without the indefinite article as "God." Even more inconsistent, in John 1:18, the NWT translates the same term as both "God" and "god" in the very same sentence.
The only translation interpreting John 1:1 in the way that Jehovah’s Witnesses interpret it is, in fact, the lone New World Translation offered by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Why shouldn’t we trust the multitude of historic translations?