My friends,

I have a fairly large collection of English language Bibles, almost 100 of them in many different translations and editions. The oldest translation I have is the William Tyndale New Testament in the original words but modern type dated 1525. Among my other old translations I have the 1560 and 1599 Geneva Bible and the original 1611 King James, also a few other updated King James (1769 B.Blaney revision). The newest translation I have is the NET Bible, 2003.

With regard to doctrine Deity of Christ, all of the translations I have are in agreement. John 1:1 for example “… and the word was God”, and other places that clearly state the Deity of Jesus.

The Watchtower society was formed in the 1870s with the doctrine that Jesus is not God. However, the society used the King James and the American Standard Version of 1901 until the NWT was published in the 1950s which is 70 or so years into their incorporation. How could the society get people to believe the Bible is the Word of God and Jesus is a created being when the Bible of the times clearly taught differently? How could C.T. Russell possibly know the Bible translations available are “wrong” unless he could read Koine Greek?

Knowing Greek is not all that is needed to translate into English. A person also has to know English grammar/syntax rules as well. When reading the NWT, one is struck by the awkward grammar and the ease at which by using the text of the NWT and following English grammar rules an individual can prove that the translation of John 1:1 cannot be correct and yet allow the WTS hold to a monotheistic theology.

Can anyone comment on this?

Thanks,
Tom

Hi Tom,

I don't have a lot to add but I thought I would mention that I have a booklet titled "101 Translations of John 1:1". This booklet quotes John 1:1 from 101 different translations, of the 101 translations only one reads "a god" and it is of course the NWT.

I recently took 3 semesters of Biblical Greek and very early in the first semester it became obvious that the NWT rendering of John 1:1 is a blatant mistranslation of God's precious Word.

You are correct when you say one has to know English grammar to properly translate another language, the first thing we did in Greek class was review English grammar.

Good afternoon Tom (at least its afternoon where I am at the time I'm typing this )

I hate to say it, but I have such a bad attitude lately towards JW teachings that the first thing that popped into my head was "they can do it because they say so".

If you look at any of their beliefs, it all boils down to that statement. Its this way because they say so, doesn't matter if it doesn't make any logical sense, doesn't matter if it can be proved wrong. Its the truth, oh yeah, except until they change their mind, then its "New truth" or if its old enough they will say that they've always taught that, even if you can find in their old writings that they didn't.

Again, sorry about my attitude, my bad.

I don't know my church history that well, but the Arian controversy (3rd, 4th, 5th century?) which was deemed as heresy, was I believe a group of believers that denied Christ's deity. After they were called heretics, the group pretty much disappeared only to reappear as JW's centuries later. I imagine they had only Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic back then, maybe some Latin translations? One word: hermeneutics!