Is the New World Translation a Reliable Bible Version?: Edition 2.2

By Gary F. Zeolla

The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) is published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WT). This is the organization that Jehovah’s Witnesses belong to. But how reliable is this Bible version?

Much has been written about the NWT in regard to passages dealing with the deity of Christ. As such, rather than going over that much worn ground, this review will instead evaluate the NWT by looking at select passages from Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians.

The verses will be quoted first from the NWT and then from the word-for-word translation in the Watchtower’s own Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (KIT). Since the WT claims the NWT is a literal version, it will be seen how closely it follows the strictly literal translation in their own interlinear. And then the verses will be quoted from the New King James Version (NKJV) and from this writer’s own Analytical-Literal Translation (ALT), following the most recent updates.

The standards to be used here are the same standards that I use in evaluating over thirty versions of the Bible in my book Differences Between Bible Versions. Simply put, does the translation faithfully and accurately render the Greek text into English?

More specifically, are words translated correctly? Are words left untranslated? Are words added without any indication they have been added? Are the grammatical forms of words altered? Are phrases paraphrased rather than translated? How readable is the text? How reliable is the Greek text being translated?

Edition 2.2, updated November 2023.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781304905987

Book preview

About the Author

Gary F. Zeolla is the author of Christian, fitness, and politics books, websites, and newsletters. He is the translator of the Analytical-Literal Translation of the Bible. Gary is also an all-time world record holding powerlifter. For details on Gary and his many writings, see his personal website Zeolla.org.

Preface

The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) is published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WT). This is the organization that Jehovah’s Witnesses belong to. But how reliable is this Bible version?

Much has been written about the NWT in regard to passages dealing with the deity of Christ. As such, rather than going over that much worn ground, this review will instead evaluate the NWT by looking at select passages from Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians.

The verses will be quoted first from the NWT and then from the word-for-word translation in the Watchtower’s own Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (KIT). Since the WT claims the NWT is a literal version, it will be seen how closely it follows the strictly literal translation in their own interlinear. Then the verses will be quoted from the New King James Version (NKJV) and from this writer’s own Analytical-Literal Translation (ALT), following the most recent updates (see the Bibliography).

The standards to be used here are the same standards that I use in evaluating over thirty versions of the Bible in my book Differences Between Bible Versions (see Appendix One). Simply put, does the translation faithfully and accurately render the Greek text into English?

More specifically, are words translated correctly? Are words left untranslated? Are words added without any indication they have been added? Are the grammatical forms of words altered? Are phrases paraphrased rather than translated? How readable is the text? How reliable is the Greek text being translated?

For this study, I will be utilizing the lexicons (Greek dictionaries) and other Greek reference works on BibleWorks™ for Windows™. I'll also refer to A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament by Dana and Mantey. This is Greek grammar I used in studying intermediate Greek at Denver Seminary.

Background Details for the NWT

Before looking at the verses from Ephesians, it will be helpful to look at some background details for the NWT.

Greek Text-type

The NWT utilizes Westcott and Hort’s Greek text of 1881. I am not sure why the Watchtower (WT) chose to use this outdated text. What I am sure of is that there are much better texts available today. And this would apply no matter where one stands in the Greek text debate.

Three different Greek texts are generally used today to translate the New Testament from: the Textus Receptus (TR; King James Version, New King James Version), the Majority Text (MT; Analytical-Literal Translation, World English Bible), and the Critical Text (New International Version, New American Standard Bible, and most other modern-day versions).

In my book, Differences Between Bible Versions, I detail why I prefer the MT to the TR and CT. I also explain that the TR is very similar to the MT, while I find the CT to be the least reliable of these three texts.

But what relationship does the Westcott and Hort (WH) text have to these three texts? Basically, it is a precursor to the CT. Westcott and Hort were among the first scholars to advocate the primacy of the handful of early Alexandrian manuscripts to the much larger mass of Byzantine texts, so the WH text is almost exclusively an Alexandrian text and was based on the manuscripts known at that time.

However, more recent discoveries have shown that many readings from the Byzantine tradition that were discarded by WH in fact have strong and early manuscript support. As such, more recent versions of the CT have re-inserted these readings into the CT. As such, over the years, the CT and the MT have grown more alike.

To put it another way, the WH text is even more different from the MT/ TR than today’s CT is, and the WH text is more Alexandrian than today’s CT is. Given this, all of the arguments I put forth in my Bible versions book as to why I prefer the MT to the CT and the Byzantine textual tradition to the Alexandrian tradition would apply even more so to WH’s text.

I won’t repeat those arguments here as they cover an entire section in my Bible versions book. I will simply say here that by using the WH text, I would already say the NWT is less reliable than it could be.

Translation Principles of the NWT

The introductory pages to the KIT explain the translation principle utilized in the NWT.  The pages first state, We have disposed of archaic language altogether, even in prayers and addresses to God. And, The translation of the Scriptures into a modern language should be rendered in the same style, in the speech forms current among the people (p.9).

With this practice, this reviewer is in agreement. There is no reason to use archaic language in a modern-day Bible version. Archaic language is by definition, archaic. The New Testament was originally written in the style of Greek the common person of the time utilized (known as Koine or common Greek). As such, modern-day and understandable terms should be utilized in translating the Bible.

Moreover, the same pronouns are used in the Greek text in reference to God as are used in reference to people, so there is really no reason to translate them differently. And people today simply do not use terms like thee and thou in general conversation.

However, there are technical terms in the Bible, and even if these are not that well known, they should be translated as such. The reason is that trying to simplify difficult words like propitiation usually leaves out important connotations of the original word.

Next the KIT preface states about the NWT:

We offer no paraphrase of the Scriptures. Our endeavor throughout has been to give as literal a translation as possible where the modern English idiom allows for it or where the thought content is not hidden due to any awkwardness in the literal rendering. In this way, we can best nearly meet the desire of those who are scrupulous for getting, as nearly as possible word for word, the exact statement of the original (p.9).

Thus, the WT is saying the NWT is basically a literal version. Only when a literal translation would be excessively awkward does it deviate from literal. Since this reviewer translated a Bible version with literal in its name, I would obviously agree with the idea of producing a translation that is as literal as possible. But the questions will be: Is the NWT truly a literal translation? How often did the WT believe it was necessary to deviate from a literal translation?

The NWT also has a couple of interesting patterns, To each major word we have assigned one meaning and have held to that meaning as far as context permitted. And, … we have avoided the rendering of two or more Greek words by the same English word (p.10).

Thus, the NWT tries to translate the same Greek word with the same English word throughout and different Greek words by different English words. I tried to maintain such a consistency when translating the ALT as well. However, it is not always possible to do so.

The fact is, words have different meanings. Think, for instance, of the different meanings the English word trunk has. Only by putting the word in context can one know if the trunk of a car, the trunk of an elephant, the trunk of a tree, the trunk of the human body, the trunk of a communications line, swimming trunks, boxing trunks, or a trunk