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Loyally Advocating the Word of GodThe Watchtower—1982 | March 15
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5, 6. (a) How did Peter and Paul show their loyal advocacy of the Word? (b) In this connection, for what purpose was the “faithful and discreet slave” brought forth? (c) Why was the “slave” temporarily eclipsed?
5 Jesus’ apostles followed his example. Forcefully, on the day of Pentecost the apostle Peter loyally advocated God’s Word by showing how Jesus fulfilled the words of David! (Acts 2:22-36) And the writings of the apostle Paul abound with references to the Hebrew Scriptures, showing how concerned he was with loyally advocating God’s Word. He took the position: “Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar.” (Romans 3:3, 4) In fact, Peter, Paul and other faithful followers of Jesus Christ served as a “faithful and discreet slave,” “the faithful steward,” commissioned by their Master, Jesus Christ, to provide spiritual food for God’s congregation.—Matthew 24:45-47; Luke 12:42-44.
6 After the death of the apostles, that “faithful and discreet slave” class all but passed off the earthly scene, eclipsed in time as the Christian wheat field became largely a weed field.—Matthew 13:37-43.
Coming to Modern Times
7, 8. (a) When and how did the “slave” again appear? (b) How has its advocacy of the Word been demonstrated since the 1870’s?
7 However, about a hundred years ago the “faithful and discreet slave” class again began to come forward as a loyal advocate of God’s Word. With the years it has become ever more visible and noticed by the world. The facts show that today this “slave” is identified with the Watch Tower Society.
8 This “faithful and discreet slave” is comprised of faithful Christians, wholly dedicated to Jehovah through Christ and begotten by God’s spirit. They are earnest Bible students who, since the mid-1870’s, have come out strongly in defending the Bible as God’s Word by means of books, booklets, magazines and tracts, newspaper articles and public lectures. In 1886, they published Volume I of Studies in the Scriptures. In chapter 3, entitled “The Bible as a Divine Revelation Viewed in the Light of Reason,” this set forth a particularly masterful defense of the Bible. Another notable defense of God’s Word was chapter 1 of Volume VI (published in 1904). This chapter was entitled “In the Beginning,” and it most ably refuted the evolution theory.
9-11. (a) During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, how has the “slave’s” loyalty to the Word been shown? (b) Since 1950, what major contributions has the Watch Tower Society made toward the spreading of God’s Word?
9 During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, these faithful Bible Students, as they termed themselves, were zealous in loyally advocating the Bible as God’s Word. They published much to prove its authenticity, as well as a great deal explaining the fulfillment of its prophecies and how to apply Bible principles to one’s life. In 1914, they also produced the eight-hour Photo-Drama of Creation, which was explicitly prepared “in defense of the Bible as the Word of God.”
10 Loyally advocating God’s Word and indicating that they were active in circulating it in print, the name of their agency was changed in 1896 to Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. In 1902 the Society gained possession of Wilson’s The Emphatic Diaglott and supervised its distribution. In 1907 the Society published an edition of the King James Version, which they called the Berean Bible, named after the early Berean Christians who ‘carefully examined the Scriptures daily to see whether the things the apostle Paul told them were actually so.’ (Acts 17:11) It had an appendix of over 700 pages consisting of comments on individual scriptures, lists of scriptures in support of some 40 prominent Bible themes and a 100-page concordance. In 1926 the Society began printing The Emphatic Diaglott on its own presses at Brooklyn. In 1942 the Society published an edition of the King James Version with many valuable study helps, and in 1944 it published the American Standard Version, with similar study helps, and which version faithfully rendered the name Jehovah according to the original Hebrew text.
11 By 1950 the Society’s loyally advocating God’s Word moved it to publish the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures. The translation of the Hebrew Scripture sections followed in installments of five volumes, and the complete Bible in one volume in 1961. Between 1926 and 1980 Jehovah’s Witnesses produced 43,860,000 Bibles.
Why a New Translation Needed
12, 13. What is a first reason why the “faithful and discreet slave” has been interested in a new Bible translation?
12 Why was this “faithful and discreet slave” interested in a new translation, namely, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures?
13 First of all, due to the activities of archaeologists and Bible scholars, older and more reliable Bible manuscripts have been discovered, many of which are in the original tongues. Thus today there exist some very fine Bible manuscripts that were transcribed in the fourth and fifth centuries of our Common Era and some papyrus fragments of the Christian Greek Scriptures that go back to the middle of the second century. Also, the Dead Sea Scrolls of books of the Hebrew Scriptures, dating back to before our Common Era, have thrown added light on Bible passages. The older the Bible manuscript is, the closer it is likely to be to the original autographs of the inspired writers, none of which are in existence today.
14. What is a second reason? Illustrate.
14 A second reason why a newer translation was needed and would be an improvement on older ones is that the Greek language of the first century is now much better understood. With the passing of time archaeologists discovered many papyrus fragments that have survived from the very time the Christian Greek Scriptures were written. These papyrus fragments, dealing with everyday secular matters, shed light on the kind of Greek used by the Christian Greek Scripture writers. A typical instance is the word “Raca” at Matthew 5:22 in some of the older versions. Not knowing its meaning, all that the translators could do was to transliterate it into meaningless English. But now its meaning is known and so the New World Translation renders it “an unspeakable word of contempt.” As you can see, the increased knowledge of the languages in which the Bible was originally written makes for a more understandable translation.
15. Illustrate a third reason.
15 A third reason why a new translation was needed is the fact that the very languages into which the Bible is translated undergo changes in the course of years. The English used by 14th-century Bible translator Wycliffe differs greatly from the language used by the translators of the King James Version in the early 17th century. And the English language has seen a vast number of changes even since then. Some words have actually taken on opposite meanings. Thus “let” in King James’ day meant “to hinder,” but today it means “to allow.”
16. As suggested by Acts 20:30 and 2 Timothy 4:3, 4, what could be another reason for the “slave’s” entering the field of Bible translation?
16 Finally, there is the matter of correctly understanding the Bible, which is one of the main reasons why the New World Translation was produced. We cannot escape it, one’s religious beliefs will color one’s translation efforts. In fact, it is bound to be that way when a word or text can be rendered in more than one way. Because translators at times, either consciously or unconsciously, do violence to the original tongue in passages that seem to conflict with their creeds, it became imperative that a version be produced by men who did stick loyally to God’s Word.
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Loyally Advocating the Word of GodThe Watchtower—1982 | March 15
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[Box on page 23]
Bible translator Edgar Goodspeed wrote to one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in regard to the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures: “I am interested in the mission work of your people, and its worldwide scope, and am much pleased with the free and vigorous translation. It exhibits a vast array of sound serious learning, as I can testify.”
Hebrew and Greek scholar A. Thompson of Britain, writing in The Differentiator, stated regarding a portion of the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures: “I would recommend it as an honest and straightforward effort to render Holy Writ into modern English. No attempt appears to be made to press any special doctrines or theories.”
Eerdman’s Handbook to the Bible lists the New World Translation among the 14 “main 20th-century English translations.”
[Picture on page 25]
Tetragrammaton in Septuagint fragments from Egypt (Fouad Papyri 266)
These papyri were early publicized by Jehovah’s Witnesses and the appearance here of God’s name gave basis for using “Jehovah” in the New World Translation
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