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Translating the Title “God”The Watchtower—1977 | August 1
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A term of broader meaning is, therefore, usually better than one of narrower meaning. The context can then serve to restrict the word’s application to the true God.
There is, then, no reason for undue concern about the origin of a particular term for “God.” Even in the Bible the same word is applied to the true God as well as to false gods. In itself, the term is not sacred. So there is no objection to the use of a designation that referred exclusively to false gods before those speaking that language came to know the God of the Bible.
This is, in fact, what has happened in connection with many modern languages. The Japanese word for “God” can mean, literally, “a lot of little gods.” In Amharic and Tigrinya, two prominent languages of Ethiopia, a common designation for God is Egziabher. Literally, that expression means “Lord of the lands,” that is, ‘Lord of the Ethiopian lands.’ As to the English word “God,” The Century Dictionary and Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language (Vol. 3, p. 2561, 1899 edition) states that it was originally neuter, and “generally in the plural, being applied to the heathen deities, and elevated to the Christian sense upon the conversion of the Teutonic peoples.” The book Word Origins, by Wilfred Funk, says: “The central word of all faiths is God, and the history of the title God is a tangle of guesses. The word God itself is related to similar words in Danish, Saxon, Old High German, Scandinavian, and other languages, and may even be related to an ancient Lithuanian word that referred to someone who practiced magic.”—P. 279.
Today none of the terms for God in any of the aforementioned languages, despite their not having been originally applied to the Creator, put wrong ideas into the minds of the hearers or readers. So no objection can be raised about their being used in Bible translations.
As with everything else, a reasonable view must be taken when it comes to the use of a word designating the God of the Bible. In the final analysis, any term for “God” is but a title and not a proper name. What really distinguishes the true God from all others is his personal name, Jehovah.—Ps. 83:18.
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Questions From ReadersThe Watchtower—1977 | August 1
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Questions From Readers
● Abortion, I realize, is wrong from the Biblical standpoint, for it is deliberately taking life. I understood that Exodus 21:22, 23 supported this fact. But recently I read a Bible version that gives these verses a different meaning. What do the verses really say and mean?
The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures renders Exodus 21:22, 23: “And in case men should struggle with each other and they really hurt a pregnant woman and her children do come out but no fatal accident occurs, he is to have damages imposed upon him without fail according to what the owner of the woman may lay upon him; and he must give it through the justices. But if a fatal accident should occur, then you must give soul for soul.”
Some other translations, though, render this passage in such a way that someone might conclude that abortion is not so serious. For example, the Revised Standard Version reads: “When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined. . . . If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life.” The impression that one could get is that the only serious concern is for the woman, not the fetus. Someone might conclude from such a translation that if the
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