Talk:American Standard Version

discussion of translational choices in NWT

 * Any examples of eliminated verses that conflicted with JW doctrine? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.5.87 (talk • contribs) 08:09, 11 April 2004

The article contained a statement to the effect that the NWT was produced without explanation of its' renderings. This is incorrect. Reading the appendices in the NWT you will find the reasons the translators gave for their renderings.

Also, the incorrect statement that no other translation has been produced anaymously is a mistake, so I removed it as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.254.112.173 (talk • contribs) 18:33, 13 July 2004


 * Thank you. I concur with the change and your reasoning behind it.  I own a (revised?) black-cover NWT (circa 1985 or 1990?) and have perused many copies of the original edition (green cover, circa 1978?).  From memory (because I don't have it here ;) there are definitely some explanations behind the translation methodology, though many might disagree with the reasoning or find it insufficient.  I thought that sentence was a bit odd in the article, but didn't think much about it at the time.  Furthermore, I don't think any of that belongs in the ASV article, but the NWT article.  It's sufficient for this article to just say that the Witnesses' use of the ASV was supplanted by the NWT.
 * BTW, your helpful edit suggests you'd make a useful regular Wikipedian. Please feel encouraged to create a user ID, log in, and continue helping. Jdavidb 20:17, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

POV tag
This concerns POV tag cleanup. Whenever an POV tag is placed, it is necessary to also post a message in the discussion section stating clearly why it is thought the article does not comply with POV guidelines, and suggestions for how to improve it. This permits discussion and consensus among editors. From WP tag policy: '''Drive-by tagging is strongly discouraged. The editor who adds the tag must address the issues on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies, namely Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag. Tags should be added as a last resort.''' Better yet, edit the topic yourself with the improvements. This statement is not a judgement of content, it is only a cleanup of frivolously and/or arbitrarily placed tags. No discussion, no tag.Jjdon (talk) 19:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Greek textual basis
I believe this article is in error attributing its NT text to the Westcott & Hort Greek edition. It is true that both Westcott & Hort were members of the New Testament Committee of the Revised English Version, the precursor of the ASV, but it is clear that neither the REV nor the ASV (nor the later RSV) were translations of the W&H Greek text. The most obvious evidence of this is that these translations include readings that do not appear in W&H. The Greek underlying the REV is the text worked up by Palmer and published with an apparatus criticus by Souter; I think it would be safe to assume that the ASV was similarly based on the Palmer edition. -- 71.178.242.140 03:26, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, IMHO, the renderings of the ASV are the result of votes, not the result of following any critical text carefully. If enough committee members agreed to change the KJV, it was changed per vote.  So I don't think the ASV would agree perfectly with any critical text made before its publication.  I would guess that some readings were adopted by bargaining:  "I'll vote for your change  here, if you vote for mine there."  Probably the textual conclusions of Westcott and Hort were very influential, as was the fact of what the KJV had, an important precedent.  (EnochBethany (talk) 01:13, 31 January 2014 (UTC))

I would like to point out that according to Philip W. Comfort there are only about 115 changes required to completely update the ASV of 1901 to the latest papyri as of the 1990 publication date of his book "Early Manuscripts & Modern Translations of the New Testament". These changes while interesting are mostly of a minor nature, so the ASV is very close to the NA / UBS text and as these are extremely close to the Westcott-Hort work "The New Testament in the Original Greek". See the Wikipedia article on Westcott-Hort for details on the closeness of that work to the NA / UBS text. It would seem that Westcott and Hort were fairly convincing to their translation committee peers.


 * The above is an unsigned IP edit. Alephb (talk) 00:54, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Criticisms
The article should discuss some of the main criticisms of the ASV — such as that it only clarified obscure 17th-century language in the KJV to a limited degree, that it adopted a rigid Classical Attic based approach to translating Greek verb tenses which was later revealed to be completely wrong by the discovery of vernacular Koine manuscripts in Egypt, and that it obtrusively translated the Hebrew Tetragrammaton as "Jehovah", in opposition to the consistent translation practices of the preceding 2,000 years (in the KJV, "Jehovah" only appeared 7 times, 4 of those in place names), and despite the fact that by the late 19th century "Jehovah" was clearly understood by Hebraists to be a mistaken and erroneous form which does not accurately reflect the original Hebrew. AnonMoos (talk) 10:00, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Rebuttal of Criticisms regarding the use of the name "Jehovah":
 * Actually only 3 of the 7 times (instead of 4 of the 7 times) does the KJV use the name Jehovah in place names, the four other times it is used as God's name (namely at Exodus 6:3, Psalms 83:18, Isaiah 12:2, and Isaiah 26:4; it is also used in footnotes, such as at Exodus 6:2). Further it is not true that all translations of the prior 2,000 years avoided frequent use of the name Jehovah in the Old Testament. Examples of Bible translations prior to the ASV which frequently and consistently used the name Jehovah include John Darby's Bible Translation (which even often used it in footnotes in the New Testament in reference to where "Lord" referred to God the Father), Helen Spurell's highly literal translation of the Hebrew Scriptures from an unpointed text, Robert Young's Literal Translation of the Bible, and the widely published Spanish Reina-Valera translation of 1569/1602 which consistently used the spelling of Jehova' throughout the Old Testament. The Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts record God as pronouncing his name to the prophets and other people a total of over 6,000 times, thus it proper to keep his name in his Bible and thus to print his name in English Bible translations everywhere it appears in the Hebrew manuscripts. "LORD" does not even remotely accurately reflect the original Hebrew Tetragrammaton. "LORD" is thus a highly mistaken and erroneous form for translating the Tetragrammaton and the use of "LORD" in all capitals (instead of using a proper name) throughout the Old Testament mars God's Word and it blurs the distinction between the Lord Jehovah God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God. 67.150.174.78 (talk) 08:35, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The fact remains that it was an innovation with respect to the the preceding 2,000 years of general-purpose Bible translations (from the Septuagint to the 19th century), an innovation which has not generally been well-received by informed critics... AnonMoos (talk) 14:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * That's not true, at least regarding the Septuagint. As early as 1959, Dr. P. Kahle in The Cairo Geniza, ©1959 Oxford, page 222, wrote, "We now know that the Greek Bible text [the Septuagint] as far as it was written by Jews for Jews did not translate the Divine name by kyrios, but the Tetragrammaton written with Hebrew or Greek letters was retained in such [manuscripts]."
 * --AuthorityTam (talk) 18:09, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Kahle was a well-qualified and knowledgeable scholar in many respects, but he's known for having had some slightly eccentric theories from time to time. In any case, the main attested texts that have survived with Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton in a Greek-language manuscript are actually occult magic papyri, where the Hebrew letters YHWH יהוה written from right to left were sometimes read from left to right as the Greek letters ΠΙΠΙ, giving a "divine name" of Pee-pee! AnonMoos (talk) 23:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Are the "the main attested texts" that you speak of non-Septuagint texts? If so, please provide a reference from a reliable source which documents that claim. If they are non-Scripture texts, how are they relevant to the fact of some Septuagint texts containing the Tetragrammaton written with Hebrew or Greek letters? Or are you saying that some Septuagint Bible papyri were also occult magic papyri at the same time, or are you saying that all Septuagint manuscripts which survived with Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton were used primarily by occultists/magicians? If so, please provide a reference from a reliable source which documents that claim.


 * I agree with your comment that the "Hebrew letters YHWH יהוה written from right to left were sometimes read from left to right as the Greek letters ΠΙΠΙ", but they were likely read that way in error and likely unintentionally. That is because there are some Septuagint Bible papyri which have the Greek letters ΠΙΠΙ instead of the Hebrew letters YHWH יהוה, but that likely means that the scribe who wrote them misinterpreted the Hebrew letters YHWH יהוה (when discovered in the Greek Septuagint) as being the Greek letters ΠΙΠΙ, due to the similar appearance of the letters. The correct transliteration of the Greek letters ΠΙΠΙ is "Pipi" not "Pee-pee'. That is because those Greek letters Π, Ι, Π, Ι are named Pi, Iota, Pi, Iota and their pronunciation is thus the same as the pronunciation of the English letters P, I, P, I respectively. However apparently you are correct that the pronunciation is "Pee-Pee", since the "I" sound of "Iota" is the pronunciation that the letter "i' has in the word "machine". 67.150.8.168 (talk) 05:33, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * JEHOVAH: Of course the vocalization Yahweh is deemed the best guess by many.  I have no idea what was the current popularity of "Jehovah" in 1901.  But from the standpoint of today, the name "Jehovah" is IMHO the standard English for YHWH, Yahweh not being a popular word, like the standard rendering of William in English would be Guillermo in Spanish.  So for me the rendering Jehovah is not a claim to have the correct original vowels of the personal name of God, just a standard translation.  Methinks the criticism of its use has no more validity that a criticism of using James as a rendering for Ἰάκωβος Yakōbos, a word with no "m" in it which also has a long o not found in "James."   Jehovah has the advantage over LORD of making it more clear when the Tetragrammaton is used in Hebrew.  But for myself, I would prefer just to render the Tetragrammaton as YHWH with a note at the start that the vowels are not preserved in writing.  So one may just read it silently or if outloud, pronounce it as one believes it is best pronounced.  As an aside: as a student of Hebrew at the U of Minn, in the hall I asked the Jewish leader of the Hebrew sub-department if it bothered him to hear the Tetragrammaton pronounced.  He said, "No."  Next year I took a class with the same professor.  We were reading the Tanach & I came out with "Yahweh."  He gave a big start & rebuked me for saying the name, since this was a Jewish class -- it was a Jewish class; it was a Hebrew language class at a secular university. (EnochBethany (talk) 01:02, 31 January 2014 (UTC))


 * However, "Guillermo" does not contain a blatant error, in the way that "Jehovah" does, and the consistent practice of Bible translators over the preceding 2,000 years had been to render the Tetragrammaton into non-Hebrew languages as Adonai/Kyrios/"LORD". "Jehovah" was fairly standard in 1901, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore, since scholars who are aware that it's erroneous and did not occur in Hebrew have been gently discouraging its use for decades now -- e.g. not included in the RSV, the Jerusalem Bible used "Yahweh", etc. AnonMoos (talk) 07:14, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Reference which might be worth following up (criticisms)
In his very useful guide, God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible, Adam Nicolson points out that when the Victorians came to revise the King James Bible in 1885, they [...] threw in a lot of extra Jacobeanisms, like "howbeit," "peradventure, "holden" and "behooved". -- "Why the King James Bible Endures" by CHARLES McGRATH, New York Times April 23, 2011 -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:25, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * IMHO: Howbeit is a still modern variant for albeit.  Behoove was a part of the language in my family growing up. Peradventure seems to me also a modern word, if not used a lot.  "Holden," however is quaint.  I didn't know that the ASV had Jacobean; I thought its English was Elizabethan. (EnochBethany (talk) 01:07, 31 January 2014 (UTC))


 * The main point is that the ASV revisers did a lot less than they could have done to clear up difficult archaic English. AnonMoos (talk) 07:14, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Continued insertion of irrelevancies
This is an article about the ASV. It is not an article about the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Tetragrammaton, or the New World Translation. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  00:20, 16 December 2022 (UTC)