Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-01-06 Jehovah's Witnesses - New World Translation

Request Information

 * Request made by: Duffer 17:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures


 * Who's involved?
 * Duffer, Tommstein, Mini


 * What's going on?
 * An edit war between myself, Tommstein, and Mini is taking place. I added this issue to an already on-going mediation process of an unrelated issue (as it involves the same people), but was told to start a new mediation request.  The war is centered around this paragraph (Characteristics of the Translation):


 * The New World Translation is intended to be a literal rendering rather than a paraphrase. To a very great extent, one English word has been selected for each Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic word and effort has been made to adhere to this rendering, context allowing, and where such would not conflict with their beliefs .  Some maintain that this makes the translation sound wooden, stiff or verbose, whereas others feel that it favors accuracy, facilitates cross-reference work and helps preserve the flavor of the original texts.


 * Specifically the line: .."and where such would not conflict with their beliefs ".


 * This is nothing more than POV libel based on highly prejudiced interpretations of fact. I have provided on the talk page, not only support in favor of the New World Translation, but I have also offered compromise that I believe to be inline with Wiki NPOV (as the above edit in question clearly isn't) (Talk page: "and where such would not conflict with their beliefs".


 * What would you like to change about that?
 * I want the line in question deleted entirely, with specific criticisms of the translation to be brought forth in a NPOV and concise manner. Not as it is now (unwarranted libel of an entire translation based on subjective interpretation of highly biased sources).


 * If you'd prefer we work discreetly, how can we reach you?
 * I do not wish discretion. Most of the people actively involved with the Jehovah's Witness Wiki Project will likely want to follow this mediation.

Comments by others
The sentence gives the impression as if the NWT is the one and only translation giving "real" meaning of the original writings. As with others the NWT also is biased and therefore "context allowing" isn't enough for some renderings. My understanding - and it may lack some knowledge of english expressions - is, that a literal translation has to use (mainly) the same word and may for clarification add a note describing the meaning (not the other way round: use different words and may add a note). This is not true in this case as shown by some examples.--Mini 18:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I am hereby recusing from this one, because I think I am, in effect involved in it. In the interests of full disclosure, I will elaborate what happened here in full. Upon being asked to check over the Tommstein/Retcon issue that cropped up at User talk:Kelly Martin by an administrator on IRC, I reviewed User:Tommstein's contributions and noticed a pattern of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPOV violations. I made a warning to this user; upon having received an e-mail from another dispute participant informing me that the user is continuing the same pattern of conduct, and reviewing his contributions again (in conjunction with his uncooperative and uncivil response), I ascertained that the warning had been ignored and placed a cautionary 24hr block on this user. Tommstein continues to dispute the block even though it is some time since it expired. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 04:34, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * He has also completely disregarded your suggestion that he stay away from the Jehovah's Witness and related pages. Duffer 05:19, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * That relates to the translation characteristics of the New World Translation of the Bible? Interesting.Tommstein 08:11, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a pretty mechanically clear case. The sentence in questions is:


 * "To a very great extent, one English word has been selected for each Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic word and effort has been made to adhere to this rendering, context allowing, and where such would not conflict with their beliefs ."

Note the very specific claim: "one English word has been selected for each Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic word and effort has been made to adhere to this rendering." The only mentioned deviation from that, without my addition, is "context allowing." The Greek word in question is "proskuneo". As the eight links I provided make clear, this is usually translated as "worship" in this translation. As they also make clear, they translate it differently when and only when its object is one specific entity: Jesus. In those cases, they use "obeisance". So we look at the one mentioned deviation, "context allowing." Does the Greek context demand that Jesus be rendered "obeisance" instead of "worship"? No. The only reason for deviation in this one case is because the object is Jesus, whom Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe should be worshiped. Thus, the need for my addition, with the eight references provided when someone thought I was just making this up. This isn't something where we just have to take someone's word for it. That's the whole point of verifiable facts, that you can verify them. The aim of the article is not to paint a rosy picture of the subject and make sure that the reader comes away thinking the world of the subject. Presenting the verifiable truth about a feature of translation is not a lack of objectivity, it is a simple statement of verifiable fact, for the reader to decide on their own what importance they want to assign to it; the article doesn't even provide an opinion of said fact (and you can imagine that thoughts regarding the translation's trustworthiness in light of this fact could be inserted if someone really wanted to), it just presents it, along with references to enable the reader who doubts its veracity to verify it. Of note, other editors have provided completely different examples of this kind of stuff on the article in question's Talk page. This was not the only example, just the only one I brought up. Perhaps most damning, even earlier versions of this translation translated this word as "worship" at the places where it has now been changed to "obeisance", as the provided references talk about. The Greek certainly still says the same thing that it always has, so even this Bible's translators have unwittingly demonstrated that "worship" also fits the Greek here just fine before correcting their 'mistake'. It is not difficult to see that this is a case of nothing more than someone trying to have unflattering facts about their religions's Bible removed.Tommstein 08:39, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Can you point to a source that states this or are you an expert on ancient greek translation? - FrancisTyers 15:31, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * That states what, every single statement in the paragraph? I could be the world's greatest expert on Koine Greek translation, and it wouldn't matter in the slightest on Wikipedia (per WP:NOR). That's what the eight links are for, documentation and verifiability, which Duffer1 incidentally also wants removed. If I remember correctly, those were just on the first page of some Yahoo search, so there's plenty more where they came from.Tommstein 05:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Eight links.. that's overkill man. Besides they are interpretations of fact that give few specific examples, not only is it not enough to say the translation is biased in those few examples, it certainly is not enough to label the entire translation as "biased" which is exactly what the edit in question does.  I have provided a link on the disussion page that covers a significant amount of the criticisms concerning the NWT (http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/newworldtranslation/pageindex.htm).  As for the matter of Jesus "worship", Dr. Jason David BeDuhn (Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament) says that the New World Translation is the only translation (and to a lesser degree, the NAB) that is not biased in such instances.  He claims that translations that translate the Greek word "proskuneo" as "worship", in reference to Jesus, are the biased translations.  This man is an expert and not Jehovah's Witness.  Duffer 10:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yet, the links were only added, after I originally made the insertion without putting any links, due to your insistence that the idea was absurd, which made me feel compelled to fully defend it with external sources. However, your contention is not about the number of links, it is about the words that precede the links. Please do feel free to point out to the rest of us where the article calls the translation, and I quote your direct quote here, "biased." Otherwise, that's just something that you're making up, since the article offers no opinions either way.


 * The link you provided consists of little (or nothing, that I could find) more than apologies from Jehovah's Witnesses explaining why they think they're right in doing what they have. Our article does not concern itself over the rightness and wrongness of what has been done, only what has and hasn't been done regarding a very specific claim. However, my personal research revealed a much better link: http://www.tetragrammaton.org/truthintrans.htm. This is a very in-depth review of the book that you spoke of. Having reviewed its lengthy discussion of the "proskuneo" chapter, I do not think that rendering "proskuneo" as "obeisance" when it refers to Jesus is so outrageous after all. What I do think, and the link goes into this to some depth, is that then rendering "proskuneo" as "worship" when it refers to other things is in fact problematic. I would quote the link here, but the quotes are quite lengthy, and I have provided the link for people to read. Basically, we have the reverse problem: instead of the rendering "obeisance" being problematic, the rendering "worship" is in fact the problematic one, due to the extra adoration and such that that English word adds over "obeisance", completely at the discretion of the translator, not the Greek. It appears that the book mentioned also has an entire appendix shooting down this translation's adding of the word "Jehovah" 237 times to the New Testament, which appendix was conveniently not mentioned above. This new link talks about a number of different relevant translation problems. I haven't read the entire link yet, due to its length, but those are my thoughts to this point.


 * But in summary, regarding the two translations of the word "proskuneo", "obeisance" and "worship": my previous view was that "worship" was right and "obeisance" was wrong; my new view, and the one this link discusses in good depth, is that "obeisance" (or some synonym) is right and "worship" is uncalled for. In both cases, we have the same problem of one word being translated differently when not demanded by the Greek.Tommstein 08:27, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Tommstein, your last comment happens to correspond to my personal opinion: obviously (in our judgment) they didn't achieve their goal to make the translation as literal as reasonably possible. I would not be surprised if there is consensus about that. Remains that you didn't respond to the fact that "what the context allows" is a matter of opinion, and that pretending that it's objective is misleading, and thus biased. As I asked elsewhere, how would you translate "They will inherit the land/earth" without having an opinion about what the context requires? Harald88 11:40, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The introduction of the NWT states: "Paraphrases of the Scriptures are not offered. Rather, an effort has been made to give as literal a translation as possible where the modern-English idiom allows and where a literal rendition does not, by any awkwardness, hide the thought." I do not see "context allowing" as reason for deviation but "not hide the thought" which is more "not conflict with their beliefs"--Mini 14:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * We already found solutions to put that in an non-suggestive (and thus unbiased) way, as well as how to provide balanced criticism without doing original research, by just providing the facts and citations. IOW, it looks to me that the problem has been solved already.
 * Anyway, I have given my 2 cts; Good luck! Harald88 11:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Mediator response
Actually, this seems to be a duplicate of Mediation Cabal/Cases/27 12 2005 Jehovah's Witnesses, and the request was made by the same user. I recommend to the mediator that this is closed as a duplicate. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 19:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm going to leave it open for now, I'll give it a few days and if not I'll close it with unresolved. They probably need to take this through more official channels, but I'll work at it. - FrancisTyers 20:37, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Under the above section What's going on I presented: "I added this issue to an already on-going mediation process of an unrelated issue (as it involves the same people), but was told to start a new mediation request." Duffer 10:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Case closed. One party banned following RfAr. - FrancisTyers 15:48, 21 February 2006 (UTC)