Chosen Answer:

Those who claim that the NWT bible is the same as a regular Bible are lying to themselves and others. In fact I would venture to say that a JW cult member has never truely looked at any other Bible but the NWT. Also I don’t really know of any true Christian who has taken the time to read the NWT.

The New World Translation is not a translation of the Bible. It is an intentional perversion of the Bible in order to promote the false doctrines of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The names of the “translators” of the New World Translation have been for the most part kept secret. It has been revealed that those responsible for the New World Translation had no knowledge of Hebrew and Greek and no experience in the field of Bible translation. The New World Translation is nothing but the attempt of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to make the Bible agree with their false doctrines.

God bless!

P.s. Here are some words the NWT changed:
Cross: Torture stake
Holy spirit: Gods active force
Hell: Grave
by: Rev. Kip
on: 3rd December 08

Chosen Answer:

Yoni’s Answer is correct. Hebrew and Arabic are very similar in terms of grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and to some extent morphology. but you see, Hebrew was extinct as a native language for many years, and when it was revived, it changed quite a bit from the original (Biblical) Hebrew, and now it has many English words and it got affected by Yiddish and German grammar. that’s why Standard Arabic and Biblical Hebrew are more similar than today’s Modern Hebrew and Arabic dialects, which makes it harder for the speakers of the two languages to understand each other without first studying the other language.

Modern Hebrew lost many of the original sounds that existed in Biblical Hebrew, which also exist in Arabic, and now many words are pronounced in a very different way than the original pronunciation, making it yet again harder for speakers to understand the other language without studying and intense listening practice.
by: ronniemagia
on: 2nd April 11

Chosen Answer:

It all boils down to deliberate falsifications in the relevant translations of the Bible.
The original in the Hebrew Bible says: (Leviticus 18:22) And with a male, thou shalt not lie down in a woman’s bed; it is an abomination (to’evah). “To’evah“ is explained by rabbinical authorities as “making a mistake” – hardly a sin), a taboo, therefore, like not shaking hands with a woman in case she is menstruating. A woman’s bed was her own property and even her husband was not always allowed into it.
Subsequent translations into Greek, Latin and English translate it wrongly and manage to include a condemnation of homosexuality into it. The Emperors Theodosius II and Justinian picked this up and included the condemnation in Roman law, primarily so that they could use it against men they wanted get rid of, the first one being a gay bishop of Alexandria.
So:
In the King James Version (1611) , Leviticus 18:22 is translated: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”
Living Bible (1971): “Homosexuality is absolutely forbidden, for it is an enormous sin”
New Living Translation (1996): “Do not practice homosexuality; it is a detestable sin.
A “mistake”
has become an “abomination” (meaning something Jewish priests (Levites) should not do).
Then “abomination” becomes “an enormous sin”
and “a detestable sin” all In stages easily swallowed by the gullible, who couldn’t or wouldn’t read for themselves.
The “living Bible” is a joke, by the way. It reduces the scene between David and Jonathan where they wept and kissed and David “exceeded“ to – wait for it – “they shook hands”.

In his administrative correspondence while organising his takeover of the early Christian churches, Saul/Paul had something to say against arsenokoites, a word never before used for homosexuals, as there were already plenty of Greek terms for that – Philo said it meant shrine prostitution, a caommon practice in some religions including the early Hebrew faith (not Judaism, of course).
The other group he disapproved of are the “malakoi”, meaning those weak in faith. How this came to be interpreted as “homosexual” is beyond me. But, of course, if you’re a homophobe, you can read that meaning into anything.
In my experience, if they preach against it, they’re doing it, like Ted Haggard, and the more vehemently they preach, the more often they’re at it.
by: Onlooker
on: 23rd March 12

Chosen Answer:

Several years ago I made a comparison of every Bible I could find. The most accurate to the Hebrew translation that I could find was the Artscroll Stone TaNaKh.

There is not one single Protestant “Old Testament” in English that is accurate; all of them have been translated with an agenda, to back-engineer “prophecies” of Jesus into texts which are actually about something else entirely. Biblical Hebrew is dense, and sometimes the tenses are tricky, it’s not hard to mistranslate a past tense as a future tense (a prophecy!) if that’s what you’re looking for.

I’ve been reading TaNaKh in Hebrew since 1955.
by: SheyneinNH
on: 31st January 13

Chosen Answer:

There is a possibility on that.

The etymology of the word into English is from Old French Philistin, from Late Latin Philistinus, from Late Greek Philistinoi, from Hebrew P’lishtim, (See, e.g., 1 Samuel 17:26, 17:36; 2 Samuel 1:20; Judges 14:3), “people of P’lesheth” (“Philistia”); cf. Akkadian Palastu, Egyptian Palusata; the word probably is the people’s name for itself.

Biblical scholars often trace the word to the Semitic root p-l-sh (Hebrew: פלש‎) which means to divide, go through, to roll in, cover or invade, with a possible sense in this name as “migrant” or “invader”.

Jones suggests that the name Philistine is a corruption of the Greek “phyle histia” (“tribe of the hearth”, with the Ionic spelling of “hestia”). He goes on to suggest that they were responsible for introducing the fixed hearth to the Levant. This suggestion was raised before the archaeological evidence for the use of the hearths was documented at Philistine sites.

If the Philistines are to be identified as one of the “Sea Peoples”, then their occupation of Canaan would have to have taken place during the reign of Ramesses III of the Twentieth Dynasty, ca. 1180 to 1150 BC. Their maritime knowledge presumably would have made them important to the Phoenicians.

In Egypt, a people called the “Peleset” (or, more precisely, prst), generally identified with the Philistines, appear in the Medinet Habu inscription of Ramesses III, where he describes his victory against the Sea Peoples, as well as the Onomasticon of Amenope (late Twentieth Dynasty) and Papyrus Harris I, a summary of Ramesses III’s reign written in the reign of Ramesses IV. Nineteenth-century Bible scholars identified the land of the Philistines (Philistia) with Palastu and Pilista in Assyrian inscriptions, according to Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897).

The Philistines occupied the five cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath, along the coastal strip of southwestern Canaan, that belonged to Egypt up to the closing days of the Nineteenth Dynasty (ended 1185 BC). The biblical stories of Samson, Samuel, Saul and David include accounts of Philistine-Israelite conflicts. The Philistines long held a monopoly on iron smithing (a skill they possibly acquired during conquests in Anatolia), and the biblical description of Goliath’s armor is consistent with this iron-smithing technology.

This powerful association of tribes made frequent incursions against the Hebrews. There was almost perpetual war between the two peoples. The Philistine cities were ruled by seranim (סְרָנִים, “lords”), who acted together for the common good, though to what extent they had a sense of a “nation” is not clear without literary sources. After their defeat by the Hebrew king David, who originally for a time worked as a mercenary for Achish of Gath, kings replaced the seranim, governing from various cities. Some of these kings were called Abimelech, which was initially a name and later a dynastic title.

The Philistines lost their independence to Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria by 732 BC, and revolts in following years were all crushed. Later, Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon eventually conquered all of Syria and the Kingdom of Judah, and the former Philistine cities became part of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. There are few references to the Philistines after this time period. However, Ezekiel 25:16, Zechariah 9:6, and I Macabees 3 make mention of the Philistines, indicating that they still existed as a people in some capacity after the Babylonian invasion. Eventually all traces of the Philistines as a people or ethnic group disappear. Subsequently the cities were under the control of Persians, Jews (Hasmonean Kingdom), Greeks (Seleucid Empire), Romans, and subsequent empires.

The name “Palestine” comes, via Greek and Latin, from the Philistines.

Hope this helps
by: ambitiouzzz…
on: 6th October 08

Chosen Answer:

Buy Milton S. Terry’s “Biblical Hermeneutics” which includes tested rules for interpretation such as using Scripture to interpret itself, apply audience relevance, and know when a phrase is figurative or literal. Also have a Greek and Hebrew Concordance handy to look up the original words. This should be the first 2 books a student of the Bible, or new Christian purchases… other than the Bible of course!
by: Jai Ho
on: 1st March 11

Chosen Answer:

I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking, but I can tell you something about Sin. I hope it answers your question.

Sin was a moon god associated especially with the ancient cities of Harran and of Ur. We call him Sin because in Semitic languages (which do not show vowels) this is roughly the name they used for him; this is not a translation of some other name to the English word “sin” but literally just this god’s name. So in Akkadian, he was known as Sin or Su’en; in Assyrian, a related Semitic language, we represent the name as Su’en-e; in Syriac and Hebrew, the same name is represented as Sin.

Sin came to be seen as the “head of the gods” at about the same time that Ur became the chief city in the Euphrates river valley (~2500 BC). That’s not surprising, since he was the main god of Ur. We do know what he looked like (he had a big beard), because there remain many reliefs that include Sin as a character on them; some of them just depict Sin as the moon itself.

Sin was seen by the Hebrews as a false god, for obvious reasons, since they worshipped a different god, a god of the desert rather than of the city, a god who was not the moon or any star or planet, but who was amorphous or, at best, who appeared occasionally in a cloud form.

It is worth noting that the English word “sin” is completely unrelated to this god’s name. The English word dates back only about as far as the 9th century (when it was written as “synne”). In Biblical Hebrew, the word translated to mean “sin” is “het.” In Greek, it’s “hamartia.”
by: SK
on: 15th September 09

Chosen Answer:

Correct Pronunciation of the Divine Name. “Jehovah” is the best known English pronunciation of the divine name, although “Yahweh” is favored by most Hebrew scholars. The oldest Hebrew manuscripts present the name in the form of four consonants, commonly called the Tetragrammaton (from Greek te‧tra-, meaning “four,” and gram′ma, “letter”). These four letters (written from right to left) are יהוה and may be transliterated into English as YHWH (or, JHVH).
The Hebrew consonants of the name are therefore known. The question is, Which vowels are to be combined with those consonants? Vowel points did not come into use in Hebrew until the second half of the first millennium C.E. (See HEBREW, II [Hebrew Alphabet and Script].) Furthermore, because of a religious superstition that had begun centuries earlier, the vowel pointing found in Hebrew manuscripts does not provide the key for determining which vowels should appear in the divine name.
Superstition hides the name. At some point a superstitious idea arose among the Jews that it was wrong even to pronounce the divine name (represented by the Tetragrammaton). Just what basis was originally assigned for discontinuing the use of the name is not definitely known. Some hold that the name was viewed as being too sacred for imperfect lips to speak. Yet the Hebrew Scriptures themselves give no evidence that any of God’s true servants ever felt any hesitancy about pronouncing his name. Non-Biblical Hebrew documents, such as the so-called Lachish Letters, show the name was used in regular correspondence in Palestine during the latter part of the seventh century B.C.E.
Another view is that the intent was to keep non-Jewish peoples from knowing the name and possibly misusing it. However, Jehovah himself said that he would ‘have his name declared in all the earth’ (Ex 9:16; compare 1Ch 16:23, 24; Ps 113:3; Mal 1:11, 14), to be known even by his adversaries. (Isa 64:2) The name was in fact known and used by pagan nations both in pre-Common Era times and in the early centuries of the Common Era. (The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1976, Vol. XII, p. 119) Another claim is that the purpose was to protect the name from use in magical rites. If so, this was poor reasoning, as it is obvious that the more mysterious the name became through disuse the more it would suit the purposes of practicers of magic.

Importance of the Name. Many modern scholars and Bible translators advocate following the tradition of eliminating the distinctive name of God. They not only claim that its uncertain pronunciation justifies such a course but also hold that the supremacy and uniqueness of the true God make unnecessary his having a particular name. Such a view receives no support from the inspired Scriptures, either those of pre-Christian times or those of the Christian Greek Scriptures.
The Tetragrammaton occurs 6,828 times in the Hebrew text printed in Biblia Hebraica and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. In the Hebrew Scriptures the New World Translation contains the divine name 6,973 times, because the translators took into account, among other things, the fact that in some places the scribes had replaced the divine name with ’Adho‧nai′ or ’Elo‧him′. (See NW appendix, pp. 1561, 1562.) The very frequency of the appearance of the name attests to its importance to the Bible’s Author, whose name it is. Its use throughout the Scriptures far outnumbers that of any of the titles, such as “Sovereign Lord” or “God,” applied to him.
Noteworthy, also, is the importance given to names themselves in the Hebrew Scriptures and among Semitic peoples. Professor G. T. Manley points out: “A study of the word ‘name’ in the O[ld] T[estament] reveals how much it means in Hebrew. The name is no mere label, but is significant of the real personality of him to whom it belongs. . . . When a person puts his ‘name’ upon a thing or another person the latter comes under his influence and protection.”—New Bible Dictionary, edited by J. D. Douglas, 1985, p. 430; compare Everyman’s Talmud, by A. Cohen, 1949, p. 24; Ge 27:36; 1Sa 25:25; Ps 20:1; Pr 22:1; see NAME.
by: PETER
on: 5th April 09

Chosen Answer:

Depends on how you interpret it. Most think it means spank the kid for their own good as a form of discipline. But i like this much better —->
6. HITTING IS ACTUALLY NOT BIBLICAL
Don’t use the Bible as an excuse to spank. There is confusion in the ranks of people of Judeo-Christian heritage who, seeking help from the Bible in their effort to raise godly children, believe that God commands them to spank. They take “spare the rod and spoil the child” seriously and fear that if they don’t spank, they will commit the sin of losing control of their child. In our counseling experience, we find that these people are devoted parents who love God and love their children, but they misunderstand the concept of the rod.
Rod verses – what they really mean. The following are the biblical verseswhich have caused the greatest confusion:

“Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” (Prov. 22:15)

“He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.” (Prov. 13:24)

“Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.” (Prov. 23:13-14)

“The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to itself disgraces his mother.” (Prov. 29:15)

At first glance these verses may sound pro-spanking. But you might consider a different interpretation of these teachings. “Rod” (shebet) means different things in different parts of the Bible. The Hebrew dictionary gives this word various meanings: a stick (for punishment, writing, fighting, ruling, walking, etc.). While the rod could be used for hitting, it was more frequently used for guiding wandering sheep. Shepherds didn’t use the rod to beat their sheep – and children are certainly more valuable than sheep. As shepherd-author Philip Keller teaches so well in A Shepherd Looks At Psalm 23, the shepherd’s rod was used to fight off prey and the staff was used to gently guide sheep along the right path. (“Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” – Psalm 23:4).

Jewish families we’ve interviewed, who carefully follow dietary and lifestyle guidelines in the Scripture, do not practice “rod correction” with their children because they do not follow that interpretation of the text.

The book of Proverbs is one of poetry. It is logical that the writer would have used a well-known tool to form an image of authority. We believe that this is the point that God makes about the rod in the Bible – parents take charge of your children. When you re-read the “rod verses,” use the concept of parental authority when you come to the word “rod,” ratherthan the concept of beating or spanking. It rings true in every instance.

While Christians and Jews believe that the Old Testament is the inspired word of God, it is also a historical text that has been interpreted in many ways over the centuries, sometimes incorrectly in order to support the beliefs of the times. These “rod” verses have been burdened with interpretations about corporal punishment that support human ideas. Other parts of the Bible, especially the New Testament, suggest that respect, authority, and tenderness should be the prevailing attitudes toward children among people of faith.

In the New Testament, Christ modified the traditional eye-for-an-eye system of justice with His turn-the-other-cheek approach. Christ preached gentleness, love, and understanding, and seemed against any harsh use of the rod, as stated by Paul in 1 Cor. 4:21: “Shall I come to you with the whip (rod), or in love and with a gentle spirit?” Paul went on to teach fathers about the importance of not provoking anger in their children (which is what spanking usually does): “Fathers, do not exasperate your children” (Eph. 6:4), and “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will be discouraged” (Col. 3:21).

In our opinion, nowhere in the Bible does it say you must spank your child to be a godly parent.
by: LoveBug
on: 9th June 10

Chosen Answer:

Written Hebrew is identical in modern and biblical Hebrew, the same letters and spelling are used in both. A modern Hebrew speaker/reader can read and understand biblical Hebrew, the differeces are minmal (there are two extra verb forms in biblical Hebrew and concatenations that do not exist in Modern hebrew) and the differences that do exist are slight enough that while a Modern Hebrew speaker would not use them in coversation, they would easily spot them and understand them when they came across them in the biblical Hebrew.
by: allonyoav
on: 5th December 12