The text "THE WORD WAS GOD" (John 1:1) has been a problem for four presidents of Jehovah's Witnesses.
N.H. Knorr, third Jehovah's Witness president & F.W. Franz, the future fourth Jehovah's Witness president, realizing the deficiency decided to translate their own Bible called THE NEW WORLD TRANSLATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. Neither Mr. Knorr or Mr. Franz ever academically studied Biblical or koine Greek. Franz did not graduate from any college or did he receive a Rhodes Scholarship as he had claimed. Besides Knorr & Franz, the rest of the NEW WORLD translation committee consisted of Jehovah's Witness "Governing Body" members Milton Henschel, Albert Schroeder & G.D. Gangas. None of these men were Greek scholars or even proficient in the Biblical languages. Their "TRANSLATION" imposes John 1:1 with "the Word was a god" thus "creating" a second "god." Their KINGDOM INTERLINEAR for John 1:1 says "god was the Word." By this methodology, the Jehovah's Witnesses could force the Biblical text to agree with their preconceived ideas that Jesus was not God Almighty in human flesh but rather simply a created angel named Michael who Jehovah God recreated as a man who eventually ceased to exist after death on a torture stake (rather than a cross).
The Jehovah's Witness leadership, wishing to justify their "translation," turned for support to a man named Johannes Greber who had done his own translation of the Bible called "THE NEW TESTAMENT." Jehovah's Witness publications such as "MAKE SURE OF ALL THINGS", pages 5 & 489, 1965 revision, "AID TO BIBLE UNDERSTANDING", pages 1134 & 1669, 1971 edition, "Watchtower" magazines: 9/15/1962, page 554, 10/15/1975, page 640, 4/15/1976, |
