Many Bible lovers who have obtained copies of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures have wondered why they found differences between it and the Bible to which they had been accustomed, usually the King James Version. Why? As to the Christian Greek Scriptures, the differences are primarily because the New World Translation is based on the Westcott and Hort Greek text, whereas the King James Version was based on what is referred to as a Textus Receptus or “Received Text.”

WESTCOTT AND HORT

All this activity of refining reached its peak in the labors of two British Bible scholars, B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort. Like Tischendorf and Tregelles, these men were firm believers in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. This fact no doubt helped to account for both their zeal as well as their sound judgment.

Westcott and Hort worked on their Greek text for twenty-eight years, from 1853 to 1881. While working independently of each other, they continually compared notes. “They gathered up in themselves,” as A. Souter puts it, “all that was most valuable in the work of their predecessors.” They took every conceivable factor and every pertinent probability into consideration.

Their work has been termed “the most important contribution to the scientific criticism of the New Testament yet made.” Rotherham used it for his later editions, speaking of Westcott and Hort as “consummate masters of textual criticism.” Goodspeed states in the preface of An American Translation (1923):

“I have closely followed the Greek Text of Westcott and Hort, now generally accepted. Every scholar knows its superiority to the late and faulty texts from which the early English translations from Tyndale to the Authorized Version were made.” The text of Westcott and Hort also served as the foundation of the Greek Scripture portion of the American Standard Version (1901) and the Revised Standard Version (1946).

The translators of the Revised Standard Version also used a still later, very authoritative text, that of Nestle, which text the New World Bible Translation Committee also consulted. That Committee, as can be seen from their footnotes, made comparisons with many other fine texts, both in Greek and in other languages. For example, they consulted nineteen Hebrew versions of the Christian Greek Scriptures that served as a basis for their using the divine name Jehovah in many places in the Christian Greek Scriptures.

The Westcott and Hort Greek text is now available to all Bible lovers in The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures. One of the latest products of the New World Bible Translation Committee, it was released in 1969 at the “Peace on Earth” International Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

This scholarly work has on each page a wide column and a narrow one. In the wide column to the left there appears the Westcott and Hort text and under each Greek word the English equivalent, a word-for-word translation. In the narrow right-hand column appears an improved text of the 1961 New World Translation. This Kingdom Interlinear Translation also contains much valuable information in its introduction and appendix, and regarding the Greek language itself on the front and back endsheets.

The foregoing accounts for many of the differences between the New World Translation and the King James Version and other old versions.

The earliest and most reliable Masoretic manuscript that has been made available to modern Bible scholars is the Ben Asher Masoretic text of about 930 C.E.

This is the text that one of the leading Hebrew scholars of the twentieth century, Rudolf Kittel, and his associates and successors used in producing the third and later editions of the Biblia Hebraica. Its 7th, 8th and 9th editions (1951-1955) were used by the New World Bible Translation Committee in producing their version of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Committee also consulted other fine Hebrew texts, especially that of the eminent scholar D. Ginsburg, following his text as the main reading in a number of places.

The New World Bible Translation Committee also used for purposes of comparison leading earliest translated texts. The most important of these is the Greek Septuagint. It began to be produced in 280 B.C.E., reputedly by seventy scholars, from which fact it got its name. It is the version that was mainly used by the writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures, as can be seen from both their direct and indirect quotations.

The Committee also consulted the leading Latin version, Jerome’s Vulgate. He translated it from the original languages into the then common language of the people, for which reason it was called the Vulgate or “vulgar” version. Published at the beginning of the 5th century C.E., it also is referred to many times in the footnotes of the first and 1963 editions of the New World Translation.

Also consulted and deserving mention are the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Aramaic Targums. The Samaritan Pentateuch is actually a transliteration rather than a translation. That is, the Hebrew words were simply put in the characters of the Samaritan alphabet, making it possible for Samaritans to read but not necessarily understand it. It was produced during the fourth century B.C.E., although extant copies go back only to the tenth century C.E. The Aramaic Targums were the earliest translations, or more correctly stated, paraphrases of Bible books. But they were first put in writing at the beginning of the Common Era, until then being transmitted only by word of mouth.

The scholarly basis for the renderings found in the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, as noted in the foregoing, gives confidence in the accuracy of this translation.