The Bibles this site has singled out for castigation are:
Schonfield's New Testament
Johannes Greber's New Testament
New World Translation
James Moffatt's Bible
The Smight & Goodspeed Bible
Emphatic Diaglott
Kingdom Interlinear
Lamsa's New Testament
Cotton Patch Version
New English Bible
Revised English Bible
New Testament in an Improved Version - Newcome's New Translation
Let me say right off the bat that if you own all 12 of the above Bibles, you will have a better Bible library than if you owned 12 Evangelical Bible versions...even with the Cotton Patch version and Johannes Greber's New Testament included.
The first complaint is against Schonfield, and that he was an unbeliever. The problem that I have with Bible translations is that there are too many Christians are involved in it. This is why you have a host of Trinitarian Biased Bibles (see what I did there?).
Sometimes on wikipedia you will see this caution: "This article may be written from a fan's point of view, rather than a neutral point of view." The reason that is posted is because you can not always trust fan content. Christian Bible translators are "fans" of God, and of course there is nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but I take their translations with a cautionary view.
I also like it when non-believers take it upon themselves to translate the Bible, thus giving us a fresh view of how certain passages can and should be translated.
The next complaint is against Johannes Greber and his spiritistic New Testament. I have dealt with this topic at https://newworldtranslation.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-new-world-translation-and-johannes.html. To be fair, no one really uses this New testament anymore.
Then the website moves on to the New World Translation. No surprise there. The claim is made that the NWT is "Nothing more than a sectarian paraphrase and not even a translation!" This is simply a pejorative statement. The NWT Bible is a fantastic translation that is overly criticized by conservative Christian bigots. Elsewhere on this website they trot out Christian scholars that lambast the NWT, often depending on a now debunked rule of Greek grammar. How embarrasing. Alan S. Duthie in his book How to Choose Your Bible Wisely actually recommends the NWT and Kingdom Interlinear as these are "very literal versions" and are suggested "for detailed word-studies and similar interests in the original languages."
Rational Wiki (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bible_translation) sums it up nicely for the NWT: "The NWT is widely condemned by mainstream Christian scholars, primarily because it renders many verses in non-standard ways that do not admit traditional interpretations. Non-religious scholars are more approving of it, considering it a fairly good translation. Robert M. Price, for instance, rarely discusses JWs on his voluminous podcast without mentioning that the New World Translation is surprisingly accurate and in many places superior to mainstream translations."
Next, the webpage criticizes James Moffatt and Edgar Goodspeed for being too "liberal." Moffatt and Goodspeed are the greatest Bible translators ever. These men are giants in the field. Christians should thank God for these two men and whatever skepticism they had that led to their respective masterpieces.
After this, the complaint is targeted against J.M. Powis Smith, the translator of the Old Testament portion of the Complete Bible: An American Translation. The site focuses on Isaiah 7:14 where Smith translates the Hebrew word Almah as "young woman" instead of as "virgin." A lot of Bibles translate it this way. Even Catholics, who venerate the Virgin Mary, translate Isaiah 7:14 as "young woman." (See the New American Bible and New Jerusalem Bible)
The Emphatic Diaglott next comes under attack because the translator "no credentials in Greek." Yet, the translator (Benjamin Wilson) managed to produce a scholarly work which was praised the clergy in his day. See https://newworldtranslation.blogspot.com/2017/10/19th-century-reviews-of-emphatic.html for more.
George M. Lamsa is condemned next. No examples are given from Lamsa's New Testament as to why this is a bad translation. We are simply supposed to reject his New Testament because Lamsa held views that are not 100% in line with those of Bible.ca. If I were to only read books by people that completey agree with my outlook, I would never read anything at all.
Next up is the Kingdom Interlinear, which was according to them was "Produced by Jehovah's Witnesses for Jehovah's Witnesses." Isn't the New International Version "produced by Evangelicals for Evangelicals." Do you really think Jews or Catholics are reading the NIV Bible? As James Barr wrote in the Quarterly Review/Fall 1994: "The reason for the existence of the NIV is not, and never was, that it was in any way better, or had better principles of translation, or better scholarship behind it, or that it had solved the problem of style as between archaic 'biblical' style and conversational 'modern' style. Its reason for existence was purely and simply that it was produced by and for evangelicals and for them only."
After this they move on to the Cotton Patch version. No one really takes this Bible seriously. It is gimmicky and silly little rewording of the Bible.
The New English Bible & Revised English Bible is next in line for rebuke as "it is unreliable as a literal translation." The NEB and its successor the REB were never meant to "literal." These are "free" translations. They are not "word for word" translations but instead "meaning for meaning" translations. Interestingly, the site states that the NEB "does get some stuff right on" and they point to the NEB translation of John 1:1c, "What God was the Word was." You know who else likes that translation of John 1:1? Unitarians (See One God & One Lord: Reconsidering the Cornerstone of the Christian Faith by John W. Schoenheit, Mark H. Graeser & John A. Lynn)
Last, but not least is Newcome's Corrected New Testament in an Improved Version of 211 years ago. The claim was that this Bible "altered Newcome's text." Of course they did. This is what "corrected" Bibles do. It was common back then to alter or amend existing Bibles, and you cannot do that without "altering" the text of the original. Noah Webster's Bible was one such Bible, as was John Wesley's. This site let's us know that this altered Bible was made by Unitarians, and Unitarians are a "cult." CULT is code for "anyone who disagrees with me." The word also is used to insinuate that the accused is intellectually deficient. Let it be known that some of the smartest people in history were Unitarians. Isaac Newton, Michael Servetus and Thomas Jefferson were Unitarians, to name a few. Tim Berners Lee, the man who gave us the World Wide Web is a Unitarian as well.
It should be noted that the alterations made to Archbishop Newcome's New Testament were indeed improvements, especially when it comes to John 1:1, and this altered text does not provide, according to this site, "a basis for the New World Translation's '...and the Word was a god,'"...common sense and good grammar does. This translation of John 1:1c had been translated and discussed long before Newcome's 1808 correction.
And, as Winthrop Bailey remarked a long time ago: "If it be said, that these are the translations of known Unitarians; I reply: our common translation is the work of known Trinitarians. If prejudice render the former suspicious; it renders the latter not less so."
metatron3@gmail.com
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