To Love Kindness? To Love Mercy? (or) To Cherish Loyalty.

TheJehuChariot

TheJehuChariot

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 28, 2021
Messages
765
Reaction score
3,472
I wanted to ask @Watchman and others on the forum what their favorite bible to use is? I realize its a paradoxical and perhaps unusual question based on our backgrounds as JW's as we were inculcated to predominantly utilize the NWT. Personally, I have never liked the nick named "Silver Sword" put out by WT over a decade ago due to the alteration of 1 specific verse = Micah 6:8. (I have stuck with the 1984 Reference Bible every since).

They changed the wording from "loving kindness" to "cherish loyalty". The Hebrew word for loyalty in scripture passage refers to the Creators loyalty towards His servants NOT the other way around. They made it appear the passage was admonishing humans to be "loyal" to Jehovah (via "The Organization"). Gods loyalty is unwavering. Whereas humans can fail in showing such. With God, his loyalty is enduring, infinite, definitive. SO the Governing Body felt the liberty to take away the significance of the word "Kindness". As if "we" don't need to receive more kindness and is if "they" don't need to show more kindness. SO they just decided to replace the word kindness with the word loyalty and make it appear as if its referring to our need to show loyalty to God. I find that egregious and a blatant abuse of scripture to support a JW organizational narrative. Every bible out there uses the verbiage "kindness" or "mercy". (see below):

NWT ~ "Silver Edition" : "He has told you, O man, what is good. And what is Jehovah requiring of you? Only to exercise justice, to cherish loyalty, And to walk in modesty with your God!
NWT ~ "1984 Edition": "He has told you, O earthling man,* what is good.+ And what is Jehovah asking back from you but to exercise justice+ and to love kindness*+ and to be modest+ in walking with your God?+
NASB~ "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?
KJV~ "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Robert, what's your opinion of the NASB bible and the more recent Legacy Standard Bible that is very similar but utilizes "Yahweh" all throughout it?
 
It certainly appears as if the WT translators took the liberty to mistranslate Micah 6:8. And we know why. They wish to promote loyalty to the organization. They have conditioned JWs to believe that no one can be loyal to Jehovah if they are not loyal to the organization that governs Jehovah's Witnesses. The irony is, the foremost promoters of this brand of loyalty are not loyal to God or the organization.

If you want to get down to it, I am more loyal to the organization than they are. I have loyally tried to inform the leadership of their errors. I have tried to expose the evil men that lurk within the organization like rocks below the waterline. I have loyally tried to educate Jehovah's Witnesses concerning the operation of Satan that has created a false dawn. Yes, I would say I am more loyal than they are.

I have never heard of the Legacy Standard Bible. I use the NWT because I wish to communicate with JWs.
 
TheJehuChariot said:
I wanted to ask @Watchman and others on the forum what their favorite bible to use is? I realize its a paradoxical and perhaps unusual question based on our backgrounds as JW's as we were inculcated to predominantly utilize the NWT. Personally, I have never liked the nick named "Silver Sword" put out by WT over a decade ago due to the alteration of 1 specific verse = Micah 6:8. (I have stuck with the 1984 Reference Bible every since).

They changed the wording from "loving kindness" to "cherish loyalty". The Hebrew word for loyalty in scripture passage refers to the Creators loyalty towards His servants NOT the other way around. They made it appear the passage was admonishing humans to be "loyal" to Jehovah (via "The Organization"). Gods loyalty is unwavering. Whereas humans can fail in showing such. With God, his loyalty is enduring, infinite, definitive. SO the Governing Body felt the liberty to take away the significance of the word "Kindness". As if "we" don't need to receive more kindness and is if "they" don't need to show more kindness. SO they just decided to replace the word kindness with the word loyalty and make it appear as if its referring to our need to show loyalty to God. I find that egregious and a blatant abuse of scripture to support a JW organizational narrative. Every bible out there uses the verbiage "kindness" or "mercy". (see below):

NWT ~ "Silver Edition" : "He has told you, O man, what is good. And what is Jehovah requiring of you? Only to exercise justice, to cherish loyalty, And to walk in modesty with your God!
NWT ~ "1984 Edition": "He has told you, O earthling man,* what is good.+ And what is Jehovah asking back from you but to exercise justice+ and to love kindness*+ and to be modest+ in walking with your God?+
NASB~ "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?
KJV~ "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Robert, what's your opinion of the NASB bible and the more recent Legacy Standard Bible that is very similar but utilizes "Yahweh" all throughout it?
Click to expand...
There are two bibles. Nature and the written word. In the Bible of nature is written the soul of Jehovah and the wonders of His spirit. It alone is the greatest educator into the mind of our creator. This is no mean fancy of poetry; the construction of life upon this planet and the laws that govern it teach the heart and soul every aspect of the attributes of the spirit. If one cannot “see” Jehovah and “sense” within their soul the very essence of perfection in life, emotion and Spirit, then the scriptures will have no sense of application to be found within them.

For those seeking instruction on how to apply the inevitable understanding of creation, one cannot do better than the King James Version. For all its assumed “faults”, it was at the beginning of the end so to speak in bringing these days to their conclusion. The motive for publishing was to give understanding - there was no, or very little other motive than that in its printing. That there was very little ulterior motive was a protection from the likes of men today in watchtower. As for ingesting Accuracy; meaning is found in the heart of the one “listening”, in application: it is given to those asking for it, and more is given the more they ask and eventually, that one realises that the message of instruction is upon and ‘flowers’ - develops - grows within the heart. Do we generate faith through our own meaning, or through understanding the entire spectrum of life? This is where we get the sense of what the Word Jehovah means. “He who causes to become”. Life came before the downfall. Everything was there. Faith was and remains in seeing; inculcating within our understanding and comprehending of the creation - it is key to faith. It’s what Adam threw away - that personal relationship.
 
Watchman said:
It certainly appears as if the WT translators took the liberty to mistranslate Micah 6:8. And we know why. They wish to promote loyalty to the organization. They have conditioned JWs to believe that no one can be loyal to Jehovah if they are not loyal to the organization that governs Jehovah's Witnesses. The irony is, the foremost promoters of this brand of loyalty are not loyal to God or the organization.

If you want to get down to it, I am more loyal to the organization than they are. I have loyally tried to inform the leadership of their errors. I have tried to expose the evil men that lurk within the organization like rocks below the waterline. I have loyally tried to educate Jehovah's Witnesses concerning the operation of Satan that has created a false dawn. Yes, I would say I am more loyal than they are.

I have never heard of the Legacy Standard Bible. I use the NWT because I wish to communicate with JWs.
Click to expand...
The watchtower are no longer loyal to their cause, for sure. I would say that, that is where our loyalty is and remains, to the word that they set out to preach.
 
TheJehuChariot said:
These 2 guys have an interesting discussion on respecting the New Testament use of "Lord" like Paul did.
Click to expand...
They assume Paul did not use the YHWH. But they don't know. There are no originals. Given the tendency for copyists and translators to remove God's name, it is most likely that the Tetragrammaton was removed from subsequent copies of the Christian Greek letters.
 
TheJehuChariot said:
I wanted to ask @Watchman and others on the forum what their favorite bible to use is? I realize its a paradoxical and perhaps unusual question based on our backgrounds as JW's as we were inculcated to predominantly utilize the NWT.
Click to expand...

My *favorite* translation is the one that gets me closest to the original language. I'm grateful that we live in a span of time where we have *simple* access to the Written Word. And for a *very* long time, it was locked behind Latin. I happened to enter the school system some time after that was one of the classes offered in public school.

And it's become available in diverse ways, making it even more accessible than having a hardcopy.

In short: there is no excuse any longer for someone who wants access to the Bible to not be able to do so. It's ban amidst various nations notwithstanding— and even *then* Jehovah finds a way.

I started like most, with the King James Version, and that connected smoothly when I found that tattered and well-used Scofield Reference Bible in the lost and found when I attended the Hastings Baptist Church. That bad boy is still here in my library amidst shelves of various translations, marked up like mad with my thoughts and notes. Might be missing a few pages, but I retired that one many moons ago. The Scofield Bible is, of course, simply the King James Version with Scofield's eschatological notes overlaid.

I was encouraged to use the New World Translation as I came into the Watchtower organization. And reading the Watchtower organization's rendering of the Hebrew and Christian Greek Scriptures doesn't get as many blank stares when reading from the platform, I should put on record. ;)

I could bore you with all the other translations that consume an entire series of shelves which I've had the privilege of referencing during personal study and consideration over the course of my life, but nowadays, I primarily use a software program from the 1990's called e-Sword. The last version before he essentially went commercial, and one had to repurchase all of the translation modules anew (some were no longer available for the transition of that software platform, including the New World Translation). That ancient program works just fine to this day, and being able to see numerous translations, including the original languages, when you home in on a passage or a verse....? Yep, there's a reason why I still rely on the "classic" e-Sword program. :)

I use BibleHub as my online Bible resource, for the same reason— although BibleHub does not have many that I have in my e-Sword collection. There, I tend to use a rendering that calls itself Berean Standard Bible. It reads as a solid translation... Trust, but verify, right?

—Timothy,
a believer.
 
a believer said:
My *favorite* translation is the one that gets me closest to the original language. I'm grateful that we live in a span of time where we have *simple* access to the Written Word. And for a *very* long time, it was locked behind Latin. I happened to enter the school system some time after that was one of the classes offered in public school.

And it's become available in diverse ways, making it even more accessible than having a hardcopy.

In short: there is no excuse any longer for someone who wants access to the Bible to not be able to do so. It's ban amidst various nations notwithstanding— and even *then* Jehovah finds a way.

I started like most, with the King James Version, and that connected smoothly when I found that tattered and well-used Scofield Reference Bible in the lost and found when I attended the Hastings Baptist Church. That bad boy is still here in my library amidst shelves of various translations, marked up like mad with my thoughts and notes. Might be missing a few pages, but I retired that one many moons ago. The Scofield Bible is, of course, simply the King James Version with Scofield's eschatological notes overlaid.

I was encouraged to use the New World Translation as I came into the Watchtower organization. And reading the Watchtower organization's rendering of the Hebrew and Christian Greek Scriptures doesn't get as many blank stares when reading from the platform, I should put on record. ;)

I could bore you with all the other translations that consume an entire series of shelves which I've had the privilege of referencing during personal study and consideration over the course of my life, but nowadays, I primarily use a software program from the 1990's called e-Sword. The last version before he essentially went commercial, and one had to repurchase all of the translation modules anew (some were no longer available for the transition of that software platform, including the New World Translation). That ancient program works just fine to this day, and being able to see numerous translations, including the original languages, when you home in on a passage or a verse....? Yep, there's a reason why I still rely on the "classic" e-Sword program. :)

I use BibleHub as my online Bible resource, for the same reason— although BibleHub does not have many that I have in my e-Sword collection. There, I tend to use a rendering that calls itself Berean Standard Bible. It reads as a solid translation... Trust, but verify, right?

—Timothy,
a believer.
Click to expand...
Hastings Baptist church? Hastings as in East Sussex?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top