Aside from the fact that the New World Translation of the bible was translated by a group of people with only a couple years of Greek training, there are a vast number of bible passages where it is clear that the Watchtower Society has smuggled their own doctrines into the scriptures where they are not otherwise found. Sadly, because the Watchtower requires Jehovah's witnesses to use this translation as their main study bible, the vast majority of witnesses will never even notice or realize the blatant mistranslations contained within the New World Translation, but instead merely take it as the actual word of God. We will be taking a look at a couple of the most important mistranslations of the New World Translation bible.
We begin by turning to John chapter 1, verse 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Watchtower society, however, has translated this verse: "and the word was a god." This is because they teach that Jesus Christ, the Word of God, is a created being, namely the Archangel Michael. What they don't realize is that this idea is already refuted by looking at the very beginning of verse 1. Notice it does not say that in the beginning "the word became," but rather "the word was." There was no beginning for the Word because it is eternal. As far back as you push the beginning, the world was already there. In terms of adding the article, if the Watchtower society were to be consistent, we would see this article added before the word "God" all throughout the new testament. However, we do not see this.
Next we turn to John chapter 8, verse 58. This reads: "'I tell you the truth,' Jesus answered, 'before Abraham was born, I am!'" The New World Translation reads "before Abraham was born, I have been." The problem with translating it this way is that Jesus uses the phrase "Ego eimi" which means "I AM." This is the very name of God used in the old testament in the book of Isaiah, and especially in the book of Exodus when God speaks to Moses. This is demonstrated by the fact that in the same context the Jews get very angry with what Jesus has just called himself, and they understood that He was claiming to be God. Therefore they picked up stones to stone Him. However, the Watchtower society hides this obvious claim by Jesus to be God by mistranslating "Ego eimi" as "I have been." It is not so much that the phrase "I have been" is false in this case, but rather that it implies that Jesus had a beginning as a created being, rather than an eternal existence as God Himself.
Next we turn to the book of Colossians chapter 1, verses 16 and 17. These verses are talking about Jesus Christ, and in the New World Translation reads: "For by him all [other] things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all [other] things were created by him and for him. He is before all [other] things, and in him all [other] things hold together." This is a blatant mistranslation, because the word "other" appears nowhere in the original Greek. The Jehovah's witnesses claim that these added words are "for understanding," and yet by adding these words they have changed the entire meaning of the passage. Again, because the Watchtower teaches that Jesus was a created being, we can see that He therefore can not be said to be the creator of "All things," as these verses actually state. So they decide to add the word "other" in so that their teachings are not contradicted by the scriptures.
It must also be noted that there are actually certain editions of the New World Translation where these extra words such as "other" are inserted without brackets, making it appear as though the original text contained these words. This is nothing short of frightening! There are a vast number of mistranslations beyond these few. However, by just looking at a couple of these verses and seeing the blatant mistranslations we can see why the Watchtower society has had to change so many verses of the Bible, as they do not line up with their teachings. As earlier stated, this is very sad because the vast majority of Jehovah's Witnesses will never read any other bible than the New World Translation, and therefore never have their eyes opened to these important mistranslations.
