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The Bible and the translation · Claim record

Two citations repeated constantly in this debate are inaccurate. Thomas Winter's review is in The Classical Journal volume 69, number 4 (April-May 1974), pages 375-376, not volume 66, which covers 1970-71. Bruce Metzger's review in The Bible Translator occupies pages 150-152 of volume 15, number 3, not 150-153; the review ends, over Metzger's signature, on page 152.

Claim ID claim-bible-citation-errors-in-circulationConcerns 19 September 2026Context
Context · 19 September 2026 Verified

Two citations repeated constantly in this debate are inaccurate. Thomas Winter's review is in The Classical Journal volume 69, number 4 (April-May 1974), pages 375-376, not volume 66, which covers 1970-71. Bruce Metzger's review in The Bible Translator occupies pages 150-152 of volume 15, number 3, not 150-153; the review ends, over Metzger's signature, on page 152. The Classical Journal, April 1974The Bible Translator, July 1964

The organisation’s position or later explanation: The volume-66 error for Winter appears in Watch Tower publications and on JW.org, which cites the review only by month and year. The 'pp. 150-153' error for Metzger appears on critical websites.

Show the evidence (2 sources)
Peer-reviewed / scholarly Verified

The Classical Journal, “Review of New World Bible Translation Committee's The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures”

April 1974 · pp.375-376 · Thomas Nelson Winter (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) · Classical Association of the Middle West and South

“This is no ordinary interlinear: the integrity of the text is preserved, and the English which appears below it is simply the basic meaning of the Greek word. Thus the interlinear feature of this book is no translation at all. A text with instant vocabulary more correctly describes it. … The text is based on that of Brooke F. Westcott and Fenton J. A. Hort (1881, repr.), but the translation by the anonymous committee is thoroughly up-to-date and consistently accurate. … The book has been very carefully compiled and printed. In sum, when a Witness comes to the door, the classicist, Greek student, or Bible student alike would do well to bring him in and place an order.”

A short, favourable review of the 1969 Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. The review opens 'An original Greek text for two dollars is something of a miracle, and it should not surprise us that it took a world-wide group of Bible students to pull it off.' Winter sets a line of the Kingdom Interlinear beside a line of an ordinary Latin interlinear, says the latter's 'mixmastered Latin… is anathema to any classicist', and reports that he gave the Kingdom Interlinear to several second-year Greek students as an auxiliary text and that their Greek improved. His one worked example of accuracy is that where the King James and Revised Standard have 'wise men' for magoi, the Kingdom Interlinear has 'astrologers', 'a more correct and informative rendition'.

Official source Scan of original

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Opened and read in full on 19 September 2026 — the whole printed review, not the repository abstract. The repository's PDF (cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=classicsfacpub) returns HTTP 403 to automated requests from this environment but opens through the Wayback Machine; it reproduces the printed review, headed 'APRIL-MAY, 1974' and signed 'THOMAS N. WINTER, University of Nebraska'. The quotations above are transcribed from it. The repository record gives the citation as The Classical Journal, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Apr.-May 1974), pp. 375-376, and carries the JSTOR SICI string 0009-8353(197404/05)69:4<375:TKITOT>2.0.CO;2-F, which independently encodes volume 69, issue 4, first page 375.

Scan provenance. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln repository's own PDF of the printed review, which reproduces the review in full, headed 'APRIL-MAY, 1974' and signed 'THOMAS N. WINTER, University of Nebraska'. The live viewcontent.cgi URL returns HTTP 403 to automated requests; the Wayback Machine's copy of the same PDF opens normally. Note that the repository's record page at /classicsfacpub/27 carries only a shortened abstract of the review, not the whole of it.

Corroborated by. src-nwt-jw-faq-accurate

Notes. The citation repeated in Watch Tower publications and across the internet, 'The Classical Journal 66 (April-May 1974)', gives the wrong volume: volume 66 covers 1970-71. The author's own university, and the JSTOR SICI string on the same page, give volume 69, no. 4. [Independent audit, 19 September 2026] An earlier version of this record said that the sentence Jehovah's Witnesses quote — 'The translation by the anonymous committee is thoroughly up-to-date and consistently accurate' — did not appear in the text reproduced by Winter's university and was unconfirmed. That was wrong, and it was wrong because the repository's record page carries only a condensed abstract. The full PDF has the sentence, in this form: 'The text is based on that of Brooke F. Westcott and Fenton J. A. Hort (1881, repr.), but the translation by the anonymous committee is thoroughly up-to-date and consistently accurate.' JW.org's quotation of it is accurate, and the site must say so. What the site may fairly add is the context: Winter was assessing a Greek text with word-by-word glosses as a teaching aid for classicists, and his single worked example of accuracy is 'astrologers' for magoi.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-nwt-winter-1974-classical-journal

Peer-reviewed / scholarly Verified

The Bible Translator, “Book Review: New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures”

July 1964 · pp.150-152 (quoted passages at pp. 151 and 152) · Bruce M. Metzger · United Bible Societies (published by SAGE; DOI 10.1177/000608446401500311)

“On the whole, one gains a tolerably good impression of the scholarly equipment of the translators (their names are not divulged). … Frequently an intelligent use of critical information is apparent. (p. 151) … Some of the translations which are simply indefensible include the following. The introduction of the word 'Jehovah' into the New Testament text, in spite of much ingenuity in an argument filled with a considerable amount of irrelevant material (pp. 10-25), is a plain piece of special pleading. (p. 152)”

A signed review of the 1950 New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures in the United Bible Societies' translation journal, running from the heading 'BOOK REVIEW' on p. 150 to the signature 'BRUCE M. METZGER' at the foot of p. 152. It is mixed, not uniformly hostile. Metzger notes the Westcott and Hort Greek text, records that 'one of the most notable features of the translation is the introduction of the name Jehovah 237 times into the main body of the text, as well as 72 times in the footnotes in the lower margin' (p. 151), and allows the translators 'a tolerably good impression of the scholarly equipment'. He then objects that rendering the same Greek word by the same English word 'has a specious show of faithfulness to the original, but the application of the principle with any degree of consistency tends to produce a certain woodenness' (p. 151); that 'and the Word was a god' at John 1:1, 'while entirely in accord with the Arian theology of the sect, is not justified despite a lengthy note which attempts to support it' (p. 152); and that 'in the interest of providing support for their Unitarianism, the translators have not hesitated to insert four times the word “other” (totally without warrant from the Greek) before the word “things” in Col. 1: 16 f.' (p. 152).

Official source Archived or alternative copy Scan of original

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Opened and read in full on 19 September 2026 — all three printed pages. journals.sagepub.com still returns HTTP 403 to automated requests and the live ubs-translations.org page now returns HTTP 404, but the Wayback Machine serves the United Bible Societies' own page images of the issue: a150.jpg, a151.jpg and a152.jpg under /tbt/1964/03/. Those three images were downloaded and read, and the quotations above are transcribed from them. The review is signed 'BRUCE M. METZGER'. Crossref independently confirms The Bible Translator vol. 15 no. 3 (July 1964), pp. 150-152, by B. Metzger.

Scan provenance. Page images of the printed journal from the United Bible Societies' own Bible Translator archive at ubs-translations.org, preserved in the Wayback Machine. The review occupies the images a150.jpg, a151.jpg and a152.jpg in /tbt/1964/03/, whose printed page numbers are 150, 151 and 152; the viewer's own index maps image a151.jpg to printed page 151, which is the page the secondary literature cites. The live ubs-translations.org page now returns HTTP 404.

Notes. This record previously said the text could not be opened and that nothing should be quoted from it. [Independent audit, 19 September 2026] It has now been read, and that judgement is reversed. The much-circulated sentence about 'a plain piece of special pleading' is accurate word for word, and it is on p. 152. The citation 'pp. 150-153' that circulates online is wrong: the review ends on p. 152. Note two traps. First, the same three pages contain the favourable sentence that defenders of the translation quote, so a page that uses one half without the other is quoting selectively. Second, Wikipedia's rendering of the p. 151 sentence, 'Frequently an intelligent use of a critical information is apparent', has a stray 'a'; the printed text reads 'an intelligent use of critical information'.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-nwt-metzger-1964-bible-translator

Claim page

A direct link to this claim is https://jwtruth.org/evidence/claim-bible-citation-errors-in-circulation/. Every source above opens the original document or the best available copy. If you believe the wording, date or context is wrong, report an error.