A Living Translation of God's Word

"The word of God is alive." -HEBREWS  4:12.

JEHOVAH GOD endowed his creatures with the gift of communication. After settling Adam into his garden home, God gave him an assignment that involved language; he was to name the animals.  Adam used his creativity and intellect to give each  an appropriate name.  (Genesis 2:19, 20) Since then, God's people have continued to use their ability to speak-to use God's language-to praise Jehovah and to make his will known to others. In recent times, a significant way to promote pure worship by the use of language as been through  Bible translation.  There are thousands of Bible translations, but they vary in how faithfully they convey the message from the original texts.  In the 1940''s, the New World Bible Translation Committee established principles of translation that have been followed in over 130 languages.  These are (1) Sanctify God's name by restoring it to its rightful place in the Scriptures.  (Read Matthew 6:9.)  (2) Translate the original inspired message literally where possible, but convey the correct sense when a word-for-word rendering  would distort the meaning.  (3) Use easy-to-understand language that encourages reading.  (Read Nehemiah 8:8, 12) Let us see how these principles have been applied in the New World Translation,the 2013 revision as well as the non-English editions. 

Next time: A Living Translation of God's Word/HONORING THE NAME OF GOD

From The Watchtower magazine