Sheep and Goats

Tag: New World Translation

  • Redefining Gender in the Bible

    Dear Tom Harley:

    “Why does the Watchtower say “he” all the time? I counted it (or “him”) nine times in just one paragraph in that article on how to conduct a Bible study. The funny thing was, all the photographs were of a female student.”

    Dear Person:

    English is clunky that way. It is awkward to constantly say “him/her” or “he/she.” You have to choose one or the other. Somewhere in that study I recall reading that a, “he” can mean “he” or “she.” No way should it be “they.” Singular makes it more personal, and a personal connection with the student was a sub-theme of the article. I wouldn’t mind if it was straight “she’s.” 

    But the problem is, if you say “he” with the addendum that you also mean “she,” the sisters will understand it that way. But if you say “she” with the addendum that it also means “he,” the brothers will not. They’re all lazy louts to begin with, and if given the out of, “Oh, they’re talking about sisters,” (drawing upon poetic license) what little they do now will be transformed into nothing. 

    …

    The trend in Bible translations to become inclusive. The New World Translation has gone along with it, as can be seen in the latest (2013) revision. One can find many examples. Such as:

    Proverbs 20:11) . . .Even by his practices a boy makes himself recognized as to whether his activity is pure and upright. – (NWT)

    (Proverbs 20:11) . . .Even a child is known by his actions, Whether his behavior is pure and right. (REVISED NWT)

    The examples you can find involve nouns. Alas, there is no comparable pronoun which is singular yet undetermined as to gender. That is why, though the noun changes, the pronoun does not. Note how “boy” becomes “child” but “his” does not become “his or hers.” Too clunky to do it that way. It’s a limitation of the English.

    “For example,: says one professor, “when speaking about a representative student, I used to say that “he is writing his paper,” and no one seemed to mind. Now in our gender-conscious world, I have to consider whether to use the cumbersome expression “he or she is writing his or her paper,” or the gratingly ungrammatical “they are writing their paper.” And should I still refer to first-year students as “freshmen” or do I use something silly like “freshpeople”?

    It is a drawback of English. It used to be that male pronouns were once understood as sometimes referring to both men and women, but that is no longer the case. There are some gender-neutral translations that will do things as replace “brothers” with “brothers and sisters. It looks like the NWT conforms to sensitivities to the extent it can without adding words. Thus “son” can be replaced with “child” but not “brothers” with “brothers and sisters.”

    Redefining gender is now a growth industry, with some “progressives” identifying dozens (now that’s progress). Can you imagine when some inclusive Bible translators try to cater to them all? Elon Musk recently stepped in it when he tweeted how “absolutely support[s] trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare.”

    Another revision welcome for not grossing people out but maybe not so much for safety:

    1 Samuel 25:22) . . . “So may God do to the enemies of David and so may he add to it if I shall let anyone of all who are his that urinates against the wall remain until the morning.” (OLD)

    (1 Samuel 25:22) “May God do the same and more to the enemies of David if I allow a single male of his to survive until the morning.” (NEW)

    Yes, yes, this is all very fine and contemporary. But what if I borrow George’s time machine, race back to that era, take a stroll on a warm day and begin to imagine how refreshing it might be to sit against the wall in the cool shade?

  • Earning Everlasting Life

    Tom Pearlsandswine, the melodramatic sap, was conducting a study, or just starting to, with a surly fellow who reached into his wallet and pulled out $100. “This is what you're after,” he said. “This is what you guys are always after. Here.”

    Pearlsandswine declined.

    “Look, you're time is worth something,” the other said. “Nobody does anything for free! Why do you keep coming? What's in it for you?”

    “I'll tell you why I come,” Pearlsandswine replied with quiet intensity. He turned to James 5:19-20 where he read “…..if anyone among you is misled from the truth and another turns him back, know that he who turns a sinner back from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

    “I've committed a lot of sins in my life,” he said sincerely, “and I need them to be covered. I want to make it up to God. I'm leaving behind all the bad I used to do.”

    Was there a dry eye in the house? What a heartrending confession! What a humble reply! What an repentance-filled life turnaround!

    What a pious big dope! For you know, and I know, that he butchered James 5:19-20. He got it exactly backwards. Last time The Watchtower magazine mentioned the verse (3/1/83 page 15), it said:

    "The person who reproved him has thus worked toward the covering over, or pardoning, of the erring one’s sins."   (Wt 3/1/83 page 15, italics mine)

    It's not the teacher who gets his sins covered and soul saved. It's the taught one. Look, it sounds all pious and teary, the way Tom explained it, I grant you. But if it was really that way, we would truly be earning life, wouldn't we? “Attaboy, Pearlsandswine….a disciple! That's one hundred sins knocked off the record! Just two more people baptized and you're home free!”

    There's plenty of people who accuse Jehovah's Witnesses of having just that attitude toward their ministry….that of earning life through good works. But doesn't this accusation originate with people who do little or nothing in appreciation for Christ's free gift of life, yet want to feel morally superior to those who do? "Works" that Jehovah's Witnesses perform are in appreciation for that gift, and in obedience to Christ's command to "go and make disciples." (Matt 28:19) Witnesses do not imagine for one minute that they are "earning" everlasting life. The importance of Christian activity is supported by James 2:26: “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” KJV

    See, the teacher already has his sins covered and soul saved. Not through any special merit on his part, mind you, but because he has put faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And by guiding the student to a place where he can also dedicate his life to God through Christ, he is “covering the sins” and “saving the soul” of that student. That's how it works, and not the other way around, the way Pearlsandswine said it.

    But you can almost forgive Pearlsandswine his mistake….in fact, you can forgive it……since it largely stems from a revulsion of the other guys, the 'believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved' crowd. There's so many of these folk who do nothing after they start to "believe"…nothing in appreciation of the gift of life. Or, more typically, they suggest that anything they do after their 'believing on the Lord' has become sanctified….they've turned their life over to Jesus and Jesus is now driving! If they do something good….praise be to Jesus! If they do something not so good….you know, the kind of stuff they've long been used to doing……ah, well…..Jesus is driving, to be sure, but he is driving an old wreck of a car and there's only so much even an expert driver can do. However, it's not a problem at all, since Jesus' syrupy love covers us even when we're at our sinning worst. “Believe on the Lord Jesus and be saved.” That's what they like to hear! The easier, the better! The rest of the Bible is just so much "fine print." In short, they get to live pretty much as they've always lived, only with a self-righteous layer floating agreeably on top!

    Guys like Pearlsandswine hate that hypocracy, as do all of Jehovah's Witnesses, and so at times are inclined to blunder the way in which he did, in his case botching the James verse.

    Pearlsandswine's well aware of the free gift of life:

     For the wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is everlasting life by Christ Jesus our Lord.   Rom 6:23   Okay? It's free. PnS knows that.

    But he also knows of the many verses that call for showing appreciation for that gift, some which would seem to require substantial effort and self-sacrifice. Like “faith without works is dead,” quoted above, but also:

    Now a certain man said to him: “Lord, are those who are being saved few?” He said to them: “Exert yourselves vigorously to get in through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will seek to get in but will not be able.   Luke 13:23-24

    Do you not know that the runners in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may attain it. Moreover, every man taking part in a contest exercises self-control in all things. Now they, of course, do it that they may get a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one. Therefore, the way I am running is not uncertainly; the way I am directing my blows is so as not to be striking the air; but I pummel my body and lead it as a slave, that, after I have preached to others, I myself should not become disapproved somehow.   1 Cor 9:24-27

    Or….

    Consequently, my beloved ones, in the way that you have always obeyed, not during my presence only, but now much more readily during my absence, keep working out your own salvation with fear and trembling…   Phil 2:12  NWT

    Let's focus upon this last verse for a moment. The New World Translation renders it just as does the New International Version, the King James Version, and most other popular translations. There is remarkable agreement across translations on "working out your own salvation with fear and trembling."

    However, if you don't really like the idea that you must “keep working out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” maybe you can change the verse. Perhaps you can change the wording so that the advice appears to be a suggestion, not a command.

    Notice how the New Life Version puts it:

    My Christian friends, you have obeyed me when I was with you. You have obeyed even more when I have been away. You must keep on working to show you have been saved from the punishment of sin. Be afraid that you may not please God.   New Life Version.

    Note the subtle difference? No longer must you “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” which implies you could lose that favored standing. The only danger, from New Life's point of view, is that you might fail to show your saved standing!

    Or consider the Contemporary English Version:

    My dear friends, you always obeyed when I was with you. Now that I am away, you should obey even more. So work with fear and trembling to discover what it really means to be saved. 

    See? No danger that you could lose your “saved” standing.  But you might….gasp!…. fail to discover what that standing really means!

    Or the wordy Message translation, which I've quoted from favorably before, here and here. True, they undeniably scored a dud here. It's not a literal work. All paraphrased Bibles give their editors much leeway to insert favored interpretations:

    What I'm getting at, friends, is that you should simply keep on doing what you've done from the beginning. When I was living among you, you lived in responsive obedience. Now that I'm separated from you, keep it up. Better yet, redouble your efforts. Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God's energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.    The Message

    I don't know what that's supposed to mean! Just a feel-good pep talk, really.

    The offerings of New Life, Contemporary English, and Message illustrate what Jason Beduhn called the “Protestant's Burden.” You remember Jason Beduhn. He compared nine popular Bible translations and concluded that the New World Translation was the most un-biased…it ran truest to accurately translating the original languages! Placing a close second was the New American Translation, a Catholic translation. This somewhat flies in the face of what he expected, and what most people would expect. Shouldn't the more ecumenical Bibles, with editors representing many different denominations, result in the least bias? Yet the top two works for bias-free translating came from single denominations: Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholics. What gives?

    Beduhn hypothesized that the New World Translation had little pressure to be biased, since Jehovah's Witnesses are a relatively recent religion. Their track record isn't too long. Hence, they can just let their translation say whatever the original languages say, and then conform to it. If it calls for a change in some of their views, then they can just change them; they're no more than a few decades old anyway. Catholics are also free from bias pressure, Beduhn suggests, though the reason is different. The Catholic Church freely maintains that scripture is not the final word, but is augmented by interpretations of subsequent Saints and Popes. So if their translation reveals something contrary to present Church practices, (such as Matt 23:9, 1 Cor 9:5 which shows Peter, their first pope, a married man, and 1 Tim 4:1-3) it's really not a problem since nobody among them ever said the Bible was the final authority. 

    But Protestants…alas! have the burden of a) a long history, therefore hard to amend, and b) an insistance that they represent Bible truth completely. So when the Bible doesn't agree with their doctrines or practices, that's a problem for them. And as the three translations above illustrate, they're not above changing the verses to solve such difficulties! Thus, the phrase Beduhn coined: the Protestant's Burden!

    So…..albeit with some effort….we can now exonerate Tom Pearlsandswine from his doctrinal blunder re James 5:19-20, at least this week. It was merely an overreaction to pious fundamentalists. Let's hope he doesn't say something even dumber next week.

    ****************************

    Tom Irregardless and Me    No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

     

  • So There was this Lutheran Evangelical, and he Approaches this Rabbi

    so as to SAVE him. Only, he doesn’t know he’s wearing a big “kick me” sign on his behind. No sooner does he finish his pitch and the rabbi does kick him. Hard! HA!! 

    [Okay, okay, Tom Sheepandgoats, don’t gloat. Stop it!. The rabbi doesn’t like you any more than him, most likely. Maybe he’ll try to kick you, too. Well….maybe, but at least I have one saving grace. I’m using a decent Bible translation.]

    Dear Rabbi [Tovia Singer, who runs Outreach Judaism, and responds to issues raised by “missionaries, cults, and Jew for Jesus.”]:

    “…….I admire your commitment to your faith.” [Roll eyes. Does he also admire the Pope’s committment to his faith. Sheesh! When you’re writing a someone like the rabbi, you don’t lead off with patronizing twaddle about admiration. If you truly admire him, the tone of your letter will show it.]

    Brackets mine, by the way.

    yet I am perplexed as to why you so assuredly reject Jesus Christ as your messiah. [Not the Messiah, but your Messiah. What, is he trying to get this fellow mad? Not that I disagree with the “your,” necessarily, but you have to know your audience. Even Jesus’ disciples referred to him as the Messiah. (John 1:41) Do these modern day evangelicals simply love him more than the original twelve?]

    He came not only for the gentiles, but for the Jews as well. He was born to a Jewish mother and came to the Jewish people. [Perhaps the rabbi has never heard this.]

    [Wait a minute….haven’t church Christians treated Jews abominably through the centuries? Better defuse that one. Shouldn’t be a problem:]

    “I know that the Jews have been maligned and persecuted by so-called Christians. This has certainly left a bad taste in the mouths of the Jewish people against Christ; but certainly you must know, rabbi, that these were not real Christians, for a believer in Christ must love the Jew, for his Savior is a Jew….The true Christian loves the Jewish people.” [There! Done! Easy as Pie! Hundreds of years of persecution out of the way! Now, on to business:]

    “You surely have read the 22nd Psalm which most clearly speaks of our Lord’s crucifixion. Read verse 16. [Do it, rabbi. NOW!] It states, “Dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked has enclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet.” Of whom does the prophet speak other than our Lord? This Old Testament prophecy could only be foretelling Jesus’ unique death on the cross. What greater proof is needed that Jesus died for the sins of mankind than this chapter which was written a thousand years before Jesus walked this earth?”

    I’ll concede I’m being somewhat hard on this Lutheran fellow. He’s certainly sincere enough But these guys come after us all the time, too, set to save us. Positively cooing love, until you refute them, and then you’re likely to catch a hellfire backhand. Well….if you’re going to pull stuff like this on the rabbi (and us), you’d better have your ducks lined up. As it turns out, this fellow’s ducks are waddling all over the place, and the rabbi calls him on it.

    His verse is fraudulent translating, the rabbi replies. It does not read in Hebrew “they pierced my hands and my feet.” It reads “like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet.” The Hebrew word is kaari. It means “like a lion.” It does not mean “pierced.” Furthermore, this is no accident of translating, the rabbi goes on to assert. It is deliberate. Other places in the Old Testament, such as Isaiah 38:13, the Hebrew word kaari is translated “like a lion,” as it should be. Only at Psalm 22:16 (some translations have it vs 17) is it “pierced.” a word that, in this setting, just sounds so much better for religionist church translators! Never mind that there actually are Hebrew words that mean pierced – words that are not used in the verse. No, we’ll just change the word kaari so as to support an image we like!

    Well…..honest mistake, reply some churchy types that know of the switch. You see, they explain, those early church translators mistook kaari for kaaru…..it’s only one letter off, and kaaru means “pierced.” They probably suppose Jesus maneuvered matters this way. The only trouble, says the rabbi…..is that there is no kaaru. No such word. Or, at least, not until those religionists coined it to justify their mistranslation.

    Now, I didn’t know any of this. I checked various translations, some in my own library and some on the internet. The website BibleGateway.com has a feature by which one may compare different translations. I refer to it a lot. Out of the 18 English translations listed, none have “like a lion” at vs 16. They all say “pierced” or (in two cases) phrases that mean pierced.

    StudyLight.org makes 37 complete English translations (there is some overlap with BibleGateway) available for comparison. Only four say “like a lion.” The Easy to Read Version, trying to please everybody, I guess, uses both: Like a lion, {they have pierced} my hands and my feet.” [are lions known to pierce hands and feet?]

    Four translations out of fifty! So I look up the verse in the New World Translation, the one used by Jehovah’s Witnesses:

    For dogs have surrounded me; The assembly of evildoers themselves have enclosed me. Like a lion [they are at] my hands and my feet.

    The NWT gets it right, one of only a handful of translations to do so! Since the other accurate translations are all somewhat obscure – not well known – for all practical purposes, the NWT is the only accurate one available. Moreover, in translating the word kaari accurately, the NWT works “against” its translators own interests, since we also believe the Christ is foretold in various psalms, including the 22nd. We’d love it to say “pierced,” too. but it doesn’t. No fair stacking the deck. Accuracy in translating comes first. The Foreword of the New World Translation says, in part: The translators of this work, who fear and love the Divine Author of the Holy Scriptures, feel toward Him a special responsibility to transmit his thoughts and declarations as accurately as possible. They ought to cite Ps 22:16 as a case in point, for here they ignore a rendering they must instinctively agree with doctrinally, because the original Hebrew word does not allow it!

    I’ve seen how born-again Bibles alter the New Testament, trying to sneak their Trinity doctrine in, but I’ve not seen it before with the Old Testament. Moreover, I am so sick and tired of these know-nothings, buttressed only by the opinions of ones who think like them, shouting that the NWT is a shoddy translation. And maligning it’s authors, making much of the fact they haven’t gone to their seminaries, in striking similarity to how religious leaders of Jesus’ day sneered at the first century Christians (and even Jesus himself):

    Now when they beheld the outspokenness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were men unlettered and ordinary, they got to wondering. And they began to recognize about them that they used to be with Jesus.  (Acts 4:13)

    Therefore the Jews fell to wondering, saying: “How does this man have a knowledge of letters, when he has not studied at the schools?  (John 7:15)

    There was some trial somewhere, decades ago…you see it all over the internet…. in which Fred Franz is asked to translate an English phrase into Hebrew and he replies “I won’t attempt to do that.” This means, say his detractors, that he doesn’t know Hebrew at all, and yet he chaired the NWT translating committee! Does he even know Pig Latin? But all sneering aside, the New World Translation got Ps 22:16 right, when virtually nobody else did. Everyone else repeats uncritically (they surely by now have had opportunity to correct matters) the faulty King James rendering! Rather, they vigorously defend it. Possibly, one might (gingerly) allow that the verse, in Hebrew, is homonymic. Alas, such wordplay, along with poetic devices as alliteration, rhyme, onomatopoeia, and so forth, is not translatable. Even if you were to attempt it, you still need a good dose of “translator privilege” to derive pierced. Not to be lost sight of is the fact that this verse is not cited as messianic in the New Testament although several other Ps 22 verses are. In the end, responsible translating demands you translate only what is actually there. (in a footnote, the NWT Large Print with References includes two alternate readings: Biting like a lion my hand and my feet (Targum) and They bored (dug through) my hands and my feet. (Septuagint, Vulgate))

    ………………………………………

    By the way, the rabbi’s not buying into this “love the Jews” slogan, either [his word]. Doesn’t this Lutheran character know of Luther’s reputation? “Among all the church fathers and reformers, there was no mouth more vile, no lips that uttered more vulgar curses against the children of Israel than this founder of the Reformation whom you apparently revere. Even the anti-Semitism of the New Testament and the church fathers pales in comparison to the invectives launched by Luther’s impious tongue during his lifetime…..Have you not read his odious volume entitled ‘Of the Jews and Their Lies’?”

    “Although evangelicals repeatedly declare that true believing Christians love the Jewish people, the annals of history clearly do not support this slogan. With few exceptions, the tormentors of the Jewish people emerged out of the fundamentalist genre of Christianity. Remarkably, denominations that evangelical Christians regard as heretical, such as Mormonism or the Jehovah’s Witnesses, do not have a strong history of anti-Semitism.”

    [It’s true. Didn’t I go to bat for Dov Hikind when everyone else wanted his head on a platter?]

    ……………………………………

    And while we’re at it, the rabbi also takes a swipe at Trinitarianism, which he wrongly equates with Christianity. Psalm 22 opens with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If these words are to be attributed to a Trinitarian Jesus on the cross, asks the rabbi, (Matt 27:46) can it really be that God has forsaken himself? This is the sort of nonsense you have to buy into repeatedly when you accept the Trinity doctrine. It’s nonsense that clears up instantly once you appreciate that Jesus and his Father are two separate beings, just like any other son and father we can imagine. Indeed, that’s why the Bible uses that bit of personification – in order to highlight the intense closeness and absolute harmony existing between them, while all the time making clear they are separate beings.

  • Picking Flowers for Heaven’s Garden

    Every married man my age, bar none, has seen the film Steel Magnolias. Not one wanted to see it. They were all dragged along by their wives. When it was my turn, I wisely went along without fuss, so as not to be accused of insensitivity toward womenhood. It wasn’t a bad film, mind you; it had its moments; it’s just not the type of film a guy would ever choose, at least, not of his own free will.
     
    I mention Steel Magnolias because it’s the first example that comes to mind of that stupid “God is picking flowers” analogy. One SM character loses a son, and another- a recent convert – comforts her by suggesting God is picking flowers for his beautiful garden in heaven! He doesn’t want wilted stuff, of course, he wants only the best! That’s why he chose that woman’s son, implying she should feel privileged to lose a son for so great a Cause.

    She doesn’t.

    Who would ever think such an analogy could be comforting? It’s monstrous! No wonder people go atheist! Take away the most precious thing a person has simply because you have a vacancy, and expect her to be comforted over that? Yet we hear it all the time, and the younger the deceased, the more likely some sappy preacher will use it: God has a garden. He grows pretty flowers, see – absolutely the best. But he needs one more; there’s one spot that’s just not right. Ah! The missing ingredient is your flower. He’ll pick it. Surely, you’ll be happy. What’s that? You’re not? Tough!
     
    The “picking flowers” illustration is nowhere found in the Bible. But, just once, the Bible uses an illustration parallel in all respects except the moral, which is exactly opposite from the PF.  It takes place after King David, drooling over Uriah’s knockout wife, takes her as his own. 2 Samuel 12:1-7 tells us:
     
    The LORD sent Nathan [a prophet]  to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.  The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,  but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

    “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”  David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!  He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”
                
    Now, this analogy is just. The man is not expected to be comforted that the king stole his wife! So anyone who’s ever recoiled in disgust at the “picking flowers” analogy is reacting exactly as the Bible says they should! It’s the preacher who is suggesting what is obscene! The flower picker is not to be praised. He deserves death!
     
    Since the illustration is slanderous toward God and not found in the Bible, why do preachers routinely use it? The answer is, just as in Mean Things God Doesn’t Do, Part 1, church preachers have bought into unscriptural, unreasonable doctrines that unfailingly paint them into moral corners. You make a god-awful mess trying to escape from these corners, just as you would from a real corner.
     
    The unscriptural doctrine here is that, when we die, we don’t really die. There is some component of us, usually called the soul, that lives on. It is immortal. Have you been good? Or are you a cuddly child? Then death is your friend. You get promoted to heaven, and how can anyone not be happy to see good people promoted? It’s a win-win!
     
    Trouble is, people don’t behave as if it’s a win-win. People mourn at funerals; they don’t rejoice. They take a long time to readjust. Some never readjust to the death of their child; children are not supposed to die before the parent. Death is unnatural. It is not a friend, as most religions would have us believe. It is an enemy, which is what the Bible says. (1 Cor 15:26)
     
    Wasn’t it Abraham Lincoln who said he wasn’t smart enough to lie? Meaning, of course, that once you’ve told a lie, you never know when you’ll have to make up another fiction to uphold that lie – in this case, a fiction like “picking flowers,” to uphold the lie that we have immortal souls that survive our deaths. We don’t.
     
    The Hebrew word from which soul is translated is nephesh. It occurs in the Old Testament 754 times. Only twice in the KJV is soul translated from any other word. Therefore, find the meaning of nephesh, and you’ve found the meaning of soul.

    The first OT instance of nephesh applied to humans (four prior times in Genesis chapter 1 it is applied to animals) is at Genesis 2:7:
     
    “And Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul. “
     
    Now…. a man who comes to be a plumber is a plumber. He doesn’t have a plumber. A man who comes to be an architect is an architect. He doesn’t have an architect. A man who comes to be an atheist is an atheist. He doesn’t have an atheist. And a man who comes to be a soul is a soul. He doesn’t have a soul. Soul, therefore, is the individual himself. In some cases, it represents the life an individual enjoys as such. It never stands for some mystical substance that survives our death. That latter notion is common among ancient peoples, but is nowhere found in the Bible. Attempting to infuse those ancient philosophies into the Bible, various theologians seized upon nephesh as the equivalent of that immortal substance, but thorough consideration of the Hebrew word indicates it means something else entirely.
     
    The Bible is unique among religious books in that it does not teach an immortal soul.
     
    Here the New World Translation does something so intrinsically honest that its translators ought to be lauded for it, rather than accused of slipping in their own doctrinal bias. Every time nephesh occurs in the Hebrew, the NWT translates it soul. Thus, it’s rather easy to look at every instance of soul and discern what the word means by its context. Few Bibles do this. They bury the word amidst multiple renderings so you can’t tell what it means.
     
    For example, the English Revised Version (1881) translates nephesh as soul 472 times, but in the other 282 places renders it by any of forty-four different words or phrases! What determines how these translators render nephesh? Is it not obvious they have a preconceived idea of soul? They translated nephesh as soul when it fits their preconceived idea; they translate it otherwise when it doesn’t! To then claim that the Bible teaches immortal soul is dishonest in the extreme. They have doctored their translation to make sure it does so!
     
    Genesis 2:7, quoted above, is one verse that usually doesn’t “make the cut” for nephesh being translated soul. Many modern translations like to render nephesh here as living being or creature, such as the New International Version (1978):
     
    “…then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
     
    also NASB (1971), NKJV (1982), RSV (1952)
     
    It’s a recent development. Older Bibles render this instance of nephesh as soul, just as they do in its other 700 places. For instance:
     
    and man became a living soul  (ASV  1901)
    and Man became a living soul  (Darby  1890)
    and man became a living soul.  (Douay-Rheims 1609)
    and man became a living soul.  (KJV  1611)
    and the man was a liuing soule  (Geneva Bible 1587)
    And so was man made a lyuynge soule (Miles Coverdale Bible 1535)
    and man was maad in to a lyuynge soule. (Wycliffe  1395)
     
    The innovative modern translators will tell you they’ve chosen being or creature to make their Bibles more readable. Well….maybe. The words surely do no harm to readability. But the inconsistent translating also serves to confound anyone trying to investigate soul (nephesh) as described in the Bible. By rendering nephesh any old way they like, those translators are able to leave the impression that nephesh is the equivalent of the immortal soul beliefs held among the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and others. One wonders if that isn’t the real reason for the selective translating of nephesh.
     
    In his early days, Charles Darwin toyed with becoming a church minister. Such a ministry was then a respectable choice for a man of letters who couldn’t decide what else he wanted to do with his life. Darwin had a daughter named Annie, who was, by all accounts, his favorite child. At age 10, Annie contracted scarlet fever, and died after six weeks of agony. Also a casualty was Darwin’s faith in a beneficent Creator. The book Evolution: Triumph of an Idea, by Carl Zimmer, tells us that Darwin “lost faith in angels.”
     
    Did those sappy preachers tell him that God was picking flowers? that he needed just one more angel to make his garden perfect? I wouldn’t put it past them. Again, you almost have to do it if you want to uphold the ‘immortal soul’ lie. Devastated, Charles Darwin was later to pen the work that would pull the rug of authority out from under all those clergymen. No longer would they be the guardians of Sacred Truth and Wisdom. Instead they’d become the guardians of Childrens’ Stories and Nonsense.

    One can only wonder how things might have turned out had Darwin been comforted with the Bible’s actual hope of a resurrection (something not possible if one is still living via their ‘immortal soul’). Death is an enemy, not a friend, the Bible realistically tells us. It was never part of God’s plan, it came about only through rebellion early in human history, and it is to be eliminated once God’s purpose reaches fulfillment:
     
    That is why, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned—.  (Rom 5:12)
     
    Next, the end, when he [Christ] hands over the kingdom to his God and Father, when he has brought to nothing all government and all authority and power. For he must rule as king until [God] has put all enemies under his feet. As the last enemy, death is to be brought to nothing   (1 Cor 15:24-26)
     
    And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.   (Rev 21:4)

     
    False religion leaves a vacuum which is quick to be filled with other reasonings. As discussed here, the pull of evolution is as much emotional as it is scientific. One can only wonder…. how different history might have been had Darwin known the truth about death. Not just Darwin, of course, but everyone of his time, as well as before and after. Instead, fed a diet of phony pieties….junk food, if you will…..he and others of inquisitive mind searched elsewhere in an attempt to make sense of life.

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