Biblical Translation Case Study: But does it REALLY Matter?

Disclaimer: this is very spur of the moment post, and  might have some errors in it because of that. Such errors will be set right at a future time if needed.

Today I came home to find a couple of tracts shoved into my door. I knew right away that the local community of "Jehovah's Witnesses" had been by.
As usual, I glanced briefly at the provided literature to see what new madness they wanted to push on the world.
What I saw actually took me aback.

Now, I know most people won't understand why seeing that particular quote on the front of a JW tract is so shocking, so I'll explain.

The Jehovah's Witnesses believe in a doctrine called "soul sleep," which states that when we die our souls go into an inert state where we do, see, and know nothing; and that we stay in that state until the Resurrection. This, along with their idea of "annihilation" and their view of an elite 144,000 in Heaven make up some of the major heretical ideas of their view of the soul and afterlife.

Why is the use of that phrase, which is derived from Luke 23:43, so significant?
Because that verse is one of the easiest to use to show how "soul sleep" is a lie.

Luke 23:43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. (KJV)

This simple and easily overlooked verse proves two scriptural truths. First, Jesus went to Heaven after His death and before His resurrection (unlike the popular idea of Jesus descending into Hell). Secondly, that the thief there with Jesus would be in Heaven that same day with Jesus.
There can hardly be 2000+ year gap between the death of the thief and his arrival in Heaven because his soul is "sleeping" when Jesus makes a promise like that.
They have chosen a passage that shows their doctrine to be a lie as their catch-phrase for a big meeting!

And lest you think that they drew the words from elsewhere or didn't know the context, here's what they say inside of their tract (underlining supplied by me).

How can they use this passage that so easily destroys them? Because of their Bible version.

Luke 23:43 And he said to him: “Truly I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise.” (NWT)

Did you catch it? Do you see the change? It's very small and subtle, so it's easy to overlook...
They simply moved the comma in the sentence over by a word and changed the whole meaning of the verse!
It went from Jesus giving immediate peace to a repentant sinner to telling him that He (Jesus) was making a statement to the thief that day (why that day when they hadn't met before? no idea) about the fact that he would sometime be in Paradise.
Just like that the truth is stolen away.

However

My point in this little post isn't to demonstrate the dishonesty and error of the Jehovah's Witnesses. That's easy. You can do that on hundreds of fronts with less effort.

My point is to look at a very quick example of how important translation is and how it is not what most claim.

I have heard over and over and over (until the point of nausea) that "no conservative translation has any doctrinal difference." I heard that such was stated from the platform during chapel at BJU this year.

That is simply not the least bit true.

Now, when we're discussing "Conservative translations" we are automatically throwing out many or most. That's throwing out those that rely on any form of "equivalence" in translation. Equivalence is when someone takes the words of the text and puts it into their own words. Yup, that means things like "the Message" are nothing more than novels written by men about what they think the word of God says. It robs the ability to properly interpret the passage, since someone else has already put their interpretation in it.

So, now that we're just down to translations that claim to properly try to work at the word level, I have to point out the major flaw in the statement above about the lack of doctrinal difference that can be found based on differences in translation.

First of all, I have to point out that this is a TINY and obscure little part of this argument. There are dozens of other examples easily accessible to see other doctrinal differences caused by variations in the translations.

What is obvious from this passage is that even tiny changes in the text - even as small as a comma in this case - can make significant changes in the doctrine that a verse presents. So significant that a verse that disproves heresy can then be used by heretics to support themselves.

Tell me, if something that small can be used to change doctrine, how much more something like whole deleted passages, deleted verses, deleted words, changes in words, and even verb tenses? How can one so summarily dismiss as insignificant things that are gigantic in comparison to the placement of a comma between two words?

Perhaps it's time for people to stop accepting something as they are told and actually look for themselves.

Yes, again, this article was written over a short period of time and might contain some issues, but I am more than happy to, indeed, excited to discuss the implications of it with those who desire to.