The 2013 revision changed several doctrinally loaded renderings: ‘Sheol’ and ‘Hades’ became ‘the Grave’; neʹphesh and psy·kheʹ are no longer rendered uniformly as ‘soul’ but by sense; and ‘impaled’ became ‘executed on a stake’ or ‘nailed to the stake’.
Claim ID claim-bible-2013-doctrinal-termsConcerns 2013Explicit statement
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The organisation says the older renderings were retained in earlier editions so that readers could see how the Bible writers used the original words, and were changed because such usage ‘is not common in English’ and because in other languages the word for ‘soul’ ‘could give the impression that the “soul” is an immaterial part of man’; on ‘impale’ it says the earlier word risked ‘giving a wrong impression about how Jesus was executed’.
2013 · Appendix A2 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“All adjustments in the Bible text were made prayerfully, carefully, and with deep respect for the fine work of the original New World Bible Translation Committee.”
The appendix lists the changes made in the 2013 revision: “long-suffering” to “patience”, “harlot” to “prostitute”, “fornication” to “sexual immorality”, “time indefinite” to “forever” and similar terms, “seed” to “offspring”, and “impale” to “executed on a stake” or “nailed to the stake” because Jesus “was not impaled with the torture stake”. It states that “Sheol” and “Hades” were “replaced with what was meant by the Bible writers, ‘the Grave’”, that neʹphesh and psy·kheʹ are no longer rendered uniformly as “soul”, and that the small-capital indicators for second-person plural were dropped, adding that “readers may consult earlier editions of this translation for this information”.
15 December 2015 · pp.14-17 · pars. 2, 16, 17 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“Over the years, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures has been revised a number of times, but the 2013 revision was by far the most extensive. For example, there are now about 10 percent fewer English words in the translation.”
The article explains the revision term by term: “impaled” to “executed on a stake”, “lose conduct” to “brazen conduct”, “long-suffering” to “patience”, “loving-kindness” to “loyal love”, “seed” to “offspring” at Genesis 3:15, “kidneys” to “innermost thoughts” at Revelation 2:23, and “sons of Israel” to “Israelites”. On the text it says: “The original New World Translation was based on the Hebrew Masoretic text and the respected Greek text by Westcott and Hort,” and that the committee added words at 2 Samuel 13:21 from the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls, restored God’s name five times in First Samuel, and changed the order of ideas at Matthew 21:29-31, so that “some changes were based on the weight of manuscript evidence rather than on the strict adherence to a single master Greek text”.
15 December 2015 · p.12 · pars. 10-12 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“So in September 2007, the Governing Body gave approval to revise the English text. Thousands of questions from Bible translators were reviewed during the revision process.”
The article explains that questions from translators working into other languages exposed problems in the English text: “approval was given” to render “Sheol” and “Hades” as “the Grave”, and “approval was given” to render neʹphesh and psy·kheʹ by sense rather than always as “soul”, because the older rendering “could give the impression that the ‘soul’ is an immaterial part of man”. It also states that the Governing Body “has given priority” to Bible translation because of the trend to omit the divine name.
Notes. Directly relevant to the anonymity question: the translation committee’s work is approved and prioritised by the Governing Body, which is named.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-nwto-w-2015-1215-living-approval
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