JWTruth.orgDocumented comparison resource
Search

The Bible and the translation · Claim record

Bruce Metzger returned to the subject in a signed review of the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures in The Bible Translator, the United Bible Societies' journal, in July 1964. The review is mixed. He allowed that 'on the whole, one gains a tolerably good impression of the scholarly equipment of the translators (their names are not divulged)' and that 'frequently an intelligent use of critical information is apparent'; he then wrote that '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, is a plain piece of special pleading', and repeated his 1953 objections to 'and the Word was a god' at John 1:1 and to the fourfold 'other' at Colossians 1:16.

Claim ID claim-bible-metzger-1964-review-existsConcerns July 1964Explicit statement
Explicit statement · July 1964 Verified

Bruce Metzger returned to the subject in a signed review of the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures in The Bible Translator, the United Bible Societies' journal, in July 1964. The review is mixed. He allowed that 'on the whole, one gains a tolerably good impression of the scholarly equipment of the translators (their names are not divulged)' and that 'frequently an intelligent use of critical information is apparent'; he then wrote that '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, is a plain piece of special pleading', and repeated his 1953 objections to 'and the Word was a god' at John 1:1 and to the fourfold 'other' at Colossians 1:16. The Bible Translator, July 1964

The organisation’s position or later explanation: Appendix A5 of the 2013 New World Translation is the organisation's answer on the divine name. Metzger's own review independently records the same figure the organisation gives: the name is introduced '237 times into the main body of the text, as well as 72 times in the footnotes'.

Show the evidence (1 source)
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-metzger-1964-review-exists/. 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.