If you have ever read a verse from your Bible to a Jehovah's Witness and been told that your translation is incorrect, you have encountered one of the most effective shields the Watchtower has built for its members. Every Jehovah's Witness carries a copy of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT), and they have been taught that it is the most accurate rendering of Scripture available. In their view, your King James Version, your ESV, your NIV — all of these are corrupted translations, warped by pagan traditions and theological bias.

The irony is profound. As we will see, the NWT is one of the most theologically biased translations ever produced — created not by qualified scholars, but by Watchtower committee members who altered the text to fit a theology they had already decided was true. Understanding this history, and knowing a few key passages, gives you one of the most powerful tools in JW apologetics: their own Bible, used against their own false doctrine.

Who Made the NWT?

Most major Bible translations are produced by teams of 50 to 100 scholars who hold advanced degrees in biblical languages — Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek — and who represent a range of theological perspectives to prevent institutional bias. This is precisely why the ESV, the NIV, the NASB, and even the Catholic New American Bible can generally be trusted as honest attempts to render the ancient texts in modern language, even where they differ in choices of word or phrase.

The NWT was produced by the New World Bible Translation Committee, which the Watchtower has never publicly identified by name. The organization claimed the translators wished to remain anonymous to avoid personal glory. The actual explanation, long suspected by scholars and confirmed by former insiders, is far less noble: the committee members were not qualified to translate the Bible. They had no formal training in biblical Greek or Hebrew. What they had was a theology to protect and the organizational authority to publish whatever they produced.

The Most Important Alteration: John 1:1

Every major Bible translation renders the opening of John's Gospel the same way: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This is the straightforward translation of the Greek original: kai theos en ho logos — "and God was the Word."

The NWT renders it differently: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god." The insertion of the indefinite article "a" before "god" fundamentally changes the meaning, demoting Jesus from being fully God to being merely a divine-class being. This alteration has no support in the Greek manuscript tradition, and virtually every Greek scholar — regardless of theological persuasion — has rejected it as grammatically unjustifiable.

The Watchtower's defense involves claiming that because the Greek word for "God" (theos) lacks a definite article in this particular clause, it should be translated as "a god." But Greek scholarship is unanimous that the absence of an article here is a feature of the predicate construction — a well-understood grammatical pattern — and does not make theos indefinite. The NWT applies this rule selectively: in other passages where theos appears without an article, it is translated as "God" — not "a god." The inconsistency reveals that the translation is driven by theology, not grammar.

Colossians 1:16–17 — Adding "Other"

In Colossians 1, Paul describes Christ as the one through whom all things were created. The NWT inserts the word "other" four times in this passage — with no basis in the Greek — to make it read that Jesus created "all other things," implying he himself is a created being who then created everything else.

Even the NWT's own reference edition acknowledges the word "other" is not in the Greek — it places the word in brackets to indicate it was added by the translators. The Greek word for "other" (allos or heteros) is simply absent from the text. The insertion is a theological decision, not a translation decision.

Adding "Jehovah" to the New Testament

The name "Jehovah" — an Anglicized rendering of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (YHWH) — appears in the Old Testament but is absent from every known Greek manuscript of the New Testament. The earliest manuscripts of the New Testament consistently use the Greek word Kyrios (Lord) where they refer to God. The NWT inserts the name "Jehovah" over 200 times into the New Testament, in every case with no manuscript support.

This has the effect of redirecting passages about Jesus to the Father. For example, when Stephen is being stoned in Acts 7:59 and calls out "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," verse 60 in the NWT reads, "Jehovah, do not charge this sin against them" — substituting the Father's name in a prayer that the Greek text, by its context, addresses to Jesus. The manipulation serves a purpose: it strips passages from their plain meaning to protect the doctrine that Jesus is not Jehovah.

Using Their Own Bible Against Their Own Doctrine

Here is the strategic advantage for the Christian: even in the NWT, enough remains to demonstrate the deity of Christ and the Trinity. The Watchtower could not change everything without losing all credibility. This is why Melissa Dougherty and other JW specialists recommend always asking to use the Witness's own NWT in conversation — and then showing them what their own Bible says.

In John 8:58, Jesus says "Before Abraham was born, I am" — using the exact construction God used at the burning bush in Exodus 3:14 ("I AM WHO I AM"). Even the NWT translates this as "I have been" in a desperate attempt to soften the divine claim, but the Greek ego eimi is a clear present tense — "I am." The Jews who heard it understood immediately: they picked up stones to kill him for blasphemy. Blasphemy against whom? Against the God of the Old Testament whose name Jesus had just claimed as his own.

The NWT is not a translation of the Bible. It is a rewrite designed to produce theological conclusions its authors had already reached. Understanding this — and being able to demonstrate it with specific examples — is one of the most important things a Christian can bring to a conversation with a Jehovah's Witness.