The NWT's One-Way Mirror
The New World Translation is the most accurate Bible translation available.
It faithfully renders the original Hebrew and Greek without the trinitarian
bias found in Christendom's Bibles. The Watchtower's own Kingdom
Interlinear Translation proves the NWT's accuracy by displaying the
literal Greek alongside the English text.
This argument works inductively. Do NOT start by announcing the conclusion. Instead, walk the Witness through four or five specific examples and let the pattern reveal itself. (1) Begin with — the NWT reads "the Word was a god" where the Greek (and the Watchtower's own Kingdom Interlinear) reads "god was the Word." Ask: which direction does this change move — toward or away from Jesus being God? Answer: away. (2) Move to — the NWT inserts the word "other" four times ("all other things were created") though the Greek simply says "all things" (ta panta). The KIT's own literal rendering has no "other." Ask: does this insertion move toward or away from Jesus being the Creator of everything? Answer: away. (3) Show — standard translations read "Your throne, O God, is forever" (the Father addressing the Son as God), but the NWT reverses the grammar to "God is your throne forever." Direction: away from deity. (4) Show — the Greek uses a single article governing "God and Saviour" (the Granville Sharp construction), identifying Jesus as "our great God and Saviour." The NWT breaks this into two persons: "the great God and of the Saviour of us, Christ Jesus." Direction: away from deity. The same pattern appears in . (5) Now show the proskuneo test: the Greek word proskuneo appears over forty times in the New Testament. When God the Father receives it, the NWT translates it "worship" every single time (30+ occurrences). When Jesus receives the identical word, the NWT translates it "obeisance" every single time (14 occurrences). Same Greek word, two different English words, and the dividing line is who receives it. Then step back and ask the key question: "Have you noticed a pattern? Every single difference we've looked at moves in the same direction — away from Christ's deity. Can you show me even one place where the NWT translates more favourably toward Jesus being God than other Bibles do?" The Witness will not be able to find one, because there are none. Normal translation differences scatter randomly — some toward, some away. A 100-percent unidirectional pattern across dozens of passages is not translation. It is theology imposed on the text.
Normal translation differences scatter randomly — some might favour one doctrinal position, others the opposite. But the NWT's divergences from standard translations are 100 percent unidirectional. Across more than forty doctrinally significant passages, every single change moves away from Christ's deity, the Spirit's personhood, or grace-based salvation. There are zero divergences in the opposite direction. That is not translation — it is theology dictating the text. And the Watchtower's own Kingdom Interlinear Translation is the witness against it, because its literal Greek column repeatedly contradicts the NWT rendering printed right beside it.
All translations have some theological bias.
That is partly true — no translation is perfectly neutral. But the bias in other translations scatters in different directions across different passages. The NWT's bias is unique because it is 100 percent unidirectional. Every single doctrinally significant divergence moves away from Christ's deity, the Spirit's personhood, or salvation by grace. Can you name even one NWT rendering that goes the other way? Random bias scatters; systematic bias aligns. The NWT's changes all align.
The NWT simply follows the original Greek more literally.
Then why does the Watchtower's own Kingdom Interlinear Translation contradict the NWT? Open the KIT to — the literal rendering under the Greek reads "god was the Word," not "a god was the Word." Open it to — the literal rendering says "all things," not "all other things." If the NWT follows the Greek more literally, why does the Watchtower's own interlinear disagree with it?
Scholar Jason BeDuhn praised the NWT as the most accurate translation.
BeDuhn's study compared nine translations on a narrow selection of passages and used criteria that favoured formal equivalence. Even he acknowledged that the NWT's insertion of "other" in was not supportable from the Greek text. But more importantly, BeDuhn's study did not address the unidirectional pattern. A translation could be technically competent on many passages and still be systematically biased on the doctrinally loaded ones. The question is not whether the NWT handles ordinary verses well — it is why every doctrinally significant departure goes in the same direction.
The word proskuneo can legitimately mean 'obeisance' or 'worship.'
Granted — the word has a semantic range. But the NWT never translates it "obeisance" when God the Father receives it, and never translates it "worship" when Jesus receives it. If the translators were simply choosing from the word's legitimate range, you would expect some variation. Instead the dividing line is perfectly theological: worship for God, obeisance for Jesus. In fact, the NWT's own earlier editions (1950 and 1961) translated proskuneo as "worship" at — then quietly changed it to "obeisance" in the 1971 revision. What changed? Not the Greek — the theology.
The NWT only renders theos as 'a god' in John 1:1c because the Greek lacks the definite article — that is a consistent grammatical rule.
Then walk through John chapter one in their own NWT and watch the rule collapse. Verse 1c — anarthrous theos — is translated "a god." Verse 6 (NWT): "There came a man who was sent as a representative of God" — the Greek is para theou, anarthrous, no definite article. Verse 12 (NWT): "he gave authority to become God's children" — anarthrous tekna theou, no article. Verse 13 (NWT): "they were born... from God" — ek theou, anarthrous, no article. Four occurrences of anarthrous theos in the same chapter, three of them rendered "God" with a capital G, and only one — the one that calls the Word God — demoted to "a god." That is not a grammatical rule. A rule applies in every case. This applies in exactly the case the theology requires.
You are reading trinitarian bias into the Greek text.
We are not asking you to accept the Trinity. We are simply asking you to notice a pattern. Line up twenty NWT divergences from standard translations and ask one question about each: does this change move toward or away from Christ being called God? If the answer is "away" twenty out of twenty times, that is a pattern that demands an explanation. Either the entire rest of the world's Greek scholars are biased in exactly the same way — or the NWT translators started with a conclusion and worked backward.
Do not attack the NWT as a whole or call it a "fake Bible." Focus exclusively on the pattern — the unidirectional nature of the divergences. Do not get drawn into debating any single verse in isolation; the power of this argument is cumulative. If the Witness tries to defend one verse, say "I am happy to discuss that verse separately. Right now I am asking about the pattern across all of them." Also avoid claiming the NWT is wrong on every verse — it handles many ordinary passages competently. The issue is that every doctrinally significant divergence goes in the same direction.
Compare these ten passages in the NWT against any standard translation (ESV, NASB, BSB) and for each one, note which direction the NWT's rendering moves — toward or away from Christ's deity, the Spirit's personhood, or grace-based salvation: (1) , (2) , (3) , (4) , (5) , (6) , (7) , (8) , (9) , (10) . Then ask: is there even one that goes the other way? Bonus: if you can access the Kingdom Interlinear Translation on jw.org, compare the literal Greek column with the NWT column on , , and . Note how the Watchtower's own literal rendering contradicts the NWT text beside it.