Is the New World Translation a Reliable Bible Version?

The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) is published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WT). This is the organization that Jehovah’s Witnesses belong to. But how reliable is this Bible version? Much has been written about the NWT in regard to passages dealing with the deity of Christ. As such, rather than going over that much worn ground, this review will instead evaluate the NWT by looking at select passages from Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. The verses will be quoted first from the NWT and then from the word-for-word translation in the Watchtower’s own Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (KIT). Since the WT claims the NWT is a literal version, it will be seen how closely it follows the strictly literal translation in their own interlinear. And then the verses will be quoted from the New King James Version (NKJV) and from this writer’s own Analytical-Literal Translation (ALT), following the most recent updates. The standards to be used here are the same standards that I use in evaluating over thirty versions of the Bible in my book Differences Between Bible Versions. Simply put, does the translation faithfully and accurately render the Greek text into English? More specifically, are words translated correctly? Are words left untranslated? Are words added without any indication they have been added? Are the grammatical forms of words altered? Are phrases paraphrased rather than translated? How readable is the text? How reliable is the Greek text being translated? Edition 2.2, updated November 2023.