Why insert men in this verse when there weren't any?
As many JWs in here probably know, on many discussion forums, your religion has frequently been accused of subtle institutional misogyny.
While subjective experiences that individuals have had—many of which may fairly be open to interpretation—can be debated all day, how would one attempt to justify conscious translation decisions to support a male-centric worldview when no real linguistic logic supports it?
First I stumbled upon a random verse where nearly every other translation supports that a woman was a servant of the church. Romans 16:1 (English Standard Version) reads, "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae,"
Every other scholarly-backed translation also refers to sister Phoebe specifically as a 'servant of the church.' The allegation is that the Jehovah's Witnesses' NWT deliberately chose to translate this as a vague 'minister' to deter the idea that female sisters within JW congregations could be ministerial servants as well as male brothers could.
Then there's Romans 16:7, which is even more glaring imo. Every other translation across the board says something along the same lines as this NIV version: "Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was." Without much squabble, Junia is understood by all scholars to be a feminine name, most presumably referring to someone of the female disposition.
The NWT decided to translate the name as 'Junias' though, and deliberately inserted 'who are men well-known to the apostles...' as the following line. Not only do no manuscripts support this specification that it was 'MEN well-known,' translating Junia to 'Junias' simply seems to be blatantly throwing the effort of anyone who has cared to translate Bibles before the NWT to the bin,
Because (and this is really the reason why it's inarguably anachronistic) the name 'Junias' was not commonly known—or known at all, really—as a male name at the time of writing. Which supports the more prevalent, more linguistically sound translations which kept the name as 'Junia,' likely in reference to a woman. Together with other evidence that's been uncovered that women did indeed use to be very active within church settings, which lends tradition credit to modern churches that let women serve and preach in all sorts of ways, it does seem like the NWT intentionally plays with language to make it seem as though Christian churches 2000 years ago treated gender roles the way the Watchtower's Jehovah's Witnesses' organization does.
Posted Jun 2, 2026, 1:01 PM UTC