'Other' added four times, then the brackets vanished

Unrefuted

No good counter-argument has been published by the Watchtower.

What the verses say

Colossians 1:16-17 says Christ made all things. The New World Translation adds a word.

It reads "all other things." The word "other" appears four times in these two verses, and again in verse 20. No Greek manuscript has it.

What the extra word does

Without it, Christ made everything. So he is not one of the things that were made.

With it, Christ was made first, and then made the rest. That is Watchtower doctrine exactly.

The same word is not added at John 1:3 or Romans 8:38-39.

How the printing changed

In 1950 the word was printed plainly, with no brackets. After criticism, later editions used brackets: "all [other] things." The 2013 revision dropped the brackets again.

A reader today cannot see that the word was added.

Their answer, at full strength

The Greek word panta, "all things," can carry the sense "all other." Even the NIV writes "all the other Galileans" at Luke 13:2, where "other" is absent. It does the same at Luke 21:29.

Paul has just called Christ "the firstborn of all creation" in verse 15. So, they say, the word only spells out what the context implies.

Translators supply implied words all the time.

Where that runs out

The Luke parallel is fair. There the context demands the word.

Here the word manufactures the doctrine. Scholars across traditions read "firstborn" as rank, not birth order.

In Psalm 89:27 God calls David his firstborn, and David was the youngest son. Four insertions in five verses, all pushing one way, is a pattern.

What to say

"Your Kingdom Interlinear prints the Greek line. Could you show me the word for 'other' in Colossians 1:16?"

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field; Colossians says all things were created through and for Christ

Insight on the Scriptures, the Watch Tower Society's own two-volume Bible encyclopedia

How they answer this — at its strongest

The Greek 'all things' can mean 'all other things,' and even the NIV adds it.

Defenders note that the Greek word panta, 'all things,' can carry the sense 'all other.' Even the NIV writes 'all the other Galileans' at Luke 13:2. It does the same at Luke 21:29, with 'all the other trees.' The Greek has no word for 'other' in either place.

Paul has just called Christ 'the firstborn of all creation' in verse 15. So the committee reasoned that 'other' only makes explicit what the context implies. The firstborn is part of creation, so what he created is everything else. Translation always involves supplying implied words. The brackets were dropped in 2013 as part of a general move away from bracketing implied terms, not in order to deceive.

The verdict

Strong for you: four insertions in five verses, all pushing one way.

The Luke 13:2 parallel shows that supplying 'other' is not automatically fraudulent. But there the context demands it. Here it manufactures the doctrine.

Scholarship is near-unanimous on prototokos in verse 15. It marks rank and preeminence, not being created first. Psalm 89:27 is the model. God calls David his firstborn, and David was the youngest. Paul's argument runs through verse 20. It puts Christ on the Creator side of the Creator-creation line.

So the insertion assumes the very doctrine it is used to prove. And the bracket removal in 2013 erased the one honest signal that the word was added. Four insertions in five verses, all in one Christological direction, is a pattern rather than a translation choice.

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