RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS

Jehovah's Witnesses dispute case against their Bible

LENINGRAD OBLAST COURT JUSTIFIES BAN OF "SACRED SCRIPTURES" BY ABSENCE OF WORD "BIBLE" IN TITLE.

Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, 24 January 2018

The reasoning portion of the appellate determination of 20 December 2017 regarding the ban of the translation of the Bible under the publisher's title "Sacred Scripture—New World Translation" was issued by the Leningrad oblast court three weeks on. The court had to find a way to evade the direct instruction of the law "On combating extremist activity": "The Bible, Quran, Tanakh, and Kangyur, their contents, and quotations from them may not be ruled to be extremist materials." The court found an argument, and this argument is an novelty that was not presented in the course of the judicial proceedings.

The court determined: "Arguments that the book in a gray cover in the Russian language with the title 'Sacred Scripture—New World Translation' is a Bible are rejected inasmuch as the book does not contain the corresponding label 'Bible,' which is required by the system of standards for information, librarianship, and publication business (GOST 7.80-2000), and actually is a translation into the Russian language that is based on a translation into the English language of ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek texts, with substantial changes, whose existence is acknowledged by the authors of the 'New World Translation' themselves." No other rationale is presented in the court's reasoning.

During the course of the judicial proceedings, GOST 7.80-2000 was not mentioned by either the transport prosecutor, who sought the ban of the Bible, or by representatives of the publisher. The aforementioned standard, according to part 1, governs the work of libraries and other organizations that conduct bibliographic activity. It prescribes that workers in libraries "in composing bibliographic notes on an edition of anonymous classical works, published under various titles, and editions of texts of sacred scriptures and liturgical books published in the 16th and 17th centuries and that have diverse complex titles," use the uniform, most well-known title. For example, if the edition contains the whole text of the Bible, it should, according to the aforesaid GOST ["GOsudarstvenyi STandard"--"state standard"], be written as "Bible," if the edition contains only the Old Testament [Vetkhii Zavet], it should be written as "Bible. V.Z." and if the edition bears the title Apocalypse, then it should be written thus: "Bible. N.Z. Apocalypse." [N.Z.="Novyi Zavet," i.e. New Testament]. At the same time, the necessity in the aforesaid GOST proceeds from the fact that sacred scriptures were published in the Russian language under various titles, for example, "Book of Praises," "Tehillim," "Psalms of David," and "Psalter."

Thus, the court applied the aforesaid GOST 7.80-2000 erroneously, which led to a substantial violation of a standard of material law, to wit, to a misapplication of the law subject to application (the provision forbidding finding religious texts to be extremist materials, including the Bible). According to the article of the Code of Civil Procedure of the RF, this is a basis for overturning the court's decision.

The proposition that "Sacred Scripture—New World Translation" is not the Bible inasmuch as the "book . . . actually is a translation into the Russian language based on a translation into the English language of ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek texts, with substantial changes," is devoid of legal force and it contradicts the facts and common sense. Inasmuch as the Bible was not written in the Russian language, for most people it always is a translation. Besides, many editions of the Bible, both in major as well as in minor languages, were the product of a two-step translation, that is, a translation made from a translation. For example, the translation of the Old Testament part of the Church Slavonic Bible, which before the present time was officially used in Orthodox liturgy, was made from the translation known as the Septuagint. The Synodal translation of the Bible, which is officially approved in Orthodoxy for domestic reading, also follows this tradition in many places.

The groundless decision of such a high judicial instance regarding the ban of the Bible itself clearly shows the perverseness of mechanisms for finding materials to be "extremist." Beginning in 2009, the Jehovah's Witnesses have confronted the obviously groundless inclusion of their liturgical materials in the list of prohibitions. Subsequently these court decisions became the basis for accusing believers of "extremist activity," which in the end was turned into a total prohibition, confiscation of property, fines, criminal cases, and even prison terms for individual believers. (tr. by PDS, posted 25 January 2018)

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