How do theists justify the translations of the scriptures?

[John 6IX Breezy]

I'll give you an example of what I'm getting at.  A lot of Christians are fond of quoting John 3:16.  It's a very popular verse and (I have to assume) a very comforting one.  But I strongly doubt that many of the Christians who throw this around have looked up the Greek for 'loved', 'begotten', 'perish', 'eternal' and so on.  But good on them if they do.  The verse on the face of it makes them feel good, it makes them feel loved, it gives them hope for a life beyond this one.  They really don't have a reason to dig deeper.

Boru

Typically when you talk to a Jehovah's Witness about the nature of Christ, the conversations turn to verses such as the one you mentioned, and what the Greek meant by son and begotten. John 1:1 is another favorite of discussion.

Jehovah's Witnesses like to go knocking on doors, so my guess is a good number of protestants that have talked to them have had these discussions with them. The disagreements between denominations usually lies in differences in interpretations of Scripture, so it's common to go to the Greek in those discussions. Christians are always trying to convert each other.

But I agree that this is all superfluous to living the Christian life. I don't think such a level of detail is needed to live a simple Christian life, it might even hurt it. Too much theory, not enough practice.