“I just opened the JW “Bible”, the New World Translation (1961 ed.), and looked up all the verses that the NIV completely deletes. THE JEHOVAH’S WITNESS BIBLE DELETES THE EXACT SAME ONES!!!! I mean ALL of ‘em!”

“The other translator will go one step further: he will render a translation which describes his best understanding of how the author wanted you to carry out the instructions. Written as a paraphrase, it will be easy reading, and easy to follow. There is just one catch: you will have to trust that his understanding of how it should be done agrees with what the author intended, or you will fail and end up with nothing!”

“When a story seems difficult to understand without a little history, the author may even change it to a form he believes you will better understand! You will never know for sure what God said, but must trust the translator’s theology to lead you into truth.”

http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/nivdelet.htm

I absoulutely agree.

The source you gave not only gives NIV version but also NAB version. Which does mention physical birth: 6 What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.

2 He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him.”

3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a person once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?”

5 Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

6 What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.

7 Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above.’

8 The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PXB.HTM

The Jews, accordingly, being throughout of opinion that it was the Father of the universe who spake to Moses, though He who spake to him was indeed the Son of God, who is called both Angel and Apostle, are justly charged, both by the Spirit of prophecy and by Christ Himself, with knowing neither the Father nor the Son. For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign,(8) having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, for the salvation of those who believe on Him, He endured both to be set at nought and to suffer, that by dying and rising again He might conquer death. And that which was said out of the bush to Moses, “I am that I am, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and the God of your fathers,”(9) this signified that they, even though dead, are yet in existence, and are men belonging to Christ Himself. For they were the first of all men to busy themselves in the search after God; Abraham being the father of Isaac, and Isaac of Jacob, as Moses wrote.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Jehovah-s-Witness-1617/Justin-Marty-SYBT.htm

Just a few points:

1) You asked for me to show my evidence of native Greek sources (“Seems you need to ask Harmony to show their so called native Greek source.” and “Make sure you ask for the native Ancient Greek source.”). So I quoted them for you. You addressed two of my quotes but said nothing of the other three.

2) You asked me if I thought that all native Greek speakers believed it to mean water baptism. No, I know that many modern-day Greeks do not believe that. However, I will say that I have yet to find any writer before the 1500s (Christian or not, who speaks Greek or some other language) that interprets the passage as anything other than baptism. As I said before, if you can find one (or if your Greek friends can) please let me know. I am very interested in learning more about this.

3) Tertullian wrote at least 3 books in Greek. He may not have been a native speaker (I don’t know), but he did speak the language and likely knew others who were native speakers.

4) Justin Martyr definitely had some questionable views of logos. However, this quote is from his first apology where he was explaining why Christians baptize. It is also the earliest writing we have on the passage in question and he certainly was a native Greek. So I think it’s a very valid quote to use. Especially since he’s not saying a word about logos (haha in this passage.

5) None of the writers mention anything about physical birth or Jesus as the water of life in connection to “born of water”. You would think that if the phrase meant something like that in ancient Greek they would have mentioned it. But they all obviously interpreted it to mean water baptism. And so do the others that I did not quote, including several anonymous writers from the second and third centuries, a church council from the third century, and a whole host of fourth century and later writers (who, admittedly, were mostly not native Greeks – which is why I didn’t quote them).

5) I did not pick and choose my quotes. I only left out quotes from writers who commented on the passage more than once, anonymous authors, and writers who I could not determine wrote in Greek. You can spend your time trying to discredit the writers I have quoted – but if you get to the point where you’ve discredited them all, then I would wonder just who of the early centuries you would believe had good theology, and why you believe yours is so good if it is so far removed from what we know of what the earliest Christians believed. Certainly they had their problems in theology (don’t we all), but mostly we see those as isolated incidents confined to one or two authors. All the writers were in agreement on this passage. That says something to me.

“It is also often estimated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages.”

“Ancient Greek texts, especially from Biblical Koine onwards, are thus relatively easy to understand for educated modern speakers . The perception of historical unity is also strengthened by the fact that Greek has not split up into a group of daughter languages, as Latin into the Romance languages.”

“The vast majority of Modern Greek vocabulary is directly inherited from ancient Greek, although in certain cases words have changed meanings.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language

Greek was a language Tertellian learned, I would not say he mastered it.

Trying to get ready to go. Later.