Chapter 9 -
Is the Watchtower society the channel of God?
The most important channel
for teaching of the Watchtower Society is the slave class (the group of 144,000)
and the governing body that is a part of it. The Watchtower Society has
announced several times that it is the only channel authorised by God. In the
same way it has announced that the Bible can be understood only by the
Watchtower Society:
Because the whole property of
the Master has been trusted "to the faithful and wise slave". (…) The will of
the slave is, therefore, the will of Jehovah. Rebellion against the slave is
rebellion against God. (Watchtower 1 August 1956, p. 236)
All who want to understand
the Bible should admit that "God's extremely manifold wisdom" can be understood
only by Jehovah's communication channel, the faithful and wise slave. (Watchtower
1 October 1994, p. 8)
The Bible cannot be
understood correctly without Jehovah's visible organization. (Watchtower,
January 1968, p. 7)
We can get a good
understanding of how greatly, for example, Charles Taze Russel, the first
president of the society, valued his own books from the next quote. According
to him, his books are even more important than the Bible because by reading the
Bible, you will be led to darkness but by reading his books to light:
Man cannot understand the
plans of God by studying the Bible only. - If someone reads the Bible for two
years, he will be in perfect darkness but if he reads only the Bible
Treatises and not the Bible at all, he will be perfectly enlightened after
two years. (Watchtower 1910. p. 298).
But is the Watchtower
Society's understanding of its own importance really true or is it only imagination?
If we take a look at the changes in their doctrine, their Bible translations,
and prophesies, the whole Society does not seem to be very stable or reliable.
"God's only authorized channel" has made many mistakes and faults. We will
look at some examples:
THE CHANGES IN DOCTRINE
Firstly, if we study the
changes in the Society's doctrine throughout its history, we can find the
following ones. They indicate that the Watchtower Society has clearly changed
its doctrines as comes to many important issues:
The personality of the slave is one thing
which has been changed. When Charles Russell (the first president and the
founder of the Watchtower Society) lived and for a long time after his death,
it was believed that Russell himself was this "faithful and wise
slave". This view was not abandoned until in 1927. Nowadays, the servant,
in other words the slave, is understood to be the group of 144,000 anointed
ones, not an individual person:
Old view:
Pastor Russell held accurately to the teachings of the Bible. (…) It is
interesting to note the next words of Jesus in this context, "Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord
has made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is
that servant, whom his lord when he comes shall find so doing. Truly I say to
you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods." Thousands of readers of
pastor Russell's booklets believe that he had the ministry of the faithful and
wise servant and that his great task was to feed the household of faith. His
modesty and humility prevented him from openly demanding this value for himself
but in private conversations he admitted that it was so. (Watchtower,
February 1917)
However, Russell's wife
publicly presented the idea that Russell himself was the faithful and wise
servant. (…) [This view] prevailed among the Bible researchers for about 30
years. (Jehovan todistajat - Jumalan
valtakunnan julistajia, p. 143)
New view:
Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord has made ruler
over his household, to give them meat in due season? (…)
Jesus'
description of this faithful slave does not clearly fit any individual person.
Instead, it describes the faithful and anointed congregation of Christ as an
entirety, as a group. (Watchtower, 1 May 1993, p. 17)
The invisible presence of
Jesus. The view about when the invisible presence of Jesus begun has also
changed. According to the earlier view, it took place already in 1874 but
according to the current view, it started in 1914:
Old view:
Pastor Russell held
accurately to the teachings of the Bible. He believed and taught that we live
the times of the Lord's second coming, which started in 1874. Since then, we
have lived "the ends of time", "the end of the eras", during which the Lord has
directed his large harvest. (Watchtower, February 1917)
The Scriptures clearly
indicate that the time of his coming is in 1874 A.D. The prophesies that have
been fulfilled and that we call clear facts indicate that his presence started
that year. (…) Surely a perfectly dedicated child of God has no doubt about
that. (Watchtower, March 1924, p. 40)
This thorough testimony that
fulfils the prophecy is the origins of the facts and confirms the testimony
that the Lord has been present since the year 1874; this assembling work has
continued since then. (J.F. Rutherford [The second president of the society]: Luominen
[Creation], p. 303)
New view:
However, the reason why we
pay attention to the year 1914 is that in this year the "presence" of
the Lord Jesus (parousia) started under the messianic kingdom. (…) But there is
also another way to prove that this date is predetermined to be the time of the
birth of the Kingdom and "the presence" of Christ there. But what is
that second way? (Jumalan ikuinen
tarkoitus nyt saamassa voiton ihmisen hyväksi [God's "Eternal Purpose" Now
Triumphing for Man's Good], p. 173)
In chapter 16 of this book we
looked at the evidence in the Bible saying that Christ returned and started to
rule in the middle of his enemies in 1914. You should now get thoroughly
acquainted with the different features of "the distinctive mark" which proves
the presence of Christ and also with additional evidence concerning "the
last days" of Satan's evil organization. (Sinä voit elää ikuisesti paratiisissa maan päällä [You Can Live
Forever in Paradise on Earth], p. 149)
The pole. The symbol of the
cross is nowadays a horror to the Watchtower Society, and the Society firmly
claims that Jesus did not die on the cross but on a torture pole. This can be
seen very well in the Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Bible translation
(translated from Finnish):
and in this one body to reconcile
both of them to God through torture pole, by which he made an end to their
hostility. (Eph 2:16)
And even more: when he
recognized himself to be a man from his appearance, he humbled himself and
became obedient to death -even death on a torture pole! (Phil 2:8)
For the message of the
torture pole is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being
saved it is the power of God. (1 Cor 1:18)
However, it is surprising
that the cross was used as a symbol on the cover of the Watchtower up
till October 1931, meaning that it has been accepted for quite a long time.
Also the second
president of the Society, J.F. Rutherford, wrote in his book about the
significance of the cross and how Jesus died on the cross:
The testimony of the Bible
confirms that Logos, Jesus, and Jesus Christ are the same. (…) He died on the
cross as a man and (…)
According to the
Jews, a man was a sinner and accursed in the eyes of God if he died on the
cross. (…)
Suffering from
resistance from sinners, the representatives of the enemy, which was described
as things that took place outside the camp, was the cross of that great
suffering which became perfect and fulfilled in reality when Jesus was
crucified as a sinner. (J.F. Rutherford, Luominen [Creation], p.197,
230)
Michael. The understanding
of who Michael was has also changed. According to the current view, the
archangel Michael is the same as Jesus Christ but in Täyttynyt salaisuus,
p.302 (published in 1917) it is
explained that Michael mentioned with his angels in Rev 12:7 describes the Pope
and his bishops!
Blood transfusion. The Watchtower
Society has forbidden all blood transfusions but this attitude only appeared in
the 1940s. Still in December, the Consolation magazine (later on Awake)
published an article that positively spoke about how blood transfusion saved a
woman in New York. It was not until December 1943 that they reacted negatively
towards blood transfusions for the first time in the Consolation, later
also in the Watchtower on 1 December 1944.
On the other
hand, as far as blood transfusion is concerned, it is quite a different thing
than eating blood, about which the Bible warns us (Gen 9:3,4 and Acts 15:29).
Eating blood is used for nourishment, while blood transfusion is a question of
transporting liquid tissue that is similar to organ transplants.
THE NEW WORLD TRANSLATION
As the Watchtower Society is
known for its many publications, it also has its own translation of the Bible,
the New World Translation. The following points can mentioned about it:
Key verses have been changed. Firstly, one
characteristic of this translation is that there are many key verses which the
Watchtower Society has changed to be compatible with its own doctrine. It has
been estimated that there are at least approximately 300 of these verses.
Especially the
verses that deal with the divinity of Jesus, such as John 1:1 and Col 1:16,17 (they
added the word "other" which completely changes the original meaning)
belong to this group. Also, verses dealing with the personality of the Holy
Spirit (John 14-16, etc.) are those verses that have been changed.
Furthermore, in
Luke 23:42,43, the place of the comma has been changed so that the thief did
not get to paradise with Jesus "today", in other words immediately,
but that Jesus only promised it "today":
- (New World Translation /
Luke 23:42- 43) And he went on to say, "Jesus, remember me when you get into
your kingdom."
43. And he said to him, "Truly
I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise."
- (The Bible, AKJV / Luke
23:42-43) And he said to Jesus,
Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
43 And Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you,
To day shall you be with me in paradise.
The New World Translation
above completely changes the original meaning of the text, and this view is not
supported by other translations or the original text. Therefore, we can see
that the Watchtower Society has translated this verse in this way only for the
reason that it better suits their view; in other words, it better supports the
doctrine of the Watchtower Society saying that our life does not continue
immediately after death.
In addition to
this, it is understandable that Jesus said what he said, "today". He certainly
would not have said, for example, the following:
"Truly I say to you tomorrow
(or the day after tomorrow): you shall be with me in paradise"
The education of the
translators. As comes to the education of the translators, it is good to note they
did not receive much of an education. Both Raymond Franz (Raymond was a
close relative of Frederik Franz, who was the fourth president of the Society)
and William Cetnar who both worked in the headquarters in Brooklyn, New York,
tell that none of the translators had any higher level training in the original
languages of the Bible (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek), so that a reliable translation
could have been done (Cetnar, Questions for Jehovah's Witnesses Who Love the
Truth, p.57). Typical for this translation work was also that none of the
translators wanted their names to be published.
As comes to
checking the accuracy of the translation, Frederik Franz could not translate
even a simple verse from English to Hebrew in court (Gen 2:4), and he was the
one responsible for the translation work. He did not study Greek more than a
couple of years in the university while also studying other subjects. This does
not give a very good picture of his language skills.
A statement about the
translation. The next statement gives one indication of the New World Translation not
being very reliable. It has been written by Dr. Robert H. Countess, who wrote
his doctoral dissertation on this translation in the late 1960s:
The opinion of this
researcher is that the New World Translation of the Greek Scriptures must be
seen as radically biased work. In some places, it is even dishonest. In another
places, it is not modern neither the work of scholars. Throughout the
translation, it can be observed that the translators have not logically
followed the principles that they have mentioned in the foreword and
appendices. This writer strongly recommends that any conversation between
Jehovah's Witnesses and Christians should not be based exclusively on the New
World Translation; such conversation would be based on manipulation and bias.
When seen purely from a literary view, the New World
Translation suffers from a dull style which makes continuous reading repulsive.
This point alone has more weight than the modest merits of New World
Translation. (1)
PROPHECIES
One indication of the
Watchtower Society's and its first leaders' false steps are false prophesies.
Even though the Watchtower Society has regarded itself as the only right
channel and as the prophet of God, the society and the first leaders have not
succeeded very well in prophesying the future. There are numerous mistakes. Well known are at
least these expectations of the following years:
1878. Russell with his
successors initially expected that they would be taken to Heaven already in the
spring of 1878:
They thought that their
heavenly award would be given to them at that time (1878). When it did not take
place, they assumed that (…) they then started to rise up those who had already
slept to their deaths, to spiritual life. (Jehovan
todistajat - Jumalan valtakunnan julistajia, p. 632)
1881. When the
above-mentioned did not happen, Russell moved the date to 1881. He wrote about
this also in the Watchtower in January 1881. In the same year in May, he
cancelled the whole thing.
1910. One possible date
for the rapture was the end of the year 1910 (C.T. Russell: The Kingdom Come,
p. 364)
1914. The expectations
for 1914 are well known. What should have happened according to Russell was that
the current order of the society should have disappeared, the kingdom of God
should have been founded on Earth, and believers should have been taken into
Heaven. None of these happened.
1915. When the expected
event of the year 1914 did not take place, Russell moved the date to the end of
the year 1915 (Aika on lähellä, later Finnish edition, p. 281).
1918. As nothing
happened in 1915, Russell moved the date to the spring of 1918 (Watchtower
1 September 1916, p. 264-265). Nothing happed then either, and Russell himself
died before 1915.
1925. The second president of the Watchtower
Society, J.F. Rutherford, wrote in Miljoonat jotka nyt elävät, eivät kuole
koskaan that the end would come in 1925 when the Kingdom would be
established on Earth and believers would be taken to Heaven. His expectations
did not come true either, however.
1975. Well known
prophecy is also the one that came during the time of the third president of
the Society, Nathan Knorr (president in 1942–1975). This prophecy said that the
end will come in 1975. However, when this prophecy did not come true, the
number of baptized people in the Watchtower Society decreased by tens of
percents in the late 1970s.
One former Jehovah's witness
has written about the expectations which were directed to this year and how
Jehovah's witnesses were disappointed:
I remember well when in the
late 60s people started to emphasize the end which was to come in 1975. People
talked about how there were only so and so many conventions and months left.
This godless mankind was surely running out of time. One brother also mentioned
in his speech around 1971 that there were only 36 months left. He must have
forgotten his words by now as nothing happened. It is true that then I was
terrified by my thoughts and doubts, but today I see that they were not without
base. (2)
The current situation. We should note
that the Watchtower Society has had expectations directed also to other years.
However, the Society has stopped speculating the date for the end of the world.
This and the current attitude is described well by the next newspaper article
(Etelä-Suomen Sanomat 13 November 1995):
THE END OF THE WORLD WON'T
COME QUITE SO SOON
The end of the world is not
near at all, according to the Jehovah's Witnesses. Their Watchtower
magazine urges people to stop the speculations about when the world will
come to an end.
The founder of
the movement, Charles Russell, initially prophesied that the end of the world
would come in 1914. Later, the Jehovah's Witnesses presented two other
prophecies still: according to one of them the end would come in 1925 and
according to the other in 1975.
Nowadays,
approximately five million people are Jehovah's Witnesses, a part of a movement
based in the United States. The movement believes that only Jehovah's Witnesses
will be saved when the doomsday comes.
