Włodzimierz Bednarski Szymon Matusiak Ever-changing teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses The most important changes in the doctrine of the Watchtower Society in the years 1879-2015 Gdańsk 2016 Translation: Jarosław Romanowski, Szymon Matusiak Copyright © Włodzimierz Bednarski and Szymon Matusiak 2016, expanded edition This book is not for sale. Contact: [email protected] Table of Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1. Bible ..................................................................................................................................... 8 The Bible and the spiritualist J. Greber............................................................................................... 8 Studying books equals the Bible study? ............................................................................................. 9 Chapter 2. Teaching about God and the Holy Spirit ........................................................................ 12 Who and what is God and does He stay on the Pleiades? ................................................................. 12 The Trinity ........................................................................................................................................ 15 The Holy Spirit ................................................................................................................................. 18 Chapter 3. Teaching about Christ ...................................................................................................... 22 Jesus Christ ....................................................................................................................................... 22 Worship of Jesus and prayer to Him ................................................................................................. 28 Ransom and mediation of Jesus ........................................................................................................ 32 The Resurrection of Christ - what happened with the body of Jesus? ............................................... 33 Chapter 4. Teaching about angels and satan .................................................................................... 35 Archangels and fallen angels ............................................................................................................ 35 Satan ................................................................................................................................................. 37 Chapter 5. Teaching about man ......................................................................................................... 50 Immortal soul .................................................................................................................................... 50 Heart ................................................................................................................................................. 57 Chapter 6. Teaching about salvation ................................................................................................. 58 Earthly class i.e. “other sheep” ......................................................................................................... 58 Number of folds ................................................................................................................................ 62 Heaven and heavenly classes ............................................................................................................ 63 Resurrection of man .......................................................................................................................... 74 Chapter 7. The organization and its practices .................................................................................. 85 “The faithful and discreet servant” and biblical titles of C.T. Russell and anointed ones ................. 85 Organization as the “ark” and “mother” ......................................................................................... 103 Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses ........................................................................................ 106 The Elijah and Elisha Classes ......................................................................................................... 110 Coordinator and elders in congregations and branch committees ................................................... 112 Changes in the names of organizations and journals ...................................................................... 117 Images, illustrations, portraits and logo of The Watchtower ........................................................... 119 Who was and who is a Jehovah’s Witness? .................................................................................... 124 “Dedication to God” or “consecration”? ......................................................................................... 131 Baptism........................................................................................................................................... 132 Memorial and love feasts ................................................................................................................ 137 Service meetings ............................................................................................................................. 141 Kingdom Halls ................................................................................................................................ 142 Singing songs, songbooks and saying the Lord’s Prayer ................................................................ 145 Morals of Jehovah’s Witnesses ....................................................................................................... 149 Polygamy, celibacy and childlessness ............................................................................................. 153 Character development ................................................................................................................... 156 The entrance to God’s rest .............................................................................................................. 158 3 Beard and clothes ........................................................................................................................... 158 Disfellowshiping and prayer for the disfellowshiped ...................................................................... 161 Preaching and using radio and phonographs .................................................................................. 167 Pioneers and preaching for hours .................................................................................................... 174 Jehovah’s Witnesses and medicine ................................................................................................. 177 Chapter 8. Christianity, its traditions and holidays ....................................................................... 184 Babylon the Great ........................................................................................................................... 184 “The Man of Sin” ........................................................................................................................... 189 Mary and the birth pangs ................................................................................................................ 191 Brothers of Jesus ............................................................................................................................. 192 The keys of Peter and his presence in Rome ................................................................................... 192 The saints of the Old and New Testaments ..................................................................................... 195 The cross and the upright stake ...................................................................................................... 197 Sunday ............................................................................................................................................ 202 Easter .............................................................................................................................................. 204 Christmas ........................................................................................................................................ 205 Chapter 9. The attitude towards the state, “the world” and Israel ............................................... 216 Flag, patriotism and demonstrations ............................................................................................... 216 Military and alternative service ...................................................................................................... 222 Superior authorities......................................................................................................................... 227 Voting ............................................................................................................................................. 230 Carrying weapons and the use of violence ...................................................................................... 232 Tobacco, drugs and gambling ......................................................................................................... 235 Secondary and higher education ..................................................................................................... 238 Birthdays and name days ................................................................................................................ 241 Zionism ........................................................................................................................................... 243 “The olive tree” ............................................................................................................................... 247 The human race and racism ............................................................................................................ 248 Who is a “brother in Christ”? ......................................................................................................... 251 Chapter 10. Bible prophecies ............................................................................................................ 252 Announcements of Armageddon, taking of believers to heaven and other events .......................... 252 The Beast of Revelation 17:8 .......................................................................................................... 273 Beth-Sarim and expectation for the faithful of the Old Testament ................................................. 275 Chronology and Adam’s creation ................................................................................................... 283 The last days ................................................................................................................................... 287 “Gentile times” ............................................................................................................................... 288 2300 evenings and mornings .......................................................................................................... 296 Inspection on the earth and coming to the temple ........................................................................... 297 Jubilee of the earth .......................................................................................................................... 299 “Few years”..................................................................................................................................... 301 King of the north and king of the south .......................................................................................... 307 “Millions Now Living Will Never Die!” ......................................................................................... 309 “Abomination of desolation” .......................................................................................................... 311 Railway train, airplane and other equipment .................................................................................. 313 Various explanations of ‘numerical’ prophecies ............................................................................. 319 “This generation” ............................................................................................................................ 324 The Great Pyramid .......................................................................................................................... 331 “Gathering desirable things of all the nations” ............................................................................... 333 “Signs from heaven” ....................................................................................................................... 335 The harvest of the earth .................................................................................................................. 338 “The gnashing of teeth” of false Christians .................................................................................... 340 4 Great Britain as the seventh world power (Daniel 2:31-45 and Revelation 17:10) ......................... 341 Types and antitypes ........................................................................................................................ 343 Who is the antitype of Naboth (1 Kings 21) ................................................................................... 343 Chapter 11. The return of Christ and the Kingdom of God .......................................................... 344 Day of the Lord ............................................................................................................................... 344 The return of Christ ........................................................................................................................ 346 The Kingdom of God ...................................................................................................................... 357 The reign of Christ .......................................................................................................................... 368 “The renewal of all things” (Acts 3:21), ......................................................................................... 372 restitution ........................................................................................................................................ 372 Gathering to heaven ........................................................................................................................ 375 The division into “sheep and goats” ............................................................................................... 376 (Matthew 25:31-46) ........................................................................................................................ 376 The millennial reign of Christ ......................................................................................................... 379 The betrothal and marriage of the Lamb ......................................................................................... 383 Knowledge of Jesus about “the day and the hour” and the knowledge of the Watchtower Society 385 Appendix 1. Changed teachings in the new editions of publications ............................................. 390 Appendix 2. Warning and reservations of the Watchtower Society .............................................. 402 Appendix 3. Photocopies of the Watchtower Society publications proclaiming the end of the world in the 20th century ................................................................................................................... 417 Appendix 4. New teachings introduced in the first half of 2016 .................................................... 422 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................ 427 5 Introduction The greatest enemy of the Watch Tower organization is its own literature – Leonard Chretien, Marjorie Chretien, Witnesses of Jehovah, p. 210. The present publication in English language is an abridged version of the Polish book printed under the title Zmienne nauki Świadków Jehowy. Najważniejsze zmiany w doktrynie Towarzystwa Strażnica w latach 1879- 2011 (2012) and its expanded electronic version of the year 2015. Because the English-speaking people have better knowledge concerning the discussed matter, we do not include in our paper a long introduction and commentaries, which appear in the Polish version. We hope that the titles of sections, chapters and subsections will lead readers in correct understanding of cited texts and of the authors’ intention. Polish edition of the book is easy accessible in the Internet and every person who speaks Polish can freely use it: http://www.piotrandryszczak.pl/zmienne-nauki-swiadkow-jehowy.html We sign that all the changed names of the major magazine of Jehovah’s Witnesses are expressed here just in one shortened name, The Watchtower. We want to inform the readers that it is practically impossible to mention all the doctrinal changes from the earliest years, when the Watchower magazine was issued in 1879 or from the time, when C.T. Russell (ob. 1916) started his publishing activity (since 1876). For example in 1917 the Watchtower Society published its own commentary to the Revelation of St. John and the book of Ezekiel under the title The Finished Mystery, which was used till 1929. However, in 1930 the organization published its new commentary to the Revelation, Light, which contained the completely changed interpretation when compared with the former one, so that each Bible verse was differently interpreted than before! The same applies to the book of Ezekiel, because the new commentary, Vindication (three volumes), published in the years 1931-1932, was a complete rejection of the interpretation presented in the book The Finished Mystery. The same phenomenon refers to the other books written by C.T. Russella and J.F. Rutherford (ob. 1942), presidents of the Watchtower Society, which were rejected by their successor, N. Knorr (ob. 1977). Since the year 1950 situation in the area of doctrinal changes was partly ‘stabilized’, because the Watchtower Society started to print its own Bible 6 and modified its interpretation in agreement with the new Bible. Formerly, when the organization used several different Bible versions, the Watchtower Society selected such translations which better suited its doctrinal solutions, accepted by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Nevertheless, in the years 1950-2015 the Watchtower Society introduced many new teachings, presented here (the record-breaking introduction of new teachings took place in the year 2013). We would like to point the readers attention to the fact that it is not always easy to discern in exact manner in which year the Watchtower Society changed a teaching. For example, many teachings were changed in the years 1917-1929, but at the same time the old Studies in the Scriptures were printed, advertized and distributed, even till the year 1929 (See The Watchtower November 1, 1929 p. 322). The same principle applies to a book The Harp of God (1921), printed until the year 1940, and studied even in the year 1943, although many of its teachings were changed in the years 1921-1943 (e.g. the cross, the date of Christ return in 1874): In 1943, I symbolized my dedication to God by water baptism. By then I was conducting Bible studies in three of the neighboring villages— Dhravískos, Palaeokomi, and Mavrolofos. I used the book The Harp of God as our Bible study aid. (The Watchtower October 1, 1999 p. 23). We have to admit that our paper is partly based on the book by David A. Reed, Index of Watchtower Errors 1879 to 1989. However, we expanded the contents of our publication, adding new doctrines of the years 1990-2015. We hope that our paper will be helpful both for people searching for the truth, and for many Jehovah’s Witnesses who would like to know their religion’s history and development of the Watchtower Society’s teachings. 7 Chapter 1. Bible The Bible and the spiritualist J. Greber Although the Watchtower Society has been publishing its own English Bible since 1950, it also confirmed that translation by spiritualistic version of the New Testament published by J. Greber (1937). Later the organization abandoned that doubtful practice, claiming that it did not know that the author was a spiritualist! The knowledge about Greber’s work and quoting him since the mid-50s of the 20th century Says Johannes Greber in the introduction of his translation of The New Testament, copyrighted in 1937: “I myself was a Catholic priest, and until I was forty-eight years old had never as much as believed in the possibility of communicating with the world of God’s spirits. The day came, however, when I involuntarily took my first step toward such communication, and experienced things that shook me to the depths of my soul. . . . My experiences are related in a book that has appeared in both German and English and bears the title, Communication with the Spirit-World: Its Laws and Its Purpose.” (Page 15, ¶ 2, 3) In keeping with his Roman Catholic extraction Greber’s translation is bound with a gold-leaf cross on its stiff front cover. In the Foreword of his aforementioned book ex-priest Greber says: “The most significant spiritualistic book is the Bible.” Under this impression Greber endeavors to make his New Testament translation read very spiritualistic (...) Very plainly the spirits in which ex-priest Greber believes helped him in his translation (The Watchtower February 15, 1956 pp. 110-111). A translation by a former Roman Catholic priest, Johannes Greber (1937 ed.) renders the second appearance of the word “god” 8 in the sentence as “a god.” (Aid to Bible Understanding 1971 p. 1669). The translation by Johannes Greber (1937) of these verses reads as follows: “Tombs were laid open, and many bodies of those buried were tossed upright. In this posture they projected from the graves and were seen by many who passed by the place on their way back to the city.” (Aid to Bible Understanding 1971 p. 1134). The abandonment of using citations from Greber’s translation in 1983 This translation was used occasionally in support of renderings of Matthew 27:52, 53 and John 1:1, as given in the New World Translation and other authoritative Bible versions. But as indicated in a foreword to the 1980 edition of The New Testament by Johannes Greber, this translator relied on “God’s Spirit World” to clarify for him how he should translate difficult passages. It is stated: “His wife, a medium of God’s Spiritworld was often instrumental in conveying the correct answers from God’s Messengers to Pastor Greber.” The Watchtower has deemed it improper to make use of a translation that has such a close rapport with spiritism. (Deuteronomy 18:10-12) The scholarship that forms the basis for the rendering of the above-cited texts in the New World Translation is sound and for this reason does not depend at all on Greber’s translation for authority. Nothing is lost, therefore, by ceasing to use his New Testament. (The Watchtower April 1, 1983 p. 31). Studying books equals the Bible study? Studying the Scripture Studies equals the Bible study If the six volumes of SCRIPTURE STUDIES are practically the Bible topically arranged, with Bible proof-texts given, we might not improperly name the volumes-- the Bible in an arranged form. That 9 is to say, they are not merely comments on the Bible, but they are practically the Bible itself, since there is no desire to build any doctrine or thought on any individual preference or on any individual wisdom, but to present the entire matter on the lines of the Word of God. (...) Furthermore, not only do we find that people cannot see the Divine Plan in studying the Bible by itself, but we see, also, that if anyone lays the SCRIPTURE STUDIES aside, even after he has used them, after he has become familiar with them, after he has read them for ten years --if he then lays them aside and ignores them and goes to the Bible alone, though he has understood his Bible for ten years, our experience shows that within two years he goes into darkness. On the other hand, if he had merely read the SCRIPTURE STUDIES with their references, and had not read a page of the Bible, as such, he would be in the light at the end of the two years, because he would have the light of the Scriptures. (The Watchtower September 15, 1910 p. 4685, reprints). God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. [Rev. 22:18] — His penalty will be, when he comes forth from the tomb in the Times of Restitution, that he will have to read the Seven Volumes of SCRIPTURE STUDIES, and get the matter straightened out in his own mind. (The Finished Mystery 1917, 1926 p. 338). Congregational study is a book study The congregation book study conductor has a marvelous privilege in connection with teaching in the congregation (The Watchtower August 1, 1972 p. 461). It was noted at our recent conventions that in the some 20 years that “Let God Be True” was our primary study book (from 1946 to the mid-1960’s) over 1,000,000 new Kingdom proclaimers were added to our ranks. Then another 1,000,000 publishers were added when The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life became our primary study book following its release in 1968. With the use of our new study book, You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth, will we see 10