Some Bible Beliefs

Have To Be Wrong!

• Made In America

• Bible Versus Cult

• Judaizing The Gospel

• In The Beginning

Was The Word

• The Witnesses And The Bible

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Made In America

The sect known today as

Jehovah’s Witnesses, which

has become one of the fa-

miliar oddities of the reli-

gious scene in America, can

hardly be adequately ex-

plained apart from the his-

tory of the land that gave it

birth. In its own way, it is

as American as hot dogs

and baseball. It bias sprung

from the same fertile soil that has

produced Christian Science, Mor-

monism, the Black Muslims, and

the hundreds of other religious

curiosities that have left America

without rival in this particular line

of human endeavor.

Though the Witnesses claim to

have existed for some six thousand

years or more, less romantic and

more objective historians trace

their origin to Pittsburgh, Penn-

sylvania, about the year 1872. It

was in this year that Charles Taze

Russell ("Pastor Russell”), a Con-

gregationalist layman, came to the

conclusions that have remained

ever after the basic Witness dog-

mas. Russell published his conclu-

sions in a series entitled Studies in

the Scripture which gained him a

large reading public and many fol-

lowers, and in 1878 he declared

himself a clergyman. The

Watchtower, the now quite
famous publication of the

group whose first leader he

was, began to appear the

following year.

The Adventist movement

was very strong in the

America of Russell’s day,

and it was on Adventism

that Russell founded his

main body of doctrine, thus form-

ing one of an endless series of sects

that have emerged from Adventist

speculation. Despite the Lord’s own

words concerning His Second Com-

ing, "Of that day or hour no one

knows, neither the angels in heav-

en, nor the Son, but the Father

only” (Mark 13:32), words that

have always convinced orthodox

Christians that such speculation is

not only useless but also unscrip-

tural, prophets like Russell have

appeared with deadly regularity to

play on religious credulity and

curiosity and have generally suc-

ceeded, as he did, in gathering a

following of devout believers.

Russell’s most precise predictions

were made in 1891. The Second

Coming of Christ, he proclaimed,

had already taken place, invisibly,

in 1874. The Millennium itself

1



would begin before the close of

1914, after a forty-years period

during which the true members of

Christ’s Church would be prepared

under Russell’s guidance. At the

time of the Millennium would oc-

cur the general resurrection and

final judgment. The result of the

latter would be the complete an-

nihilation of the wicked—Russell

had also come to the conclusion

that there could be no such thing

as eternal punishment — and the
everlasting life granted to the

"saints,” either in heaven or on a

new earth cleansed of all evil.

The Great Pyramid

Russell’s grounds for these be-

liefs was the usual mishmash of

Biblical passages inherited from

generations of free-lance interpre-

tation in fundamentalistic circles.

However, he combined with this

another mother lode of fruitless

speculation that commanded much

interest in America at this time.

This was the curious superstition

that pretends to find secret wis-

dom and prophecy hidden in the
dimensions and structure of the

Great Pyramid of Egypt. Readers

may be familiar with one form

of this superstition from the news-

paper advertisements of the Rosi-

crucians, a sect which has no pre-

tensions to the "Bible religion” of

the Witnesses. Here Russell was

influenced by a certain Charles

Piazzi Smyth,who had already com-

bined Biblical speculation with

"pyramidology,” finding references

to the Great Pyramid in such

passages as this: "In that day there

will be an altar to the Lord in the

midst of the land of Egypt, and

a pillar to the Lord at its border.

It will be a sign and a witness to

the Lord of hosts in the land of

Egypt...” (Isa. 19:19-20). Rus-

sell’s predictions were based equal-

ly on the Bible and the Great

Pyramid.

The original name of Russell’s

followers was Zion’s Watchtower

Tract Society, which was changed

in 1896 to the Watchtower Bible

and Tract Society. The name Jeho-

vah’s Witnesses was adopted in

1931 at the suggestion of Russell’s

successor, "Judge” J. F. Rutherford,

who took it from such Biblical

passages as Isaiah 43:12 and John

18:37, identifying the sect with

those of whom the Bible had spok-
en. It was Rutherford, too, who rid

the sect of the embarrassment of

"pyramidology” after Russell’s death

in 1916. The Witnesses now claim

to base themselves on the Bible

alone, without reference to the

Great Pyramid.

Russell’s Millennium, of course,

did not break out in 1914. The first

World War did begin in Europe at

that time, however, and it seemed

that that was what the founder had

somehow been talking about all

along. After his death, Russell’s

works were at first revised to clear

up the discrepancy: whereas he had

written, ". . . The deliverance of the

saints must take place sometime

before 1914 . . .,” the revised text

read, ". . . The deliverance of the

saints must take place very soon

after 1914 .. .” The current party

line has it that in 1914 Christ (al-

ready on earth again since 1874)

began "an invisible reign of right-

2



eousness”—whatever that may mean.

Prophets like Russell rarely lose

their following merely because their

prophecies prove to be false; the

credulity that can accept them in

the first place remains strong

enough to survive scandals of this

kind. However, the Witnesses to-

day, now that both Russell and

Rutherford are dead, have learnt to

make their prophecies in very gen-

eral terms, and they do not encour-

age the reading of their founders’

prophetical works.

Zealots

Neither Russell nor Rutherford

were men of much education, de-

spite the scraps of borrowed learn-

ing that appear in their pages. Both

of them had a genius for organiza-

tion, however, and their sect has

continued to grow and flourish

within the framework they gave it,

displaying a zeal worthy of far bet-

ter causes and flooding the world

with literally millions of books and

pamphlets in scores of languages.

In recent years it has even devel-

oped a scholarship of sorts, repre-

sented in its own translation of the

Bible and the studies which have

accompanied it. Of this we shall

say more later.

The Americanism of the sect is

readily apparent in its publications,

despite the fact that many of these

are published abroad. The articles

that one finds in the German,

French, Italian, or Spanish editions

of the Watclotower and other Wit-
ness literature, or in the editions of

other European, African, and Asian

languages, are all faithful transla-

tions of what appeared originally

in American English and emanated

from headquarters in Brooklyn. One

is reminded of nothing so much as

the foreign editions of the Reader’s

Digest

,

particularly in view of the

fact that many of the articles are

not even sectarian in character but

are of the "uplift” and "self-help”

variety. Though obviously the teach-

ings of the sect have struck a re-

sponsive chord in minds of like dis-

position throughout the world, and

though the claim is made that mat-

ters of administration are handled

by an international board, one has

the impression that in every sense

of the word the leadership of the

Witnesses has remained solidly in

American hands. The keen busi-

ness sense and efficient production

methods shown by this leadership

also are quite American, and cause

us to believe that the movement

will be with us yet for a long time.

The Witnesses

Because of these facts and be-

cause of the intense and capable

propagandizing carried out by the

sect, it has occurred to us that the

Witnesses are deserving of the

short analysis that appears in the

following pages. Americans, it

seems to us, should be particularly

interested in an organization whose

character and existence could hard-

ly be accounted for outside the

peculiar religious and other influ-

ences that have long existed in our

country. In what follows we shall

attempt to investigate the more

outstanding peculiarities of the

Witnesses’ creed, along the lines

that have already been outlined

above. We would emphasize our

3



purpose in doing this, which is not

to ridicule or make light of any-

one’s beliefs simply because they

are not our beliefs. What has

prompted this analysis is the Wit-

nesses’ own insistence on their be-

liefs as truths which contradict our

beliefs and aje incompatible with

them. We shall approach the Wit-
nesses’ creed from the standpoint

of those elements in it which are

avowedly destructive of the Judeo-

Christian tradition in which we

stand. In doing so, we hope to do

a service not merely for those of

the Catholic religion but also for

all who share the concern of the

Catholic Church for the funda-

mental doctrines and values of the

Christianity that has molded our

society.

Immortality of the Soul

At the time of Christ, the immortality of the soul was generally

believed in by all the Jews with the exception of the Sadducees.

Christ took* this dogmatic belief of the Jewish people for granted,

and built upon this belief His entire Messianic ministry.

Answering the Sadducees who denied also the resurrection

of the body, Jesus declared that God is not the God of the dead,

but of the living (Matt. 22,33), for all (i.e., not merely the

Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) live to Him (Luke 20, 38).

Christ’s disciples are not to be afraid of those who kill the

body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather they should fear

God who is able to destroy both soul and body in gehenna (Matt.

10, 28). Similarly, he who hates his life (lit., soul) in this world

shall preserve his soul for eternal life (John 12,25). In the

parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, Jesus also assumed the

immortality of the soul after death and future retribution

(Luke 16, 19-31).

The doctrine of Christ’s redemption of mankind as preached

by the Apostles presupposes the immortality of the soul. The

salvation of souls is one of the purposes of His redeeming death

(cf. 1 Thess. 2, 8; Heb. 6, 19; 10, 39; 13, 17; Jas. 5, 20; 1 Pet.

1, 9; 3 John 2).

Catholic Biblical Encyclopedia

4



Bible Versus Cult

As has already been indi-

cated, the Witnesses owe

the origin of their curious

beliefs to that complete dis-

dain for any traditional con-

trol of Biblical interpreta-

tion that has accounted for

the scores of marvelous sects

that have arisen from "Bible

religion.” The principle of

private judgment as the de-

terminant of Bible faith has rightly

been blamed for this often scan-

dalous state of affairs, though, to

be sure, the question is somewhat

more delicate than this. Though

Protestantism adopts the Bible as a

rule of faith in a way somewhat

different from that of Catholicism,

and though private judgment de-

termines this rule for Protestant-

ism in a way that it does not in

Catholicism, actually Protestantism

has never maintained the absolute

independence of private judgment

against the tradition within which

the Bible was written and in which

it has been used. Here, of course,

we are speaking of those authen-

tically Protestant bodies which re-

gard themselves as constituting the

Christian Church in reform. For

them to have done otherwise would

be to invite anarchy—the very an-

archy, in fact, to which

groups like the Witnesses

have brought us.

That a person with no

other equipment than a

knowledge of the English

language and a seventeenth

century English translation

of the Bible in his hands is

qualified to decide all mat-

ters of eternal consequence

for himself and the rest of man-

kind, is the ridiculous conclusion

to which the principle of private

judgment can finally be brought.

In such a process, the countless gen-

erations of devout people who have

lived and died according to other

beliefs simply count for nothing.

The centuries of thought and

prayer that have gone into the

interpretation of the Bible for all

these generations likewise count

for nothing. The very men who

wrote the Bible—who, obviously,

held to a faith that could not be

sustained by a patchwork of texts

culled from Genesis to Revelation

and back again, books that did not

then exist—these men, too, count

for nothing. All that does matter,

apparently, is that a Pennsylvania

draper ignorant of the Biblical

languages and without the vaguest

5



conception of the Bibles historical

origins should have the right to

pronounce on the meaning of a

book and to judge all mankind of

the past, present, and future on the

basis of his pronouncements. Here,

as a Protestant author once ob-

served, is a species of arrogance

compared with which the Pope of

Rome, with his claim to infallibil-

ity, is grovelling in the dust. For

the Pope claims only to be the

voice of Christian tradition. He

cannot, as Pastor Russell did, dis-

cover new truths about which

Christian antiquity was ignorant.

Bible Scholarship

The most obvious trademark of

a crank or cultist interpretation of

the Bible, as of anything else, is the

fact that it stands in contradiction

to the agreed conclusions of sound

and disinterested scholarship. This

is the case with regard to the Wit-

nesses’ approach to what they claim

to be Biblical religion. It is inevit-

able that this should be the case,

since this approach grew out of a

total ignorance of Biblical scholar-

ship—a fact which none of the He-

brew and Greek words which the

Witnesses have lately begun to

scatter through their publications

will ever be able to conceal.

Take, for example, the very name

by which the Witnesses wish to be

known. The word "Jehovah” has

become one of the fetishes of their

cult, assuming an importance for

them which it has certainly had for

no other group known to mankind.

The word is derived from the name

which the ancient Israelites used to

distinguish their God from the gods

of the Gentiles. It is derived from

that name, however, quite incor-

rectly. The Hebrews called their

God by a name which was written

YHWH — all in consonants, we
note, since the Hebrew alphabet

has no vowels. The pronunciation

of the name, which existed inde-

pendently of its spelling, was

doubtless something like"Yahweh.”

Through an exaggerated type of

reverence for the name—and also

because the name eventually ceased

to be used—later Jews never pro-

nounced it, and as a result the

original pronunciation is not sure

to this day. What is absolutely

sure, however, is that it was never

pronounced "Jehovah.” This ver-

sion derives from a misreading of

the Hebrew Bible after it had been

supplied with vowel indications in

later Christian times. The vowel

indications that had been attached

to this word were actually taken

from another, the Hebrew word for

"My Lord” which was customarily

pronounced instead of the sacred

name YHWH.

Now the Witnesses themselves
know this nowadays, even if earlier

Witnesses did not. On page 25 of

their "New World Translation of

the Christian Greek Scriptures”

they admit this fact, but say that

they have "retained the form 'Je-

hovah’ because of people’s famili-

arity with it since the fourteenth

century” (that is, the fourteenth

century after Christ). The fact is,

however, as the editors of the Re-

vised Standard Version of the Bible

have pointed out: "1) The word

'Jehovah’ does not accurately rep-

resent any form of the Name ever

6



used in Hebrew; and 2) the use

of any proper name for the one

and only God as though there were

other gods from whom He had to

be distinguished, was discontinued

in Judaism before the Christian era

and is entirely inappropriate for

the universal faith of the Christian

Church.” The editors make this

sensible statement in justifying

their abandonment of the impos-

sible "Jehovah” that has found its

way into some older English trans-

lations of the Bible.

Mistranslations

What began, therefore, merely as

an erroneous reading of an ancient

Hebrew word has now become a

dogma of faith to be supported by

any argument and to be held at all

costs out of all proportion to its

importance. In the Foreword to the

"New World Translation of the

Christian Greek Scriptures” no less

than fifteen pages are devoted to

this question, not simply to justify

the use of the word at all, but in

order to justify its use in translat-

ing the New Testament. The Wit-

nesses make much of the fact that

in the ancient manuscripts of the

Greek translation of the Old Testa-

ment (known as the Septuagint or

LXX), the name YHWH was fre-
quently left untranslated in its

Hebrew consonants. From this they

somehow want to draw the conclu-

sion that the same thing was true

of the Greek manuscripts of the

New Testament. As a matter of
fact, out of the thousands of New
Testament manuscripts that we

possess there is not a single one

that will justify such a conclusion

— and the New Testament is the
best and most meticulously docu-

mented body of literature of all

antiquity. Not only is there no

evidence in any single instance to

justify the 237 times that the Wit-

nesses have placed "Jehovah” in the

New Testament text, there is no

evidence to justify even the correct

Old Testament form in such cases.

The early Christians who wrote the

New Testament certainly did not
use this name, but rather the word

"Lord,” which they also applied to

Christ. Here, therefore, we have a

pathetic example of pseudoscholar-

ship attempting to defend the in-

defensible.

The gradual abandonment of the

use of YHWH by the Israelites can
be seen in the Old Testament itself.

The most ancient parts of the

Mosaic traditions that have been

assembled in the Pentateuch, for

example, tend to use the name

YHWH for Israel’s God, while the
parts that were written down later

tend to use the word Elohim

("deity,” or, simply, "God”). But one

of the most obvious evidences is

in the so-called Elohistic Psalter,

that is, Psalms 42 to 83. In all these

Psalms the word Elohim was syste-

matically substituted for YHWH
wherever it occurred. Thus it is

that Psalm 53 actually reproduces

a Psalm that had already been taken

into the Psalter at an earlier stage

in its formation (Psalm 14), the

only difference, for all practical

purposes, being the use of the di-

vine name.

Why such a thing should have
occurred is not too difficult to ex-

plain. Even though the Bible as-

7



cribes the name YHWH to divine
revelation (Ex. 6:3) and though it

was therefore most sacred to the

Israelites, there was also the danger

that it could be misunderstood. It

might be thought that Yahweh was

the local god of the Hebrews, just

as Chemosh was the god of the

Moabites, M^rduk the god of the

Babylonians, and so on. It was to

insist on the fact that Yahweh was

the one true God of all mankind,

therefore, that the proper name was

increasingly avoided or replaced by

other terms. Even when the Jews

continued to write YHWH, they
said "God” or "Lord”—whence the

later vowel indications in the He-

brew Bible which have nothing to

do with the pronunciation of

YHWH at all. "Lord,” in Greek
Kyrios, became the ordinary sub-

stitute for the YHWH of the Old
Testament. That "Lord” had such

divine connotations is the point of

Christ’s question in Mark 12:35-37.

It was with the same connotations

that Christ was recognized by the

first Christians as "the Lord Jesus.”

Language Confusion

The limits to which imagination

will go in attempting to support

the unsupportable are shown in the

argument which the Witnesses

employ to justify some of the

"Jehovahs” in their translation of

the New Testament. First of all, the
tradition that the Apostle Matthew

originally wrote his Gospel in

"Hebrew” is interpreted to mean

Old Testament Hebrew rather than

the Aramaic which was the lan-

guage of Palestinian Jews in Mat-

thew’s time. "In recent years,” the

Witnesses write, "some have

claimed that Matthew’s Gospel

account was at first written in

Hebrew rather than in its kindred

language, the Aramaic.” Some have

claimed this, indeed, but on the

basis of evidence that has not con-

vinced the ordinary scholar. The

Witnesses, however, prefer a He-

brew to an Aramaic Matthew, since

YHWH was not used in Aramaic.
The Witnesses go on: "It is now

believed Matthew himself translat-

ed his Gospel account into the

Greek,” and: "He could follow the

LXX practice and incorporate the
divine name in its proper place in

the Greek text.” Just by whom it

is believed that Matthew translated

his Semitic Gospel into Greek, is

not made clear. The tradition by

which alone we know that there

was an Aramaic Matthew indicates

precisely the opposite. Most schol-

ars agree that the Greek Matthew

of our Bibles is hardly a "transla-

tion” in the accepted sense of the

word at all, but a Greek work

through and through. That it was

heavily dependent on the Aramaic

work known from tradition and

used it as a model justifies our

calling it Matthew’s Gospel, but

does not make it a translation in

the strict sense of the word. Who
its inspired author was, we do not

know. The list of names which the

Witnesses allege from the early

Church as testifying to the existence

of a Semitic Gospel of Matthew

in the fourth and fifth Christian

centuries is quite worthless. As is

now known, these persons had mis-

taken Matthew’s original Gospel

for the "Gospel of the Hebrews,”

8



an apocryphal work which still sur-

vives in fragments and which is

filled with legendary additions to

the authentic Gospel history.

All in all, the pages which the

Witnesses have devoted to the sub-

ject of "Jehovah” appear to the

disinterested observer as much ado

about nothing. Even if it were true,

which it emphatically is not, that

the Hebrews called God by the

name "Jehovah,” the matter would

be entirely irrelevant to Christians.

The introduction of the name and

the importance attached to it in

the Witnesses’ translation of the

New Testament simply stamp this

translation as eccentric.

Immortality

Another matter of greater con-

sequence which rose from Pastor

Russell’s misunderstanding of the

Bible also characterizes the creed of

the Witnesses. This is their denial

of the immortality of the human

soul, a denial that ties in with their

rejection of eternal punishment and

the strange interpretation they give

to certain passages of the Book of

Revelation which concern the fu-

ture life of the elect.

In the appendix to the "New

World Translation of the Christian

Greek Scriptures” some five pages

are devoted to the translations

given the word "soul.” In the ap-

pendix to the "New World Trans-

lation of the Hebrew Scriptures”

another eleven pages deal with the

same subject. What all of these

references go to prove is that the

Semites who wrote the Bible looked

on the human personality in a

somewhat different fashion from

our own. This is not a question of

Biblical revelation, but of the no-

tions of human psychology enter-

tained by the Biblical authors.

The Hebrew did not, as we do,

think of man as a composite of

body and soul. When he used the

word nefesh, which in older trans-

lations of the Bible appears as

"soul,” he meant the whole per-

sonality — body and soul together,
as we would think of it. Thus it is

that modern translations of the

Bible ordinarily do not translate

the word as "soul,” since that is

to give an erroneous impression of

what the Bible author would have

been talking about. The word

nefesh simply meant a living being,

and the Hebrew would use the

same word for any living being,

animal or human. In the same way,

he used the same word, ruach, trans-

lated "spirit” or "breath,” for the

life principle of all living things.

Neither does this word mean "soul”

— it simply designated the concrete
evidence and fact of breathing life.

The same ideas lie behind the

Greek words which were used in

the LXX to translate the Hebrew,
and which the New Testament

authors used in their own works.

We repeat, this is not Biblical
revelation, but part of the mental

framework of the Biblical authors.

The better insights that we have

into the physical make-up of the

human personality are a gain of

subsequent scientific knowledge

that is as much the gift of God as

Biblical revelation itself. We are
no more to be restricted by the

limitations of the Biblical authors

in their knowledge of human

9



psychology than we are to be re-

stricted by their limitations in

other realms of science. What we

have to do is to accept Biblical

revelation, but accept it in terms

that we know must agree with

sound scientific knowledge, since

the God of revelation and the God

Who is also the Author of nature’s
laws cannot contradict Himself.

Thus, whereas the Bible does not,

it is true, speak of the immortality

of the human soul — a concept
which it does not have in our sense

of this word — it does speak of the
immortality of the human person.

And in our language, this means

the immortality of the human soul.

Science and Scripture

A good example to illustrate how
we must translate Biblical language

into our own in a similar instance

can be found in the revelation of

the creation of the world in

Genesis. The Biblical authors

thought of the earth as a flat disk

floating on water ("the waters be-

neath the earth,” Gen. 1:2, Job

28:14, etc.), anchored there by

foundation pillars (Job 38:4, Prov.

8:29, Ps. 18:16, etc.), over which

was arched the sky, a "firmament”

shiny and "hard as a bronze mirror”

(Job 37:18, etc.). Obviously, this

conception of the universe is not

our own — we have far better
knowledge of the structure of the

earth and sky and their make-up

than did the Biblical authors. What

we must take from the Bible is not

its authors’ unscientific view of the

universe, but the revealed truth

that the universe is entirely God’s

creation, a revelation which the

author of Genesis communicated

using his unscientific conception

of its structure.

In the same way, when Revela-

tion 6:14 speaks of "heaven passing

away as a scroll that is rolled up,”

the author is thinking of the sky

in the Old Testament conception,

a kind of bowl inverted over the

earth, hard and shiny. The Hebrew

word we translate "firmament”

means just that: something solid

that has been beaten out and

shaped. The sky, we know, is not

really this, even though that is the

way the Biblical authors thought

of it. Once again we have Biblical

revelation — the end of the present
universe as we know it — which,
however, we must understand in

terms other than those the Biblical

author used.

Does the Bible, then, teach the

immortality of the human person?

Most assuredly. To restrict our-

selves solely to the words of Christ

as reported in the Gospels, con-

sider His teaching in Matthew

25:31-46 (Witnesses’ translation):

'When the Son of man arrives in

his glory and all the angels with

him, then he will sit down on his

glorious throne. And all the na-

tions will be gathered before him,

and he will separate people one

from another, just as a shepherd

separates the sheep from the goats.

And he will put the sheep on his

right hand, but the goats on his

left. Then the king will say to

those on his right: 'Come, you who

have my Father’s blessing, inherit

the kingdom prepared for you from

the world’s foundation . . .’ Then he

will say, in turn, to those on his

10



left: 'Be on your way from me,

you who have been cursed, into

the everlasting fire prepared for

the devil and his angels...’ And

these will depart into everlasting

cutting-off, but the righteous ones

into everlasting life.”

Punishment

The Witnesses would have us

believe that this language is to be

taken figuratively, at least as far

as the accursed are concerned. An

everlasting fire, they say, but it

burns nobody—immortality is God’s

gift to the just, but the wicked are

simply annihilated. Thus their

strange translation, "cutting-off,”

in the above passage, for what

other translations universally render

"punishment.” The Witnesses sug-

gest in a footnote that the word

means "Literally, pruning’; hence

a curtailing, a holding in check.”

This is quite incorrect, as anyone

can verify by consulting a Greek

dictionary on the word kolasis. It

means "mutilation,” "torture,”

"punishment.” This precise word

occurs one other time, in 1 John

4:18, where it has been again mis-

translated by the Witnesses—here,

however, probably because the

translator simply did not under-

stand the text. The verb of the

same root, kolazein, also occurs

twice in the New Testament. In
2 Peter 2:9, where again it is a

question of eternal punishment,

the Witnesses deliberately avoid

using this word, and translate "to

be cut off.” But in Acts 4:21,

where none of their dogma is at

stake, they finally come right out

and translate "to punish,” which is

exactly what the word means.

It is pointless to attempt to deny

the obvious fact that the Bible

teaches an eternal reward for the

just and an eternal punishment for

the wicked. One may not like such

a teaching, but it is the height of

dishonesty to change the Bible in

order to suit one’s likes and dis-

likes and still claim to depend on

the Bible as the word of God.

Eternal punishment, of course, in-

volves a natural immortality in

man. We refer to this as man’s
immortal soul. The Biblical authors

referred to it otherwise, since they

did not use the word "soul” as

we do.

Neither does the idea of eternal

punishment make God into a vin-

dictive torturer. He is a Judge, not

an executioner. Hell is a state

which the - wicked have willingly

chosen for themselves, and the

punishment that they must endure

there is only what is due their sins.

They are their own executioners.

Furthermore, no suffering that

could possibly be inflicted on them

would equal that which is the very

essence of hell itself—to endure for

all eternity the realization that they

have closed upon themselves the

gateway to salvation, that they have

denied to themselves what their

souls were designed for, to be

united with God. This is the

denial of that hope which is at the

heart of the New Testament mes-

sage of salvation.

11



Judaizing The Gospel

From the Acts of the Apos-

tles and the Pauline letters

we know of one of the earli-

est heresies that afflicted

the young Christian Church,

the heresy of Judaizing.

This heresy took various

forms, but all of them had

one trait in common, and

that was a misunderstand-

ing of the relation of the

Old Testament to the New.

In its most blatant form, Judaiz-

ing attempted to impose the

Mosaic Law on Christian converts,

including ritual circumcision and

the Jewish dietary laws which were

a figure only of the realities which

had been fulfilled in Christ. De-

spite the fact that such a move-

ment could only end in denying

the efficacy of Christ’s salvation,

and despite the fact that the New
Testament record is quite clear in

its rejection of this entire heresy,

one still finds isolated instances to-

day of those who call themselves

Christians advocating such prac-

tices—"calling to account for what

you eat or drink or in regard to a

festival or a new moon or a Sab-

bath” (Col. 2:16)—and even ap-

pealing for their justification to

the words or example of Christ

Himself. Obviously, any sect

which can adopt such a

viewpoint towards the di-

vine revelation contained in

the Bible is not Christian

at all. It is, rather, a re-

ligion like that of Islam,

which has made for itself

a unique combination of

Jewish and Christian ele-

ments along with its own

modifications.

The Witnesses are such a Judaiz-

ing sect. They do not, it is true,

profess the Mosaic Law in its en-

tirety as of divine obligation for

mankind under the rule of Christ’s

grace. Neither do they insist on

the Jewish Sabbath as do some

other allegedly Christian sects.

Nevertheless, their entire attitude

towards the Old Testament is a

Judaizing one, as will be seen from

a few examples.

In the preceding article we spoke

of the Witnesses’ denial of the im-

mortality of the soul. To support

this belief, they lay great stress on

such passages as this from Ezekiel

18:4, "The soul that sins shall

surely die.”

To quote Ezekiel to prove such

a thing, one has to forget or to be

ignorant of certain things. One

12



thing, as we already pointed out,

is that the word translated here as

"soul” does not mean what we

understand by the human soul. It

means, rather, the human person

himself. Thus, more accurate mod-

ern translations have something

quite different: "The person who

sins shall die” (The American

Translation); "Only the one who

sins shall die” (Confraternity Trans-

lation). On the other hand, Ezekiel

is repeating the well-known Biblical

doctrine, that death is the conse-

quence of sin (Gen. 2:17).

Secondly, when Ezekiel is read in

his context, it becomes obvious why

he makes this statement, which is

not to say anything at all about the

immoftality of man one way or the

other, but to define the limits of

divine punishment. Whereas in the

past God had dealt with man as a

member of a people, therefore "in-

flicting punishment for their

fathers’ wickedness on the children

of those who hate me, down to the

third and fourth generation” (Ex.

20:5), in the New Covenant that
was to come, it would not be so.

In the New Covenant, Ezekiel re-
vealed in the name of God, punish-

ment would be inflicted only on

the one who sinned. When one
reads the entire passage, this mean-

ing becomes quite clear.

The Witnesses’ use of such a

text, however, is entirely indicative

of their approach to the Old and

New Testaments, in which the re-
lation of the one to the other is

obscured, and no account is taken

of the stage of history to which

each refer and in which each be-

comes comprehensible. This atti-

tude is typical of the frame of

mind sometimes called Fundament-

alism or, less correctly, Biblical

Literalism, in which the Bible sim-

ply becomes a mine of texts to be

slapped together in any helter-

skelter fashion, without reference

to author, context, or literary back-

ground.

Life After Death

Associated with the question we

discussed in the preceding article

is the idea of retribution for saint

and sinner that the Witnesses de-

rive from their Judaizing interpre-

tation of the Bible. Specifically, we

refer to the state of the dead as

portrayed in the Old Testament.

It is only at the very end of the

Old Testament period that the Jews

were given any clear-cut revelation

concerning the nature of life after

death. The most explicit references

to this occur in those books which

the Witnesses exclude from their

translation of the Old Testament-

books, however, which modern

Scripture scholars admit are neces-

sary for understanding the progress

of revelation from the Old Testa-

ment to the New. For all practical

purposes, therefore, the revelation

of a resurrection, of a blessed im-

mortality for the just, and of eternal

punishment for the wicked must be

sought in the New Testament.
There are several reasons why this

should have been the case.

Firstly, the very relation of the

Old Testament to the New made
an early revelation of these truths

inadvisable. Since our Lord Jesus

Christ was to be the firstborn from

the dead (Col. 1:18), whose return

13



to the Father victorious from the

sacrifice of the cross and resurrec-

tion from the dead was necessary

that a place be prepared for all who

believe (John 14:2), there was little

point in giving the people of the

Old Testament too precise a knowl-

edge of the afterlife. They could

merely have been told that it was

their lot at best to wait, perhaps

for ages, until the coming of the

Redeemer made heaven a possibil-

ity for them. This was not a pos-

sibility until the coming of Christ

(John 3:13); until then, the dead

could only wait in "prison” for the

redemption (1 Pet. 3:19-20).

Secondly, by lack of precise

knowledge of the afterlife the

Israelites were spared the many

superstitions and vain observances

of their Gentile neighbors with re-

spect to the dead. In this, the re-

ligion of Israel contrasts strikingly

with that of ancient Egypt, for

example, or ancient Babylonia,

where a man’s whole life and much

of his substance might be frittered

away in vain preoccupations about

his condition after death. The pyra-

mids of Egypt are monuments to

other follies than that of Pastor

Russell’s speculations on the Sec-

ond Coming of Christ.

Mystery Of The Afterlife

For whatever reason, the fact re-

mains that the Old Testament has

little to say about an afterlife. The

people of the Old Testament knew

that death did not end all, but pre-

cisely what did take place after

death was largely a mystery to

them. As a result, the orientation

of the Old Testament is almost en-

tirely towards a this-worldly view

of rewards and punishments. This

in turn explains some of the "prob-

lem” literature of the Old Testa-

ment, such as the Book of Job. Had

Job known of the New Testament
revelation concerning the afterlife,

much of what troubled him would

have already found an explanation

in his mind.

The Old Testament calls the

place of the dead by the name

Sheol, a word the exact meaning

of which is unknown. Older trans-

lations used to put this in English

as "hell.” Actually, there is nothing

wrong with this translation, since

the English word originally meant

any place to which the dead went,

without regard to the condition of

the dead in that place. Thus we say

in the Creed that Christ "descend-

ed into hell,” merely repeating the

idea of such Biblical texts as 1 Peter

3:18-20. However, because "hell” in

present-day English means for most

people the hell of damnation, other

translations are now used for Sheol.

The Revised Standard Version sim-

ply transliterates the word as Sheol;

the Confraternity Translation gives

it as "the nether world.” Sometimes

the Old Testament calls Sheol "the

pit” or abaddon, a word that prob-

ably means "the place of those who

have perished.” In the LXX and in
the New Testament the Greek
equivalent for Sheol is Hades.

The Old Testament thought of

Sheol as a definite place, not mere-

ly the grave. It was a place beneath

the earth, and also beneath the

"waters under the earth” (see Job

26:5-6 and 38:16-17). It was barred

by gates (Job 38:17), a place of

14



darkness (Ps. 88:7) and of silence

(Ps. 115:17).

There is not a single Old Testa-

ment view of Sheol and the fate of

the dead beyond the few facts that

we have just outlined—in Old Tes-

tament times mystery surrounds the

afterlife tnat is only to be solved

by the revelation given on the

threshold of the New Testament.
Thus Job, who had not received the

revelation of the resurrection, be-

lieved that no one ever returned

from Sheol (7:9, 10:21, 14:12), and

also that everyone, good and bad,

went without distinction to the

same place (3:3-19). This seems to

have been the majority view. On

the other hand, Ezekiel emphatical-

ly distinguishes the fate of the

uncircumcised enemies of Israel

from that, of the heroes of ancient

times—both are in Sheol

,

but not

together (32:17-32). For Isaiah

24:21-22 the pit is a place of pun-

ishment, which he calls a prison.

Punishment After Death

The idea that the wicked find a

place of punishment after death is

expressed very clearly in Isaiah

66:22-24—a passage written long

after the time of the great prophet

Isaiah by an inspired writer who

supplemented his prophecy. In con-

trast to the new Jerusalem which

will be the dwelling of the elect of

mankind, says the prophet, "They

shall go out and see the corpses of

the men who rebelled against me;

their worm shall not die, nor their

fire be extinguished; and they shall

be abhorrent to all mankind.” When
we remember that for the ancient

Israelite the worst fate that could

befall the dead was that their bodies

should be burnt or left unburied,

we understand what is meant by

this apparently contradictory pic-

ture of bodies being forever burnt

and yet consumed by worms. The

author is using partly symbolic lan-

guage to describe an everlasting

punishment. It is not surprising,

therefore, that Christ quotes this

passage in speaking of an eternal

punishment that is far worse than

death itself (Mark 9:42-48).

Though the author of Isaiah 66:

22-24 does not say so explicitly, he

was doubtless thinking of the val-

ley of Ge-Hinnom, the rubbish

heap outside Jerusalem, as the site

of this everlasting punishment of

the wicked (see Jeremiah 7:30-8:3).

Certainly our Lord uses this word,

translated Gehenna in Greek, to

designate the place of eternal pun-

ishment. The name, of course, is

only symbolic, just as is the name

"heaven” (which means simply "the

sky”) to designate eternal happi-

ness in the presence of God. Dan-

iel 12:2, another passage that comes

from a late period in Old Testa-

ment times, knows of an eternal

life and an eternal disgrace that fol-

low on the resurrection of the dead:

"Many of those who sleep in the

dust of the earth shall awake; some

shall live forever, others shall be an

everlasting horror and disgrace.”

We see, therefore, that the ideas
of the Old Testament on the condi-

tion of the dead and the matter of

retribution are somewhat complex.

They also suppose a development

leading towards the New Testament.
To quote the Old Testament with-

out recognition of these facts adds

15



to the confusion which contributes

to the existence of sects like the

Witnesses.

The New Testament, in any case,
is certainly clear on this matter. The

alternative to everlasting life, ac-

cording to our Lord, is to be thrown

into everlasting fire of Gehenna

(Matt. 18:8-9). Gehenna is the lot

of the wicked following the judg-

ment of God (Matt. 23:33). Where

the wicked go, there will be weep-

ing and gnashing of teeth (Matt.

8:12). Various other expressions

are used to signify the happiness of

the just and the punishment of the

rejected. One of the best known

examples is the parable of the

wicked rich man and the poor

Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, where

the place of torments is called

Hades and the place of Lazarus’

reward "Abraham’s bosom.” Now
it is very true that this is a parable

told by our Lord not to give us

precise information about heaven

and hell, but to teach other lessons.

However, in His parables Jesus did

not deal in mythology but with

familiar realities—it was with well

known and accepted truths that He

illustrated His new teaching. In this

story, therefore, He supposes along

with those who heard Him that
there was a reward for the good

and a punishment for the wicked

after death.

Another outstanding example of

the way in which the Witnesses

have misconstrued the relation of

the Old Testament to the New can
be found in their strange teaching

about blood. As is well known, the

Witnesses hold that blood transfu-

sions are a violation of God’s law.

There are instances where they have

permitted persons to die rather than

have a recourse to the remedy which

preserves life. Whence comes this

extraordinary idea?

In the Old Testament the eating

of blood was forbidden by many

passages of the Mosaic Law. The

reason for this appears in Leviticus

17:11-12: "Since the life of a living

body is in its blood, I have made

you put it on the altar, so that

atonement may thereby be made

for your own lives, because it is

the blood, as the seat of life, that

makes atonement. That is why I

have told the Israelites: No one

among you, not even a resident

alien, may partake of blood.”

In other words, blood, like breath,

was regarded as the concrete em-

bodiment of life, the gift of God,

and therefore a thing sacred to God.

Biood, according to the Law of

Moses, was to be used in certain

sacred functions of Old Testament

ritual, chief among them being the

rites whereby atonement was made

for sins in the various involved

rituals of animal sacrifice. Because

of this sacred character, blood was

withdrawn from human consump-

tion. To this day orthodox Jews do

not eat meat that has not been

drained of its blood—this is one of

the "kosher” or dietary laws.

But not even the most rigorous

Jew ever dreamed that this law

constitutes a prohibition of blood

transfusions! In coming to such a

conclusion the Witnesses have out-

rabbied the rabbis of the Middle

Ages. For the law against eating

blood obviously had nothing to do

with human blood — cannibalism

16



was not a problem for the Israelites.

In extending a law that had one

purpose to another conclusion that

is totally foreign to that purpose,

the Witnesses have truly turned the

divine pronouncement into a sense-

less legalism and have become guilty

of the kind of casuistry that makes

a laughingstock out of God’s word.

In any case, what does such a

law have to do with Christians, for

whom the blood rituals of the Mo-
saic Law are meaningless? An end
to the significance of blood under

the Mosaic Law was proclaimed

in the pouring out of Christ’s

blood by which the New Cov-
enant was inaugurated — read the
ninth and tenth chapters of He-

brews, in which it is shown how

the blood ritual and the other pro-

visions of the Law were but the

shadow of the good things to come.

It is true, according to Acts 15:

12-29, the infant Church in Jeru-

salem mentioned blood as one of

the things that the Gentile converts

to Christianity in the regions of

Antioch and Syria and Cilicia should

avoid. The reason for this was also

made clear. Since the Jewish pop-

ulation in these regions was exten-

sive, the new Christians were in-

structed to avoid giving offence by

conforming to Jewish custom in

matters which involved no sacrifice

of Christian principle. At the same

time, it was made perfectly clear

that no Christian was under any

obligation to observe the Mosaic

Law as a means of salvation—that

to recognize any such obligation, as

a matter of fact, would be a denial

of Christ. In much the same way,

Paul had Timothy circumcised

(Acts 16: 3), not because he believed

that it was in any way necessary,

but because he did not wish to of-

fend the Jews needlessly among

whom he planned to work, and the

Jews would have been scandalized

at the uncircumcised state of Tim-

othy, the son of a Jewish woman.

The prohibition of blood appears

in Genesis 9:4, in one of the later

parts of the Mosaic traditions

brought into the Pentateuch, as an

anticipation of this provision of the

Mosaic Law. The Jews insisted upon

this regulation for all who lived

among them, Gentiles as well as

Israelites, as has been seen in the

law of Leviticus 17:12 mentioned

above. It was to avoid giving need-

less offence to them in the early

missionary work of the Church,

therefore, that the instruction was

sent to the Christians of Antioch,

Syria, and Cilicia. It was never in-

tended by the apostolic Church as

the expression of any permanent

duty of all Christians.

When the word of God is bent
to make it a decree of death rather

than part of the way of life, truly

the Scripture has been perverted.

The bizarre interpretation that the

Witnesses have given to the Old

Testament law of blood has shocked

many people because of the wide

publicity that it has occasionally

been given. Those who believe in

the inspired character of the Scrip-

ture in the history of God’s salva-

tion are even more shocked, how-

ever, by no less pernicious inter-

pretations that have been given to

other parts of the divine word,

making of it in every true sense

a letter that kills.

17



In The Beginning

Was The Word

From the Christian point of

view, the worst of the Wit-

nesses’ Judaizing of the Gos-

pel lies in their rejection of

the fundamental doctrine of

Christianity, the divinity of

Jesus Christ.

On an earlier page we

spoke of the supreme arro-

gance that presumes to re-

gard all traditional interpre-

tation of the Scripture as irrelevant.

Not only is this an arrogance, how-

ever, it is also a total folly that no

one would dare to apply to any other

area of life than religion.

What would happen, may we

imagine, if every doctor were to

begin his practice of medicine by

disregarding everything that every

other doctor before him had done

or written? What would be the

progress of science, if every scien-

tist were forbidden to profit from

the advances and mistakes of his

predecessors, and had to begin pre-

cisely from the ground up in what-

ever generation he should find

himself? Obviously, there would

never be any progress at all. Science

would always be beginning, never

going anywhere. The same would

be true of any other human en-

deavor, if such were the methodol-

ogy that had to be followed.

Theology—the science of

revelation — and exegesis —

the scientific interpretation

of the Scripture—are among

such human endeavors. God

has committed His word to

His people, and the elucida-

tion of this word has been

and is being carried out

among this people as part of

the work He has given them to do.

For anyone in a later age to disre-

gard the study of the word of God

from the beginning is not only un-

sound procedure, it is to disregard

the very will of God in communi-

cating the word from the beginning.

Because' the Witnesses do spurn

the historical study of the Bible,

reading their Unitarian literature is

like taking a refresher course in

the ancient Christian heresies. Not

a mistake was ever made in these

matters that has not been faith-

fully repeated by the Witnesses—

the great difference being that the

Witnesses have managed somehow

to make contradictory rather than

consistent mistakes. The heresies

relating to Christology (the study

of Christ) are many and varied-

embracing such almost forgotten

titles as Arianism, Modalism, Adop-

18



tionism, Subordinationism. But

simply name it and read the Wit-

nesses’ literature; eventually you are

sure to run across it. The amusing

thing is that it will be presented to

you as a brand-new idea. This is as

true of their arguments on the child-

hood level—counting three fingers

to disprove the Trinity—as of those

which spring from their newly ac-

quired acquaintance with Greek

words.

The Holy Trinity

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity

in God is a Christian revelation not

found in the Old Testament. It was

a revelation made to men whose

only literature was the Old Testa-

ment. Perhaps what is even more

important, it was a revelation trans-

mitted through human authors

who had such an intellectual back-

ground. It was inevitable that the

new content of Christianity appears

in terminology that comes mainly

from the Old Testament, and takes

on new meaning in the process.

The Old Testament, for example,

knew of a Spirit of God, but it did

not know of Him as a distinct di-
vine Person. It is our Lord Who has
revealed to us this new truth about

the nature of God. In revealing

it He adhered to the Old Testa-
ment term. In the same way, the

remainder of the New Testament
speaks of the Trinity, but in Old

Testament language.

How were the writers of the
New Testament, and our Lord
Himself, to make known this new

revelation to men who were fa-

miliar only with the Old Testament

doctrine of God? Not by baldly

saying, as later theology could,

"Christ is God, the Spirit is God,

the Father is God.” This would

have been understood by Jews to

mean three Gods — even as the
Witnesses wilfully misunderstand

Christian language today. The New

Testament shows a far better con-

cern for human understanding than

this. Even as our Lord made Him-

self known to His contemporaries

in His messianic character only

gradually, lest misunderstandings

about its nature cause Him to be

accepted or rejected as the kind of

Messiah He was not, in the same

way He revealed His divine nature

by degrees and in terms that would

not lead to false conclusions.

First of all, He took the familiar

term "Son,” and by its use related

Himself to God in a unique way.

"No one knows the Son except the

Father, and no one knows the

Father except the Son and any one

to whom the Son chooses to reveal
him” (Matt. 11:27). Now, it is

true, "son of God” was a title that

any devout Jew could use of him-

self (as in Hosea 2:1, see also

Romans 9:26). It was also a title

used of the messianic king (as in 2

Samuel 7:14, Psalm 2:7). But it

should be evident that Christ was

saying more of Himself than that

He was the Son of God in these
senses. For He claims to be the
only Person Who really knows the
Father, and that only through Him-

self can anyone else come to a true

knowledge of the Father. This im-

plies a unity of life between Him-

self and the Father that is shared by

no other. Furthermore, what is per-

haps even more important, no one

19



knows the Son, Christ, except the

Father. Only the divine knowledge

itself can penetrate the mystery of

the personality of Christ. There is

obviously a relationship here that

is outside the realm of that of

Creator and creature. It is an equal

knowledge shared equally between

the Son and the Father. When we
remember that "knowledge” to the

Semite did not mean something

merely intellectual, but implied a

community of life, we have a fuller

comprehension of our Lord’s words.

Equal To God

Similarly, Christ did not make

the bald statement, "I am equal to

God,” or, "I am equal to the

Father.” To a Jew, this could only

have signified another God, for in

his mentality, something equal to

another had at the same time to

be something numerically different

from it. What Christ did was to

make the equivalent claim, in en-

tirely different words. "I do the

works of the Father,” He said (John

10:37). This was language a Jew

could understand. For again, Jesus

was not saying merely that He was

doing the work of God in a way

that any devout person can do it.

He was claiming a community of

activity with His Father that was

entirely unique. "My Father is
working still, and I am working”

(John 5:17). Note John’s comment

in the following verse—that despite

the caution with which our Lord

had introduced this claim, "This

was why the Jews sought all the

more to kill him, because he not

only broke the Sabbath but also

called God his Father, making him-

self equal with God.” The Jews had

grasped the essence of His claim to

divinity, though they had drawn

an erroneous conclusion from it as

regards monotheism. It is for the

same purpose that He made the

many protestations that the Son

was only doing the will of the

Father, and so forth (John 5:30,

etc.) — not to subordinate Himself
to the Father but to insist that His

activity and the Father’s were one.

The oneness of the Holy Spirit

with the Father and Son is similarly

brought out in such passages as

John 16:13.

It was in such ways that the

doctrine of the Trinity of Persons

in one God was first revealed. It

was, mainly, in such language that

the doctrine was communicated by

the writers of the New Testament.
However, these writers also record

the doctrine in more emphatic

language. After the resurrection of

Christ the fulness of His meaning

became much more evident. After

the resurrection Thomas the Apostle

greeted Christ with the most ex-

plicit act of faith in the Gospels,

employing the two divine titles,

"My Lord and my God!” (John
20:28). After the resurrection the

Christian Church, in the great

hymn found in Philippians 2:5-11,

acknowledged that the Jesus Who
had appeared among men in human

form had first "emptied himself”

of the divine prerogatives He owned

by right and had returned to the

throne of God the triumphant

bearer of the divine title "Lord.”

After the resurrection the Evan-

gelist John composed the magni-

ficent prologue to his Gospel, in

20



which he names Christ the Word

of God Who from eternity was
with God and was God.

The christological heresy of the

Witnesses resembles more than any

other that of the Arians of the

fourth century. They admit that

Christ was, at least before His com-

ing on earth and after His resurrec-

tion, something more than man.

They call Him a "spirit person,” a

non-Biblical term that they have

invented. They say He was "a god,”

but not God Himself. They claim

that this is not to deny monothe-

ism—the thing our Lord was so

concerned not to do— since the
Scripture also speaks of others as

"gods.” They -have worked out

some rules of Greek usage un-

known to the authors of the New
Testament in order to justify these

conclusions.

Greek Usage

It is in obedience to these rules

of Greek usage that they first of

all deny that the explicit affirma-

tion of Thomas is an affirmation

at all. It is, they say, simply an

emotional ejaculation, in which

Thomas was not actually referring

to Christ. Why so? Because what
Thomas is reported as saying is

ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou—
"My Lord and my God.” Ho theos,
that is, the word "God” with the

Greek article, is used only of God

in the true sense. The word theos

only, without the article, means

only "a god,” and this word can be

used of Christ to mean something

less than God. They point to John’s

prologue, in which he says "the

Word was with God” (pros ton
theon—the word "God” with the

article), and then "the Word was

a god” (theos).

Does this really work out in prac-

tice? Let us take only a single page

from the "New World Translation

of the Christian Greek Scriptures”

in order to show that it does not.

This page includes the ending of

Paul’s letter to the Romans and the

beginning of the First to the Corin-

thians, that is, Romans 16:21-27

and 1 Corinthians 1:1-2. On this

page the word "God” appears four

times—"the everlasting God,” "to

God wise alone,” "through God’s

will,” "the congregation of God.”

Note that in each case the Wit-

nesses have translated "God” with

a capital "G.” Yet in the Greek

text only the first and last theos

has an article. Why not "to an only
wise god” and "through the will

of a god”? It seems that when no

doctrinal issue is involved, the Wit-

nesses’ rule becomes very elastic.

As a matter of fact, the Greek

does* ordinarily use the article with

"God,” just as it does with the

proper names and a great number

of other words that are used in

English without an article. It is

not proper to translate "the” in

these cases, or to translate "a” or

"an” when the article is omitted,

simply because usage differs be-

tween the two languages. The

article is a determiner. Also, as we

have shown, the article can some-

times be omitted without chang-

ing the meaning.

Why does John say that "the
Word was with God,” employing

the article, and also "the Word was

God,” omitting the article? For two

reasons, the first being purely gram-

21



matical. When one gives a little
thought to the subject, one realizes

that the same word "was” in these

two statements actually means two

different things. In the first instance

it indicates a condition, a relation-

ship: the Word stands in some kind

of relation to Someone else, to God.

In the second instance it is merely

the equivalent of an equal sign:

Word and God refer to the same

Person. Now this second kind of
use of the verb "to be” involves a

subject to which another word is

placed as its predicate, the two

being the same. In Greek the sub-

ject has the article, while the predi-

cate does not. In English we know

the two by position rather than by

the use of an article. Thus we

translate "the Word (subject) was

God (predicate),” not "God was

the Word.” In John 4:24 our Lord

says to the Samaritan woman, "God

is spirit.” Now the Greek here,
actually, is pneuma (spirit) ho theos

(God)—in that order. Still, it is not

correct to translate, "The Spirit is

God,” because the article shows that

"God” is the subject and the lack

of the article shows that "spirit” is

the predicate. Note, too, that no

verb "to be” occurs here at all, as

often is the case in Greek: the

"equal sign” is just omitted.

The other reason that John does

not use the article in saying that

"the Word was God” is theological.

Actually, it would be very poor

Trinitarian theology for him to

have done so. Ordinarily, as we

stated above, the article is used with

proper names as a determiner. John

has placed the Word in relation to

God as a determined Person. But

at the same time he affirms that

the Word is God. Obviously the

Word is not the determined Person

with Whom He stands in relation—
He is a different Person altogether.

It would have been to court confu-

sion, therefore, to repeat the article.

There is no objection whatever

to translating, as some modern ver-

sions do, something like "the Word

was divine,” as long as this is not

falsely construed as signifying some-

thing less than "God.” Throughout

the entire New Testament, how-
ever, there is not the slightest shred

of evidence for holding that any

New Testament author means any-
thing but "God” when he uses the

word theos in relation to the mono-

theistic religion in which he be-

lieved. The Greek word, of course,

is like our own: we can also speak

of false "gods” or a false "god,”

using the same word that we use

for the true God. In 1 Corinthians

8:5 and Galatians- 4:8, Paul uses

the term for such as are falsely

called "gods.” In the same sense, he

speaks of "the god of this world”

(2 Cor. 4:4), even as our Lord

speaks of "the prince of this world”

(John 12:21). But whenever a New

Testament author refers the word

theos to the one, true God of his

faith, he can only mean "God.”

But does not Christ Himself use

such language, and justify His use

of it from the Scripture? In John

10:31-39 we read: "The Jews took

up stones again to stone him. Jesus

answered them, 'I have shown you

many good works from the Father;

for which of these do you stone

me?’ The Jews answered him, We
stone you for no good work but for

22



blasphemy; because you, being a

man, make yourself God.’ Jesus

answered them, 'Is it not written

in your law: I said, you are gods?

If he then called them gods to

whom the word of God came (and

Scripture cannot be broken), do

you say of him whom the Father

consecrated and sent into the world:

'You are blaspheming, because I

said: I am the Son of God? If I am

not doing the works of my Father,

then do not believe me; but if I do

them, even though you do not be-

lieve me, believe the works, that

you may know and understand that

the Father is in me and I am in the

Father.’ Again they tried to arrest

him, but he escaped from their

hands.”

Here Jesus does not take back a

single word of His claims that had

provoked His enemies to the charge

of blasphemy, as their reaction

proves. What He does only is ask

them to think, referring them to

Psalm 82 where a divine title

(translated "gods” in the LXX used
here by John) was employed of

human judges. If such a title could

be used in one sense in the Scrip-

ture, asks Jesus, could not another

sense be readily applicable to Him-

self? Or does His suggestion of

His divinity rule out, as they think,

the monotheistic idea of God?

The Hebrew word used in Psalm

82 is elohim. This word, which is

used of the one true God through-

out the Old Testament, is as flexi-

ble as the Greek theos or the Eng-

lish "god.” It could also mean much

more. Sometimes it was used for

angels. In 1 Samuel 28:13 it is

even used for the spirit of Samuel

called up by the witch of Endor.

Also it was used for pagan deities.

The very ambiguity of the word

serves as a basis for our Lord’s argu-

ment— which might be a lesson

for the Witnesses to take to heart:

"What’s in a name?” What is im-

portant is the meaning that words

have in context, , not what they are

made to mean. There is no doubt

what John the Evangelist meant

when he said, "The Word was God.”

For this Word, this utterance of

the Father, already, before all crea-

tion and from all eternity, was with

God. He became flesh, but already

in the beginning He was. It would

require the passing of centuries be-

fore the precise theological lan-

guage of Christian Trinitarian

doctrine would be worked out,

language thatwould learn from here-

sies like the collection enshrined in

Witness literature what errors to

avoid as well as from the thinking

of devout Christian men. As the

Protestant Biblical scholar William

Sanday once wrote: "The decisions

in question were the outcome of a

long evolution, every step in which

was keenly debated by minds of

great acumen and power, really far

better equipped for such discussion

than the average Anglo-American

mind of today.” They produced the

Christian theology that characterizes

orthodox Christianity. But they be-

gan where we begin, with John’s

affirmation of the truth:

"In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God, and

the Word was God...”

23



The Witnesses

And The Bible

In 1950 the Witnesses pub-

lished the "New World

Translation of the Christian

Greek Scriptures,” rendered

from the original language

by the New World Bible
Translation Committee. In

I960 they published the

final volume (Volume 5) of

the "New World Transla-

tion of the Hebrew Scrip-

tures.” Subsequently a single-vol-

ume edition of the complete Bible

in this translation has appeared. The

publications are well printed and

excellently got out, and are mar-

keted at an incredibly low price.

They are, as a matter of fact, addi-

tional cases in point of what we

mentioned earlier regarding the

zeal of these people which deserves

a better cause than it serves.

The Witnesses’ translation is the

culmination of an increasing inter-

est that they have taken in the many

versions of the Scripture that are

available today. It is not unusual

for one of the Witnesses publica-

tions to cite as many as ten or more

different translations. Moreover, for

a number of years they have been

making a point of appealing to the

original texts of the Scriptures, at

least to the standard editions of

these texts. All of this is

something of a switch from

the origins of the Witnesses

in Pastor Russell’s medita-

tions over the King James

Bible.

From what we have

brought out above, the ma-

jor reason for the Witnesses’

making their own transla-

tion of the Bible is not hard

to find. No sect has ever been able
to resist the temptation to vindicate

its teachings as close to their alleged

source as possible. Private judgment

in interpretation will carry one a

long way, and the claim of mis-

translation will solve other difficul-

ties. But what better thing than for

a religion based on the Bible to have

its own Bible to prove it? And, as it

happens, there are countless in-

stances in the Witnesses’ Bible

where the sacred text has been thor-

oughly tailored to fit the Witnesses’

measurements. We have brought out
some of the instances above.

In general, it must be said that

where there are no sectarian issues

at stake, the Witnesses’ translation

maintains a reasonably high stand-

ard of journeyman scholarship. The

work has been done by those who

have studied their grammars and

24



dictionaries. There is an excellent

system of cross-referencing of texts.

The "critical” footnotes are volumi-

nous, even though mainly worthless

and irrelevant, as are the appendices.

A translation made for crank pur-
poses, however, will inevitably turn

up with eccentricities that really

have nothing to do with its main

purpose. It is simply that eccentric-

ity breeds a way of thought. Any-

one who reads very far in the trans-

lation of the Old Testament, for

example, will soon be bewildered

by the strange way the verb tenses

come one after another and by the

equally strange way that verbs tend

at times to be modified by words

that contribute little or nothing to

meaning. If he bothers to read the

Foreword he will get the explana-

tion of this. The translators have

discarded the generally accepted

rules of Hebrew syntax on the verb

and have followed another isolated

view that has never commended

itself to many scholars.

The Cross

Certain bizarre translations turn

up that obviously mean a great deal

to the translators but which could

not matter very much to anyone

else. As an example, we might
take the translation given in the

New Testament to the Greek word
stauros, "cross.” This word did, it is

true, refer principally to the instru-

ment of execution used by the Rom-

ans, without necessarily involving

the form that the instrument took.

It seems to be equally true, how-

ever, that the form was customarily

that of a cross as we know it, that is,
of an upright together with a cross-

bar of some kind. This was the form

in which the cross as a symbol was

adopted by the early Christians, who

were at that time close enough to

the practice of crucifixion to know

what would have been the most

likely instrument used in the case of

our Lord’s suffering and death. At

the same time, it obviously doesn’t

matter one bit whether Christ was

crucified on a single upright stake

or one with a crossbar. The fact that

Christian tradition has varied from

East to West and back again in rep-

resenting the cross in different

forms shows how secondary the

whole question is. The cross is for

us a symbol, merely that, to remind

us of a great event that took place,

and not necessarily a photographic

description of it. In any case, the

words "cross” and "crucifixion”

have a meaning for everybody that

commits nobody to any decision as

to whether Christ was put to death

on a Latin or Greek or Tau cross.

For the Witnesses to insist on using

the word "torture stake” for this

instrument, and to substitute the

word "impale” for "crucify,” adds

up merely to another of the oddities

of this Bible translation.

This matter of terminology is,

however, another mark of cultist re-

ligion, which generally aims at a

private vocabulary that substitutes

for conventional language. Anyone

who reads much of the Witnesses’

literature speedily discovers this.Not

only does he run across terms like

"spirit person,” "Bride class,” "sanc-

tuary class,” and the like, terms that

have their home only among the

initiates of the sect, but also con-

ventional words, like "religion,” to

25



which special meanings have been

attached. "Religion,” in Witness

terminology, is a bad word which is

used to designate any organized or

unorganized, visible or invisible

church or other religious (since we

can’t avoid the word here) move-

ment or body or influence that is

not Jehovah’s Witnesses. As we

have seen above, the fixation on

the name of "Jehovah” is another

manifestation of cultist religion.

The Watchtower

It is not the Witnesses’ transla-

tion of the Bible that is so impor-

tant, of course, as the use, or rather,

the misuse that they have made of

it. Aside from its obvious doctrinal

biases reflected in translation, the

"New World” version of the Scrip-

tures might very well have been

welcomed as another effort to put

the word of God into modern dress

and have stood the test of impar-

tial examination. It is the sect that

lies behind the translation that has

spoiled any chance of that.

The various publications which

the Witnesses have issued on the

Bible are somewhat like the Watch-

tower itself—there is apt to be a

great deal of material that is harm-

less, some occasional information

that is actually helpful and profit-

able, and still more that is either

merely nonsense or actually perni-

cious. In the first category one

might put their oft-repeated polemic

against the use of the terms "New

Testament” and "Old Testament.”

Everyone will agree, presumably,

that these terms are not entirely ac-

curate. However, they refer to rec-

ognizable literary units, and the

Witnesses will never succeed in get-

ting anyone to substitute for them

"Christian Greek Scriptures” and

"Hebrew Scriptures” or, for that

matter, in getting many people to

think the point important enough

to bother about. In the second cate-

gory one might class much of what

the Witnesses have written on the

history of the Biblical text and the

various manuscript evidence. Here

they have usually depended on schol-

arship that, if second-hand, is at

least solid.

The Witnesses represent the most

primitive kind of Fundamentalism,

with all its inconsistencies and dis-

service to the rational service of

God. Their frequent citation of re-

cent scholarly opinions and litera-

ture, their whole approach to schol-

arship itself, is only for providing

grist for their private mills. The

same critics who will be eagerly

quoted when it is a question of sup-

porting, or seeming to support, some

peculiarity of the Witness creed,

will be mercilessly ridiculed or stu-

diously ignored in any other matter.

It is difficult to ascertain which has

an uglier sound for a Witness:

"higher critic” or "Roman hierar-

chy.” The real problems of Biblical

translation or criticism, involving

distinctions of authorship or of

sources or the like, are simply ig-

nored. Any other genuine contribu-

tion of science which conflicts with

the fundamentalistic creed is sim-

ilarly ignored or ridiculed. Absolute

and demonstrable untruths, such as

the claim that geology has con-

firmed a six-day creation of the

world, are frequently made. The

poor critics are dredged up from

the depths and quoted with approval

26



even for their most extreme opin-

ions when it is a question of analyz-

ing the "apocrypha,” only to be

abused again when they dare to

venture opinions on the other books

of the Bible. The Biblical chronol-

ogy of events and books which ap-

pears frequently in Witness pub-

lications is a masterpiece of the

incredible.

All the above is mainly the gen-

eral fundamentalist tradition, which

does not differentiate the Witnesses

much from other groups of similar

religious background. The book en-

titled "Equipped for Every Good

Work” is a good encyclopedia of

their understanding of the Bible, an

amazing mixture of factual informa-

tion with a childish conception of

history, and irrelevant and crude

polemics. No educated Protestant
or Catholic would be much affected

by any of it.

Biblical Authors

One interesting sidelight, in view

of the Witnesses’ having made their

own translation, is their notion of

Biblical authorship, which is ex-

treme even for the fundamentalistic

mind. The human authors, in their

teachings, were simply the scribes

or amanuenses of God, the only true

Author of the Bible. To the extent

that their own translators have had

to wrestle with the very obvious

marks of human authorship in the

pages of which men were co-authors

with God, they must certainly know

that such a conception of Biblical

inspiration is impossible. However,

we can leave the Witnesses’ trans-

lators to wrestle with that affirma-

tion in their own conscience.

Jehovah’s Witnesses began, first

and foremost, as an Adventist sect,

which is to say that it began from a

misunderstanding of the very mean-

ing of Biblical revelation and proph-

ecy. In every generation known to

man there have been those like Pas-

tor Russell and Judge Rutherford,

who have interpreted the Bible as a

great code-book which reveals a de-

tailed blueprint of the future lead-

ing up, by the merest coincidence,

just to the present time. The Wit-

nesses have followed faithfully in

the footsteps of their founders, and

it is not surprising that we find

much, if not most, of their literature

devoted to detailed explanations of

where in the Books of Daniel and

Revelation we may find specific ref-

erence made to the League of Na-

tions, the First and Second World

Wars, the United Nations, and the

World Council of Churches. There

does not seem to be very much that

can be said about all this. As we

indicated before, the ability to swal-

low such an interpretation of the

Bible—let alone the great Pyramid-

carries with it the ability to survive

such trivial setbacks as the systematic

failure of the prophets when they

have ventured out of the safe past

and into the uncertain future. "Mil-

lions now living will never die,”

said the Witnesses as they emerged

into this world. "Millions now liv-

ing will never die,” they say today.

And "millions now living will never

die” they will doubtless be saying

after the millions are all dead, should

they remain with us that long. And

doubtless they will still have their

faithful following.

The Witnesses lean very heavily

on the apocalyptic literature of the

27



Bible, that maze of lush imagery and

symbolism which, unfortunately, as

the Baptist Biblical scholar C. H.

Dodd has written, has become "the

licensed playground of every crank.”

It is from the Book of Revelation

that they have extracted another of

the venerable old heresies of primi-

tive Christianity, that of Millenari-

anism—the belief in a literal thou-

sand-year reign of the saints on

earth. It is from the same Book of

Revelation that they have been able

to determine the precise population

of heaven: the symbolic 144,000 of

Revelation 7:4, the four-square

number of the symbolic twelve

tribes of Israel with which the Bib-

lical author peopled the four-square

heavenly Jerusalem (21:9-21).

Here there is little point in going

further into this fundamental error

of the Witnesses in their approach

to Revelation. To those interested

in pursuing the matter in more de-

tail, for an authentic understanding

of the meaning of this book, we can

recommend our pamphlet no. 51,

"Revelation: Divine Message of

Hope.”

With this, therefore, we take

leave of Jehovah’s Witnesses, re-

peating the statements with which

we began. If our judgments have

sounded harsh, we insist that we

have intended no ridicule for hon-

estly held beliefs as such. Sincerity

in belief is an admirable quality.

Respect for sincerity, however, may

not ever blind us to the duty of serv-

ice to the truth, and of the defense

of our own cherished heritage. We
have addressed ourselves far less to

the Witnesses themselves than to

those who have been and will con-

tinue to be the targets of their prop-

agandizing. If we have helped any

of these to see their way the clearer

through the intricacies of this prop-

aganda, we shall be most grateful for

this opportunity to serve the cause

of the God of truth—whose name

is not "Jehovah.”

Fundamentalism

The fundamentalists are funny enough, and the funniest thing

about them is their name. For, whatever else the fundamentalist

is, he is not fundamental. He is content with the bare letter of

Scripture—the translation of a translation, coming down to him

by the tradition of a tradition—without venturing to ask for its

original authority.

G. K. Chesterton: All is Grist. (20th cent.)

28



'i-3'5 5 2 U\
KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS - RELIGIOUS INFORMATION BUREAU

3473 South Grand Ave., St. Louis, Mo. 63118

List of pamphlets available at above address. One title may be requested at a time free of charge. Several

titles, complete sets, and quantities of individual pamphlets may be ordered at 7<f. for each pamphlet,

plus 10% of total pamphlet cost for postage and handling. Payment must accompany all orders under $1.00.

1. The Catholic Church is Reasonable

3. The Bible is a Catholic Book

5. Christ’s Seven Sacraments

6. The Holy Sacrifice — the Catholic
Mass

7. Why the Catholic Church says 'Inves-
tigate” — Masons, Inquisition, Nuns

8. Speaking of Tolerance — Controver-
sial periods in history

9. These Men They Call "Knights”
10. Why Catholics Believe As They Do

— Existence of God, Immortality
11. A Short Story of the Popes
12. Let’s Stick to Moses — Ten Com-

mandments explained

13. But Can It Be Found in the Bible? —

Bible not sole rule of faith

14. What Happens After Death?

15. Yes ... I Condemned The Catholic

Church

16. What Do You Mean "Only One True
Church”?

17. But How Can Educated People Be
Catholics?

18. No . . . Belief in God is not Enough!
19. The Real Secret of Successful Mar-

riage

20. The Way to Everlasting Life . . . The
Catholic Church

21. Is the Catholic Church a Menace to

Democracy?

22. But Do You Really Understand the
Bible? — Rules for understanding

23. A Letter to Our Non-Catholic Neigh-
bors — Aspects of Catholic faith

24. Yes, the Mother of God Will Help
You!

25. What Makes a Woman Choose Such
a Life? — Life of a Catholic Nun

26. I’ll Tell You Why I Am a Catholic
27. They Found The Way — Convert

Stories

28. Let Us Judge Catholics by the Bible
— Prayer to Saints, unmarried priests

29. But Would Christ Call You A Chris-
tian?

30. But Do You Understand What God
Told Us? — Apostles' Creed

31. Should Children Learn About God-
in School?

32. The Bible Is Not Our Sole Guide
33. This Was the Faith of Our Fathers
34. These Are Our Seven Deadly Enemies

— Seven capital sins explained
35. Let’s Test Catholic Loyalty — A Good

Catholic is a good citizen

36. Remember the Sabbath . . . Keep It
Holy — The "Sabbath Question”

37. I Am a Catholic Priest
38. But Why the Candles, Holy Water

and Beads ? — Sacramentals
39- The Reformation. Was It Reform or

Revolt?

40. Why I Had to Embrace the Catholic
Faith — Convert stories

41. Yes, Miracles Happened at Fatima

42. Does the Bible Contradict Itself? —
Peter the Rock, Faith and/or Works

43. I Was Warned About the Catholic
Church ! — Religious Liberty

44. Why a Woman Needs the Catholic
Faith!

45. The Early Years of the Catholic

Church — First three centuries
46. Yes ... A Priest Can Forgive Your

Sins — Sacrament of Penance
47. But Why Don’t You Pray to the

Saints? — Communion of Saints
48. God’s , Story of Creation — Genesis
49- Is the Catholic Church Out of Place

Here? — Catholicism and Loyalty
50. This Is the Catholic Church — Creed,

Sacraments, Mass, Commandments

51. Revelation ... A Divine Message of
Hope — Revelations or Apocalypse

52. Does It Pay to be a Catholic? — How
to be a Catholic

53. Think About Death and Start to Live

— Catholic attitude toward death
54. What Do You Find Wrong With

the Catholic Church?

55. His Name Shall Be Called God With
Us — Divinity of Christ

56. The Infallible Church, Truth or Trick-

ery? — Church of the Scriptures
57. Tell Us About God . . . Who Is He?

Existence and nature of God
58. The Word Was Made Flesh-

Humanity of Christ

59. Let Us Pray—Prayer

60. Gift of the Holy Spirit—Confirmation

61. The Church Says — Precepts of The
Church

62. "Upon this Rock . .
.”

63. "Come, Follow Me”

64. The Problem of Evil

65. The Year of the Church

66. The Holy Eucharist: Sacrament And

Sacrifice

67. The Catholic Religion And America

68. Some Bible Beliefs Have To Be

Wrong!



Learn All About

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

By Mail . . . At No Cost!

You can easily investigate Catholic faith and worship

in the privacy of your home.

Just send us your name and address and advise that

you desire to learn about the Church by mail.

We will send you an interesting course of instruc-
tion which is short, yet complete.

The book explaining Catholic faith and worship is

written in an easy-to-understand form, and there are

six test sheets to be checked. There is no writing to

do, and nobody will call on you unless you request it.

You merely mail your marked test sheets to us. We
correct them and return them to you. This enables

you to determine how well you understand the book

and on what points further explanation by mail may

help you.

There is no cost to you, no obligation.

Write today to:

Supreme Council

KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS
Religious Information Bureau

3473 SOUTH GRAND AVE.
ST. LOUIS, MO. 63118

Printed with Ecclesiastical Approval

St. Louis, June 19, 1963

Published in United States of America

1st Printing, October, 1963