Jehovah's Witnesses

by Robert M. Bowman Jr.

• ISBN13: 9780310704119
• ISBN10: 0310704111
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2016-09-06
• Publisher: HarperCollins Christian

Summary

This volume of the Zondervan Guide to Cults and Religious Movements sheds new light on the intrigue of the Jehovah's Witness movement.

Table of Contents

How to Use This Book	p. 7
Preface	p. 8
Introduction	p. 9
Theology	p. 17
Witnessing Tips	p. 71
Selected Bibliography	p. 77
Parallel Comparison Chart	p. 8
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Jehovah’s Witness
Copyright 1995 by Robert M. Bowman, Jr.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bowman, Robert M.
Jehovah’s Witness / Robert M. Bowman, Jr., author.
p. cm.—(Zondervan guide to cults and religious movements)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-310-70411-1 (pbk.)
1. Jehovah’s Witnesses—Controversial literature. I. Title. II. Series.
BX8526.5.B68 1995
289.9'2—dc20 94-21939
CIP
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New
International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy,
recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Edited by Patti Picardi
Interior design by Art Jacobs
Printed in the United States of America
96 97 98 99 00 /?DP/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Part I:
Introduction
I. Historical Background
A. “Pastor” Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916)
1. An Evangelical Turned Skeptic (1852–68)
a. C. T. Russell was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
b. Russell attended Presbyterian and Congregational churches as a
child.
c. By the time Russell was sixteen years old he had become a skeptic,
primarily because he was unable to accept the doctrine of hell.
d. Russell founded the religion now known as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
2. Adventist Period (1869–78)
a. Adventism in Russell’s day
(1) William Miller predicted that the return (“advent”) of Christ
would occur in 1843. When this did not happen, he changed
the predicted date to 1844. When Christ failed to return in
1844, some of Miller’s followers believed that Christ had done
something crucial in 1844 but had done it invisibly in heaven.
(2) Some Adventists went on to form the Seventh-day Adventist
(SDA) denomination.
(3) Most Adventists, like the SDAs today, rejected the doctrine of
eternal punishment. They taught instead that hell was really
just another word for the grave, and that death is the annihilation
of the person.
(4) Some Adventists in Russell’s day also denied the Christian doctrines
of Christ’s divinity and the Trinity.
b. Russell’s Adventist associations
(1) Jonas Wendell (1869–75)
In 1869 Russell attended a lecture on hell given by Advent
Christian Church leader Jonas Wendell. Relieved that there
was no eternal punishment, Russell’s faith in the Bible was restored.
At eighteen he formed a Bible study group whose
members, known as “Bible Students,” soon came to call him
“Pastor.”
(2) Nelson H. Barbour (1876–79)
Barbour helped convince Russell that what Christians usually
called Christ’s second coming was actually a second, but invisible
and spiritual, presence that had already begun in 1874.
The two men collaborated on a book entitled Three Worlds, or
Plan of Redemption, which made their prophetic theories public.
In early 1879 Russell and Barbour parted over doctrinal differences,
one of which was Barbour’s failed speculation that the
church would go to heaven in April 1878.4 Thereafter Russell
distanced himself from the Adventists.
3. The Watch Tower (1879–1916)
a. In 1879 Russell launched his own work with the publication of the
first issue of Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence.
(1) The magazine focused on the teaching that Christ was already
present and had been since 1874.
(2) Russell taught that Christ’s “presence” would climax in 1914
with God’s judgment on all human nations (the end of the
“Gentile times”) and the establishment of the kingdom of God.
b. In the 1880s Russell established the Watch Tower Bible and Tract
Society of Pennsylvania and the Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society of New York. The latter corporation, based in Brooklyn, is
the international headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
c. Russell died in 1916, believing that the “Gentile times” had ended
in 1914 and that World War I was Armageddon.
B. “Judge” Joseph F. Rutherford (1869–1942)
1. Transition to Power (1916–19)
a. After Russell’s death a brief period of confusion followed as various
factions struggled for control of the Society.
b. Rutherford, who had been the Watchtower’s legal counselor since
1907, was elected the second president of the Society.
c. Rutherford immediately consolidated his control of the organization
and forced out several prominent leaders of the Bible
Students.
d. At least two major splinter sects were formed as a result: the
Layman’s Home Missionary Movement and the Dawn Bible
Students Association (see Part I, Section III, D.2 below).
e. The Bible Students had speculated that Armageddon would end by
1918. Although World War I did end in 1918, it proved not to be
Armageddon.
2. From Bible Students to Jehovah’s Witnesses (1919–42)
a. In 1931 Rutherford adopted the name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” for
the organization.
b. In 1939 the Society changed the name of its flagship publication
from Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence to The
Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom.
c. These name changes reflected several developments. Most significantly,
it reflected the Society’s abandonment of most of Russell’s
chronology.
(1) The Society was forced to reckon with the fact that World War
I had failed to be Armageddon. They had no choice but to quietly
abandon Russell’s teaching that Christ’s “presence” had become
a reality in 1874.
(2) Instead, the Society began teaching that Christ’s presence was
a period of time beginning, rather than ending, in 1914.
(3) The Society made this change only after every effort to extend
the chronology beyond 1914 had failed (the most notable
being Rutherford’s claim that 1925 would mark the final date
for worldly powers and the resurrection from the dead of
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others).
C. Nathan Knorr (1905–77)
1. From Personality Cult to Institutional Religion
a. Knorr succeeded Rutherford as president of the Watchtower
Society in 1942.
b. The leadership of the Society was placed into the hands of a board
known as the Governing Body.
c. The Society now published its books anonymously (previously the
books had carried either Russell’s or Rutherford’s name).
2. Training and Tools
a. Under Knorr’s leadership the Witnesses were equipped with much
more sophisticated Bible study tools.
(1) The main tool was their own translation of the Bible, the New
World Translation (NWT). Jehovah’

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Excerpted from Zond Gde Cults Jehovahs Witness by Robert M. Bowman, Robert M. Bowman
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