A Letter From a Jehovah Witness

Many people have been receiving letters from Jehovah's Witnesses in the area. While some are addressed to "occupant," others are more personal and use the homeowner's correct name. Most of the one's I have seen have proven to be innocuous on the surface. The opening paragraph in the letter we received stated: "I am writing to you, to share a comforting message with you and also to extend a wonderful invitation to a free Bible study."

What could possibly be wrong with that? We make the same offer, do we not? Yes, but when we study with others, we actually use the Bible; Jehovah's Witnesses use The New World Translation, which is not a genuine translation by scholars whose credentials can be verified. They won't divulge the names of the five men who assembled it, although it was revealed in a court case in England.

They say the "translators" wanted to keep their identities secret so as to give God the glory. That's not true; they have tried to hide their names so that people would not find out that the men who did the work on it were not qualified to translate. They had no Hebrew background and very little knowledge of the Greek.

Several examples could be cited as bad or wrong renderings, but one will suffice. In John 8:58, Jehovah's Witnesses set forth these words:

Jesus said to them: "Most truly I say to you, before Abraham came into existence I have been."

Jesus did not say, "I have been." What He said was, "I AM." The Greek verb is in the present tense, and it is so translated by the following translations: KJV, NKJV, ASV, NAS, RSV, ESV, NIV, CSB, LSB, NET, YLT, DBY, WEB, HNV, and Jerome's Vulgate, which has ego sum, (present tense), which, as in the Greek is correctly rendered, "I am."

So, why would Jehovah's Witnesses translate the Greek words as, "I have been," which disagrees with literally every major translation—and the Greek language itself? They do not do so for any grammatical reason; rather it is a theological one: they do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, as Peter and others confessed (Matt. 16:16; John 1:34, 49).

In Matthew 26:63, the high priest said to Jesus: "I put you under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God." Our Lord did not answer according to Jehovah's Witness theology. Instead, He said, "It is as you say." He added that they would see the Son of Man (Jesus was both the Son of God and the Son of Man) "sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven" (v. 64). Jesus never denied His Deity; in fact, He often affirmed it. His pronouncement, "I AM," means He is eternal.

At the close of his gospel account of Jesus' life, John makes it clear why he wrote—that "you may believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you might have life through His name" (John 20:31). Mark records early on that Jesus made the point that He is God when He forgave the paralytic of his sins. His enemies rightly said to themselves: "Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" (Mark 2:5, 7). Right! That is exactly the point Jesus was making—that He is God in the flesh and can forgive sins.

However, these are just a few of the passages that proclaim Jesus to be the (not a) Son of God. Not only is the translation of John 8:58 bad, it is dishonest. The Greek phrase does not mean, "I have been." Even they don't render the Greek phrase, ego eimi, "I have been" any other time it's used. It is purposefully inaccurate, which provides a sufficient reason to avoid using it. There are other verses also that they have wrested to make them say what they want them to.

Does this mean that the writer of the letter knows all these things? Not necessarily. Many Jehovah's Witnesses have no idea how dishonest their leaders have been with them. They may not even know of the dates they have set for the end of the world, which never came to pass. The Watchtower's followers only know what their leaders tell them. Unfortunately, they are trusting in human beings rather than the Word of God.

We don't mean the following sentence to sound like bragging; it is simply the truth. When we study with people, we study the Bible—not a system of doctrine composed by men. We look at the meaning of Bible verses, and they are not taken out of context. Our goal is to communicate to others only what the Scriptures teach. We did not invent our own doctrine; we simply teach what the Scriptures set forth.

The lady writing encourages us to turn to God and His Word, but then she adds: "I would like to invite you to visit our Website, JW.org, the official website of Jehovah's Witnesses, which offers "a free interactive Bible study…." We do not know how this offer works, but from past experience, when their beliefs are questioned, the study runs into trouble.

Two brethren knocked on the door of a Jehovah's Witness in training. He refused to discuss the Scriptures with us. We asked if he was aware of their second leader's, Judge Rutherford's, book, Millions Now Living Will Never Die, written in 1920. He said it was in the past, and it didn't matter. (One wonders if Israel said that about Moses' writing 800 years later.) He asserted that none of their past books could be quoted, since they had "grown," which proves they don't follow the Scriptures because the Bible does not change. The reason JWs change is that their teaching is not of God.