Tragically then, because JW doctrine derives from a devious Bible translation, denies the God of the Bible, the deity of Christ, and the biblical resurrection of Christ, it denies any possibility of salvation through Christ. It is a false gospel and damnable system through which no one can be forgiven of sin, right before God, and go to heaven. Thankfully, however, the JW Christ is a mere myth.

Last week we featured an article entitled, Why I Am Not A Mormon. Some of our readers requested a similar article on Jehovah’s Witnesses. Today’s article is in response to that.

If you were to ask me why I am not a Jehovah’s Witness, though there are many reasons, these would be the top three:

1. JW teaching is derived from a misleading translation of the Bible. 

Jehovah’s Witnesses ascribe to the Bible as their sacred text for faith and practice. However, only one translation, the Watchtower Society’s New World Translation (NWT), is encouraged for JW use. Since it’s inception in 1961, the NWT has undergone a few revisions.

JW’s also rely heavily upon a few other works produced by the Watchtower Society for beliefs and doctrinal dissemination.

The Watchtower is a periodical featured in over 200 languages, with 53 million copies printed monthly, started by JW founder, Charles Taze Russell, in 1879. The periodical’s purpose is to show “the significance of world events in the light of Bible prophecies” and “it comforts people with the good news of God’s Kingdom and promotes faith in Jesus Christ.”

Awake! is the other JW periodical, also with some 50 million printed monthly in over 100 languages. It “shows us how to cope with today’s problems and builds confidence in the Creator’s promise of a peaceful and secure new world.”

Another heavily relied upon work is a book calledReasoning from the Scriptures, which lists out the Watchtower Society’s answers to various Bible questions and is often used as a training manual for converts and proselytizing.

Though the Watchtower, Awake!, and Reasoning from the Scriptures are not said to be canonical, they often function that way. JW’s are often systematically, and rigorously (some JW’s talk of going from knowing nothing of the Bible to knowing much in a few week’s time), catechized from these works. Former JW’s will tell you that they are discouraged from studying anything but the NWT and the Watchtower Society writings.

One can read the NWT, Awake!, and the Watchtower in everything from English to Chinese to Malay to Zulu.

Despite its multiple editions, the NWT contains many alarming translation errors, making it unreliable at best. Four errors are briefly considered here, comparing the English Standard Version (ESV) with the NWT:

1) John 1:1.

ESV: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

NWT: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.”

The NWT commits a serious error here by inserting the indefinite article, “a,” to render the phrase, “a god.” The rationalization is that the indefinite article is absent in the original. However, as Daniel Wallace points out, there are 282 occurrences of the word “God” in the NT without the definite article yet only 6% of the time do they translate it indefinite (a god, etc.). And if we follow their translation principle consistently, for example, then “the beginning” should be “a beginning,” life should be “a life,” and John should be “a John” in 1:6 (Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 267). Also, the Greek grammatical rule, “Colwell’s Rule,” applied to this verse leans in favor of the definiteness. Finally, we see that God knows what he is doing with his word in that this particular Greek construction, without the definite article, demonstrates that Christ/the Word is God, but God the Father is not Christ/the Word.

We can conclude with the late, competent exegete, Charles Feinberg, when he said, “I can assure you that the rendering which the Jehovah’s Witnesses give John 1:1 is not held by any reputable Greek scholar” (Rhodes, 99).

2) Colossians 1:16-17.

ESV: “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

NWT:  “because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All other things have been created through him and for him. Also, he is before all other things, and by means of him all other things were made to exist.” (bold added)

The NWT inserts the word, “other,” four times in the English, yet the Greek word does not appear once in the original. Why is this significant? Since JW teaching asserts that Christ was created, they must insert the word to maintain that he created the “other things,” as he himself is one of the created things.

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