A Look At The Watchtower aka Jehovah’s Witnesses

A Look At The Watchtower aka Jehovah’s Witnesses March 25, 2020

 Introduction To The Watchtower

A couple weeks ago I was fortunate enough to interview popular apologist Gary Michuta.  Gary is a brilliant Catholic apologist, speaker, radio show host, and author.  He has a great deal of  experience in studying and debating the teachings of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.  We know them as Jehovah’s witnesses.

We discuss their origins, beliefs, and how we can get them thinking about the truths of the Catholic faith.  Gary also has a great cd set on the topic that is put out by Catholic Productions.  Listen to Gary’s daily radio program on Virgin Most Powerful Radio.  Also visit his website at handsonapologetics.com and garymichuta.com.

Origins Of The Sect

In Part one of the interview, which is available below, Gary goes into great detail on the origins of the Watchtower.  He details how it is a schism, of a schism, of a schism.  The lives of the early leadership are detailed along with the failed prophecies of the coming of Christ.  Details of how these prophecies were “recalculated” are discussed.

Example of Arianism

Perhaps the most popular example of modern day Arianism is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.  Just like the Arians of old they believe that Jesus was a created being.

Their official doctrinal position is that Jesus is the archangel Michael, and was the first created being.  According to the doctrinal manual “Jesus is the sole direct creation of God”.  In their view God created Christ, and Christ created everything else.

Evangelism is important to them and they knock on doors almost every day.  This is a very admirable trait, but their views Christ are heterodox.  Early councils hold views such as theirs in condemnation.

Faulty Translation

There are many translations of scripture available that are faithful to the original biblical languages.  However, the Watchtower, uses a translation known as the New World Translation.  The translators deliberately added words that were not in the original Greek.

The result is a text that bears no resemblance to the original.  A prime example of this is John 1:1.  Their translation says that the “word was a god“.  That is quite different than the meaning that St. John intended.

Gary speaks about how that the translation came about.  At the end of part one of the video discuss the mistranslation of definite Greek articles.  In his cd set he goes into great detail about these.

 

YouTube Videos

My apologies for there being two videos.  For whatever reason skype broke the interview up into two parts.

This is much different than my regular posts, but great information is in these videos.  Therefore, I wanted to share them with you.

In the part two, which is available below, Gary gives some great tips on evangelizing members of the Watchtower.

Photo by Марьян Блан | @marjanblan on Unsplash (featured image)


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