From: todd@palomar.tivoli.com
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Jehovah's Witnesses -- Part 1, History and Doctrines
Date: 31 Jul 92 01:49:25 GMT
Distribution: talk
Organization: TIVOLI Systems, Inc.

Jehovah's Witnesses -- Part 1, History and Doctrines

This is Part 1 of several on the Jehovah's Witnesses.  In this part I
will present some background on the Witnesses that should aid future
discussions.  Part 2 will be "Jehovah's Witnesses -- Claim to be God's
Prophet".

**** Warning **** 

This is a long posting, divided into several parts.  Each part begins
with this same paragraph, skip ahead if you have read it before.  This
is a series of postings that I hope will encourage some intelligent
discussion in this newsgroup on the Jehovah's Witnesses (JW).  I am
not a Jehovah's Witness, and I have never been a Jehovah's Witness.  I
believe that many JWs are not completely aware of the facts that are
presented here.  Unfortunately, I don't have access to all of the
primary sources that I will cite.  Although I do have access to a
number of Watch Tower Society publications, many of my citations are
from secondary sources (which cite JW publications). Please let me
know if any of you find my sources unreliable.  I will post my 
bibliography in the future.

**** End of Warning ****

History of the JWs 
==================

The source for most of the information on the history of the JWs comes
from *Apocalypse Delayed The Story of Jehovah's Witnesses*, a book
written by M. James Penton a disfellowshiped JW and Professor of
History and Religious Studies at the University of Lethbridge.  This
book is very good and I recommend it to those interested in the JWs.

George Storrs -- origin of early doctrine
-----------------------------------------

[1837] G. Storrs adopted the doctrine of conditionalism (The dead are
at rest, having no soul.  They obtain everlasting life conditionally
as a gift from God at the resurrection.)

[1842] Storrs publishes *An Enquiry: Are the Souls of the Wicked
Immortal? In Six Sermons* (200,000 copies over the next 40 years!)

[1842] Storrs becomes a Millerite, (followers of Miller that believed,
based on Biblical chronology, that the second coming of Christ
would occur in 1843)

[1843] Storrs writes a paper *Bible Examiner*, published regularly
beginning in 1847

[1844] Storrs breaks from the Millerites, continues to publish the
*Bible Examiner* until 1863

[1863] Life and Advent Union formed by Storr and his followers, Storr
edits the *The Herald of Life and the Coming Kingdom* magazine

[1871] Storr left the Life and Advent Union rejecting their belief
that those that die in ingnorance of Christ are not given any chance
to be saved.  Storr restarts the *Bible Examiner*.

At this point Storr's doctrines, expressed in the *Bible Examiner*,
included: (1) conditionalism, (2) Ransom atonement of Christ (Christ's
death paid for the mans sins), (3) earthly paradise after Christ's
second coming. 

Charles Russell -- the founder of the JWs 
-----------------------------------------

[1852] Charles Russell born, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Raised a
Presbyterian.

[1869] Russell formed a Bible study group with some friends.  He began
to form his own set of doctrines, but he was influenced by Storr (the
JW still believe in doctrines (1)-(3) above) and Stetson, an Advent
Christian.

[~1877] Russell publishes *The Object and Manner of Our Lord's
Return*, this pamphlet reveals a set of beliefs that came from:
Adventism, Storrs, and contemporary evangelical protestantism.
However, the central thesis, that prior to Christ's revelation at the
end of the earth He returns and is present in an invisible form,
originated in 1828 by Henry Drummond and was popularized throughout
Britain and the U.S. by a number of ministers.  This idea was
expressed by the *Rainbow*, a millenarian journal, in the 1860s and
1870s.  This doctrine was promoted by Dr. Joseph Seiss, and, according
to Carl Olof Jonsson, "the available evidence strongly indicates that
he [Russell] plagiarized the views of Dr Seiss on this matter".  ] Dr
Nelson H. Barbour's book *Three Worlds and the Harvest of This World*
is published.  Russell had encouraged Barbour to write this book after
hearing Barbour's biblical chronology.  The Barbour chronology uses
the year-day system to understand Bible prophecies and the 360 day
'prophetic year'.  The chronology also took the view that Revelations
is a prophetic history (the so called historicist interpretation of
Revelations).  Barbour also believed that there were prophetic
mathematical relationships expressed in the Bible that proved the
accuracy of his chronology.  Barbour's chronology was accepted by
Russell.  *Three Worlds* contains most of the ideas that Russell and
his followers would promote well into the 1900's.

[1878] Barbour, Russell, and associates Paton, Adams, and Jones
preached the ideas in *Three Worlds*.  They expected to be carried
away to heaven in the spring as Christ's chosen saints.  Needless to
say, this didn't happen and by 1881 they had all ended up separating
over the chronology and interpretation of the ransom doctrine of
atonement and why the weren't carried off to heaven.  In this period,
Russell founded *Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence*

[1884] Russell incorporated the Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society

[1895] Russell's *Studies in the Scriptures* (six volumes) is
published 

[1900's] Russell sermons were printed in thousands of newspapers and
read by 15 to 20 million. In this period Russell's followers were
known as Bible Students. 

[1905] Russell develops the Berean Studies, largely replacing the
verse-by-verse Bible study with study of topics directed by Russell.

[1916] Russell died.

Joseph Franklin Rutherford -- president 1917 - 1942
----------------------------------------------------

[1917] "Judge" Joseph Rutherford becomes president of the Watch Tower
Bible and Tract Society (as the organization was now known).  Although
Russell is clearly the founder of the JWs, Rutherford was very
influential in making the JWs what they are today.  He published a
huge volume of material, over a dozen books and many pamphlets.  The
total number of copies of his works numbered more than 35 million.

[1918] Rutherford and seven other directors of the Watch Tower Society
were arrested for sedition due to there published opposition to
participation in World War One.  The charges were eventually dropped.
(JWs have often led the country in fighting laws that are
unconstitutional under the Bill of Rights, conscientious objection to
military service, right to refuse blood, etc.  Between 1938 and 1951
there were 18,866 arrests of American JWs according to Penton.  They
won 36 out of 45 cases that they argued before the Supreme Court in
roughly this time frame.)

[1920] Rutherford's book *Millions Now Living Will Never Die* was
published, which among other things predicted that in 1925 Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob would be "resurrected and fully restored to perfect
humanity and made the visible, legal representatives of the new order
of things on earth"

[1925] Rutherford abolishes the Watch Tower editorial committee in
order to gain control of church doctrine.  In this manner, he was able
to publish his views without interference from the committee.  In
particular, the "Birth of the Nation" article contained new doctrine
and was published at this time over the objections of the editorial
committee; Rutherford then destroyed the committee.

[1931] The Bible Students adopt the new name Jehovah's Witnesses.
Rutherford justified this with Isaiah 62:1,2 which states that God's
people would be given a new name.  He took the scripture out of
context and adopted the name Jehovah's Witnesses instead of
"Hephzi-bah" or "My delight is in her" as the next few verses state
that the name will be.

[1942] Rutherford died

Nathan Knorr -- Rutherford's successor
--------------------------------------

[1942-1977] Knorr is president of the Watch Tower Society.  Knorr is
very successful in stimulating the growth of the JWs.  In 1942 there
were 115,000 Witnesses that were trying to convert others; in 1977
there were 2.2 million.

Frederick Franz -- Knorr's successor
------------------------------------

[1977] Franz becomes the president of the Watch Tower Society


Doctrines of the JWs
====================

JWs teach that Christ was a man, not God, and was born through the
virgin birth.  Christ died on a torture stake (not a cross) as ransom
for the sins of Adam.  His human form was not resurrected, but a spirit
form of Christ was raised.  He has recently returned to earth, but is
invisible.

JWs teach that the Devil exists and is a powerful spirit creature.
They believe that demons are a evil spirit creatures that must be
avoided.

The JWs do not believe in Hell.  They believe that when a person dies
his soul dies and that the person rests in his grave until the
resurrection of the faithful.

JWs teach that 144,000 believers have been selected to live in heaven
with Christ.  Nobody else gets to go to heaven.  The crowd left on
earth will soon be restored to perfect health (raised from the dead if
already dead) and live on earth for over a thousand years.  This crowd
obtains salvation by working for it, not through grace.  At the end of
a thousand years of living on earth they will again be judged and
those that are unacceptable to God will be executed, the rest will
live on earth forever in an earthly paradise.  Russell taught that the
resurrection of the 144,000 began in 1878, today the Witnesses teach
that the resurrection began in 1918.  At some point, the ancient
faithful from Bible times will be resurrected.  Russell believed that
this would happen only after all of the 144,000 were raised.
Rutherford, however, taught that these men might appear before the
144,000 saints had all died.  (He directed that a mansion be built for
some of them in California in case they came back; he decided to use
it as one of his residences until their return, which of course never
happened.)  Now they believe that the ancient worthies will not be
resurrected until after Armageddon.

JWs teach that the universe may be millions of years old.  The earth
was created 42,000 years before the creation of Eve.  Adam was created
in 4026 B.C.  Clearly, they don't believe in evolution.

JWs teach that abortion is the taking of a life.  Blood of any kind
should not be eaten and hence transfusions must be refused.

There are other important doctrines, but I hope that these will give
some reasonable basis for the discussion of the Witnesses in future
postings.




--

Todd
-- 
Todd Smith                                     TIVOLI Systems, Inc.
todd@tivoli.com                                6034 West Courtyard Dr.
                                               Suite 210
(512) 794-9070 [794-0623 fax]                  Austin, TX   78730
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