Questions From Readers

● Is it true that the teachings of Jehovah’s witnesses are based on the New World Translation of the Bible?

The fact that the New World Translation bears out teachings of Jehovah’s witnesses does not prove that the teachings of Jehovah’s witnesses are founded upon this Bible translation. Since 1879 The Watchtower has been published, setting forth the things that Jehovah’s witnesses believe and teach. The New World Translation, which the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has accepted as a gift from the New World Bible Translation Committee, first began to be published in part in 1950, and volumes of it have been coming out from time to time since then. Consequently, the formulation of the Bible doctrine of Jehovah’s witnesses did not wait upon the New World Translation, beginning in 1950.

Up until 1950 the teachings of Jehovah’s witnesses were based mainly upon the King James Version of the Bible, but in the course of years the publications of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in English alone have quoted from more than seventy different Bible translations produced in Christendom. This does not take into account the fact that our literature is published in more than 125 languages and that these foreign languages do not have the English New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. In all parts of the world Jehovah’s witnesses are proving their Bible-based beliefs to the people by the copy of the Bible that the householder may have or that he may recognize as authoritative. So the New World Translation comes along merely as a confirmation of the correctness of the teachings of Jehovah’s witnesses and does not constitute the foundation of their teachings.