On the official website of Jehovah’s Witnesses, where their “translation” of the Holy Bible can be found (in hundreds of languages!), there are also numerous articles from their magazine “Awake!” and “The Watchtower,” as well as various explanations and additions that they have appended their “translation” of the Bible with. These magazines are often distributed in printed form during their missionary activities. In one of the articles (“additions” to the Bible) on their website, Jehovah’s Witnesses discuss some introductory and other issues concerning the Holy Bible, and, as expected, they present a plethora of half-truths and outright lies. Many of these half-truths and lies are not necessarily the product of malicious intent, but rather stem from their sectarian misunderstanding of the mystery of the Church -the mystery of the covenant between God and man, and consequently, their misunderstanding of what the Bible truly is. Here, we will address some of the most glaring misconceptions they propagate about the Bible, which they too believe to be the Word of God.
What continues to astound me, is the sectarian acceptance of the Bible as the Word of God, while simultaneously rejecting the living Church. That is, I am continually amazed by the acceptance of the Old and New Testaments as texts, while simultaneously rejecting the living Covenant between God and man (i.e., the Church). In other words, if one properly understands what the Bible is and how it came to be, it is utterly absurd to accept it as the Word of God, while rejecting God’s Church.
What I wish to explain here is succinctly captured in one sentence by St. Augustine: “I would not believe the Gospels if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so” (Contra epistolam manihaei quam vocant fundamenti 5.6). St. Augustine, like other Church Fathers, often refers to the “authority of Scripture” (that is, the Bible) in defence of his theological positions. So why does he claim that he would not believe the Gospels if it were not for the authority of the Church? Firstly, let us clarify how we should understand the word “authority” in this context. The Latin word auctoritas, which Augustine uses, here means a guarantee, a firm trust in someone or something – in this case, the Church. Thus, the Church is the guarantor that what we hold in our hands as the Holy Bible, truly is the Word of God. Here’s why this is so, and why it makes no sense to reject the Church, while accepting her book-the Bible-as the Word of God.
Jehovah’s Witnesses state in their “appendix” to the Bible that the author of the Bible is God. While this is true, it turns into a half-truth (and a half-truth is as much a deception as an outright lie, if not worse, because it deceives more easily than a blatant falsehood) if we omit the means by which God did this. Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that God is the author of the Bible, by “appointing around 40 men to record what He wanted.” This statement is so superficial that it completely obscures the proper explanation of what we call divine inspiration. Yes, the biblical texts were written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit. However, while for Jehovah’s Witnesses the story of biblical authorship ends there, in reality, it is only the beginning. We must answer the question – how did these divinely inspired writings become the Holy Scriptures? This is something Jehovah’s Witnesses will not address, because this is where the living community of God and man – the living Covenant, the Church – comes into play. The Bible consists of two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament contains 39 writings (or books), and the New Testament contains 27. Who determined that these specific writings would be part of the Holy Scriptures? Jehovah’s Witnesses will say – God, which is once again a deceptive half-truth because it omits the way God acted – through the Church.
The Old Testament canon of biblical writings was established by the Old Testament community of God’s people (we can say the Old Testament Church). This canon was finalized at the Council of Jamnia in the first century after Christ. The canon that contains 39 writings is known as the Palestinian Canon. However, there is another canon of Old Testament writings, which originated in Alexandria and is therefore called the Alexandrian Canon. It is broader than the Palestinian Canon because, in addition to the 39 writings of that canon, it includes 10 additional writings, which in Orthodox biblical tradition are called deuterocanonical books. Both of these canons are in use in the Orthodox Church, and the Orthodox Church has not yet officially declared which of these two canons is “official” (in 2014, the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church published a Bible that contains the broader canon of all Old Testament writings). In the Roman Catholic Church, the Council of Trent, in 1546, officially accepted the broader Alexandrian Canon.
The New Testament canon (its 27 books) developed over almost four centuries. The New Testament biblical texts were written in the period from the second half of the first century (it is believed that the First Epistle to the Thessalonians by St. Paul, dated around 50 AD, is the oldest New Testament writing ) up until the end of it. These writings, although written in the first century, did not immediately become Holy Scripture. It is important to note that they were written several decades after the events of Christ and the establishment of the Church (33AD). The Lord Jesus Christ did not leave some Holy Book to the apostles; instead, He established the Church, as He promised to Peter and the other apostles: “I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Mt. 16:18). And what is the Church? It is the living Covenant or living Union between God and man. Therefore, when we speak of the Old Testament (or Old Covenant, Hebrew berit) or the New Testament, we first think of the living community, the living Covenant that God establishes with man. This living Covenant is the reason for the existence of what we call the Old Testament and the New Testament, i.e., the Bible. Yes, we can say – the Bible is a consequence of the existence of the living Covenant between God and man, a consequence of the Church’s existence. Without the Church, there would be no Bible.
This is these facts that Jehovah’s Witnesses falsify – the concept of the Church and the concept of the Covenant. First, let us look at how they translate the verse Mt. 16:18, where the Lord promises to build His Church. In the Greek original, the word ἐκκλησία (ecclesia) is used, which in the New Testament Christian context has one and only one meaning – the Church. Depending on the context, the word ἐκκλησία can be translated as “assembly” or “congregation” (for example, Acts 19:39). However, when speaking of the assembly or gathering of baptized people, it again refers to the Church, because the Church is precisely a gathering or an assembly of many Christians in one place (σύναξη επί το αυτό), as the Apostle Paul says (2. Cor. 11:20), for “the Lord’s Supper,” i.e., for the Holy Liturgy and Holy Communion (in the New Testament texts, this is referred to as the Eucharistic phrase “the breaking of the bread,” Luke 24:30; 1. Cor. 11:24). In the “translation” of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the word Church does not exist. The word ἐκκλησία in Mt. 16:18 (and throughout the New Testament texts) is translated as “congregation”, so this verse in their version reads: “I will build my congregation, and the gates of the grave shall not overpower it.” In their “Dictionary” of biblical terms, for the term ἐκκλησία, which they translate as “congregation,” they say the following: “A group of people gathered for a specific purpose or activity. In the Hebrew part of the Holy Scriptures, this word generally refers to the people of Israel. In the Greek part of the Holy Scriptures, it refers to the community of Christians in a specific place, but more often to the entire Christian community worldwide.” This definition resembles a description of a political party or some kind of human association, even though it mentions the Christian community or the people of Israel in the Old Testament. Through a blatant anachronism, Jehovah’s Witnesses in their “translation” destroy the contextually embedded theological meaning behind the term ἐκκλησία in the Bible. In ancient Greece, the term ἐκκλησία referred to a political assembly , in which citizens were called to participate. This is evident from its etymology. The noun ἐκκλησία comes from the verb ἐκκαλέω, which means “to call out”, or “to summon.” Therefore, ἐκκλησία was the assembly of those who were called (in a political sense). The term ἐκκλησία is also found in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), where it is used to translate the Hebrew word qahal, meaning the assembly or gathering of God’s people in the Old Testament. For example: “They gathered against Moses and Aaron and said to them, ‘The whole assembly is holy, and the Lord is among them.’”(Num. 16:3); “This is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God again…’” (Deut. 18:16); “Then the king turned and blessed the whole assembly of Israel…” (2. Chron. 6:3). We see that in the Old Testament, ἐκκλησία is contextualized as a term that refers to the Old Testament community of God’s people, the assembly of Israel. Therefore, we can speak of the Old Testament Ecclesia , or the Old Testament Church, because the Church is precisely the assembly with God of those who are called ἐκκαλέω – to call out, as found in the etymology of the word ἐκκλησία. As the Apostle Paul inspiredly says: “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined, He also called (ἐκάλεσεν); and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified.” (Rom. 8:29-30). We see the verb καλέω (to call by name) in the aorist tense – ἐκάλεσεν (called, summoned). This calling is precisely what stands behind the New Testament term ἐκκλησία. Ecclesia – the Church is, therefore, the assembly of those whom God has called to be conformed to the image of His Son. In other words, the Church is the community of the Body of Christ – an all-encompassing mystery of man’s deification in Christ. The Ecclesia is not merely a “congregation” of people gathered around some religious idea (and ideology), as Jehovah’s Witnesses understand it. Furthermore, the word “congregation” in our language never conceptually leads one to think of a religious assembly of people, but rather of a political gathering (such as the National Assembly, which serves as the legislative body in the state), or some civic organization, like a tenants’ association. By deliberately inserting this anachronistic term for ecclesia, Jehovah’s Witnesses aim to completely dismantle the concept of the Church for those who fall for their fallacy. I checked how they translated Ecclesia into other languages I know. In English, their translation of the New Testament term “ἐκκλησία” is “congregation” (association, religious affiliation, religious community), instead of “Church”, as it appears in reputable English translations. In Russian, Jehovah’s Witnesses translate ἐκκλησία as “собрание” (assembly, gathering, meeting), instead of the correct Russian term “Церковь” (the Church). The only language in which they failed to falsify the term Ecclesia (the Church) is modern Greek, where it is still written as “ἐκκλησία” (the Church). They likely thought they could slip in the anachronistic ancient Greek political meaning of εκκλησία that we mentioned earlier, into a modern Greek translation, but it will be extremely difficult for them to succeed. In modern Greek, εκκλησία has only one meaning – the Church, not a congregation or an association.
In addition to falsifying the concept of the Church in the New Testament, Jehovah’s Witnesses propagate another absurdity regarding the Holy Scriptures. Namely, they avoid using the terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament”, instead referring to the Old Testament as the “Hebrew-Aramaic Scriptures”, and the New Testament as the “Greek-Christian Scriptures.” They claim that there is no biblical basis for calling parts of the Bible the Old Testament and the New Testament, asserting that such terms place the Old Testament writings in an inferior position, compared to the New Testament writings, rendering it outdated and obsolete (sic!). Here, they present two serious errors (whether maliciously intentional or unintentionally due to ignorance, remains a question for consideration).
First, it is incorrect to claim that the phrases “Old Testament” and “New Testament have no biblical foundation. Both terms appear in the New Testament writings. The phrase “Old Testament” “(ἡ παλαιὰ διαθήκη)” appears in 2 Corinthians 3:14. Here, the Apostle Paul, speaking about the veil of Moses, says of the Jews who did not believe in Christ: “But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the Old Covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. The Apostle is referring here to the Old Testament writings, which speak of the anticipation of Christ – that is, of the Old Covenant as preparation for the coming of the Messiah (Christ). Those who did not recognize Him, Paul says, still have the veil of the Old Covenant – only in Christ is it removed (2 Cor. 3:16). The Apostle speaks of the reading of the Old Testament, but the Old Covenant first and foremost refers to the living community, the living Covenant or agreement between God and His chosen people. This is what Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to understand – that the biblical writings are preceded by the living Covenant, and that the biblical texts are a testimony to that Covenant and a consequence of its existence. In this sense, the Old Testament is mentioned in other places in the New Testament writings as well, specifically in the Epistle to the Hebrews (8:13; 9:1), where it is referred to as the first (Covenant) in the context of the promise of a second, that is, the New Covenant. The prophet Jeremiah speaks of this New Covenant: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” (Jer. 30:31). These words are interpreted by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “In speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” (Heb. 8:13). If the Covenant that came before was called the first, and if there is now a second, which is explicitly referred to as the New Covenant, it is logical that the one preceding the New is the Old Covenant. How, then, do Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that the terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” have no biblical foundation? By stating falsehoods, either maliciously intentional, or as a result of their own ignorance. They try to evade this fact by claiming that the Greek word “διαθήκη” (diathiki) means “agreement” or “covenant,” not “testament,” which is, once again, incorrect. The word διαθήκη can be translated as both “testament” or “will” (Gal. 3:15; 3:17), as well as “covenant” ( in Čarnić’s Serbian translation of the New Testament: Luke 1:72; Acts 3:25). In a theological sense, a Testament implies a Covenant, and vice versa. God gave a promise to Abraham, and that promise is a Testament, by which God Bound Himself to Abraham. By that same Testament, God and man enter into a Covenant, into communion, into a gathering. Jehovah’s Witnesses lack theology, so these very simple theological concepts are not clear to them.
We have seen that the term “New Testament” appears even in the Old Testament text, with the prophet Jeremiah, and later also in the Epistle to the Hebrews. It also appears in the Gospel of Luke, in the passage where Christ establishes the Eucharist: “And likewise, the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood’” (Luke 22:20). The phrase also appears in the epistles: 1 Cor. 11:25; 2 Cor. 3:6; Heb. 8:8; 8:13; 9:15.
If the Bible clearly shows that the communion or Covenant between God and man before Christ is called the First or Old Covenant, and the communion or Covenant after Christ is called the New Covenant, why is it then incorrect to refer to the biblical writings from the pre-Christ period as the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, and the writings from the post-Christ, apostolic period as the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament? Jehovah’s Witnesses, as I mentioned earlier, claim that such terms portray the Scriptures before Christ (the Old Testament) as outdated and inferior to those after Christ (the New Testament). Therefore, they use distorted terms, referring to the Old Testament writings as the “Hebrew-Aramaic Bible”, and the New Testament writings as the “Greek-Christian Bible.” First, this shows their ignorance that the Old Testament is just as Greek as it is Hebrew-Aramaic (in terms of language). There exists the Septuagint-the Old Testament in Greek, which was created for the Jews in Alexandria, who spoke Greek. Jehovah’s Witnesses may argue that the Septuagint is merely a translation, not the original text. Yet again, this is a half-truth. That text, even though it can be called a translation from Hebrew, holds the authority of an original. This is because the Septuagint text is cited in the New Testament; the apostles cite it. Out of approximately 350 citations of the Old Testament in the New Testament, around 300 are from the Septuagint (the Greek text of the Old Testament), and only about 50 from the Hebrew text. Secondly, by using these nonsensical terms, they demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge of elementary theology and a total misunderstanding of the relationship between the two Testaments. The Old Testament is “old”, not because it is inferior or simply abolished. It is old because it is fulfilled with the coming of the Messiah (Christ), whom it foretold, beginning from its very first pages (see Gen. 3:15; this verse is known as the Protoevangelium, as it announcers the Good News-the Gospel of the Saviour of man and the world). The Lord Himself said: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them” (Mt. 5:17). When He says “the Law and the Prophets,” the Lord refers to the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, for the Jews divided the biblical writings into the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Lord also says that the Old Testament writings speak about Him, Christ: “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me” (Jn. 5:46). The Apostle Luke writes how the risen Christ explained the Scriptures to the disciples on the road to Emmaus: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). Thus, the Old Testament is not abolished, but fulfilled-because what it foretold has been realized in the coming of the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. In the same spirit, the Apostle Paul says: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). It is true that the Old Testament becomes inferior for those who fail to see its direction towards Christ and the New Testament. For those, the “veil” remains over their eyes (2 Cor. 3:14), and for them, without reaching the reality of the New Testament, without accepting Christ, the Old Testament indeed becomes outdated, as it is written: “….what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Heb. 8:14). In the experience of the New Testament, it becomes clear that the Law (the Old Testament) was a “tutor” leading to Christ (Gal. 3:24). In this spirit, St. Augustine wrote: In Vetere Novum lateat, et in Novo Vetus pateat (in the Old [Testament] the New is concealed, and in the New [Testament] the Old is revealed) (Quaestiones in Heptateuchum 2.73).
Finally, let us briefly examine how the New Testament writings became the Holy Scriptures and how God determined, as Jehovah’s Witnesses claim, which 27 writings would be included in the New Testament canon. The first collection of New Testament writings emerged in the second century, even though, as we mentioned earlier, the writings were composed in the latter half of the first century. The Gospel at that time was an oral, living tradition of the Church: “who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6), and the writings that were gradually created underwent centuries of use in the Church, before they were finally recognized as the Holy Scripture. In the second century, around 140 AD, there was a collection of certain New Testament writings, compiled by the heretic Marcion. Research (based on evidence in 2 Pet. 3:15-16 and the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch from the second century) indicates that there was a collection of Paul’s epistles at that time, known as Corpus Paulinum (dating to the end of the first or beginning of the second century). By the end of the second century, around 192 AD, according to Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, the term “New Testament” is mentioned for the first time in the sense of New Testament writings. Also, by the end of the second century, St. Irenaeus of Lyon, in his writings, quotes passages from almost all of the New Testament books more than a thousand times. A certain collection of the New Testament writings is also mentioned by Clement of Alexandria, who considers them part of the Holy Scriptures. In the Muratorian Canon, which originated in the Church in Rome around 200 AD, 23 New Testament writings are listed. By the third century, there was no longer any debate in the Church over whether the four Gospels belonged to the canon of New Testament writings or not. The same applies to the Acts of the Apostles, 13 of Paul’s epistles, and the major Catholic epistles. All of these writings were confirmed as Holy Scripture by the end of the second century. However, as Christian teacher and writer Origen testifies in the third century, there were still disputes regarding certain New Testament writings. The writings Origen categorized as disputed, based on his experience from various parts of the Church, were the Catholic epistles: 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James, and Jude. At that time, there were also Church figures who disputed the canonicity of the Book of Revelation, especially in the East. This is why, even today, the Orthodox Church does not read this New Testament book in its liturgical services. In the West, however, the Epistle to the Hebrews was particularly contested. In the fourth century, around 325 AD, Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, lists four groups of writings: 1) recognized books: the four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s epistles (including the Epistle to the Hebrews), 1 John, and 1 Peter, as well as the Book of Revelation (though he notes there are different opinions); 2) disputed books: the Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, 2 and 3 Peter, and 3 John; 3) spurious books: the Acts of Paul, The Shepherd of Hermes, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, the Gospel of the Hebrews, and the Book of Revelation (which he placed both among the recognized books and the spurious ones, due to the aforementioned controversies); 4) heretical books: the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, the Acts of Andrew, and others.
The final formation of the New Testament canon is credited to the 39th Festal Letter of St. Athanasius the Great in 367 AD. In this letter, all 27 books that we now have in the New Testament are listed as canonical (the word canon in the context of the Bible was first used by St. Athanasius).
This is where we find the trust (Augustine’s auctoritas), the guarantee that what we hold in our hands today as the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament is indeed the Word of God and is indeed the Holy Scriptures – nothing more should be added or removed from it. That trust is the Church, within whose embrace not only were the New Testament writings created, but they were also recognized as divinely inspired, and as such, they attained the status of Holy Scripture. By now, the words of St. Augustine at the beginning of his text should be clear, where he claims that he would not believe the Gospels (writings) if the authority (trust) of the Catholic Church did not compel him to do so. And perhaps it is now clear the illogicality of pseudo-Christian sects, which claim the Bible to the Word of God, but reject the trust that guarantees such a claim-they reject the Church, which is the “pillar and ground of the truth” (1. Tim. 3:15) and which the Spirit of God, proceeding from the Father and sent through the Son, ensures is “glorious, without spot and wrinkle… holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27), the bride of Christ, leading it into all truth (Jn. 16:13). It is precisely through the Church that God speaks every truth, including this one – deciding which writings will be a part of the canon of the New Testament. The facts we have briefly outlined demonstrate that the Church has done this – the Bible is her book, her testimony to the living Covenant with the living God.
Deacon Dr. Aleksandar Milojkov
PHOTOGRAPHY: pixabay
