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Jehovah’s Witnesses and Bible Forgery (VI)

I have previously written that the essence of the “dogmatics” of Jehovah’s Witnesses is the reiteration of an ancient trinitarian and christological heresy—Arianism (4th century). I initially believed that these neo-Arians (Jehovah’s Witnesses) had surpassed the old Arians by the mere fact that they had adapted (falsified) the biblical text to suit their heretical doctrine. However, while translating the work On the Holy Spirit by St. Ambrose of Milan—a text dating precisely from the fourth century, the time of the Church Fathers’ most resolute battle against Arianism—I came across the following testimony by this great Father of the Church. Interpreting Acts 5:3–4 in defence of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, St. Ambrose, in polemic against Arianism, writes:

“And not only does Scripture here clearly testify to the deitas, that is, the divinity of the Holy Spirit, but the Lord Himself said in the Gospel: God is Spirit. This passage, Arians, testifies so clearly about the Spirit that you have removed it from your codices [=copies of the Scriptures]; oh, that you might remove it from your own, but not from the Church’s codices! Indeed, at the time when Auxentius, with godless and faithless forces and arms, occupied the Church of Milan, or when Valens and Ursacius, while the priests were wavering, attacked the Church of Sirmium, then this falsification and your sacrilege were detected in the Church’s codices. Perhaps you did the same in the East. You have indeed succeeded in removing the words, but you have not removed the faith. This erasure of the written word has only exposed you more, has only condemned you further; for you could not erase the truth—rather, this erasure has itself erased you from the book of life…” (On the Holy Spirit III, 10.59–60).

This is a clear and credible testimony that the early Arians were doing precisely what modern neo-Arians—Jehovah’s Witnesses—are doing today: falsifying the biblical text to conform it to their heresy. The essence of that heresy, to reiterate, lies in denying the divine nature of Christ and reducing the Son of God to a mere creature.

Let us return briefly to chapter 10 of the Gospel of John, to the moment when Christ, before the assembled Jews, declared, I and the Father are one (John 10:30). I discussed this in the fourth instalment of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Falsification of the Bible. Here, I would like to add one more detail. When the Jews took up stones to stone Christ—for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God (John 10:33)—He replied: Is it not written in your Law: I said, “You are gods”? If He called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—do you say of Him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, “You are blaspheming,” because I said, “I am the Son of God”? (John 10:34–36). We see here that the Lord does not defend Himself against the charge of “blasphemy against God” by denying that He said it, or by claiming that the Jews misunderstood Him. No—He reveals to us precisely who the Son of God is: that He is God. For the Jews accused Him of blasphemy because, being a man, He made Himself God, having said: I and the Father are one. On the other hand, Christ paraphrases their accusation as: Do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, “You are blaspheming,” because I said, “I am the Son of God”? Thus, to say I am God, I and the Father are one, and I am the Son of God, is one and the same. From this paraphrase of the accusation, it follows clearly that the Son of God is God.

This same point appears in the passage from the Gospel of John that speaks of Christ’s healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda. Because this healing was done on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders were enraged and accused Him of violating God’s Law (the commandment to keep the Sabbath as a day of rest). To this Christ replied: My Father is working until now, and I am working (John 5:17). And how did the Jews understand His reference to God as His Father? The next verse tells us: This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath but was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God (John 5:18).

These passages clearly show Christ’s “confession” before the Jews—that He is indeed what they accuse Him of being: equal to God; that is, He is God precisely because He is the Son of God, and because He calls God His Father. It seems Jehovah’s Witnesses have not noticed this “confession” of Christ, which is why these Gospel passages have, for the most part, been accurately translated (May God forgive me for pointing out this “mistake” and giving them the opportunity to “correct” it in the next edition of their so-called “Christian Greek Scriptures”).

In chapter 11 of the Gospel of John, we find yet another subtle falsification in the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ translation. It concerns the raising of Lazarus. When Christ was informed that Lazarus was ill, He responded: αὕτη ἡ ἀσθένεια οὐκ ἔστιν πρὸς θάνατον ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὲρ τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα δοξασθῇ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ δι᾽ αὐτῆς. The Serbian translation reads: This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it (John 11:4). The message is clear: Lazarus’s illness and subsequent death will serve to reveal the glory of God, that is, for the Son of God to be glorified through this illness and Lazarus’s resurrection. In other words, the divine glory of the Son of God will be revealed—it will be shown that He is God. Jehovah’s Witnesses initially translated this accurately. In their 2006 edition, the text reads: This sickness is not for death but for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Unlike the previously mentioned verses, which they have yet to notice, here they seem to have realized what the passage implies and thus “corrected” the “mistake” in their 2019 revised edition. Their new rendering reads: This sickness will not end in death, but it will be for God’s glory, and it will glorify God’s Son. One might think this is a minor change, but it is in fact deeply significant and completely distorts what Christ said. Jehovah’s Witnesses insert the conjunction “and” between “God’s glory” and “God’s Son,” which does not exist in the original text. With this fabricated conjunction, they separate the manifestation of God’s glory from the glorification of the Son of God—as though they were two distinct glories, when in fact they are one and the same. The intention is clear: to support their heretical teaching that Christ is not God.

With regard to the Gospel of John—through which we first began exposing the falsifications in the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ translation of the New Testament—there are still many passages we could theologically analyze to refute their heresy and blasphemy against the divinity of Christ. However, in this series of articles, we focus primarily on analyzing their translation where we have detected distortions. A more detailed theological analysis will follow, God willing, in the book that will emerge from these studies and articles. One further point should be added concerning the Gospel of John (though it also applies to the other Gospels): namely, their falsification of the term σταυρός (stavros – cross). As I have already written, Jehovah’s Witnesses deny that Christ was crucified on a cross—the Roman instrument composed of two beams—but claim He was affixed to a single upright stake (vertical, without a horizontal beam). Thus, in their translation, the Greek noun σταυρός is rendered as “torture stake” rather than “cross.” In their “Glossary,” which accompanies their falsified New Testament, they explain this as follows: “Translation of the Greek word stavros, which means an upright stake or pole, such as the one on which Jesus was executed. There is no evidence that this Greek word refers to a cross, a symbol used by pagan nations centuries before Christ. The term ‘torture stake’ fully conveys the sense of the original word, since stavros was also used to signify the suffering and shame that Jesus’ followers would endure.”

As with many things among Jehovah’s Witnesses, this is a blend of half-truths and outright falsehoods. It is true that the Greek word stavros in the classical period of Greek history (5th and 4th centuries BC) denoted an upright post or stake, not a cross in the Roman sense. The etymology of σταυρός confirms this. The noun relates to the verb ἵστημι (histēmi)—to set or place upright. The root sta- is also found in the noun στάσις (stasis)—standing. In ancient Greek practice, stavros was not necessarily or exclusively an instrument of torture; it could also denote a stake used, for example, in building fences. From around the 3rd century BC, with the spread of Roman influence, stavros began to signify the cross as a Roman instrument of torture and execution. During this period, the stavros changed in form (well-documented in Roman sources). The vertical post (Latin stipes) was usually fixed at a location for executions. The condemned person was required to carry the horizontal beam (Latin patibulum) to the execution site, where it would be affixed to the stipes, forming a cross (crux)—either in the shape of a T (crux commissa) or with a projection above the horizontal beam (crux immissa), as we commonly envision the cross. The sentence that Christ bore, according to John’s Gospel—Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (John 19:19)—was affixed to the cross, indicating that it had the form of a crux immissa. If only a vertical stake had been used, as Jehovah’s Witnesses claim, Christ’s hands would have been nailed above His head and the inscription would have had no place or visibility. When the Jews demanded of Pilate that Christ be crucified, they shouted: σταύρωσον, σταύρωσον (stavroson, stavroson)—Crucify Him! Crucify Him! (John 19:6). Jehovah’s Witnesses translate this imperative as: “To the stake with him! To the stake with him!” They refuse to use the verb “crucify” because it clearly refers to a cross—a post with a horizontal beam. That is, it refers to the Latin crux, specifically crux immissa. This is evident also in the Latin translation of the same passage—crucifige, crucifige. This is the imperative of the verb crucifigo. Its etymology contains the noun crux—the Roman instrument of execution composed of two beams—and the verb figo, meaning to affix or fasten. Thus, crucifigo literally means “to affix to a cross”—a crux formed of a vertical and a horizontal beam (stipes and patibulum). Hence, σταύρωσον, σταύρωσον, or crucifige, crucifige, is rightly translated: Crucify Him!, or To the cross with Him! The very form of the crux testifies to the stretching of the condemned person’s arms and nailing to the patibulum, which he had carried to the stipes. Our Lord, too, bore that patibulum on His scourged and bloodied shoulders on the path to Golgotha. It was to that patibulum that His hands were stretched and nailed, after which it was affixed to the stipes, to which His feet were also nailed. Thus was formed that dreadful instrument—the crux immissa—upon which, above the Lord’s head, in three languages—Latin, Greek, and Hebrew—was nailed the sign: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.