The Watchtower — October 1, 1960

Numbers Are Not Enough

Buddhists . . . . . 500,000,000

Roman Catholics . . 464,000,000

Moslems . . . . . . . 300,000,000

Hindus . . . . . . . 300,000,000

Protestants . . . . . 225,000,000

Orthodox Catholics . 200,000,000

Jews . . . . . . . . 12,000,000

NUMBERS are not a sound basis on which to build faith. If Christianity had been founded on numbers, it would have failed. At Christianity’s darkest hour, namely, when Jesus was on the torture stake, there was not one of his apostles that stood by him. Yet Christianity triumphed, not because of its numbers, rather because it is of God.

Large numbers tend to create a false sense of security. To dispel any such illusion, Moses told the Israelites: “It was not because of your being the most populous of all the peoples that Jehovah showed affection for you so that he chose you, for you were the least of all the peoples. But it was because of Jehovah’s loving you and because of his keeping the sworn statement that he had sworn to your forefathers.” Numbers are not an influencing factor with God.—Deut. 7:7, 8.

One with God is a more formidable force than a populated universe without him. God can save by many or by few. Take for an example the case of Judge Gideon. He started with an army of 32,000 men to face the well-equipped army of Midian, composed of at least 135,000 crack swordsmen. God told Gideon to cut his forces. Gideon did, to a mere three hundred men. With this handful he went to battle against the Midianites and won a smashing victory. The difference was God. “For there is no hindrance to Jehovah to save by many or by few.”—1 Sam. 14:6; Judg. 7:1-14.

In all probability King David yielded to temptation when he had Israel’s young men numbered to determine the nation’s fighting strength. Evidently he was planning a military venture without the counsel and help of God. He was about to trust in numbers. Later, David admitted that he had “acted very foolishly.”—1 Chron. 21:1-8.

In democratic lands the majority rules, but that is no basis for believing that majorities are always right or that might of numbers makes right. For example, the vast majority of humankind were opposed to the course that Noah and his family took. Yet the majority were wrong. Noah and his family by surviving the flood were proved right. In Jesus’ day almost all the people did not believe him to be the Christ. They were wrong. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead by God established his Messiahship beyond all doubt. God sets the rules of right and wrong, not man. “Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Discreet, that he may know them? For the ways of Jehovah are upright, and the righteous are the ones who will walk in them; but the transgressors are the ones who will stumble in them.”—Hos. 14:9.

Today, religious organizations have a habit of pointing to their great numbers and wealth as proof of their being favored by God. The Roman Catholic Church boasts a population of 464,000,000, almost one fifth of the world’s population. Followers of Buddha brag of an even larger number, some 500,000,000. Hinduism claims 300,000,000 adherents; Moslems, 300,000,000 followers; and Judaism, nearly 12,000,000 people. Protestants the world over number some 225,000,000, and the Orthodox, another 200,000,000. Do these great numbers represent God’s blessing? Many professed Christians say, Yes. They point to membership increases as a mark of Christian fruitage.

One of the most dramatic increases in the last twenty years has been the growth of nominal Christianity in the United States. “As of the beginning of 1955,” says a Reader’s Digest report, “church membership has rocketed from 50 million in 1929 to more than 95 million—a gain of 90 percent, while the population was increasing only 31.4 percent. During the same period 58,000 more places of worship were built, bringing the total to 295,000 churches and synagogues.” The Southern Baptist membership has grown from 5,100,000 in 1940 to 9,206,758 in 1958; Methodists from 7,400,000 to 9,691,916; and Episcopalians, from 2,200,000 to 3,274,678. The number of members of churches and synagogues in the United States in 1958 was estimated at 104,189,678 persons, or 61 percent of the estimated 170,500,000 population. Of every 100 Americans, 62 now claim affiliation with some church, compared with 20 out of 100 a century ago. Total receipts for all purposes from fifty-three Protestant and Eastern Orthodox bodies reported for 1958 came to more than $2,000,000,000, representing a rate of increase more than three times that of membership.

Roman Catholics in the United States tell of an increase of 47.8 percent since 1949. The 1959 total of Roman Catholics was put at 39,505,475, which figure represents a jump of 3,481,498 during 1958. The Roman Catholic Church does not publish its receipts.

Membership and known receipts show a sharp increase. Church construction is at an all-time high. Today’s houses of worship have form-fitting pews, scientific lighting, gay color schemes and sound-conditioning, and many are equipped with air conditioning. But is all of this—these numbers, dollars and comforts—representative of Christianity? Not necessarily so. Associate general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in America, Dr. Roswell P. Barnes, observed that, while religion in America gained in prosperity, the incidence of crime had reached a new high. This “embarrassing fact,” he said, is symptomatic of a “low state of moral discipline, an underlying restlessness and tension. Wealth and comfort have not made our nation righteous and happy,” he said.

The fruits of God’s spirit mentioned at Galatians 5:22, 23 are not in evidence throughout Christendom. One sees people in churches, but Christian principles in practice in public life one does not see. The divorce rate is at its highest, adult and juvenile delinquency is at its worst, immorality is rampant, integrity and virtue are flouted. While loud professions of peace are made, few practice peace. Cries for unity and “ban the bomb” stem from fear and not from the principle of love.

Religious membership numbers are plentiful, but numbers alone are not enough. Righteousness, goodness, love, faith and integrity—these are what truly count.

“Get Out of Her, My People”!

What is it from which we must flee for our very lives? Why is it so urgent?

THE citizens of ancient Babylon in 539 B.C. reflected the confidence of their rulers. How secure they felt because of their military, economic and political might! Was not Babylon the queen of the kingdoms, the pride of the entire world? Was there any nation like her in strength? Was she not extremely religious and protected by her gods?

The fortress city that was Babylon seemed impregnable. Strange then were the words of Jeremiah, a worshiper of Jehovah. He had warned: “Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and provide escape each one for his own soul. Do not be rendered inanimate through her error. For it is the time of vengeance belonging to Jehovah. There is treatment that he is paying back to her.” What would be the result of this startling prediction? Jeremiah continued: “And Babylon must become piles of stones, the lair of jackals, an object of astonishment and something to whistle at, without an inhabitant.”—Jer. 51:6, 37.

In that fateful year, 539 B.C., these words spoken long before had fulfillment as God-fearing Daniel interpreted the handwriting on the wall for Babylon’s king, saying: “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and has finished it.” (Dan. 5:26) While this seemingly incredible pronouncement was being delivered within the palace, it was being fulfilled outside, as Medo-Persian hordes had diverted the river Euphrates, which flowed through Babylon, and were now pouring into the city over the dry river bed. “In that very night Belshazzar the Chaldean [Babylonian] king was killed, and Darius the Mede himself received the kingdom.”—Dan. 5:30, 31.

What a shock to that ancient world! Proud, powerful Babylon had fallen unexpectedly in one night! Whoever imagined such a thing? Not the Babylonians. It was men like Jeremiah and Daniel who did.

SIGNIFICANT FOR OUR DAY

All this is not without tremendous meaning for our day. Babylon of old was the pride and joy of God’s adversary, Satan the Devil. It was his organization. It so completely represented his foul works that in the Bible, especially in the book of Revelation, it became a symbol of his wicked world organization. Satan the Devil, “the god of this system of things,” has built up a Babylonish organization that extends worldwide. First John 5:19 states: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” Revelation 17:5 tells of its wicked influence in these words: “Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth.”

This Babylonish world boasts of its military might, political ideologies, economic prosperity and great religions. However, God has decreed the same fate for modern Babylon that befell its ancient counterpart, warning: “Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues. For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind.” The ominous advance notice adds: “In one day her plagues will come, death and mourning and famine, and she will be completely burned with fire, because Jehovah God who judged her is strong.”—Rev. 18:4, 5, 8.

UNWISE TO IGNORE WARNINGS

The people of ancient Babylon realized too late the correctness of the warning. Their case, though, was not unusual. Throughout history, men and nations have repeatedly ignored warnings, feeling secure and complacent in their own wisdom and strength. Note the results of this attitude to Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

On May 31, 1889, the city was wrecked by one of the most awful catastrophes ever recorded. A flood from a burst reservoir annihilated the city and surrounding towns; thousands were killed. The people, who were repeatedly warned during the day, took no alarm! In the middle of the afternoon one engineer fled down the valley and shouted for all to flee for their lives, but it was too late. Right behind him a gigantic wall of water thirty feet high and a half mile wide hurtled into the city at 150 miles an hour. Johnstown was crushed. It had ignored the warning!

How like the inhabitants of the world in Noah’s day! When warned of the coming deluge and invited to a place of safety, they rejected it. But God had decreed a destruction. Genesis 6:5, 11 shows why: “Consequently Jehovah saw that the badness of man had become great in the earth and every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only bad all the time. And the earth came to be ruined in the sight of the God and the earth became filled with violence.” Great must have been their shock when the flood cascaded down! Like the people of Babylon and Johnstown, they realized too late that they should have listened to the warning.

HANDWRITING ON THE WALL TODAY

Now, in this year, the handwriting on the wall for modern Babylon, Satan’s world, is clear. Since the beginning of World War I in 1914 this world has entered its foretold “time of the end,” the warning of which has been sounded faithfully by Jehovah’s modern witnesses for over eighty years. Detailed Bible prophecies are being fulfilled before our eyes. Many prominent men are filled with foreboding about the future.

Dean Acheson, former United States secretary of state, declared our time to be “a period of unequaled instability, unequaled violence and revolutionary change.” He stated: “I know enough of what is going on to assure you that, in 15 years from today, this world is going to be too dangerous to live in.” He also commented on public apathy in regard to such warnings, saying: “We can be told that all sorts of things are going to happen. We never believe it until it’s happened. Then it’s too late to deal with.”

Columnist David Lawrence said: “When has the world been more disturbed in time of so-called ‘peace’ than it is today? From almost every part of the globe come the dispatches telling of human violence.” This has been so characteristic of the age since 1914 that the editor of The New Cambridge Modern History gave its Volume XII, summarizing our time, the title “The Era of Violence.” Commenting on this, the London Daily Telegraph and Morning Post of May 27, 1960, said: “What an appalling age ours is of the 20th century, compared with the civilized humanity, the hopes of indefinite liberal progress of the 19th century. We have lived amid the barbarism of two world wars, the ruin and devastation, the loss of millions of precious lives; the rise of brutal forces like Russian communism and German national socialism with their deliberate killings of further millions; the virtual extermination of the Jews in Europe; the discovery of nuclear fission to put an end to the whole thing, with no corresponding increase of human wisdom, or political sense, to prevent it. Above all, though we play at our games, there is the sickening feeling of everything being on the brink.”

The Sun of Clearwater, Florida, June 6, 1960, said: “For 30 years the opening of a new decade has been like opening a can of devils.” This is exactly the situation foretold by Revelation 12:12 to occur from the year 1914 onward: “Woe for the earth and for the sea, because the Devil has come down to you, having great anger, knowing he has a short period of time.”

Add to this the general moral breakdown of our day. One high official stated: “Anyone who notes the speed with which our jails and prisons are filling up can see something is wrong.” A South African newspaper, Eastern Province Herald, reported: “The present moral decline should be regarded as a dangerous warning. Throughout the history of the world, extremely low morals have always preceded the collapse of empires and civilizations.”

A heavy responsibility falls on yet another part of the Babylonish world, the false religious element, which has divided people and confused their knowledge of God. Notice these statements in the press: “The Churches have failed.” “Our churches are practicing a Christianity without Christ; our ministers are allowing themselves to be swayed from their true purpose.” One minister admitted: “We have been dishonest before God, dishonest before our neighbors and dishonest before ourselves. From God we have usurped glory . . . we have extinguished the light of truth.”

A comment appearing in The Scotsman of November 23, 1959, summed up these views: “To my mind existing churches . . . have little or no power left to control unconscious drives that produce our terrible wars and lunatic arms races.” The author said he could not help believing “that our whole civilization is approaching a dangerous crisis.”

GET OUT OF HER NOW!

All these things are parts of the great sign of the times that Jesus gave, indicating the near end of this world. The complete wrecking of modern Babylon with her hurtful politics, commerce and false religions is fast approaching, yes, within our lifetime!

God is judging the nations today. The warning work of Jehovah’s witnesses grows day by day. Take heed to it for your own safety during the coming universal war of Armageddon. What should you do? Study God’s Word to ascertain his will and purposes. Then, as you make your mind over to conform to his will, separate yourself from this world’s wicked practices and schemes. Put your hope and trust in God’s established kingdom.

Shortly, God’s executional forces will go into action to fulfill Revelation 18:21, which foretells: “And a strong angel lifted up a stone like a great millstone and hurled it into the sea, saying: ‘Thus with a swift pitch will Babylon the great city be hurled down, and she will never be found again.’” While there remains time, flee for your life from modern Babylon!

The Holy Bible—the Book by Jehovah’s Witnesses

“The holy writings which are able to make you wise for salvation.”—2 Tim. 3:15.

1. What makes the greatest book on earth unique in its age, in the length of time for writing it and in its authorship?

WHICH is the greatest book on earth in this nuclear, space age? It is a book that began to be written before the Christian era, before the Buddhist era (563 B.C.E.), before the Japanese era (660 B.C.E.), before the Roman era (753 B.C.E.) and before the Grecian Olympic era (776 B.C.E.). However, its great age has not dimmed its value. In fact, its age has added to its priceless value. It has also been the longest in being written. Since its first chapter was written it was about 1,610 years till its final chapter was completed near the close of the first century of the Christian era. Yet the author of the book was but one person.

2. To what extent does the author’s name occur in the book, and what has this one authorship resulted in?

² From first to last this book was written over the one author’s own name. In fact, the author’s name occurs throughout the book about seven thousand times. Really, just because of having that one author the book outranks every other book in value and it will yet reach fame greater than what it already enjoys.

3. How could such a book that took so long to write have but one author?

³ No man has lived more than one thousand six hundred years, and so how could such a book so long in writing have just one author? It is because the book’s author is not a man who dies. The name of the author shows that fact, because his name is Jehovah.

4. In what way does the author’s name occur close to the end and near to the beginning of the book?

⁴ In the fourth last chapter of this wonderful book we read four times the outcry of praise to its author, namely, Hallelujah! Translated into modern English, this means “Praise Jehovah!”a (Rev. 19:1, 3, 4, 6) That unique name is the name of the only living and true God, the Creator of the universe; and this is why, in the Ge second chapter, fourth verse, this famous book puts his name alongside his title, to read: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.”—AS.

5. What is that book called, why could the One it names throughout be its sole author, and what quality does his authorship give the book?

⁵ The one sacred book that thus from first to last declares its Author to be Jehovah God is The Holy Bible. It declares him to be immortal. In its thirty-fifth book, chapter one, verse twelve, it addresses him in these words: “Art thou not from eternity, Jehovah? Thou, my holy God, dost not die.”b Also its fifty-fourth book, chapter one, verse seventeen, blesses Him, saying: “Now to the King of eternity, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (Hab. 1:12; 1 Tim. 1:17) Being eternal, incorruptible, immortal, the only God Jehovah could easily be the sole Author. Because of his authorship the Bible is holy, sacred.

6. What does the derivation of its name show the Bible really to be, and why is it also called The Scriptures?

⁶ The Holy Bible is really a library of many books. Though each book today bears a different title, Jehovah God is the Author of them all. The very name Bible calls attention to this fact, for the name is drawn from the ancient Greek word biblía, which means “little books,” that is, a collection of them all together in one volume. The Bible itself speaks of its books as “the holy writings which are able to make you wise for salvation.” (2 Tim. 3:15) That is why they are also called The Scriptures, for “scriptures” means “writings.”

7. How at Mount Sinai did Jehovah God have a finger directly in the writing of the Bible?

⁷ Besides supplying the one unifying theme that runs throughout the entire library of books, God in a very remarkable way had a finger in the writing of the Book. The famous Ten Commandments are found written in the second book of the Bible. These Ten Commandments were delivered to Jehovah’s prophet Moses on Mount Sinai in Arabia in the sixteenth century before the Christian era, and were first written on tablets of stone. Concerning the writing and the delivery of the stone tablets the Bible record says: “Now as soon as [Jehovah God] had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai he proceeded to give Moses two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone written on by God’s finger.” “And the tablets were the workmanship of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved upon the tablets.” The people upon whom the Ten Commandments were laid disobeyed them, and so Moses in an outburst of anger broke the two tablets. “Then Jehovah said to Moses: ‘Carve out for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I must write upon the tablets the words that appeared on the first tablets, which you shattered.’” Thus when Moses came down from Mount Sinai this time the two tablets with God’s own writing upon them were in his hand. (Ex. 31:18; 32:16; 34:1, 29) Afterward Moses copied the Ten Commandments upon other material for men to read.

8. How was the rest of the Bible written, but throughout all its writing what remained the same in connection with it?

⁸ Was all the rest of the Holy Bible delivered to God’s people as the Ten Commandments were in the direct writing of God himself? No! Men, imperfect human creatures, were used to write the rest of the Bible. But this does not disprove that the entire Bible has but one Author, Jehovah God, and that it contains his thoughts and expressions rather than those of the many human writers who wrote the different parts of it. An invisible, active force was operating upon those human writers. This invisible, active force issued forth from the one Author of the Bible and was directed down upon these writers by Him. This unseen, active force is called spirit, and because its source is the God of holiness it is called “holy spirit.” Although the writers on earth changed from time to time, there remained the one, unchanged holy spirit, and its source remained the same, namely, the immortal God, Jehovah.

WRITTEN UNDER INSPIRATION

9. How do David and Peter show that the ancient prophets spoke or wrote under a driving force not their own, and in whose name did they write?

⁹ For example, take David, who became the first Israelite king of Jerusalem. He wrote many psalms in the eleventh century before the Christian era. In one of such sacred songs contained in the Holy Bible David explained that he did not write under his own driving force. He said: “The utterance of David the son of Jesse, . . . The spirit of Jehovah it was that spoke by me, and his word was upon my tongue.” (2 Sam. 23:1, 2) Eleven centuries after David’s death, the Christian apostle named Peter wrote two letters that are contained in the Holy Bible. Peter reminded the Christians that the ancient prophets like David released prophecies that were not of their own private thinking or will but that were from a heavenly source. Peter said: “You know this first, that no prophecy of Scripture springs from any private release [or, comes out of private disclosure]. For prophecy was at no time brought by man’s will, but men spoke from God as they were borne along by holy spirit.” (2 Pet. 1:20, 21, margin) Peter also said: “It was necessary for the scripture [writing] to be fulfilled which the holy spirit spoke beforehand by David’s mouth . . . God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets of old time.” (Acts 1:16; 3:21) Yes, indeed, the Bible writers wrote, but they wrote under the activating force of the one holy spirit of Jehovah God. They wrote as God’s earthly instruments and wrote in God’s holy name.

10. In curing a man, how did Jesus show that God’s spirit has enough driving force to drive a man to write a book?

¹⁰ God’s holy spirit can move a prophet to write just as easily as it can drive out a demon from a possessed man. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, showed that. He preached the kingdom of God to the people and also did many wonderful miracles. Once he drove out the demon from a possessed man, so that the dumb man both spoke and saw. But Jesus’ religious foes blasphemed the means by which he had cast out the demon. According to the apostle Matthew, Jesus said to them: “If it is by means of God’s spirit that I expel the demons, the kingdom of God has really overtaken you.” (Matt. 12:28) The disciple Luke quotes Jesus as saying at that time: “If it is by means of God’s finger I expel the demons, the kingdom of God has really overtaken you.”—Luke 11:20.

11. In view of the use of the word “finger,” how can the Bible be said to be by the finger of God and so what is the Bible a visible, tangible result of?

¹¹ Jesus thus spoke of God’s spirit as God’s “finger.” In a direct way God’s finger wrote the Ten Commandments on the two tablets of stone. But when God used men to write the various books of the Holy Bible, God’s symbolic finger, his spirit, shoved the stylus or pen of these men. (Deut. 9:10) In Psalm 8:3 David says to God: “I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have prepared.” Long before David, the prophet Moses was used by Jehovah God to bring the third of ten destructive plagues upon the land of Egypt. This was a plague that the magic-practicing priests of Egypt could not imitate. So they said to their ruler, Pharaoh: “It is the finger of God!” (Ex. 8:18, 19) In harmony with those uses of the word “finger” we today can say that the Holy Bible is by the finger of God, since the Holy Bible was written under the operation of God’s holy spirit or invisible, active force. Thus his finger wrote it, from start to finish, from Genesis to Revelation. God’s holy spirit or active force is unseen, but it produces visible, tangible results. The Holy Bible is the visible, tangible result produced by God’s spirit, his finger in movement. He is therefore the heavenly Author of the Bible.

IDENTITY OF EARTHLY BIBLE WRITERS

12. Who, then, really made the Bible, but what do religionists of the Catholic church claim?

¹² It goes without contradiction that Jehovah God made the Holy Bible by means of earthly servants whom he used as his controlled secretaries, scribes or penmen. Hence it strikes one as quite shocking to read what the Toledo (Ohio) Blade reported in its issue of March 1, 1943. It reported a priest of a religious organization as having said the following in the Immaculate Conception Church the preceding day: “It is not generally realized, as it should be, that the Bible belongs exclusively to the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church made the Bible; she has preserved it; and she interprets it. Others may read Holy Scripture—and they are urged to do so—but beyond this they have no right whatsoever in regard to it. Almighty God has placed this precious heritage exclusively in the hands of his Catholic Church. It may seem strange to say that the Catholic Church made the Bible, for we know that this volume is the word of God, every word in it was authorized ultimately by him. But we must recall the manner in which God did this. . . . The Catholic Church not only made the Bible; she also preserved it. . . . Almighty God. . . , too, set up a supreme court—the Catholic Church, to determine just what his constitution—Holy Scripture, means.” In agreement with that many pamphlets and many magazine and newspaper advertisements have appeared with the bold heading: “The Bible is a Catholic Book.”

13. How many men were used during the sixteen centuries to write the complete Bible, and who are included among those writers?

¹³ The general public to whom such religious statements and claims are published are entitled to the facts. What are the basic facts? Some of the books of the Holy Bible today bear the names of their writers. As far as can be determined there were more than thirty men used during the sixteen centuries involved in writing the complete Bible. These writers include Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Gad, Nathan, Jeremiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Mordecai, David, Solomon, Agur, Lemuel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John the apostle, Paul, James the half brother of Jesus, Peter, Jude the half brother of Jesus.

14. What fact stands out sharply regarding all those Bible writers, and, spiritually speaking, what may all of Jesus’ footstep followers be called?

¹⁴ As we examine the origin and background of these reputed Bible writers, a startling fact stands out sharply. They were all natural-born Hebrews, Israelites or Jews. There are men who believe, though, that Luke was a Greek. None were Latins. They descended from Abraham, in whose Seed Jehovah God promised to bless all the families of the earth. Abraham was a Hebrew. (Gen. 12:1-3; 14:13) His descendants through Isaac and Jacob were called Hebrews. (Gen. 39:14, 17; 41:12; Ex. 1:15, 16, 19; Jon. 1:9) God changed Jacob’s name to Israel, and hence the twelve tribes of his offspring were called, not Jacobites, but Israelites. (Ex. 9:7) The dying Jacob or Israel bestowed the blessing of future kingship upon his son Judah; and hence the Israelites who stuck to the royal tribe of Judah and to the king of that tribe were called Judeans or Jews. (Gen. 49:10; 2 Ki. 16:6; Zech. 8:23) Jesus Christ was of the tribe of Judah. All his footstep followers who hold to him as God’s promised King are therefore Judeans or Jews in a spiritual sense, whose hearts have been circumcised from impurity.—Rev. 5:5; Heb. 7:13, 14.

15. What did the writer Paul call himself in his letters?

¹⁵ The apostle Paul, who wrote fourteen of the books of the Bible, said: “I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham.” (Rom. 11:1) “Circumcised the eighth day, out of the family stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born from Hebrews.”—Phil. 3:5.

16. What kind of book could the Bible therefore be called, and what did Paul write concerning the “superiority of the Jew”?

¹⁶ From this standpoint the Bible could be called, no, not a Catholic book, but a Hebrew book, an Israelite book, a Judean or Jewish book. In agreement with that, the Jewish Christian Paul wrote Christians at Rome: “He is not a Jew that is one on the outside, nor is circumcision that which is on the outside upon the flesh. But he is a Jew that is one on the inside, and his circumcision is that of the heart by spirit, and not by a written code. The praise of that one comes, not from men, but from God. What, then, is the superiority of the Jew, or what is the benefit of the circumcision? A great deal in every way. First of all, because they were entrusted with the sacred pronouncements of God.”—Rom. 2:28 to 3:2.

17. (a) Were all writers of the Holy Bible Christians? (b) What bound their writings together in unity and showed the operating of one spirit on them?

¹⁷ All the Jewish prophets pointed forward to God’s Anointed One, Messiah or Christ. Their hoping for him bound all the ancient prophetic writings together in a unity. But not all the Bible writers were Christians, in the sense of being men who followed after Christ as King. The Bible writers that preceded Jesus Christ could not, of course, be his followers. No, says the apostle Peter: “They kept on investigating what particular season or what kind of season the spirit in them was indicating concerning Christ when it was bearing witness beforehand about the sufferings for Christ and about the glories to follow these.” (1 Pet. 1:10, 11) The last of the pre-Christian writers was Malachi, whose book closes the canon or official catalogue of the Scriptures written in Hebrew and Aramaic. After Malachi the eight writers who wrote the remaining books of the Holy Bible were all Jewish Christians. In their writings in the common Greek language of their day they pointed out how many of the prophecies of Jehovah’s ancient writers were fulfilled in Jesus Christ the promised King of the tribe of Judah; they themselves also foretold things to happen in connection with him. All writers were thus in full sympathy and agreement with one another regarding God’s kingdom by Messiah or Christ. This proves the operating of the one spirit of God as Author upon them all.

THEIR COMMON VOCATION

18, 19. (a) Besides Jewish nationality, what bound all Bible writers together? (b) In learning what God declared in answer to the question, what scroll becomes of special interest to us?

¹⁸ Whereas not all the inspired Bible writers were Christians, there was one thing besides Jewish nationality that bound them all together. What was that? Their common calling. What was their calling? Let us listen to what Jehovah God himself declared to be their calling. In the year 1947, in the midst of the Palestinian War, world-wide interest in the Holy Bible was excited by the discovery of certain ancient manuscripts, no, not in the city of Rome, but near the northwestern end of the Dead Sea in Palestine. These manuscripts came to be called the Dead Sea Scrolls. No, they were not in Latin. They were in Hebrew; and according to the study of archaeologists they were written more than a century before the Christian church or congregation was founded in Jerusalem in the year 33 (A.D.). The most outstanding of these scrolls was that containing a practically complete Hebrew manuscript of Isaiah’s prophecy.

¹⁹ Says Harper’s Bible Dictionary (1952), on page 654a: “The Scrolls had been placed in the Dead Sea Cave before Jesus was born, and were not all discovered until nearly 2,000 years after his death. The Isaiah Scroll found in the Cave probably resembles the one from which he read Isaiah as a young man at Nazareth. (Luke 4:16-19) It has few variations from the prophecy we read today, except minor differences in spelling and errors of the copyists.”

20, 21. (a) On page column 36 what does this Dead Sea Scroll say God declares to be the calling of his chosen people? (b) How is Isaiah 43:10 commented on in The Soncino Books of the Bible (1949)?

²⁰ This Scroll is one of very many not preserved by the Roman Catholic Church. In its page column 36 the Scroll gives the Hebrew text of Isaiah 43:1, 10-12, which, translated into modern English, reads: “And now this is what Jehovah has said, your Creator, O Jacob, and your Former, O Israel: ‘Do not be afraid, for I have repurchased you. I have called you by your name. You are mine.’” “‘You are my witnesses,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘even my servant whom I have chosen, in order that you may know and have faith in me, and that you may understand that I am the same One. Before me there was no God formed, and after me there continued to be none. I—I am Jehovah, and besides me there is no savior.’ ‘I myself have told forth and have saved and have caused it to be heard, when there was among you no stranger. So you are my witnesses,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘and I am God.’”

²¹ In these plain words Jehovah God declared the calling of his chosen people Jacob or Israel was to be that of his “witnesses.” In commenting on Isaiah 43:10 here, in The Soncino Books of the Bible (1949), the Jewish Dr. Israel W. Slotki says, on page 207: “The nations and their gods being unable to prove their contention, God calls upon Israel, who is described as My witnesses and My servant, to bear testimony to the uniqueness of His Divinity, that there neither was nor ever would be a God like unto Him.”

22. (a) Who was Moses, and from when on did he become an outstanding witness? (b) What proves that Moses was such a witness of Jehovah?

²² The first of the inspired Bible writers was the prophet Moses. He was of the tribe of Levi of the nation of Israel. Accordingly, in view of Jehovah’s own declaration in Isaiah 43:10-12, Moses was one of His witnesses. By his holy angel in the miraculously burning bush “God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt they say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.” (Ex. 3:2, 14, 15, AS) From then on Moses became an outstanding witness of Jehovah. In the first five books of the Bible which he wrote, from Genesis through Deuteronomy, he used the name Jehovah (יהוה)c 1,833 times. Who, then, can truthfully deny that Moses was a witness of Jehovah and was true to his calling? No one but religious hypocrites, prevaricators and hiders of the truth could do so! The Christian writer of the inspired letter to the Hebrews, chapters eleven and twelve, lists Moses among the witnesses of Jehovah. But Moses was not the first witness of Jehovah.

23. Who was the first faithful witness, and what did the end of his career mark the start of?

²³ The writer of Hebrews lists Abel, the second son of Adam, as the first faithful witness of Jehovah, saying: “By faith a fuller sacrifice did Abel offer unto God than Cain,—through which he received witness that he was righteous, there being a witnessing upon his gifts by God; and through it though he died he yet is speaking.” (Heb. 11:4, Ro; NW) As it is written, in Genesis 4:4, 5 (AS): “And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.” In religious jealousy Cain murdered his brother Abel for being a faithful, acceptable witness of Jehovah. This was the start of all the violence that religionists have inflicted upon the true witnesses of Jehovah from Abel’s ancient time till today.

24, 25. (a) Whom does Hebrews chapter eleven name in its list? (b) How does the writer of Hebrews indicate that the aforenamed were witnesses of Jehovah?

²⁴ After Abel, chapter eleven of Hebrews goes through the list of witnesses of Jehovah, naming the prophets Enoch and Noah; the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Abraham’s wife Sarah; Jacob’s son Joseph; the prophet Moses; Rahab the harlot, who survived the destruction of walled Jericho; judges Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah; King David and the prophet Samuel. The writer finds no time to name the other prophets; but when he refers to ‘stopping the mouths of lions,’ whom could he also have in mind but the prophet Daniel who came out of the lions’ den safely? When he spoke of witnesses of Jehovah dying by slaughter with the sword, he could have had in mind John the Baptist, who was beheaded. After describing the rough treatment that they received, chapter eleven of Hebrews closes, saying: “And these all, though they obtained witness through their faith, yet bare not away the promise: God for us [Christians] something better providing, that not apart from us should they be made perfect.” (Heb. 11:39, 40, Ro) But how does the writer of Hebrews indicate that they were witnesses of Jehovah God? He does so by saying in the very next two verses:

²⁵ “Therefore, indeed, seeing that we also have encircling us so great a cloud of witnesses, stripping off every encumbrance and the easily entangling sin, with endurance let us be running the race that is lying before us, looking away unto our faith’s Princely leader and perfecter, Jesus, who in consideration of the joy lying before him endured a cross, shame despising, and on the right hand of the throne of God hath taken his seat.”—Heb. 12:1, 2, Ro.

26. What shows whose “cloud of witnesses” they were, and so who authored the Hebrew-Aramaic Scriptures, and by means of whom?

²⁶ Note that the writer of Hebrews calls those whom he named or described in Heb chapter eleven and who preceded Jesus Christ, a “cloud of witnesses.” But whose witnesses? There is only one answer: Jehovah’s. Why, the last one of the Bible books written before Jesus Christ, namely, the prophecy of Malachi, mentions Jehovah forty-eight times. Jesus Christ him. self quoted from this prophecy of Malachi to show its inspiration and genuineness as part of Jehovah’s Word. (Matt. 11:7-15; Mal. 3:1; 4:5, 6) Thus from Moses to Malachi all the writers of the canonical Scriptures were witnesses of Jehovah; and all those inspired Scriptures in Hebrew and Aramaic were of Jehovah’s authorship and were by his witnesses.

CHRISTIAN WITNESSES OF JEHOVAH

27, 28. (a) What was Jesus born to be, and how so? (b) To what political ruler did he confess that fact, and so what title did he earn?

²⁷ The Hebrew Christians to whom the writer of the letter wrote were surrounded by such a “cloud of witnesses” and were told also to look away to “faith’s Princely leader and perfecter, Jesus,” who died a martyr’s death. Does this mean that Jesus also was a witness of Jehovah? Yes, Jesus the Son of God from heaven was born in the family line of King David, in the tribe of Judah, in the nation of Israel. By birth Jesus was one of the nation of Israel to whom Jehovah God said, in Isaiah 43:10-12: “‘You are my witnesses,’ is the utterance of Jehovah.” So Jesus was born on earth to be Jehovah’s witness. This fact he refused to deny, even before the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, who sentenced Jesus to death. In answer to Pilate’s question, “Well, then, are you a king?” Jesus said: “It is for you to say that I am a king. For this purpose I have been born and for this purpose I have come into the world, [why?] that I should bear witness to the truth.”—John 18:37.

²⁸ To emphasize that Jesus was a witness the apostle Paul speaks of “Christ Jesus, who as a witness made the right public declaration in the audience of Pontius Pilate.” (1 Tim. 6:13) Likewise, the apostle John, writing to seven congregations in the province of Asia, says: “May you have undeserved kindness and peace from . . . Jesus Christ, ‘the Faithful Witness,’ ‘The firstborn from the dead,’ and ‘The Ruler of the kings of the earth’.”—Rev. 1:4, 5.

29. How did Jesus confess to being a witness when speaking to Nicodemus?

²⁹ Further, out of Jesus’ own mouth we hear his confession to being Jehovah’s witness, when he says to Nicodemus, a Jewish teacher in Israel: “What we know we speak and what we have seen we bear witness of, but you people do not receive the witness we give. If I have told you earthly things and yet you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”—John 3:11, 12; Ro.

30, 31. (a) How does John then comment on Jesus as a witness? (b) How did Jesus speak the sayings of God in the Nazareth synagogue?

³⁰ Some verses later the apostle John comments on this, saying: “He that comes from heaven is over all others. What he has seen and heard, of this he bears witness, but no man is accepting his witness. He that has accepted his witness has given his seal to it that God is true. For the one whom God sent forth speaks the sayings of God, for he does not give the spirit sparingly.” (John 3:31-34; Ro) Jesus truly spoke the sayings of God on the sabbath day when he was in the synagogue in his home town Nazareth, and he read from God’s Word. An Isaiah scroll, like the one found near the Dead Sea in 1947, was handed him by the attendant, and Jesus unrolled it to Isa chapter sixty-one, verses one and two, and read:

³¹ “The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the year of Jehovah’s favor.”—Isa. 61:1, 2, AS; Luke 4:16-19.

32, 33. (a) What did Jesus then say to show himself Jehovah’s witness? (b) In the temple at Jerusalem what prophet did Peter declare Jesus Christ to be?

³² Then Jesus commented: “Today this scripture that you just heard is fulfilled.” To show its fulfillment, he now proceeded to “proclaim the year of Jehovah’s favor,” which Jehovah had anointed him to proclaim. Jesus was thus proving himself Jehovah’s witness. (Luke 4:20-22) After Jesus had proved himself a witness faithful to a martyr’s death, the apostle Peter publicly told a crowd of worshipers of Jehovah in the temple of Jerusalem that Jesus was the prophet whom Moses had foretold in these words to Israel:

³³ “Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; . . . And Jehovah said unto me, . . . I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee [Moses]; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name [Jehovah], I will require it of him.”—Deut. 18:15-19, AS.

34. In being a prophet like Moses, what was Jesus Christ obliged to be, and thus in imitating Jesus what must his followers be?

³⁴ Moses as prophet was a prominent witness of Jehovah, and he declared the name of Jehovah even to the mighty Pharaoh of Egypt. Not only the apostle Peter but also the Christian martyr Stephen declared Jesus to be the foretold prophet who was to be raised up, one like Moses but greater than Moses. (Acts 3:20-23; 7:37, 52, 53) In fulfillment of Moses’ prophecy, Jesus Christ was a witness of Jehovah as Moses had been but was a witness greater than Moses. It is to Jesus the Greater Moses that all the runners in the Christian race toward eternal life in God’s new world are told to look, for the purpose of imitating Jesus Christ. (Heb. 12:1, 2) Said the apostle Paul: “Become imitators of me, even as I am of Christ.” (1 Cor. 11:1; 1 Thess. 1:6) The truth becomes plain, therefore, that true Christians, true followers of Christ, must imitate him in being Jehovah’s witnesses. True Christians are Jehovah’s witnesses.

35. (a) Till whose conversion were natural Jews born to be witnesses? (b) What did Jews leaving Judaism for Christianity become, but what did Jews refusing Christianity cease to be?

³⁵ The Jewish apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ were proof of the fact that genuine Christians are witnesses of Jehovah God. In the face of Jehovah’s own words to the nation of Israel in the Isaiah scroll, Isa chapter forty-three, verses ten through twelve, all natural Jews who were born prior to the conversion of Cornelius, the first non-Jew, to Christianity were born to be servants and witnesses of Jehovah. When such natural Jews left Judaism with its traditions and became Christians in the days of the apostles, they did not cease to be Jehovah’s witnesses. No; they became the Christian witnesses of Jehovah, like their Leader Jesus Christ the Greater Moses. The natural-born Jews who refused to accept Jesus Christ as the Greater Moses were the ones who ceased to be Jehovah’s witnesses as well as Jehovah’s national “servant” class. On the other hand, the Christians were the ones who recognized Jehovah’s words in the Isaiah scroll, Isa chapter fifty-five, verse four, to apply to Jesus Christ: “Lo! As a witness to the peoples have I given him, as a leader and commander to the peoples.”—Ro; AS.

36. On Pentecost what did the anointed Jews become?

³⁶ On the day of the festival of Pentecost A.D. 33 the Jewish followers of Jesus were anointed with Jehovah’s holy spirit the same as Jesus had been. By this they now became spiritual Jews, specially anointed to be the new nation of spiritual Israel, the new nation of Jehovah’s servants and witnesses.—1 Pet. 2:9.

37. (a) On Pentecost what Hebrew scriptures did Peter quote and what concluding comment did he make on them? (b) What did Peter thus show himself to be?

³⁷ When explaining that outpouring of holy spirit upon the Jewish Christians that day, the apostle Peter quoted the following words from the scroll of Joel’s prophecy: “It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; . . . The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of Jehovah cometh. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be delivered.” (Joel 2:28-32, AS) Peter next quoted Psalm 16:8-11, which says: “I have set Jehovah always before me: . . . For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; . . . ” (AS) Peter also quoted Psalm 110:1, which says: “Jehovah saith unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” (AS) Then, in comment on these inspired scriptures, Peter said: “This Jesus God resurrected, of which fact we are all witnesses. . . . Therefore let all the house of Israel know for a certainty that God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you impaled.” (Acts 2:14-36) In this unmistakable way Peter showed right at the start that he as a spiritual Jew or Israelite was an anointed witness of Jehovah, this Jehovah who had resurrected his Son Jesus Christ from death in Sheol and who had poured out his holy spirit by means of Jesus Christ seated at His right hand.

38. In his first epistle how did John classify himself as a witness, and how to the end of the Bible did John show Jesus to be one?

³⁸ The apostle John was there with Peter at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. John plainly classified himself as a witness of the one God whose name is Jehovah. In 1 John 4:14 the apostle John writes: “In addition, we ourselves have beheld and are bearing witness that the Father [Jehovah] has sent forth his Son as Savior of the world.” And in the very last book of the Bible John quotes the glorified Jesus Christ as saying to him in a vision: “These are the things the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God.” “He that bears witness of these things says: ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’” To this latter announcement John responds: “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus.” (Rev. 3:14; 22:20) So to the very end of the Holy Bible John emphasized that Jesus Christ was a witness of his heavenly Father Jehovah. John also testified that he himself was such a witness of Jehovah God.

39. (a) By whom and how were the last twenty-seven books of the Bible supplied to us? (b) How did Peter rank apostolic writings with the inspired Holy Scriptures?

³⁹ John, Peter and the other first-century witnesses of Jehovah bore testimony not only by word of mouth but also by writing. As a result the Christians were supplied with the last twenty-seven books of the Bible, these books being written, not in the ancient Hebrew nor in Latin, but in the common Greek, the international language of the first century. Jehovah God inspired eight men of his new nation of spiritual Israel, eight anointed Jewish Christians, to complete the Holy Bible for us by the end of the first century. Hence, for example, the apostle Peter ranks the inspired writings of the apostle Paul with the “rest of the Scriptures” when he writes: “Consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given him also wrote you, speaking about these things as he does also in all his other letters. In them, however, are some things hard to understand, the meaning of which the untaught and unsteady are twisting, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.”—2 Pet. 3:15, 16; AT; Mo.

40. By means of whom was the Holy Bible begun and by means of whom completed, and so a book by whom may it be said to be?

⁴⁰ Thus the Holy Bible of which Jehovah God is the one Author was completed by means of his witnesses, even as it had been begun by means of them. Consequently, with no room allowed for Scriptural contradiction, it may be said that The Holy Bible is the Book by Jehovah’s witnesses. As Revelation 19:6 exclaims, “Hallelujah!”

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 589]

The above photostat of the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah (DSIa) is the first of its fifty-four columns of well-preserved Hebrew writing, read from right to left. It contains chapter one of Isaiah, from verse 1 to part of verse 26. This opening page contains 29 lines, and the tetragrammaton of the divine name יהוה is still legible in full seven times, on lines 3, 10, 12, 13, 21, 27, and the first two letters thereof on line 5.

The Church Started with the Holy Scriptures

1. To say the Christians started off at Pentecost without the Holy Bible leaves what false impression?

AS A church, did the Christians start off on the day of Pentecost without the Holy Bible? To answer Yes would mean to state a partial fact. It would leave the idea that the Christian church started off without the Holy Scriptures and depended entirely upon verbal tradition by the apostles and other leading men of the congregation, and that therefore the Holy Bible is not necessary to those who are truly Christians. Not so!

2. Did Jesus start off with the Holy Scriptures, and what is the evidence of whether or not?

² Even Jesus Christ started off with the Holy Scriptures. Otherwise, how, when resisting the temptations by Satan the Devil, could he say three times: “It is written,” and then quote from Moses’ writings? How could he later quote from the prophecy of Malachi, the last book of the Hebrew Scriptures? Moreover, on his day of resurrection from the dead he met his disciples, and, “beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things that were concerning him.” Later, he met with his apostles and referred to all three general divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures, saying: “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms, concerning me.” (Matt. 4:1-10; 11:10-14; Luke 24:27, 44, Dy) Jesus could not have done this had he not had and read all the books or biblía of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures. When preaching, he always quoted from them.

3. On Pentecost, when the Christian church began, what did it have available to it with regard to the Holy Bible?

³ Likewise, when the Christian church began on the day of Pentecost, it began in full possession of all the Holy Scriptures written in Hebrew and Aramaic, from Genesis to Malachi. It also had six of the eight Jewish believers who were used to write the remaining twenty-seven books of the Holy Bible in common Greek. Most vital of all, at Pentecost the Christian church had with it by holy spirit the one immortal Author of all the books of the complete Holy Bible, Jehovah God. The Christian church also had available to it the first written translation of the Holy Scriptures, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, made during the third and second centuries before the Christian church was founded.

4. On what was the Church established doctrinally, and what did it quote as authority?

⁴ Hence the Christian church was not founded upon tradition. The complete canon of the Hebrew Scriptures preceded the Christian church, and the church was established on them. As exemplified in Peter’s speech, the church relied upon those inspired Holy Scriptures and made use of them from the day of Pentecost forward. The eight Jewish writers of the remaining books of the complete Holy Bible always referred to and quoted from those Hebrew Scriptures.

5. Did the Christian church decide what was the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures, and what are the historical facts on the question?

⁵ Thus the Christian church did not produce the Hebrew Scriptures. It did not even compile them. That work had been done more than a century before the church began. The deciding of what was the canon or authoritative catalogue of the genuine inspired Hebrew Scriptures was not left to the Christian church. Neither was the Hebrew canon decided by the Greek translation that came to be known as the Greek Septuagint Version. This pre-Christian translation was made by Jews in Alexandria, Egypt, for the Jewish colony down there and for Greek-speaking Jews elsewhere. At first that Septuagint contained only the translation of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures; but later other books in Greek were added which have come to be called apocryphal books. Hence the canon or catalogue of sacred books of the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria differed from the Jerusalem or Palestinian canon. The Great Synagogue of Jerusalem fixed this canon in the days of Jewish Governor Nehemiah in the fifth century B.C. or shortly afterward.—Neh. 10:1-28.

6. (a) Did the fixing of the canon of pre-Christian Scriptures precede the Greek Septuagint or not? (b) How did Jesus Christ and the eight writing disciples confirm the true canon?

⁶ The period of the Great Synagogue continued till about 300 B.C., after which the Jewish Sánhedrin or Court came into existence. Thus before the Greek Septuagint was begun, the Jerusalem canon was established. It contained just the thirty-nine inspired Hebrew-Aramaic books from Genesis to Malachi, and it prohibited the apocryphal books that were added to the Greek Septuagint. Jesus and the eight writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures confirmed this Jerusalem canon of thirty-nine books, for they all quoted from the Jerusalem canon, but never from the apocryphal books added to the Greek Septuagint. When those eight inspired writers in Greek did quote from the Septuagint, they ignored the apocryphal books.

7. (a) How, according to the Roman Catholic Church, did it “make” the Bible? (b) Why does not the number of its books now agree with the number in non-Roman Catholic Bibles?

⁷ The leading religious organization of Christendom is therefore wrong in boasting that, because its Council in Carthage in 397 (A.D.) determined upon its canon of sacred books, the Roman Catholic Church made the Holy Bible. According to the Council of Carthage decision the Holy Bible contains seventy-three books, whereas the Bible published today by non-Roman Catholics contains only sixty-six books. This is because the Roman Catholic Council of Carthage added to its Old Testament division of its Bible seven apocryphal books, deutero-canonical books as Roman Catholics call them, besides making additions to two proto-canonical books.

8. What did the Council of Carthage ignore as to the canon, and how is the Roman Catholic claim as to infallibility proved to be false?

⁸ In doing this the Council of Carthage overstepped the Jerusalem canon of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures that had been confirmed by Jesus Christ and his eight inspired Scripture-writing disciples. How, then, can the religious organization of Vatican City truthfully claim that by its Council of Carthage A.D. 397 it “made” the Holy Bible? The true Bible includes only inspired books of which Jehovah God is the Author. It does not include the seven uninspired apocryphal books and additions, which are full of error and which were not produced by Jehovah’s ancient witnesses. The Council of Carthage decided indeed what should go into its authorized Latin translation, the Latin Vulgate, which was then in the making by Jerome; but it did not decide finally what should go into the Bible for non-Roman Catholics of today. It did not decide for Jehovah’s witnesses of today what is the Holy Bible nor make it for them. The Roman Catholic Church’s claim to infallibility in making the Holy Bible is thus exploded and proves false.

PRESERVATION OF SCRIPTURE

9. (a) Were it not for the Roman Catholic Church, would we have the Bible today? (b) What shows whether its official Bible translation is inspired?

⁹ Is it true, then, that if it were not for the Roman Catholic Church we would not have the Bible today? Examination of the facts answers No! The books of the original Bible were written under inspiration in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. They had to be translated into Latin and other languages ancient and modern. Now, a translation is not inspired, not even the Latin translation by Jerome, for it has been revised a number of times by Roman Catholics.

10. (a) On how many Greek manuscripts do modern translators of the “New Testament” mainly rely? (b) Where is the Vatican Manuscript No. 1209 available, and how has the Sinaitic Manuscript become available?

¹⁰ In modern times Bible translators have relied for the “New Testament” upon three basic Greek manuscripts. One is the Vatican Manuscript No. 1209, which dates from the fourth century A.D. It is at present found in the Library of Vatican City, but it is catalogued as being in that library only from A.D. 1481. How it got there no one now seems to know. The next is the Sinaitic Manuscript, also of the fourth century. It was found in 1844 by the German scholar Tischendorf, not in Rome, but in the Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai in Arabia. The Czar of Russia ordered Tischendorf to publish this Sinaitic Manuscript in 1862. It was purchased from the Communist Soviet Government in 1933 and may now be viewed in the British Museum, London, England.

11. How did the Alexandrine Manuscript come to be in its present location, and what does it, as well as the Sinaitic Manuscript, contain that Vatican Manuscript No. 1209 does not?

¹¹ The third ancient manuscript in codex form is the Alexandrine. It is of the fifth century. It was brought from Alexandria, Egypt, to Constantinople, Turkey, by Cyril Lucar, a Greek Orthodox, who strongly opposed the union of Greek churches with papal Rome. Lucar was made the Greek patriarch of Alexandria in 1602 and was elected to be patriarch of Constantinople in 1621. In 1624 he was persuaded to give the Alexandrine Manuscript to Protestant King James I of England, but it did not reach there until in 1628 in the reign of Charles I. It also is on display in the British Museum, London. The Alexandrine and Sinaitic Manuscripts contain the Bible books of 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus and the Revelation (Apocalypse), which the Vatican Manuscript No. 1209 does not now contain.

12. So was the Vatican religious organization entrusted with preserving the most ancient Greek manuscripts?

¹² So it is seen that the Vatican religious organization has not been entrusted with the exclusive preservation of the most ancient texts of the so-called New Testament, the twenty-seven Bible books written by the eight inspired Jewish disciples of Jesus Christ.

13. What ancient Hebrew and Aramaic Bible texts recently discovered did the Roman Catholic Church have nothing to do with in preserving?

¹³ Now, what about the manuscripts of the thirty-nine inspired books of the pre-Christian Hebrew-Aramaic Scriptures? Certainly the Roman Catholic Church had nothing to do with preserving the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947. It had nothing to do with preserving the Geniza or storeroom of the Jewish synagogue in Old Cairo, Egypt, which was discovered first in 1890 by Solomon Schechter and from which amazing quantities of Bible materials and other religious materials have been taken and distributed to various libraries and manuscript collections.

14. From when on did copying of the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures go forward, and what facts show whether the Jews had their Bible in the days of Jesus and his apostles?

¹⁴ The Roman Catholic Church was not the only religious organization that had copyists of the sacred Scriptures. From the days of the Jewish scribe, the priest named Ezra, a contemporary of Governor Nehemiah of Jerusalem, the work of copying the canonical Hebrew Scriptures went forward. Copies were made by Jewish scribes for use in the Jewish synagogues established in the lands where the Jews were scattered. In the synagogue in Nazareth Jesus read from the Isaiah scroll. In the synagogue of Antioch of Pisidia the apostle Paul spoke after he had listened to the public reading of the Law and of the Prophets. (Acts 13:15) And in Jerusalem, about A.D. 49, the assembly of the apostles and older men of the whole congregation said in its decree: “From ancient times Moses has had in city after city those who preach him, because he is read aloud in the synagogues on every sabbath.” (Acts 15:21) The following year the Jews who heard the apostle Paul preach in their synagogue in Beroea, Macedonia, searched the Holy Scriptures daily to see whether the things that the apostle told them were true according to Bible prophecy. (Acts 17:11) After Paul arrived in Rome about A.D. 59 he tried to persuade the Jews there concerning Jesus Christ out of their own copies of the law of Moses and of the prophets. (Acts 28:16-23) Undeniably the Jews had their Bible back there.

15. After the complete Bible of sixty-six books was written, what happened to the work of copying the Hebrew Scriptures?

¹⁵ Even after the Bible canon of sixty-six inspired books was completed by the end of the first century, the Jewish scribes kept on making handwritten copies of their Holy Scriptures, the thirty-nine inspired Hebrew books. In time the copy work was taken over by the Masoretic scribes, who were very scrupulous about preserving the canonized text of the Hebrew Scriptures. Masoretes, headed by Ben Naphtali of the East and by Ben Asher of the West, were active from the sixth to the ninth centuries of our common era.

16. During the Dark Ages of Christendom how were the Jews and their treasures of Hebrew Scriptures treated, but yet what copy work went on?

¹⁶ The gloom of the Dark Ages of Roman Catholic Christendom increased, and the persecution of the Jews by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy continued through its terrible crusades and religious inquisitions. Jewish synagogues were burneda with their treasures of Hebrew Scriptures, and Jews were hounded out of lands, being driven out of Spain in 1492, the year that Columbus discovered America. They were cooped up in ghettos, the Jewish Ghetto in papal Rome being broken up first in 1870 when the Italian liberators invaded the city and took the government out of the hands of the pope. In spite of all this terrible treatment of Jews by Christendom the copying of the Hebrew Holy Scriptures by Jews went on to provide copies for the Jewish synagogues and private use.

17, 18. (a) How did the Jews take advantage early of the invention of printing? (b) When and by whom did the first complete Hebrew Bible appear, and how did a Protestant reformer use a copy of a Hebrew Bible?

¹⁷ Came the invention of printing in 1450 in Germany. The first book printed was the Latin Vulgate Bible. The Jews quickly seized upon the invention to print their Bible in Hebrew, for private use, although service scrolls for synagogues still continued to be made by Jewish hand. In 1473 a Hebrew printing press was set up, an edition of 300 copies of part of the Bible being printed in 1477.

¹⁸ Then, on February 23, 1488, by the Jewish printing house of Joshua Solomon Israel Nathan at Soncino in the duchy of Milan, the first complete edition of the Hebrew Bible, with vowels and accents, was brought out. In Brescia a printing press was set up by Gerson ben Moses Soncino, and in May, 1494, it issued a complete Hebrew Bible. It was a copy of this Hebrew Bible that Martin Luther the Reformer used in making his Bible translation into German in 1534.

19. Thus what religious work do the Jews still have today, and to whom do they owe no thanks respecting this?

¹⁹ To this day the Jews have their Bible, which is identical with the Old Testament section of Protestant or non-Catholic Bibles. This preservation of the inspired text of the Hebrew Scriptures owes no thanks to the Roman Catholic Church, which claims to be the divinely commissioned owner, interpreter and preserver of the Holy Bible. This despite its shameful record for destroying Bibles.

20. To whom is to be ascribed the preserving of the inspired text of the Holy Bible, and by means of whom was it produced and for whom preserved?

²⁰ No, the preservation of the Holy Bible is to be credited to no religious organization of Christendom. It is Jehovah God to whom is to be ascribed the preserving of the inspired text of his Holy Word, for He is its sole Author. In the Isaiah scroll (Isa 40:8) he caused to be written: “The word of our God shall stand for ever.” (JP) He produced the complete Holy Bible by means of his faithful witnesses. He has preserved it for the world-wide use of Jehovah’s witnesses today. (1 Pet. 1:25) All thanks to him by Jesus Christ!

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 597]

Section of the Cairo Codex showing a colophon by the Masoretic scribe Moses ben Asher, A.D. 895.

New Bible Translation Completed, Released

1. Where was the above-published information on the Bible first publicly given out, when and by whom?

THE preceding articles on The Holy Bible were delivered at 3 p.m., Saturday, June 18, 1960, by the president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania to the District Assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses, who were convening for four days at Manchester City Football Ground, Manchester, England. After he delivered the above-published material, he went on to say:

2. (a) What corporation have the modern witnesses of Jehovah used as their publishing agency? (b) Since when has it printed on its own presses Bibles or portions of the Bible, and what were the first two of such?

² What is today the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania was incorporated in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1884 as Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society. Ever since its legal incorporation Jehovah’s witnesses of modern times have been using it as their publishing agency. In harmony with its Charter the Society has distributed Bibles in many languages. Since 1926 it has even undertaken to print Bibles on its own presses. The Emphatic Diaglott, of which it owns the copyright and plates, was first run off its presses in 1926. Since then 166,244 copies have been printed. In due time the Society bought the plates for printing the Authorized or King James Version of the Holy Bible, which is the first English Bible that was translated, not from the Latin Vulgate, but from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. The Society began printing it in 1942, and has since produced 1,396,701 copies.

3. (a) What other complete Bible edition did it next publish, and to what extent? (b) How has this Bible society spread the Bible in many languages?

³ Later the Society paid for the privilege to use the plates of the American Standard Version Bible, which is a revision of the King James Version Bible of 1611. Copies of this American Revision the Watch Tower Society began producing in 1944, and has since printed 888,837 copies in two sizes. Over 2 million copies of all three of these Biblical editions from its own presses the Society has distributed world-wide through its eighty-five Branch organizations. By means of these Branches the Society has also spread the Bible in many languages, as it has been able to obtain these foreign-language Bibles from other Bible societies.

4. What, in brief, are the facts concerning the printing and release of the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures?

⁴ In 1948 the Watch Tower Society became aware of the existence of the New World Bible Translation Committee, formed for the purpose of producing a modern translation of the entire Bible from its original languages, with features that would be most suitable for accurate Bible education today. The Committee agreed to turn over its translation to the Watch Tower Society to hold as its property and to publish as part of its Bible educational work. On September 3, 1949, the Society’s president had the pleasure of introducing to a meeting of associate directors the completed translation, in typewritten form, of the Christian Greek Scriptures, which the Translation Committee had then recently turned over to the Society. On August 2, 1950, it was my privilege to address the international assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses in Yankee Stadium, New York, and to release to the 82,075 there present the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures fresh from the Society’s own presses in Brooklyn, New York. The first edition was 480,000 copies. In ten years our Society has printed 1,408,668 copies of the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures.

5. Whose edition of the Hebrew text did the Committee mainly use for translating the Hebrew Scriptures, and how has the translation thereof been furnished for publication?

⁵ Then the efforts of the New World Bible Translation Committee turned to rendering the canonical Hebrew Scriptures into modern English. As the Hebrew text for translation the Committee used principally the edition known as the Biblia Hebraica produced by the late Rudolf Kittel and his surviving colleagues and published in a number of editions by the Privilegierte Wuerttembergische Bibelanstalt of Stuttgart, Germany. In this edition the endeavor has been made to get back to the Biblical text by Moses ben Asher, considered to be the greatest Masoretic scribe in preserving the traditional form and pronunciation of the Hebrew text. (See photograph, page 597.) The translation of the Hebrew Scriptures by the Committee has gradually been furnished for publication in volume after volume.

6-9. What are some interesting items about Volume I? About Volume II? About Volume III? About Volume IV?

⁶ Volume I of the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures was printed in 1953 and was released at the second international assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses in Yankee Stadium. It contains the first eight books of the Bible. The first edition was of a half million copies. To date our Society has printed 731,065 copies.

⁷ Volume II was released in 1955 in Chicago, Illinois, at the first of a series of thirteen five-day assemblies. This volume, with a first edition of 300,000 copies, contains the next nine books of the Bible. To date our Society has printed 444,553 copies.

⁸ Volume III was released in 1957 as the feature of a series of District Assemblies of Jehovah’s witnesses that summer. This volume contains the five poetical books of the Bible, and had a first edition of 350,000 copies. Our Society has now printed 372,890 copies.

⁹ Volume IV was released in 1958 at the largest international assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses on record, in Yankee Stadium, when 150,282 auditors hailed the presentation of this volume. It contains the three prophetic books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations. To date our Society has printed 288,254 copies.

10. (a) How was the release of Volume V brought about, and what does its publication mean for this translation? (b) What, then, is the Society’s record to date as to Bible printing?

¹⁰ Fourteen prophetic books, from Ezekiel through Malachi, were yet to be translated. Jehovah God the Author of the complete Holy Bible preserved the Translation Committee, enabling it to attain the desired goal. So, by Jehovah’s loving-kindness, ten years after releasing the first product of the New World Bible Translation Committee, I am greatly privileged to release to this District Assembly here in Manchester, England, the fifth volume of the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, containing those final fourteen books of the Hebrew canon. The publication of this long-desired volume makes complete the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. Today is therefore a day for rejoicing and thanksgiving on the part of Jehovah’s witnesses the wide world over! At present 280,000 copies of the first edition of this final volume are being printed. All summed up, then, our Society has printed 2,565,538 copies of the complete Bible in English; or, 5,977,210 copies of the complete Bible and parts of the Bible text in English. And the end is not yet!

11. What are the featured contents of this final volume?

¹¹ This final and concluding volume contains, in addition to the modern English translation of this portion of the Hebrew canon, other valuable features. It contains an Appendix of ninety pages that offers unusual information on all the Hebrew Scriptures in particular; also a list of outstanding Bible subjects and proper names, with the initial Scripture text, from which text a minister can follow up a progressive chain of Bible references on such subjects and names; also an alphabetic index of Bible words by means of which a minister can quickly find even the new and unusual words found in the entire New World Translation, each word being accompanied by a chosen number of Scripture verses by the use of which any witness of Jehovah could build up an extemporaneous sermonette for the occasion; also a Table of the Books of the Bible, and valuable maps and diagrams especially adapted to this final volume.

12. In its translation work, to what does the Translation Committee adhere, and so what has it not put in Volume V?

¹² This final volume contains none of the apocryphal books, as these are not inspired by the Bible’s Author Jehovah God. The New World Bible Translation Committee adheres, not to the catalogue of the religious Council of Carthage of 397, but to the catalogue of sacred books that have been proved to be Scripturally canonical, in agreement with divine truth, from first to last.

13 To what has the Translation Committee now set itself, and what is our prayer in this regard?

¹³ Although completing this task of over ten years’ duration, the New World Bible Translation Committee does not feel that it should now dissolve. We are informed that it now sets itself to go over the entire translation and work out certain refinements in it and bring it all together in one volume, without the copious footnotes and appendixes. Then it can be easily carried in one hand, for efficient use in the world-wide field of Jehovah’s witnesses’ ministry, as they obey Christ’s command to preach the good news of God’s kingdom in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations before this old world ends at Armageddon. May the Translation Committee have the blessing of Jehovah God; and may we Bible lovers use His provision through the Committee to His honor and to the salvation of many who call upon His holy name.

Pursuing My Purpose in Life

As told by Giovanni DeCecca

CALITRI, Italy, was my birthplace, in December, 1879. My devout parents had me baptized and later confirmed as a Roman Catholic. Little did we expect that today, at the age of eighty, I would fondly look back at fifty-four years as one of Jehovah’s witnesses.

After my confirmation, I used to wonder and finally inquired of our priest: “What must I do as a Christian to please God?” He replied: “Be a good man, attend mass regularly, go to confession, repeat the rosary, contribute all you can to the church and do what I tell you.” His answer did not satisfy me. It seemed selfish and wrong to be interested just in myself. Why not try to help others and make the world better?

About this time my father brought home a Bible and began to read it to us. I had never seen one before and wondered if it would help me be a good Christian. As father read to us from day to day, I became deeply interested and longed to read the Bible myself. Having been a shepherd boy from the age of five and without schooling, I could not read. When father taught me how, I spent many happy hours reading this good Book. While many things were not clear, I realized that what the priests were telling me did not agree with God’s Word. Trying to talk to my priest about the Bible was very disappointing. He told me it was not my business to understand and teach the Bible; that was his business! He would tell me all I would need to know to be a real Christian. Then he told me to come to confession. I went, but there was nothing to confess. Very displeased, my priest spoke terrible things about purgatory and eternal torment and other matters not suitable for the ears of a boy in his teens. I was very much disgusted. When told to put something in the collection box to pay for the services of the priest, I contributed two cents, and later regretted that.

As we continued reading the Bible, father decided that we would not go to mass any more. His decision brought great opposition from our relatives and former friends. The priests told them not to have anything to do with us because we would lead them astray. We joined the local Baptist church, where we learned that purgatory was not mentioned in the Bible, nor did it say anything about going to mass or praying to the “saints.” The minister told us that we should pray to God and confess our sins to Him. I was glad to learn these things, but the doctrine of eternal torment bothered me. Our minister could not give a satisfactory Scriptural answer. This was a great disappointment to me, because the thought of suffering forever in a place of torment distressed me very much. I continued to read the Bible, hoping to find someone who could answer my questions.

In 1900, when I was twenty-one, we moved to the United States, settling in Connecticut. I secured work to help support the family and immediately began to study English, with the aid of an Italian-English dictionary. Learning to speak and read English, I felt at home in America. Here I continued to read the Bible, still hoping someone would help me understand it.

In 1904 my hope was realized when a Watch Tower colporteur visited my place of work offering Bible-study helps. From her I obtained the first three volumes of Studies in the Scriptures. The first volume, called “The Divine Plan of the Ages,” opened up the glorious message of the Bible to me in a remarkable way. I was so happy I wanted to tell everyone that I had found the truth. How wonderful it was! My worries about eternal torment were over, for God’s inspired Book plainly says the “wages of sin is death,” not torment. I learned that God’s kingdom, for which Jesus taught us to pray, will bring eternal life and perfect happiness to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and serve him faithfully. What a message to bring to the people!

My first efforts to circulate these wonderful books were not very successful, because I did not know how to go about it. When I tried to interest my Baptist minister by telling him that hell is not a place of eternal torment, he asked: “If hell is taken out of the Bible, what do we have left?” I replied: “We have Christ our Savior, who redeemed us from the curse of death, and his thousand-year reign that will bring peace, happiness and everlasting life to those who obey him.” That ended the discussion.

At Asbury Park, New Jersey, during the 1906 convention of Bible Students, I met several hundred dedicated Christians well versed in the Scriptures. I shall never forget how these friendly people talked about the Bible all the time and were ready and able to answer my questions. If I could always be with this kind of people, how happy I would be! There I met Brother Charles Russell, president of the Watch Tower Society. I asked him if I could work at the Society’s headquarters. After hearing of my experiences in Italy and how I learned the truth in America, he advised me to take up colporteuring first and perhaps a place could be found for me later at headquarters. I was baptized that year, but did not feel ready for colporteur service. Then a brother going into that work asked me to join him. I did, and soon learned how to place the Bible-study helps. By Jehovah’s undeserved kindness I even gave a public talk in Italian to an audience of four hundred in Roseto, Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile the Society’s headquarters had moved from Allegheny, Pennsylvania, to Brooklyn, New York. In December, 1909, I was invited to work in the Brooklyn Bethel. What a privilege to be a member of this dedicated family! Before a year passed I was assigned to serve the nearby Italian people, who showed much interest in God’s kingdom. None of them could give public talks, so I did what I could, and the Lord blessed my efforts. Frequent lectures were arranged in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

After I had gained some experience in this work, the Society sent me on regular “pilgrim” trips to distant places. On one such assignment to St. Louis a number of Catholic youths came to the meeting with stones in their pockets ready to throw at me if they did not like what was said. No stones were thrown, but after listening to the talk some remained to ask Bible questions and became interested in the truth.

In Rochester, a man came up to me after the lecture and engaged me in heated discussion for over an hour. He left convinced we had the truth and later became a full-time pioneer minister. He is still faithful in Jehovah’s work. During another lecture, in Springfield, Massachusetts, some rowdies came up on the platform and tried to interfere. I talked louder than they did, and the audience kept listening attentively. Finally the troublemakers left. Two families who attended that lecture later became ministers of the good news.

Early in 1914, the Society’s Photo-Drama of Creation was shown to the English-speaking people, accompanied by recorded explanatory talks. When these talks were later translated into Italian, I was invited to read them while the pictures were being shown. Knowing that it took two hours to present each of the Drama’s four parts, I wondered if I could handle it. Since Jehovah had blessed my feeble efforts at public speaking, I was anxious to try. He gave me strength, and I got along well. Thousands attended the showings and many left their names requesting more Bible information. Others shared with me in the joyful work of calling on these people in the Bethel area and furthering their interest.

One sister in the truth, Grace Harris, impressed with the zeal and energy that I gladly put into the Drama talks, fell in love with the speaker. We were married by Brother Russell in 1916. Grace has been a real helpmate to me for over forty years and still is. For all this I am very grateful to Jehovah.

When the Drama had served its purpose, it left me more time to devote to my duties in the Society’s Italian department translating letters and helping with correspondence. It was wonderful to be at the Bethel home! Then, in 1916, we all received a great shock. Brother Russell died on the train that was bringing him back from a West Coast lecture tour. ‘What shall we do now?’ many asked. We believed Brother Russell was “that servant” of Matthew 24:45-47, in whose care all Kingdom interests were entrusted. Was our work finished or should we continue to preach the good news as we had done during his earthly lifetime? A few became discouraged and quit, but the majority kept on working and were richly blessed by the Lord.

At the business meeting in January, 1917, Brother Joseph Rutherford was elected president of the Society. All went well for a time until a few brothers who thought they were lawful directors of the Society tried to change the bylaws and gain control of the work. Their attempt to make the president a mere figurehead who would serve their ambitions did not succeed, but it did cause much confusion and sorrow to the friends who had been loyal to the Society for years. Failing, the rebels left Bethel and the work. Things then proceeded nicely until the summer of 1918.

That year a group of ministers of false religion urged the United States government to halt the work of the Society on the grounds that its officers were disloyal to the war effort. It was asserted that our preaching God’s kingdom as the only hope and pointing out World War I as a fulfillment of prophecy was likely to discourage men from going to war. The charges caused the arrest and trial of the Society’s officers and associates for not taking an active part in the war. For counseling my young brother on the proper manner of requesting classification as a minister, which he was, I became a defendant in the case.

We were given what was to be later proved an unfair trial. Off we went to the Federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia. While the others received very long sentences, mine was comparatively short. Brother Macmillan, one of my fellow defendants, still says this was due to my being shorter in stature than the others. In the prison tailor shop I found a number of other Italians serving time for counterfeiting money. I witnessed to them about God’s kingdom of peace and perfection for mankind. Some listened with appreciation; others thought it was too good to be true.

Justice began to triumph, and we were released from Atlanta in the spring of 1919, later to be fully exonerated. Returning to Brooklyn, we were received by many friends who gathered to greet us. It was a happy family reunion. That September, at Cedar Point, Ohio, over 7,000 dedicated friends assembled in convention to learn, if possible, what the Lord would have us do. To our delight we saw from the Bible that a great work was yet to be done in preaching the Kingdom message to the nations. We returned to Cedar Point for another convention in 1922, where all were electrified with the prospects of greater things ahead. Grace and I rejoiced to have a full-time share in this ever-increasing Kingdom work.

We were busy at our Bethel assignments and the years raced swiftly by. We attended many conventions of Jehovah’s people, such as the ones in Columbus in 1931 and 1937, St. Louis in 1941, Los Angeles in 1947, and the first big assembly in New York’s Yankee Stadium in 1950. All were joyful experiences as we saw God prospering the growth of his earthly organization.

In 1951, and again in 1955, the Society and our friends made it possible for us to visit Italy, where I had the joy of speaking to a number of congregations of our brothers. During the 1955 trip we were among several thousand who toured Europe attending conventions in many cities. The assembly in Rome at the beautiful auditorium originally intended to glorify Mussolini was a praise to Jehovah’s name and deeply impressed the people of Rome.

Back in Brooklyn my wife and I are happy to have a regular part in the door-to-door, back-call and home Bible study work. We also appreciate the importance of attending the meetings and assemblies provided by Jehovah. Though sometimes tired at meeting time, we always return home greatly refreshed.

Reviewing fifty-four years spent in Jehovah’s service, I can truthfully say these have been the happiest years of my life. Fifty-one of them have been as a member of the Brooklyn Bethel family—a privilege of service I wholeheartedly recommend to any young Christian. To be sure, there have been some trials, but these increased our faith in Jehovah. I have never doubted that he is using the Society to direct the world-wide witness work that Jesus foretold at Matthew 24:14. As Paul said, any tribulations “do not amount to anything in comparison with the glory that is going to be revealed in us.”—Rom. 8:18.

Our great hope is to have part in God’s new world of righteousness, where we can praise and serve him forever. With Jehovah’s help, we shall successfully pursue this blessed purpose in life.

The Great Wheat Harvest

WHEN a farmer sows a field of wheat he does not want a lot of useless weeds. Besides producing no profitable fruit, they take up valuable space and soil nourishment that could better be used by fruitful wheat. But what is he to do when weeds appear in a stand of wheat? This problem, which is so common to agricultural people, was used by Jesus in an illustration of prophetic significance that is of particular interest to us today.

One day while Jesus was sitting by the Sea of Galilee speaking to a crowd of people from that grain-growing region, he said: “The kingdom of the heavens has become like a man that sowed seed of a right kind in his field. While men were sleeping his enemy came and oversowed weeds in among the wheat and left. When the blade sprouted and produced fruit, then the weeds appeared also. So the slaves of the householder came up and said to him: ‘Master, did you not sow seed of a right kind in your field? How, then, does it come to have weeds?’ He said to them: ‘An enemy, a man, did this.’ They said to him: ‘Do you want us, then, to go out and collect them?’ He said: ‘No; that by no chance, while collecting the weeds, you uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the harvest season I will tell the reapers, First collect the weeds and bind them in bundles to burn them up, then go to gathering the wheat into my storehouse.’”—Matt. 13:24-30.

Curious about the meaning of this illustration, Jesus’ disciples came to him after he had dismissed the crowds and said: “‘Explain to us the illustration of the weeds in the field.’ In response he said: ‘The sower of the right kind of seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; as for the right kind of seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; but the weeds are the sons of the wicked one, and the enemy that sowed them is the Devil. The harvest is a consummation of a system of things, and the reapers are angels. Therefore, just as the weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be in the consummation of the system of things. The Son of man will send forth his angels, and they will collect out from his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and persons who are doing lawlessness, and they will pitch them into the fiery furnace. There is where their weeping and the gnashing of their teeth will be. At that time the righteous ones will shine as brightly as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.’”—Matt. 13:36-43.

SOWING THE FIELD

Over 1900 years ago Jesus Christ planted in the world of mankind, pictured by the field, good seed when he established the Christian congregation. His sowing would eventually produce a crop of 144,000 fruitful Christians who, along with him, would make up the kingdom of heaven.

The illustration said that while men were sleeping an enemy oversowed the wheat with weeds. This took place when the last of the apostles, pictured by the “men,” fell asleep in death. With the apostles no longer present to watch over the congregation and to act as a restraint, Satan was successful in sowing imitation Christians in it. The apostle Paul forewarned of this: “I know that after my going away oppressive wolves will enter in among you and will not treat the flock with tenderness, and from among you yourselves men will rise and speak twisted things to draw away the disciples after themselves.”—Acts 20:29, 30.

SEPARATING WHEAT FROM WEEDS

As foretold in the illustration, the Sower, Jesus Christ, did not destroy the imitation Christians when they appeared after the death of the apostles but permitted them to remain and to spread throughout the world of mankind. Separating true Christians from the false had to wait until the last days of this wicked, worldly system of things.

The work of separating wheat from weeds, the sons of the kingdom from the sons of the wicked one, would be done by the angels, as Jesus said. On another occasion he again pointed this out when speaking about what the Son of man would do at the time of the end: “He will send forth his angels with a great trumpet-sound and they will gather his chosen ones together from the four winds, from one extremity of the heavens to their other extremity.” (Matt. 24:31) That meant there would be a gathering of the remaining members on earth of the 144,000 anointed followers of Christ. They would be gathered into one closely knit society.

What was foretold in the illustration of the great harvest has been taking place in our day, for we have been in the consummation of the system of things since A.D. 1914, when world events began fulfilling the prophecies that mark the last days. Christ’s anointed followers have been separated from Christendom, and imitation Christians appearing among them are removed as weeds are removed from harvested wheat. The angels “collect out from his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and persons who are doing lawlessness.” (Matt. 13:41) The history of Jehovah’s witnesses, particularly since 1918, verifies the accuracy of what Jesus prophesied.

In the illustration the master of the household had to wait for a period of time until the harvest before separating the wheat from the weeds. So it is in the fulfillment. Christ had to wait at his Father’s right hand for many centuries until the time arrived for the angels to begin the harvest work. After its beginning, time would be required to complete it, just as in the harvest of the illustration. As the harvest period in the illustration was short when compared with the growing period of the wheat and weeds, so the length of the spiritual harvest would be comparatively short. The more than forty years that have passed since its beginning is short when compared with the centuries that have passed since the congregation was planted.

The fiery furnace of the illustration in which the weeds were destroyed finds its fulfillment in the coming battle of Armageddon. At that time the large crop of weeds that Christendom has produced under her unscriptural clergy and laity system will be consumed in the fiery destruction of God’s wrath. Satan’s entire earthly system of things will be consumed at that time.—Zeph. 3:8.

During the great harvest Christ’s anointed followers have shone “as brightly as the sun.” This they have done by proclaiming far and wide the enlightening truths of God’s Word, especially those truths relating to the kingdom of God. This has been fruitful activity that has caused a great crowd of meek people to associate with them in a New World society and to embrace the hope of life in a peaceful earth under the Kingdom. Thus many more than Christ’s anointed Kingdom heirs find hope and comfort in his illustration about the great harvest. Both the anointed and the other sheep find in its fulfillment reasons for rejoicing, because it indicates that their “deliverance is getting near.”—Luke 21:28.

Keeping “Clean from the Blood of All Men”

THE nations of the world continue to pile up a mountain of bloodguilt by reason of their wars, persecution of Christians, misuse of blood and the wanton slaying of animals. For all such they will have to make an accounting at Armageddon. If we, as dedicated Christians, would be free from all such bloodguilt, we must follow the example of the apostle Paul, who was able to say: “I am clean from the blood of all men.”—Acts 20:26.a

Although Paul, as Saul the Pharisee, was blameless in regard to the Law, he had burdened himself with bloodguilt by persecuting and even killing Christians. But because he acted in ignorance, confessed his sins, converted to Christianity, accepted Jesus as his ransomer, dedicated himself and was baptized, God’s mercy was extended to him, and he came out from under all such bloodguilt. However, once a Christian, he became liable to another kind of bloodguilt. How so? In that God had decreed the destruction of the nation of Israel because of all the blood it had unrighteously shed, and which decree was to be carried out A.D. 70. That Jews of good will might escape that destruction, Christians had to urge them to convert to Christianity and then to flee Jerusalem and Judea when they saw Jesus’ prophecy at Luke 21:20, 21 being fulfilled. Neglect on the part of Christians such as Paul to warn their fellow Jews would make them guilty of the blood of all those that perished because of not having been warned!—Gal. 1:13, 14, 16; Matt. 23:35.

That he might keep free from the blood of all men, Paul preached in city after city, from early to late, suffering bitter persecution, not counting his life dear to himself. He did not hold back from declaring the entire counsel of God, and he supplemented his oral preaching by writing fourteen inspired letters.—Acts 20:24, 27, 28.

Like the apostle Paul, we today also must first free ourselves from the bloodguilt resting upon us because we either directly or indirectly shared in bloodshed in that we supported nations that violated God’s laws regarding the sanctity of blood and persecuted Christians. To get free from this bloodguilt we must flee to the antitypical city of refuge, coming under the sin-atoning merit of God’s high priest, Jesus Christ.—1 John 1:7.

After that, we, even as did Paul, must keep clean from the blood of all men by preaching the good news of God’s kingdom, for we too are living in a judgment period when Jehovah will soon square accounts with the bloodguilty nations. We love life in happiness, do we not, and would we not want others to enjoy it with us? Jehovah God takes no delight in the death of the wicked and neither should we. Dare we let any plead ignorance because of a failure on our part to take our preaching commission seriously?—Ezek. 33:11.

Time is fast running out. We may not be slothful nor may we procrastinate if we would keep clean from the blood of all men. Truly, woe is us if we do not take advantage of every opportunity to warn all we can. Let us give the warning with earnestness and intensity, yes, with a sense of urgency as though this were our last time to warn our hearers. Who knows how soon this actually will be the case?

So let all dedicated Christian ministers of Jehovah in the special campaign for October see to it that they do their part so that when Jehovah takes an accounting at Armageddon, we may, as did Paul, be able to say that we are clean from the blood of all men.

[Footnotes]

Announcements

FIELD MINISTRY

To be “clean from the blood of all men” as was Paul, Christians today must in earnest warn all men of the impending danger at Armageddon. To aid them in fulfilling this responsibility, during October Jehovah’s witnesses will offer a year’s subscription for Awake! and three booklets, for $1.

JOIN THE MILLIONS READING “AWAKE!”

Will you be one of the new subscribers for Awake! during October? Each year thousands of names are added to the growing list of regular readers of this instructive companion magazine to The Watchtower. Circulation through the mails and by individual copy has now passed the three million mark! Send $1 today for your year’s subscription for Awake! and receive free three booklets on timely Bible subjects.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES FOR THE WEEKS

October 30: The Holy Bible—the Book by Jehovah’s Witnesses, ¶1-21. Page 584.

November 6: The Holy Bible—the Book by Jehovah’s Witnesses, ¶22-40, and The Church Started with the Holy Scriptures, ¶1-8. Page 589.

November 13: The Church Started with the Holy Scriptures, ¶9-20, and New Bible Translation Completed, Released. Page 596.