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The Watchtower
& The Spirit Medium
The Watchtower Society claims that it is God's "sole channel of communication".
They claim that they alone are in the truth and that the truth they present
in the magazines and books cranked out of the WT printing presses by the millions
are the means by which Jehovah God has been communicating the "truth"
for the last 100+ years. 1. Why would the Watchtower quote the "New Testament
Translation" of an ex-Catholic priest whose translation it knew had been
gained by "Communications with the Spirit World of
God".
In the April 1, 1983 Watchtower', Questions from readers the question was
asked . . .
Questions from Readers;
Why, in recent years, has The
Watchtower not made use of the translation by the former Catholic priest.
Johannes Greber?"
"This translation was used occasionally in support of renderings
of Matthew 27:52,53 and John 1:1, as given in the New World Translation
and other authoritative Bible versions. But as indicated in a foreword to
the 1980 edition of the New Testament by Johannes Greber. this translator
relied on "God's Spirit World" to clarify for him how he should
translate difficult passages. It is stated: "His wife, a medium of
God's Spiritworld was often instrumental in conveying the correct answers
from God's Messengers to Pastor Greber." The Watchtower has
deemed it improper to make use of a translation that has such a close rapport
with spiritism. (Deuteronomy 18:10-12) The scholarship that forms the basis
for the rendering of the above cited texts in the New World Translation
is sound and for this reason does not depend at all on Greber's translation
for authority. Nothing is lost, therefore, by ceasing to use his New
Testament".
The impression given in this article is that the Watchtower Society did not
know that the translation of the New Testament by Johannes Greber had been done
with the help of his wife, a spirit medium, and that when they found out they
stopped using it.
BUT . . . Is this true? Did the Society not know not know
this the entire time they were using for support?
Here are just a few citations to demonstrate the Watchtower's use of Greber's
New Testament for support.
"Very plainly the spirits in which ex-Catholic priest Greber
believes helped him in his translation".(W.T. 2/15/56/ p.111).
"The translation by Johannes Greber (1937) of these verses reads
as follows: "Tombs were laid open, and . . . "(Aid to Bible Understanding
1969 p. 1134) "A report in the Bible, as translated by Johannes Greber,
says that when Jesus died, "the earth quaked, and the rocks were shattered."(W.T.
4/15/76 p. 231)
Also in the 1956 issue of the Watchtower magazine we find
the following quote:
Says Johannes Greber in the introduction of his translation of
The New Testament, copyrighted in 1937: "I myself was a Catholic priest,
and until I was forty-eight years old had never as much as believed in the
possibility of communicating with the world of God's spirits. The day came,
however, when I involuntarily took my first step toward such communication,
and experiencing things that shook me to the depths of my soul. . . .My
experiences are related in a book that has appeared in both German and English
and bears the title, Communication with the Spirit World: Its Laws and Its
Purpose."
So if the Watchtower knew
that Greber's Translation had come by way of a spirit medium in 1956
then why use it for support for the next 27 years?
If the material in the Society's
publications comes from Jehovah and through the Faithful and Discreet Slave
How is it that they used Greber's translation at all?
An even bigger question
is
How Could the
Watchtower Society be the Organization that God is using?
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