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Jehovah

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This article is about the word Jehovah. For the deity, see God in Abrahamic religions. For other uses, see Jehovah (disambiguation).



 "Jehovah" at Exodus 6:3
 (1611 King James Version)
Jehovah (/dʒɨˈhoʊvə/ jə-HOH-və) is a Latinization of the Hebrew יְהֹוָה, one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible. This vocalization has been transliterated as "Yehowah",[1] while YHWH itself has been transliterated as "Yahweh".[2]
יְהֹוָה appears 6,518 times in the traditional Masoretic Text, in addition to 305 instances of יֱהֹוִה (Jehovih).[3] The earliest available Latin text to use a vocalization similar to Jehovah dates from the 13th century.[4]
Most scholars believe "Jehovah" to be a late (c. 1100 CE) hybrid form derived by combining the Latin letters JHVH with the vowels of Adonai, but there is some evidence that it may already have been in use in Late Antiquity (5th century).[5][6] The consensus among scholars is that the historical vocalization of the Tetragrammaton at the time of the redaction of the Torah (6th century BCE) is most likely Yahweh, however there is disagreement. The historical vocalization was lost because in Second Temple Judaism, during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE, the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton came to be avoided, being substituted with Adonai ("my Lord").
"Jehovah" was popularized in the English-speaking world by William Tyndale and other pioneer English Protestant translators,[7] but is no longer used in mainstream English translations, with Lord or LORD used instead, generally indicating that the corresponding Hebrew is Yahweh or YHWH.[8][9]:5


Contents  [hide]
1 Pronunciation 1.1 Development 1.1.1 Vowel points of יְהֹוָה and אֲדֹנָי
1.2 Introduction into English
2 Hebrew vowel points 2.1 Proponents of pre-Christian origin
2.2 Proponents of later origin
3 Early modern arguments 3.1 Discourses rejecting Jehovah
3.2 Discourses defending Jehovah
3.3 Summary of discourses
4 Usage in English Bible translations 4.1 Non-usage
5 Other usage
6 Similar Greek names 6.1 Ancient
6.2 Modern
7 Similar Latin and English transcriptions
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 External links

Pronunciation


 This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: the section is lacking in audio or textual representations of various pronunciations. Please help improve this article if you can. (December 2014)



 The name Iehova at a Norwegian church.[10]
Most scholars believe "Jehovah" to be a late (c. 1100 CE) hybrid form derived by combining the Latin letters JHVH with the vowels of Adonai, but some hold there is evidence that the Jehovah form of the Tetragrammaton may have been in use in Semitic and Greek phonetic texts and artifacts from Late Antiquity.[5][6] Others say that it is the pronunciation Yahweh that is testified in both Christian and pagan texts of the early Christian era.[5][11][12][13]
Karaite Jews,[14] as proponents of the rendering Jehovah, state that although the original pronunciation of יהוה has been obscured by disuse of the spoken name according to oral Rabbinic law, well-established English transliterations of other Hebrew personal names are accepted in normal usage, such as Joshua, Isaiah or Jesus, for which the original pronunciations may be unknown.[14] They also point out that "the English form Jehovah is quite simply an Anglicized form of Yehovah,"[14] and preserves the four Hebrew consonants "YHVH" (with the introduction of the "J" sound in English).[14][15][16] Some argue that Jehovah is preferable to Yahweh, based on their conclusion that the Tetragrammaton was likely tri-syllabic originally, and that modern forms should therefore also have three syllables.[17]
According to a Jewish tradition developed during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE, the Tetragrammaton is written but not pronounced. When read, substitute terms replace the divine name where יְהֹוָה appears in the text. It is widely assumed, as proposed by the 19th-century Hebrew scholar Gesenius, that the vowels of the substitutes of the name—Adonai (Lord) and Elohim (God)—were inserted by the Masoretes to indicate that these substitutes were to be used.[18] When יהוה precedes or follows Adonai, the Masoretes placed the vowel points of Elohim into the Tetragrammaton, producing a different vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יֱהֹוִה, which was read as Elohim.[19] Based on this reasoning, the form יְהֹוָה (Jehovah) has been characterized by some as a "hybrid form",[5][20] and even "a philological impossibility".[21]
Early modern translators disregarded the practice of reading Adonai (or its equivalents in Greek and Latin, Κύριος and Dominus)[22] in place of the Tetragrammaton and instead combined the four Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton with the vowel points that, except in synagogue scrolls, accompanied them, resulting in the form Jehovah.[23] This form, which first took effect in works dated 1278 and 1303, was adopted in Tyndale's and some other Protestant translations of the Bible.[24] In the 1611 King James Version, Jehovah occurred seven times.[25] In the 1885 English Revised Version, the form "Jehovah" occurs twelve times. In the 1901 American Standard Version the form "Je-ho’vah" became the regular English rendering of the Hebrew יהוה, all throughout, in preference to the previously dominant "the LORD", which is generally used in the King James Version.[26] It is also used in Christian hymns such as the 1771 hymn, "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah".[27]
Development
The most widespread theory is that the Hebrew term יְהֹוָה has the vowel points of אֲדֹנָי (adonai).[28] Using the vowels of adonai, the composite hataf patah ֲ under the guttural alef א becomes a sheva ְ under the yod י, the holam ֹ is placed over the first he ה, and the qamats ָ is placed under the vav ו, giving יְהֹוָה (Jehovah). When the two names, יהוה and אדני, occur together, the former is pointed with a hataf segol ֱ under the yod י and a hiriq ִ under the second he ה, giving יֱהֹוִה, to indicate that it is to be read as (elohim) in order to avoid adonai being repeated.[29][28]
Taking the spellings at face value may have been as a result of not knowing about the Q're perpetuum, thus resulting in the term "Jehovah" and its spelling variants.[30][31] Emil G. Hirsch was among the modern scholars that recognized "Jehovah" to be "grammatically impossible"[29]



 A 1552 Latin translation of the Sefer Yetzirah, using the form Iehouah for the "magnum Nomen tetragrammatum".
The pronunciation Jehovah is believed to have arisen through the introduction of vowels of the qere—the marginal notation used by the Masoretes. In places where the consonants of the text to be read (the qere) differed from the consonants of the written text (the kethib), they wrote the qere in the margin to indicate that the kethib was read using the vowels of the qere. For a few very frequent words the marginal note was omitted, referred to as q're perpetuum.[21] One of these frequent cases was God's name, which was not to be pronounced in fear of profaning the "ineffable name". Instead, wherever יהוה (YHWH) appears in the kethib of the biblical and liturgical books, it was to be read as אֲדֹנָי (adonai, "My Lord [plural of majesty]"), or as אֱלֹהִים (elohim, "God") if adonai appears next to it.[citation needed] This combination produces יְהֹוָה (yehovah) and יֱהֹוִה (yehovih) respectively.[citation needed] יהוה is also written ’ה, or even ’ד, and read ha-Shem ("the name").[29]
Scholars are not in total agreement as to why יְהֹוָה does not have precisely the same vowel points as adonai.[citation needed] The use of the composite hataf segol ֱ in cases where the name is to be read, "elohim", has led to the opinion that the composite hataf patah ֲ ought to have been used to indicate the reading, "adonai". It has been argued conversely that the disuse of the patah is consistent with the Babylonian system, in which the composite is uncommon.[21]
Vowel points of יְהֹוָה and אֲדֹנָי



The spelling of the Tetragrammaton and connected forms in the Hebrew Masoretic text of the Bible, with vowel points shown in red.
The table below shows the vowel points of Yehovah and Adonay, indicating the simple sheva in Yehovah in contrast to the hataf patah in Adonay. As indicated to the right, the vowel points used when YHWH is intended to be pronounced as Adonai are slightly different to those used in Adonai itself.

Hebrew (Strong's #3068)
 YEHOVAH
יְהֹוָה
Hebrew (Strong's #136)
 ADONAY
אֲדֹנָי
י Yod Y א Aleph glottal stop
ְ Simple sheva E ֲ Hataf patah A
ה He H ד Dalet D
ֹ Holam O ֹ Holam O
ו Vav V נ Nun N
ָ Qamats A ָ Qamats A
ה He H י Yod Y
The difference between the vowel points of ’ǎdônây and YHWH is explained by the rules of Hebrew morphology and phonetics. Sheva and hataf-patah were allophones of the same phoneme used in different situations: hataf-patah on glottal consonants including aleph (such as the first letter in Adonai), and simple sheva on other consonants (such as the Y in YHWH).[29]
Introduction into English



 The "peculiar, special, honorable and most blessed name of God" Iehoua,
 an older English form of Jehovah
 (Roger Hutchinson, The image of God, 1550)
The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon suggested that the pronunciation Jehovah was unknown until 1520 when it was introduced by Galatinus, who defended its use.
In English it appeared in William Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch ("The Five Books of Moses") published in 1530 in Germany, where Tyndale had studied since 1524, possibly in one or more of the universities at Wittenberg, Worms and Marburg, where Hebrew was taught.[32] The spelling used by Tyndale was "Iehouah"; at that time, "I" was not distinguished from J, and U was not distinguished from V.[33] The original 1611 printing of the Authorized King James Version used "Iehovah". Tyndale wrote about the divine name: "IEHOUAH [Jehovah], is God's name; neither is any creature so called; and it is as much to say as, One that is of himself, and dependeth of nothing. Moreover, as oft as thou seest LORD in great letters (except there be any error in the printing), it is in Hebrew Iehouah, Thou that art; or, He that is."[34] The name is also found in a 1651 edition of Ramón Martí's Pugio fidei.[35]
The name Jehovah appeared in all early Protestant Bibles in English, except Coverdale's translation in 1535.[7] The Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible used "the Lord", corresponding to the Latin Vulgate's use of "Dominus" (Latin for "Adonai", "Lord") to represent the Tetragrammaton. The Authorized King James Version also, which used "Jehovah" in a few places, most frequently gave "the LORD" as the equivalent of the Tetragrammaton. The name Jehovah appeared in John Rogers' Matthew Bible in 1537, the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva Bible of 1560, Bishop's Bible of 1568 and the King James Version of 1611. More recently, it has been used in the Revised Version of 1885, the American Standard Version in 1901, and the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1961.
At Exodus 6:3-6, where the King James Version has Jehovah, the Revised Standard Version (1952),[36] the New American Standard Bible (1971), the New International Version (1978), the New King James Version (1982), the New Revised Standard Version (1989), the New Century Version (1991), and the Contemporary English Version (1995) give "LORD" or "Lord" as their rendering of the Tetragrammaton, while the New Jerusalem Bible (1985), the Amplified Bible (1987), the New Living Translation (1996, revised 2007), the English Standard Version (2001), and the Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004) use the form Yahweh.
Hebrew vowel points
Modern guides to biblical Hebrew grammar, such as Duane A Garrett's A Modern Grammar for Classical Hebrew[37] state that the Hebrew vowel points now found in printed Hebrew Bibles were invented in the second half of the first millennium AD, long after the texts were written. This is indicated in the authoritative Hebrew Grammar of Gesenius,[38][39]
"Jehovist" scholars, largely earlier than the 20th century, who believe /dʒəˈhoʊvə/ to be the original pronunciation of the divine name, argue that the Hebraic vowel-points and accents were known to writers of the scriptures in antiquity and that both Scripture and history argue in favor of their ab origine status to the Hebrew language. Some members of Karaite Judaism, such as Nehemia Gordon, hold this view.[14] The antiquity of the vowel points and of the rendering Jehovah was defended by various scholars, including Michaelis,[40] Drach,[40] Stier,[40] William Fulke (1583), Johannes Buxtorf,[41] his son Johannes Buxtorf II,[42] and John Owen [43] (17th century); John Moncrieff [44] (19th century), Johann Friedrich von Meyer (1832)[45]
Jehovist writers such as Nehemia Gordon, who helped make a translation of the "Dead Sea Scrolls", have acknowledged the general agreement among scholars that the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was probably Yahweh, and that the vowel points now attached to the Tetragrammaton were added to indicate that Adonai was to be read instead, as seen in the alteration of those points after prefixes. He wrote: "There is a virtual scholarly consensus concerning this name" and "this is presented as fact in every introduction to Biblical Hebrew and every scholarly discussion of the name."[46] Gordon, disputing this consensus, wrote, "However, this consensus is not based on decisive proof. We have seen that the scholarly consensus concerning Yahweh is really just a wild guess," and went on to say that the vowel points of Adonai are not correct.[47] He argued that "the name is really pronounced Ye-ho-vah with the emphasis on 'vah'. Pronouncing the name Yehovah with the emphasis on 'ho' (as in English Jehovah) would quite simply be a mistake."[48]
Proponents of pre-Christian origin
18th-century theologian John Gill puts forward the arguments of 17th-century Johannes Buxtorf II and others in his writing, A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points and Accents.[49] He argued for an extreme antiquity of their use,[50] rejecting the idea that the vowel points were invented by the Masoretes. Gill presented writings, including passages of scripture, that he interpreted as supportive of his "Jehovist" viewpoint that the Old Testament must have included vowel-points and accents.[51] He claimed that the use of Hebrew vowel points of יְהֹוָה, and therefore of the name Jehovah /jəˈhoʊvə/, is documented from before 200 BCE, and even back to Adam, citing Jewish tradition that Hebrew was the first language. He argued that throughout this history the Masoretes did not invent the vowel points and accents, but that they were delivered to Moses by God at Sinai, citing[52] Karaite authorities[53][54] Mordechai ben Nisan Kukizov (1699) and his associates, who stated that "all our wise men with one mouth affirm and profess that the whole law was pointed and accented, as it came out of the hands of Moses, the man of God."[40] The argument between Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism on whether it was lawful to pronounce the name represented by the Tetragrammaton[52] is claimed to show that some copies were not pointed with the vowels because of "oral law", for control of interpretation by some Judeo sects, including non-pointed copies in synagogues.[55] Gill claimed that the pronunciation /jəˈhoʊvə/ can be traced back to early historical sources which indicate that vowel points and/or accents were used in their time.[56] Sources Gill claimed supported his view include:
The Book of Cosri and commentator Rabbi Judab Muscatus, which claim that the vowel points were taught to Adam by God.[57]
Saadiah Gaon (927 AD)[58]
Jerome (380 AD)[59]
Origen (250 AD)[60]
The Zohar (120 AD)[61]
Jesus Christ (31 AD), based on Gill's interpretation of Matthew 5:18[62]
Hillel the Elder and Shammai division (30 BC)[63]
Karaites (120 BCE)[52]
Demetrius Phalereus, librarian for Ptolemy II Philadelphus king of Egypt (277 BCE)[64]
Gill quoted Elia Levita, who said, "There is no syllable without a point, and there is no word without an accent," as showing that the vowel points and the accents found in printed Hebrew Bibles have a dependence on each other, and so Gill attributed the same antiquity to the accents as to the vowel points.[65] Gill acknowledged that Levita, "first asserted the vowel points were invented by "the men of Tiberias", but made reference to his condition that "if anyone could convince him that his opinion was contrary to the book of Zohar, he should be content to have it rejected." Gill then alludes to the book of Zohar, stating that rabbis declared it older than the Masoretes, and that it attests to the vowel-points and accents.[61]
William Fulke, John Gill, John Owen, and others held that Jesus Christ referred to a Hebrew vowel point or accent at Matthew 5:18, indicated in the King James Version by the word tittle.[66][67][68][69]
The 1602 Spanish Bible (Reina-Valera/Cipriano de Valera) used the name Iehova and gave a lengthy defense of the pronunciation Jehovah in its preface.[40]
Proponents of later origin
Despite Jehovist claims that vowel signs are necessary for reading and understanding Hebrew, modern Hebrew (apart from young children's books, some formal poetry and Hebrew primers for new immigrants), is written without vowel points.[70] The Torah scrolls do not include vowel points, and ancient Hebrew was written without vowel signs.[71][72]
The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1946 and dated from 400 BC to 70 AD,[73] include texts from the Torah or Pentateuch and from other parts of the Hebrew Bible,[74][75] and have provided documentary evidence that, in spite of claims to the contrary, the original Hebrew texts were in fact written without vowel points.[76][77] Menahem Mansoor's The Dead Sea Scrolls: A College Textbook and a Study Guide claims the vowel points found in printed Hebrew Bibles were devised in the 9th and 10th centuries.[78]
Gill's view that the Hebrew vowel points were in use at the time of Ezra or even since the origin of the Hebrew language is stated in an early 19th-century study in opposition to "the opinion of most learned men in modern times", according to whom the vowel points had been "invented since the time of Christ".[79] The study presented the following considerations:
The argument that vowel points are necessary for learning to read Hebrew is refuted by the fact that the Samaritan text of the Bible is read without them and that several other Semitic languages, kindred to Hebrew, are written without any indications of the vowels.
The books used in synagogue worship have always been without vowel points, which, unlike the letters, have thus never been treated as sacred.
The Qere Kethib marginal notes give variant readings only of the letters, never of the points, an indication either that these were added later or that, if they already existed, they were seen as not so important.
The Kabbalists drew their mysteries only from the letters and completely disregarded the points, if there were any.
In several cases, ancient translations from the Hebrew Bible (Septuagint, Targum, Aquila of Sinope, Symmachus, Theodotion, Jerome) read the letters with vowels different from those indicated by the points, an indication that the texts from which they were translating were without points. The same holds for Origen's transliteration of the Hebrew text into Greek letters. Jerome expressly speaks of a word in Habakkuk 3:5, which in the present Masoretic Text has three consonant letters and two vowel points, as being of three letters and no vowel whatever.
Neither the Jerusalem Talmud nor the Babylonian Talmud (in all their recounting of Rabbinical disputes about the meaning of words), nor Philo nor Josephus, nor any Christian writer for several centuries after Christ make any reference to vowel points.[80][81][82]
Early modern arguments
In the 16th and 17th centuries, various arguments were presented for and against the transcription of the form Jehovah.
Discourses rejecting Jehovah

Author
Discourse
Comments
John Drusius (Johannes Van den Driesche) (1550-1616) Tetragrammaton, sive de Nomine Die proprio, quod Tetragrammaton vocant (1604) Drusius stated "Galatinus first led us to this mistake ... I know [of] nobody who read [it] thus earlier..").[1]
 An editor of Drusius in 1698 knows of an earlier reading in Porchetus de Salvaticis however.[clarification needed][2]
 John Drusius wrote that neither יְהֹוָה nor יֱהֹוִה accurately represented God's name.[83]
Sixtinus Amama (1593–1659)[84] De nomine tetragrammato (1628) [3] Sixtinus Amama, was a Professor of Hebrew in the University of Franeker. A pupil of Drusius. [4]
Louis Cappel (1585–1658) De nomine tetragrammato (1624) Lewis Cappel reached the conclusion that Hebrew vowel points were not part of the original Hebrew language. This view was strongly contested by John Buxtorff the elder and his son.
James Altingius (1618–1679) Exercitatio grammatica de punctis ac pronunciatione tetragrammati James Altingius was a learned German divine[clarification needed]. [5]|
Discourses defending Jehovah

Author
Discourse
Comments
Nicholas Fuller (1557–1626) Dissertatio de nomine יהוה Nicholas was a Hebraist and a theologian. [6]
John Buxtorf (1564–1629) Disserto de nomine JHVH (1620); Tiberias, sive Commentarius Masoreticus (1664) John Buxtorf the elder [7] opposed the views of Elia Levita regarding the late origin (invention by the Masoretes) of the Hebrew vowel points, a subject which gave rise to the controversy between Louis Cappel and his (e.g. John Buxtorf the elder's) son, Johannes Buxtorf II the younger.
Johannes Buxtorf II (1599–1664) Tractatus de punctorum origine, antiquitate, et authoritate, oppositus Arcano puntationis revelato Ludovici Cappelli (1648) Continued his father's arguments that the pronunciation and therefore the Hebrew vowel points resulting in the name Jehovah have divine inspiration.
Thomas Gataker (1574–1654)[8] De Nomine Tetragrammato Dissertaio (1645) [9] See Memoirs of the Puritans Thomas Gataker.
John Leusden (1624–1699) Dissertationes tres, de vera lectione nominis Jehova John Leusden wrote three discourses in defense of the name Jehovah. [10]
Summary of discourses
In A Dictionary of the Bible (1863), William Robertson Smith summarized these discourses, concluding that "whatever, therefore, be the true pronunciation of the word, there can be little doubt that it is not Jehovah".[85] Despite this, he consistently uses the name Jehovah throughout his dictionary and when translating Hebrew names. Some examples include Isaiah [Jehovah's help or salvation], Jehoshua [Jehovah a helper], Jehu [Jehovah is He]. In the entry, Jehovah, Smith writes: "JEHOVAH (יְהֹוָה, usually with the vowel points of אֲדֹנָי; but when the two occur together, the former is pointed יֱהֹוִה, that is with the vowels of אֱלֹהִים, as in Obad. i. 1, Hab. iii. 19:"[86] This practice is also observed in many modern publications, such as the New Compact Bible Dictionary (Special Crusade Edition) of 1967 and Peloubet's Bible Dictionary of 1947.
Usage in English Bible translations
The following versions of the Bible render the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah either exclusively or in selected verses:
William Tyndale, in his 1530 translation of the first five books of the English Bible, at Exodus 6:3 renders the divine name as Iehovah. In his foreword to this edition he wrote: "Iehovah is God's name... Moreover, as oft as thou seeist LORD in great letters (except there be any error in the printing) it is in Hebrew Iehovah."
The Great Bible (1539) renders Jehovah in Psalm 33:12 and Psalm 83:18.
The Geneva Bible (1560) translates the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah in Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, Jeremiah 16:21, and Jeremiah 32:18.
In the Bishop's Bible (1568), the word Jehovah occurs in Exodus 6:3 and Psalm 83:18.
The Authorized King James Version (1611) renders Jehovah in Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, Isaiah 12:2, Isaiah 26:4, and three times in compound place names at Genesis 22:14, Exodus 17:15 and Judges 6:24.
Webster's Bible Translation (1833) by Noah Webster, a revision of the King James Bible, contains the form Jehovah in all cases where it appears in the original King James Version, as well as another seven times in Isaiah 51:21, Jeremiah 16:21; 23:6; 32:18; 33:16, Amos 5:8, and Micah 4:13.
Young's Literal Translation by Robert Young (1862, 1898) renders the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah 6,831 times.
In the Emphatic Diaglott (1864) a translation of the New Testament by Benjamin Wilson, the name Jehovah appears eighteen times.
The English Revised Version (1885) renders the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah where it appears in the King James Version, and another eight times in Exodus 6:2,6–8, Psalm 68:20, Isaiah 49:14, Jeremiah 16:21, and Habakkuk 3:19.
The Darby Bible (1890) by John Nelson Darby renders the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah 6,810 times.
The Five Pauline Epistles, A New Translation (1900) by William Gunion Rutherford uses the name Jehovah six times in the Book of Romans.
The American Standard Version (1901) renders the Tetragrammaton as Je-ho’vah in 6,823 places in the Old Testament.
The Modern Reader's Bible (1914) by Richard Moulton uses Jehovah in Exodus 6:2–9, Exodus 22:14, Psalm 68:4, Psalm 83:18, Isaiah 12:2, Isaiah 26:4 and Jeremiah 16:20.
The Holy Scriptures (1936, 1951), Hebrew Publishing Company, revised by Alexander Harkavy, a Hebrew Bible translation in English, contains the form Jehovah in Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, and Isaiah 12:2.
The New English Bible (1970) published by Oxford University Press uses Jehovah in Exodus 3:15 and 6:3, and in four place names at Genesis 22:14, Exodus 17:15, Judges 6:24 and Ezekiel 48:35.[87]
The Living Bible (1971) by Kenneth N. Taylor, published by Tyndale House Publishers, Illinois, uses Jehovah extensively, as in the 1901 American Standard Version, on which it is based.
In the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (1961, 1984, 2013) published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Jehovah appears 7,216 times, comprising 6,979 instances in the Old Testament,[88] and 237 in the New Testament—including 70 of the 78 times where the New Testament quotes an Old Testament passage containing the Tetragrammaton,[89] where the Tetragrammaton does not appear in any extant Greek manuscript.
The Bible in Living English (1972) by Steven T. Byington, published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, renders the word Jehovah throughout the Old Testament over 6,800 times.
Green's Literal Translation (1985) by Jay P. Green, Sr., renders the Tetragrammaton as "Jehovah" 6,866 times.
The American King James Version (1999) by Michael Engelbrite renders Jehovah in all the places where it appears in the original King James Version.
The Recovery Version (1999) renders the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah throughout the Old Testament 6,841 times.
The Original Aramaic Bible in Plain English (2010) by David Bauscher, a self-published English translation of the New Testament, from the Aramaic of The Peshitta New Testament with a translation of the ancient Aramaic Peshitta version of Psalms & Proverbs, contains the word "JEHOVAH" over 200 times in the New Testament, where the Peshitta itself does not.
The Divine Name King James Bible (2011), the Bible translators replaced the capitalized GOD and LORD with the English translation “Jehovah” in 6,972 places.
Non-usage
The Douay Version of 1609 renders the phrase in Exodus 6:3 as "and my name Adonai", and in its footnote says: "Adonai is not the name here vttered to Moyses but is redde in place of the vnknowen name".[90] The Challoner revision (1750) uses ADONAI with a note stating, "some moderns have framed the name Jehovah, unknown to all the ancients, whether Jews or Christians."[91]
Most modern translations exclusively use Lord or LORD, generally indicating that the corresponding Hebrew is Yahweh or YHWH (not JHVH), and in some cases saying that this name is "traditionally" transliterated as Jehovah:[8][9]:5
The Revised Standard Version (1952), an authorized revision of the American Standard Version of 1901, replaced all 6,823 usages of Jehovah in the 1901 text with "LORD" or "GOD", depending on whether the Hebrew of the verse in question is read "Adonai" or "Elohim" in Jewish practice. A footnote on Exodus 3:15 says: "The word LORD when spelled with capital letters, stands for the divine name, YHWH." The preface states: "The word 'Jehovah' does not accurately represent any form of the name ever used in Hebrew".[92]
The New American Bible (1970, revised 1986, 1991). Its footnote to Genesis 4:25-26 says: "... men began to call God by his personal name, Yahweh, rendered as "the LORD" in this version of the Bible."[93]
The New American Standard Bible (1971, updated 1995), another revision of the 1901 American Standard Version, followed the example of the Revised Standard Version. Its footnotes to Exodus 3:14 and 6:3 state: "Related to the name of God, YHWH, rendered LORD, which is derived from the verb HAYAH, to be"; "Heb YHWH, usually rendered LORD". In its preface it says: "It is known that for many years YHWH has been transliterated as Yahweh, however no complete certainty attaches to this pronunciation."[94]
The Bible in Today's English (Good News Bible), published by the American Bible Society (1976). Its preface states: "the distinctive Hebrew name for God (usually transliterated Jehovah or Yahweh) is in this translation represented by 'The Lord'." A footnote to Exodus 3:14 states: "I am sounds like the Hebrew name Yahweh traditionally transliterated as Jehovah."
The New International Version (1978, revised 2011). Footnote to Exodus 3:15, "The Hebrew for LORD sounds like and may be related to the Hebrew for I AM in verse 14."
The New King James Version (1982), though based on the King James Version, replaces JEHOVAH in Exodus 6:3 with "LORD", and adds a note: "Hebrew YHWH, traditionally Jehovah."
The God's Word Translation (1985).
The New Century Version (1987, revised 1991).
The New International Reader's Version (1995).
The English Standard Version (2001). Footnote to Exodus 3:15, "The word LORD, when spelled with capital letters, stands for the divine name, YHWH, which is here connected with the verb hayah, 'to be'."
Some translations use both Yahweh and LORD:
The Amplified Bible (1965, revised 1987) generally uses Lord, but translates Exodus 6:3 as: "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty [El-Shaddai], but by My name the Lord [Yahweh—the redemptive name of God] I did not make Myself known to them [in acts and great miracles]."
The New Living Translation (1996), produced by Tyndale House Publishers as a successor to the Living Bible, generally uses LORD, but uses Yahweh in Exodus 3:15 and 6:3.
The Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004, revised 2008) mainly uses LORD, but in its second edition increased the number of times it uses Yahweh from 78 to 495 (in 451 verses).[95]
Some translate the Tetragrammaton exclusively as Yahweh:
The Jerusalem Bible (1966).
The New Jerusalem Bible (1985).
The World English Bible (1997) is based on the 1901 American Standard Version, but uses "Yahweh" instead of "Jehovah".[96]
Other usage



 The name "Jehovah" on the dome of the Old Catholic St. Martinskirche in Olten, Switzerland, 1521
Following the Middle Ages, some churches and public buildings across Europe, both before and after the Protestant Reformation were decorated with the name Jehovah. For example, the Coat of Arms of Plymouth (UK) City Council bears the Latin inscription, Turris fortissima est nomen Jehova[97] (English, "The name of Jehovah is the strongest tower"), derived from Proverbs 18:10.
Jehovah has been a popular English word for the personal name of God for several centuries. Christian hymns[98] feature the name. The form "Jehovah" also appears in reference books and novels, for example, appearing several times in the novel The Greatest Story Ever Told by Roman Catholic author Fulton Oursler.[99] Some religious groups, notably Jehovah's Witnesses[100] and proponents of the King-James-Only movement, make prominent use of the name.
In Mormonism, "Jehovah" was the name by which Jesus was known in the Old Testament, as opposed to God the Father who is referred to in the Mormon faith as "Elohim".
Similar Greek names
Ancient
Ιουω (Iouō, [juɔ]): Pistis Sophia cited by Charles William King, which also gives Ιαω (Iaō, [jaɔ] but more frequently [101] (2nd century)
Ιεου (Ieou, [jeu]): Pistis Sophia[101] (2nd century)
ΙΕΗΩΟΥΑ (I-E-Ē-Ō-O-Y-A, [ieɛɔoya]), the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet arranged in this order. Charles William King attributes to a work that he calls On Interpretations[102] the statement that this was the Egyptian name of the supreme God. He comments: "This is in fact a very correct representation, if we give each vowel its true Greek sound, of the Hebrew pronunciation of the word Jehovah."[103] (2nd century)
Ιευώ (Ievō): Eusebius, who says that Sanchuniathon received the records of the Jews from Hierombalus, priest of the god Ieuo.[104] (c. 315)
Ιεωά (Ieōa): Hellenistic magical text[105] (2nd-3rd centuries), M. Kyriakakes[106] (2000)
Modern
Ἰεχοβά (like Jehova[h]): Paolo Medici[107] (1755)
Ἰεοβά (like Je[h]ova[h]): Greek Pentateuch[108] (1833), Holy Bible translated in Katharevousa Greek by Neophytus Vamvas[109] (1850)
Ἰεχωβά (like Jehova[h]): Panagiotes Trempelas[110] (1958)
Similar Latin and English transcriptions



 Excerpts from Raymond Martin's Pugio Fidei adversus Mauros et Judaeos (1270, p. 559), containing the phrase "Jehova, sive Adonay, qvia Dominus es omnium" (Jehovah, or Adonay, for you are the Lord of all).[111]


Geneva Bible, 1560. (Psalm 83:18)


 A Latin rendering of the Tetragrammaton has been the form "Jova", sounding very similar to "Jehovah".
 (Origenis Hexaplorum, edited by Frederick Field, 1875.)
Transcriptions of יְהֹוָה similar to Jehovah occurred as early as the 12th century.
Ieve: Petrus Alphonsi[112] (c. 1106), Alexander Geddes[113][114] (1800)
Jehova: Raymond Martin (Raymundus Martini)[111][115] (1278), Porchetus de Salvaticis[116][117] (1303), Tremellius (1575), Marcus Marinus (1593), Charles IX of Sweden[118] (1606), Rosenmüller[119] (1820), Wilhelm Gesenius (c. 1830)[120]
Yohoua: Raymond Martin[111] (1278)
Yohouah: Porchetus de Salvaticis[116] (1303)
Ieoa: Nicholas of Cusa (1428)
Iehoua: Nicholas of Cusa (1428), Peter Galatin (Galatinus)[121] (1516)
Iehova: Nicholas of Cusa (1428), Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (1514), Sebastian Münster (1526), Leo Jud (1543), Robert Estienne (1557)
Ihehoua: Nicholas of Cusa (1428)
Jova: 16th century,[122] Rosenmüller[119] (1820)
Jehovah: Paul Fagius (1546), John Calvin (1557), King James Bible (1671 [OT] / 1669 [NT]), Matthew Poole[123] (1676), Benjamin Kennicott[124] (1753), Alexander Geddes[113] (1800)
Iehouáh: Geneva Bible (1560)
Iehovah: Authorized King James Version (1611), Henry Ainsworth (1627)
Jovae: Rosenmüller[119] (1820)
Yehovah: William Baillie[125] (1843)
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Jehovah
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jehovah & Tetragrammaton.
See also
Allah
Ea
El
Enlil
God in Christianity, God in Islam, God in Judaism, God in Mormonism, God in the Bahá'í Faith
God the Father
Gott
I am that I am
Jah
Names of God
Names of God in Judaism
Theophoric names:
Jehoshaphat, Jehonadab, Tobijah
Yam (Ya'a, Yaw)

Notes
1.Jump up ^ GOD, NAMES OF - 5. Yahweh (Yahweh) - Bible Study Tools. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
2.Jump up ^ Preface to the New American Standard Bible
3.Jump up ^ Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon
4.Jump up ^ Pugio fidei by Raymund Martin, written in about 1270
5.^ Jump up to: a b c d Roy Kotansky, Jeffrey Spier, "The 'Horned Hunter' on a Lost Gnostic Gem", The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), p. 318. Quote: "Although most scholars believe "Jehovah" to be a late (c. 1100 CE) hybrid form derived by combining the Latin letters JHVH with the vowels of Adonai (the traditionally pronounced version of יהוה), many magical texts in Semitic and Greek establish an early pronunciation of the divine name as both Yehovah and Yahweh"
6.^ Jump up to: a b George Wesley Buchanan, "The Tower of Siloam", The Expository Times 2003; 115: 37; pp. 40, 41. Quote from Note 19: "This [Yehowah] is the correct pronunciation of the tetragramaton, as is clear from the pronunciation of proper names in the First Testament (FT), poetry, fifth-century Aramaic documents, Greek translations of the name in the Dead Sea Scrolls and church fathers."
7.^ Jump up to: a b In the 7th paragraph of Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible, Sir Godfry Driver wrote, "The early translators generally substituted 'Lord' for [YHWH]. [...] The Reformers preferred Jehovah, which first appeared as Iehouah in 1530 A.D., in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (Exodus 6.3), from which it passed into other Protestant Bibles."
8.^ Jump up to: a b English Standard Version Translation Oversight Committee Preface to the English Standard Version Quote: "When the vowels of the word adonai are placed with the consonants of YHWH, this results in the familiar word Jehovah that was used in some earlier English Bible translations. As is common among English translations today, the ESV usually renders the personal name of God (YHWH) with the word Lord (printed in small capitals)."
9.^ Jump up to: a b Bruce M. Metzger for the New Revised Standard Version Committee. To the Reader
10.Jump up ^ Source: The Divine Name in Norway,
11.Jump up ^ Jarl Fossum and Brian Glazer in their article Seth in the Magical Texts (Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphie 100 (1994), p. 86-92, reproduced here [11], give the name "Yahweh" as the source of a number of names found in pagan magical texts: Ἰάβας (p. 88), Iaō (described as "a Greek form of the name of the Biblical God, Yahweh", on p. 89), Iaba, Iaē, Iaēo, Iaō, Iaēō (p. 89). On page 92, they call "Iaō" "the divine name".
12.Jump up ^ Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible (2000), p. 1402
13.Jump up ^ Kristin De Troyer The Names of God, Their Pronunciation and Their Translation, – lectio difficilior 2/2005. Quote: "IAO can be seen as a transliteration of YAHU, the three-letter form of the Name of God" (p. 6).
14.^ Jump up to: a b c d e The Pronunciation of the Name
15.Jump up ^ Scott Jones - יהוה Jehovah יהוה
16.Jump up ^ Carl D. Franklin - Debunking the Myths of Sacred Namers יהוה - Christian Biblical Church of God - December 9, 1997 - Retrieved 25 August 2011.
17.Jump up ^ George Wesley Buchanan, "How God's Name Was Pronounced," Biblical Archaeology Review 21.2 (March -April 1995), 31-32
18.Jump up ^ "יְהֹוָה Jehovah, pr[oper] name of the supreme God amongst the Hebrews. The later Hebrews, for some centuries before the time of Christ, either misled by a false interpretation of certain laws (Ex. 20:7; Lev. 24:11), or else following some old superstition, regarded this name as so very holy, that it might not even be pronounced (see Philo, Vit. Mosis t.iii. p.519, 529). Whenever, therefore, this nomen tetragrammaton occurred in the sacred text, they were accustomed to substitute for it אֲדֹנָי, and thus the vowels of the noun אֲדֹנָי are in the Masoretic text placed under the four letters יהוה, but with this difference, that the initial Yod receives a simple and not a compound Sh’va (יְהֹוָה [Yehovah], not (יֲהֹוָה [Yahovah]); prefixes, however, receive the same points as if they were followed by אֲדֹנָי [...] This custom was already in vogue in the days of the LXX. translators; and thus it is that they every where translated יְהֹוָה by ὁ Κύριος (אֲדֹנָי)." (H. W. F. Gesenius, Gesenius's Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1979[1847]), p. 337)
19.Jump up ^ For example, Deuteronomy 3:24, Deuteronomy 9:26 (second instance), Judges 16:28 (second instance), Genesis 15:2
20.Jump up ^ R. Laird Harris, "The Pronunciation of the Tetragram," in John H. Skilton (ed.), The Law and the Prophets: Old Testament Studies Prepared in Honor of Oswald Thompson Allis (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974), 224.
21.^ Jump up to: a b c Jewish Encyclopedia: article: Name of God
22.Jump up ^ The Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome renders the name as Adonai at Exodus 6:3 rather than as Dominus.
23.Jump up ^ 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: article Jehovah (Yahweh)
24.Jump up ^ In the 7th paragraph of Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible, Sir Godfrey Driver wrote of the combination of the vowels of Adonai and Elohim with the consonants of the divine name, that it "did not become effective until Yehova or Jehova or Johova appeared in two Latin works dated in A.D. 1278 and A.D. 1303; the shortened Jova (declined like a Latin noun) came into use in the sixteenth century. The Reformers preferred Jehovah, which first appeared as Iehouah in 1530 A.D., in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (Exodus 6.3), from which it passed into other Protestant Bibles."
25.Jump up ^ At Gen.22:14; Ex.6:3; 17:15; Jg.6:24; Ps.83:18, Is.12:2; 26:4. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Iowa Falls: Word, 1994), 722.
26.Jump up ^ According to the preface, this was because the translators felt that the "Jewish superstition, which regarded the Divine Name as too sacred to be uttered, ought no longer to dominate in the English or any other version of the Old Testament".
27.Jump up ^ The original hymn, without "Jehovah", was composed in Welsh in 1745; the English translation, with "Jehovah", was composed in 1771 (Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah).
28.^ Jump up to: a b Paul Joüon and T. Muraoka. A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Subsidia Biblica). Part One: Orthography and Phonetics. Rome : Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblio, 1996. ISBN 978-8876535956. Quote from Section 16(f)(1)" "The Qre is יְהֹוָה the Lord, whilst the Ktiv is probably(1) יַהְוֶה (according to ancient witnesses)." "Note 1: In our translations, we have used Yahweh, a form widely accepted by scholars, instead of the traditional Jehovah"
29.^ Jump up to: a b c d Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906
30.Jump up ^ Marvin H. Pope "Job – Introduction, in Job (The Anchor Bible, Vol. 15). February 19, 1965 page XIV ISBN 9780385008945
31.Jump up ^ Moore, George Foot (1911). 311 "Jehovah" in Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 15. Edited by Hugh Chisholm (11th ed.)
32.Jump up ^ Dahlia M. Karpman "Tyndale's Response to the Hebraic Tradition" in Studies in the Renaissance, Vol. 14 (1967)), pp. 113, 118, 119. Note: Westcott, in his survey of the English Bible, wrote that Tyndale "felt by a happy instinct the potential affinity between Hebrew and English idioms, and enriched our language and thought for ever with the characteristics of the Semitic mind."
33.Jump up ^ The first English-language book to make a clear distinction between I and J was published in 1634. (The Cambridge History of the English Language, Richard M. Hogg, (Cambridge University Press 1992 ISBN=0-521-26476-6, p. 39). It was also only by the mid-1500s that V was used to represent the consonant and U the vowel sound, while capital U was not accepted as a distinct letter until many years later (Letter by Letter: An Alphabetical Miscellany, Laurent Pflughaupt, (Princeton Architectural Press ISBN 978-1-56898-737-8) pp. 123–124).
34.Jump up ^ William Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, ed. Henry Walter (Cambridge, 1848), p. 408.
35.Jump up ^ Wikisource-logo.svg "Jehovah (Yahweh)". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.
36.Jump up ^ Exodus 6:3-5 RSV
37.Jump up ^ Duane A. Garrett, A Modern Grammar for Classical Hebrew (Broadman & Holman 2002 ISBN 0-8054-2159-9), p. 13
38.Jump up ^ Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition), p. 38
39.Jump up ^ Christo H. J. Van der Merwe, Jackie A. Naude and Jan H. Kroeze, A Biblical Reference Grammar (Sheffield, England:Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), and Gary D. Pratico and Miles V. Van Pelt, Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publ. House, 2001)
40.^ Jump up to: a b c d e (In Awe of Thy Word, G.A. Riplinger-Chapter 11, page 416)Online
41.Jump up ^ Tiberias, sive Commentarius Masoreticus (1620; quarto edition, improved and enlarged by J. Buxtorf the younger, 1665)
42.Jump up ^ Tractatus de punctorum origine, antiquitate, et authoritate, oppositus Arcano puntationis revelato Ludovici Cappelli (1648)
43.Jump up ^ Biblical Theology (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1996 reprint of the 1661 edition), pp. 495-533
44.Jump up ^ An Essay on the Antiquity and Utility of the Hebrew Vowel-Points (Glasgow: John Reid & Co., 1833).
45.Jump up ^ Blätter für höhere Wahrheit vol. 11, 1832, pp. 305, 306.
46.Jump up ^ Nehemia Gordon, The Pronunciation of the Name,pp. 1-2
47.Jump up ^ Nehemia Gordon, The Pronunciation of the Name,p. 8
48.Jump up ^ Nehemia Gordon, The Pronunciation of the Name,p. 11
49.Jump up ^ Gill 1778
50.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 499–560
51.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 549–560
52.^ Jump up to: a b c Gill 1778, pp. 538–542
53.Jump up ^ In Awe of Thy Word, G.A. Riplinger-Chapter 11, pp. 422–435
54.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 540
55.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 548–560
56.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 462
57.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 461–462
58.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 501
59.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 512–516
60.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 522
61.^ Jump up to: a b Gill 1778, p. 531
62.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 535–536
63.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 536–537
64.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 544
65.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 499
66.Jump up ^ One of the definitions of "tittle" in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is "a point or small sign used as a diacritical mark in writing or printing".
67.Jump up ^ pg. 110, Of the Integrity and Purity of the Hebrew and Greek Text of the Scripture; with Considerations on the Prolegomena and Appendix to the Late “Biblia Polyglotta,” in vol. IX, The Works of John Owen, ed. Gould, William H, & Quick, Charles W., Philadelphia, PA: Leighton Publications, 1865)
68.Jump up ^ For the meanings of the word κεραία in the original texts of Matthew 5:18 and Luke 16:17 see Liddell and Scott and for a more modern scholarly view of its meaning in that context see Strong's Greek Dictionary.
69.Jump up ^ "Search => [word] => tittle :: 1828 Dictionary :: Search the 1828 Noah Webster's Dictionary of the English Language (FREE)". 1828.mshaffer.com. 2009-10-16. Retrieved 2013-03-26.
70.Jump up ^ Jewish Virtual Library: Vowels and Points
71.Jump up ^ At Home with Hebrew
72.Jump up ^ Page H. Kenney, Biblical Hebrew: an introductory grammar 1992
73.Jump up ^ Old Testament Manuscripts
74.Jump up ^ James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, p. 30
75.Jump up ^ The Dead Sea Scrolls Biblical Manuscripts
76.Jump up ^ The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Graphological Investigation
77.Jump up ^ William P. Griffin, Killing a Dead Language: A Case against Emphasizing Vowel Pointing when Teaching Biblical Hebrew
78.Jump up ^ The Dead Sea Scrolls: A College Textbook and a Study Guide, pp. 75-76
79.Jump up ^ Godfrey Higgins, On the Vowel Points of the Hebrew Language, in The Classical Journal for March and June 1826, p. 145
80.Jump up ^ Higgins, pp. 146-149
81.Jump up ^ Augustin Calmet, Dictionary of the Bible, pp. 618-619
82.Jump up ^ B. Pick, The Vowel-Points Controversy in the XVI. and XVII. Centuries
83.Jump up ^ See Gérard Gertoux, The name of God Y.EH.OW.AH which is pronounced as it is written I_EH_OU_AH, pp. 209, 210.
84.Jump up ^ See page 8
85.Jump up ^ Smith commented, "In the decade of dissertations collected by Reland, Fuller, Gataker, and Leusden do battle for the pronunciation Jehovah, against such formidable antagonists as Drusius, Amama, Cappellus, Buxtorf, and Altingius, who, it is scarcely necessary to say, fairly beat their opponents out of the field; "the only argument of any weight, which is employed by the advocates of the pronunciation of the word as it is written being that derived from the form in which it appears in proper names, such as Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, &c. [...] Their antagonists make a strong point of the fact that, as has been noticed above, two different sets of vowel points are applied to the same consonants under certain circumstances. To this Leusden, of all the champions on his side, but feebly replies. [...] The same may be said of the argument derived from the fact that the letters מוכלב, when prefixed to יהוה, take, not the vowels which they would regularly receive were the present pronunciation true, but those with which they would be written if אֲדֹנָי, adonai, were the reading; and that the letters ordinarily taking dagesh lene when following יהוה would, according to the rules of the Hebrew points, be written without dagesh, whereas it is uniformly inserted."
86.Jump up ^ Image of it.
87.Jump up ^ Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible
88.Jump up ^ Revised New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. Accessed 14 October 2013.
89.Jump up ^ Of the 78 passages where the New Testament, using Κύριος (Lord) for the Tetragrammaton of the Hebrew text, quotes an Old Testament passage, the New World Translation puts "Jehovah" for Κύριος in 70 instances, "God" for Κύριος in 5 (Rom 11:2, 8; Gal 1:15; Heb 9:20; 1 Pet 4:14), and "Lord" for Κύριος in 3 (2 Thes 1:9; 1 Pet 2:3, 3:15) – Jason BeDuhn, Truth in Translation (University Press of America 2003 ISBN 0-7618-2556-8), pp. 174-175
90.Jump up ^ Rheims Douai, 1582-1610: a machine-readable transcript
91.Jump up ^ Douay-Rheims Bible
92.Jump up ^ Preface to the Revised Standard Version
93.Jump up ^ New American Bible, Genesis, Chapter 4
94.Jump up ^ Foreword and Preface to the New American Standard Bible
95.Jump up ^ John W. Gillis, The HCSB 2nd Edition and the Tetragrammaton
96.Jump up ^ How does the WEB compare to other translations?
97.Jump up ^ See CivicHeraldry.co.uk -Plymouth and here [12]. Also, Civic Heraldry of the United Kingdom)
98.Jump up ^ e.g. "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" (1771)
99.Jump up ^ Full text of "The Greatest Story Ever Told A Tale Of The Greatest Life Ever Lived" - Internet Archive - Retrieved 2 September 2011.
100.Jump up ^ "How God's Name Has Been Made Known". Awake!: 20. December 2007. "The commonly used form of God’s name in English is Jehovah, translated from the Hebrew [Tetragrammaton], which appears some 7,000 times in the Bible."
101.^ Jump up to: a b Charles William King, The Gnostics and their remains: Ancient and Mediaeval (1887), p. 285
102.Jump up ^ He speaks of it as anonymous: "the writer 'On Interpretations'". Aristotle's De Interpretatione does not speak of Egyptians.
103.Jump up ^ Charles William King, The Gnostics and their remains: Ancient and Mediaeval (1887), pp. 199-200.
104.Jump up ^ Praeparatio evangelica 10.9.
105.Jump up ^ The Grecised Hebrew text "εληιε Ιεωα ρουβα" is interpreted as meaning "my God Ieoa is mightier". ("La prononciation 'Jehova' du tétragramme", O.T.S. vol. 5, 1948, pp. 57, 58. [Greek papyrus CXXI 1.528-540 (3rd century), Library of the British Museum]
106.Jump up ^ Article in the Aster magazine (January 2000), the official periodical of the Greek Evangelical Church.
107.Jump up ^ Greek translation by Ioannes Stanos.
108.Jump up ^ Published by the British and Foreign Bible Society.
109.Jump up ^ Exodus 6:3, etc.
110.Jump up ^ Dogmatike tes Orthodoxou Katholikes Ekklesias (Dogmatics of the Orthodox Catholic Church), 3rd ed., 1997 (c. 1958), Vol. 1, p. 229.
111.^ Jump up to: a b c Pugio Fidei, in which Martin argued that the vowel points were added to the Hebrew text only in the 10th century (Thomas D. Ross, The Battle over the Hebrew Vowel Points Examined Particularly as Waged in England, p. 5).
112.Jump up ^ Dahlia M. Karpman, "Tyndale's Response to the Hebraic Tradition" (Studies in the Renaissance, Vol. 14 (1967)), p. 121.
113.^ Jump up to: a b See comments at Exodus 6:2, 3 in his Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures (1800).
114.Jump up ^ Rev. Richard Barrett's A Synopsis of Criticisms upon Passages of the Old Testament (1847) p. 219.
115.Jump up ^ Gérard Gertoux, The name of God Y.eH.oW.aH which is pronounced as it is written I_EH_OU_AH, page 152; a photo of a bilingual Latin (or Spanish) text and Hebrew text [side by side] written by Raymond Martin in 1278, with in its last sentence "יְהוָֹה" opposite "Yohoua".
116.^ Jump up to: a b Victory Against the Ungodly Hebrews. Gérard Gertoux, The name of God Y.eH.oW.aH, p. 153.
117.Jump up ^ [13]; George Moore, Notes on the Name YHWH (The American Journal of Theology, Vol. 12, No. 1. (Jan., 1908), pp. 34-52.
118.Jump up ^ Charles IX of Sweden instituted the Royal Order of Jehova in 1606.
119.^ Jump up to: a b c Scholia in Vetus Testamentum, vol. 3, part 3, pp. 8, 9, etc.
120.Jump up ^ For example, Gesenius rendered Proverbs 8:22 in Latin as: "Jehova creavit me ab initio creationis". (Samuel Lee, A lexicon, Hebrew, Chaldee, and English (1840) p. 143)
121.Jump up ^ "Non enim h quatuor liter [yhwh] si, ut punctat sunt, legantur, Ioua reddunt: sed (ut ipse optime nosti) Iehoua efficiunt." (De Arcanis Catholicæ Veritatis (1518), folio xliii. See Oxford English Dictionary Online, 1989/2008, Oxford University Press, "Jehovah"). Peter Galatin was Pope Leo X's confessor.
122.Jump up ^ Sir Godfrey Driver, Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible.
123.Jump up ^ See Poole's comments at Exodus 6:2, 3 in his Synopsis criticorum biblicorum.
124.Jump up ^ The State of the printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament considered: A Dissertation in two parts (1753), pp. 158, 159)
125.Jump up ^ The First Twelve Psalms in Hebrew, p. 22.
References
Gill, John (1778). "A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points, and Accents". A collection of sermons and tracts ...: To which are prefixed, memoirs of the life, writing, and character of the author 3. G. Keith.
External links
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Jehovah
 "Tetragrammaton". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
 "Jehovah". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
Wikisource-logo.svg "Jehovah". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
"Jehovah (Yahweh)", Catholic Encyclopedia 1910
"Tetragrammaton", Jewish Encyclopedia 1906


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Jehovah

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This article is about the word Jehovah. For the deity, see God in Abrahamic religions. For other uses, see Jehovah (disambiguation).



 "Jehovah" at Exodus 6:3
 (1611 King James Version)
Jehovah (/dʒɨˈhoʊvə/ jə-HOH-və) is a Latinization of the Hebrew יְהֹוָה, one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible. This vocalization has been transliterated as "Yehowah",[1] while YHWH itself has been transliterated as "Yahweh".[2]
יְהֹוָה appears 6,518 times in the traditional Masoretic Text, in addition to 305 instances of יֱהֹוִה (Jehovih).[3] The earliest available Latin text to use a vocalization similar to Jehovah dates from the 13th century.[4]
Most scholars believe "Jehovah" to be a late (c. 1100 CE) hybrid form derived by combining the Latin letters JHVH with the vowels of Adonai, but there is some evidence that it may already have been in use in Late Antiquity (5th century).[5][6] The consensus among scholars is that the historical vocalization of the Tetragrammaton at the time of the redaction of the Torah (6th century BCE) is most likely Yahweh, however there is disagreement. The historical vocalization was lost because in Second Temple Judaism, during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE, the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton came to be avoided, being substituted with Adonai ("my Lord").
"Jehovah" was popularized in the English-speaking world by William Tyndale and other pioneer English Protestant translators,[7] but is no longer used in mainstream English translations, with Lord or LORD used instead, generally indicating that the corresponding Hebrew is Yahweh or YHWH.[8][9]:5


Contents  [hide]
1 Pronunciation 1.1 Development 1.1.1 Vowel points of יְהֹוָה and אֲדֹנָי
1.2 Introduction into English
2 Hebrew vowel points 2.1 Proponents of pre-Christian origin
2.2 Proponents of later origin
3 Early modern arguments 3.1 Discourses rejecting Jehovah
3.2 Discourses defending Jehovah
3.3 Summary of discourses
4 Usage in English Bible translations 4.1 Non-usage
5 Other usage
6 Similar Greek names 6.1 Ancient
6.2 Modern
7 Similar Latin and English transcriptions
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 External links

Pronunciation


 This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: the section is lacking in audio or textual representations of various pronunciations. Please help improve this article if you can. (December 2014)



 The name Iehova at a Norwegian church.[10]
Most scholars believe "Jehovah" to be a late (c. 1100 CE) hybrid form derived by combining the Latin letters JHVH with the vowels of Adonai, but some hold there is evidence that the Jehovah form of the Tetragrammaton may have been in use in Semitic and Greek phonetic texts and artifacts from Late Antiquity.[5][6] Others say that it is the pronunciation Yahweh that is testified in both Christian and pagan texts of the early Christian era.[5][11][12][13]
Karaite Jews,[14] as proponents of the rendering Jehovah, state that although the original pronunciation of יהוה has been obscured by disuse of the spoken name according to oral Rabbinic law, well-established English transliterations of other Hebrew personal names are accepted in normal usage, such as Joshua, Isaiah or Jesus, for which the original pronunciations may be unknown.[14] They also point out that "the English form Jehovah is quite simply an Anglicized form of Yehovah,"[14] and preserves the four Hebrew consonants "YHVH" (with the introduction of the "J" sound in English).[14][15][16] Some argue that Jehovah is preferable to Yahweh, based on their conclusion that the Tetragrammaton was likely tri-syllabic originally, and that modern forms should therefore also have three syllables.[17]
According to a Jewish tradition developed during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE, the Tetragrammaton is written but not pronounced. When read, substitute terms replace the divine name where יְהֹוָה appears in the text. It is widely assumed, as proposed by the 19th-century Hebrew scholar Gesenius, that the vowels of the substitutes of the name—Adonai (Lord) and Elohim (God)—were inserted by the Masoretes to indicate that these substitutes were to be used.[18] When יהוה precedes or follows Adonai, the Masoretes placed the vowel points of Elohim into the Tetragrammaton, producing a different vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יֱהֹוִה, which was read as Elohim.[19] Based on this reasoning, the form יְהֹוָה (Jehovah) has been characterized by some as a "hybrid form",[5][20] and even "a philological impossibility".[21]
Early modern translators disregarded the practice of reading Adonai (or its equivalents in Greek and Latin, Κύριος and Dominus)[22] in place of the Tetragrammaton and instead combined the four Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton with the vowel points that, except in synagogue scrolls, accompanied them, resulting in the form Jehovah.[23] This form, which first took effect in works dated 1278 and 1303, was adopted in Tyndale's and some other Protestant translations of the Bible.[24] In the 1611 King James Version, Jehovah occurred seven times.[25] In the 1885 English Revised Version, the form "Jehovah" occurs twelve times. In the 1901 American Standard Version the form "Je-ho’vah" became the regular English rendering of the Hebrew יהוה, all throughout, in preference to the previously dominant "the LORD", which is generally used in the King James Version.[26] It is also used in Christian hymns such as the 1771 hymn, "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah".[27]
Development
The most widespread theory is that the Hebrew term יְהֹוָה has the vowel points of אֲדֹנָי (adonai).[28] Using the vowels of adonai, the composite hataf patah ֲ under the guttural alef א becomes a sheva ְ under the yod י, the holam ֹ is placed over the first he ה, and the qamats ָ is placed under the vav ו, giving יְהֹוָה (Jehovah). When the two names, יהוה and אדני, occur together, the former is pointed with a hataf segol ֱ under the yod י and a hiriq ִ under the second he ה, giving יֱהֹוִה, to indicate that it is to be read as (elohim) in order to avoid adonai being repeated.[29][28]
Taking the spellings at face value may have been as a result of not knowing about the Q're perpetuum, thus resulting in the term "Jehovah" and its spelling variants.[30][31] Emil G. Hirsch was among the modern scholars that recognized "Jehovah" to be "grammatically impossible"[29]



 A 1552 Latin translation of the Sefer Yetzirah, using the form Iehouah for the "magnum Nomen tetragrammatum".
The pronunciation Jehovah is believed to have arisen through the introduction of vowels of the qere—the marginal notation used by the Masoretes. In places where the consonants of the text to be read (the qere) differed from the consonants of the written text (the kethib), they wrote the qere in the margin to indicate that the kethib was read using the vowels of the qere. For a few very frequent words the marginal note was omitted, referred to as q're perpetuum.[21] One of these frequent cases was God's name, which was not to be pronounced in fear of profaning the "ineffable name". Instead, wherever יהוה (YHWH) appears in the kethib of the biblical and liturgical books, it was to be read as אֲדֹנָי (adonai, "My Lord [plural of majesty]"), or as אֱלֹהִים (elohim, "God") if adonai appears next to it.[citation needed] This combination produces יְהֹוָה (yehovah) and יֱהֹוִה (yehovih) respectively.[citation needed] יהוה is also written ’ה, or even ’ד, and read ha-Shem ("the name").[29]
Scholars are not in total agreement as to why יְהֹוָה does not have precisely the same vowel points as adonai.[citation needed] The use of the composite hataf segol ֱ in cases where the name is to be read, "elohim", has led to the opinion that the composite hataf patah ֲ ought to have been used to indicate the reading, "adonai". It has been argued conversely that the disuse of the patah is consistent with the Babylonian system, in which the composite is uncommon.[21]
Vowel points of יְהֹוָה and אֲדֹנָי



The spelling of the Tetragrammaton and connected forms in the Hebrew Masoretic text of the Bible, with vowel points shown in red.
The table below shows the vowel points of Yehovah and Adonay, indicating the simple sheva in Yehovah in contrast to the hataf patah in Adonay. As indicated to the right, the vowel points used when YHWH is intended to be pronounced as Adonai are slightly different to those used in Adonai itself.

Hebrew (Strong's #3068)
 YEHOVAH
יְהֹוָה
Hebrew (Strong's #136)
 ADONAY
אֲדֹנָי
י Yod Y א Aleph glottal stop
ְ Simple sheva E ֲ Hataf patah A
ה He H ד Dalet D
ֹ Holam O ֹ Holam O
ו Vav V נ Nun N
ָ Qamats A ָ Qamats A
ה He H י Yod Y
The difference between the vowel points of ’ǎdônây and YHWH is explained by the rules of Hebrew morphology and phonetics. Sheva and hataf-patah were allophones of the same phoneme used in different situations: hataf-patah on glottal consonants including aleph (such as the first letter in Adonai), and simple sheva on other consonants (such as the Y in YHWH).[29]
Introduction into English



 The "peculiar, special, honorable and most blessed name of God" Iehoua,
 an older English form of Jehovah
 (Roger Hutchinson, The image of God, 1550)
The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon suggested that the pronunciation Jehovah was unknown until 1520 when it was introduced by Galatinus, who defended its use.
In English it appeared in William Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch ("The Five Books of Moses") published in 1530 in Germany, where Tyndale had studied since 1524, possibly in one or more of the universities at Wittenberg, Worms and Marburg, where Hebrew was taught.[32] The spelling used by Tyndale was "Iehouah"; at that time, "I" was not distinguished from J, and U was not distinguished from V.[33] The original 1611 printing of the Authorized King James Version used "Iehovah". Tyndale wrote about the divine name: "IEHOUAH [Jehovah], is God's name; neither is any creature so called; and it is as much to say as, One that is of himself, and dependeth of nothing. Moreover, as oft as thou seest LORD in great letters (except there be any error in the printing), it is in Hebrew Iehouah, Thou that art; or, He that is."[34] The name is also found in a 1651 edition of Ramón Martí's Pugio fidei.[35]
The name Jehovah appeared in all early Protestant Bibles in English, except Coverdale's translation in 1535.[7] The Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible used "the Lord", corresponding to the Latin Vulgate's use of "Dominus" (Latin for "Adonai", "Lord") to represent the Tetragrammaton. The Authorized King James Version also, which used "Jehovah" in a few places, most frequently gave "the LORD" as the equivalent of the Tetragrammaton. The name Jehovah appeared in John Rogers' Matthew Bible in 1537, the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva Bible of 1560, Bishop's Bible of 1568 and the King James Version of 1611. More recently, it has been used in the Revised Version of 1885, the American Standard Version in 1901, and the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1961.
At Exodus 6:3-6, where the King James Version has Jehovah, the Revised Standard Version (1952),[36] the New American Standard Bible (1971), the New International Version (1978), the New King James Version (1982), the New Revised Standard Version (1989), the New Century Version (1991), and the Contemporary English Version (1995) give "LORD" or "Lord" as their rendering of the Tetragrammaton, while the New Jerusalem Bible (1985), the Amplified Bible (1987), the New Living Translation (1996, revised 2007), the English Standard Version (2001), and the Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004) use the form Yahweh.
Hebrew vowel points
Modern guides to biblical Hebrew grammar, such as Duane A Garrett's A Modern Grammar for Classical Hebrew[37] state that the Hebrew vowel points now found in printed Hebrew Bibles were invented in the second half of the first millennium AD, long after the texts were written. This is indicated in the authoritative Hebrew Grammar of Gesenius,[38][39]
"Jehovist" scholars, largely earlier than the 20th century, who believe /dʒəˈhoʊvə/ to be the original pronunciation of the divine name, argue that the Hebraic vowel-points and accents were known to writers of the scriptures in antiquity and that both Scripture and history argue in favor of their ab origine status to the Hebrew language. Some members of Karaite Judaism, such as Nehemia Gordon, hold this view.[14] The antiquity of the vowel points and of the rendering Jehovah was defended by various scholars, including Michaelis,[40] Drach,[40] Stier,[40] William Fulke (1583), Johannes Buxtorf,[41] his son Johannes Buxtorf II,[42] and John Owen [43] (17th century); John Moncrieff [44] (19th century), Johann Friedrich von Meyer (1832)[45]
Jehovist writers such as Nehemia Gordon, who helped make a translation of the "Dead Sea Scrolls", have acknowledged the general agreement among scholars that the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was probably Yahweh, and that the vowel points now attached to the Tetragrammaton were added to indicate that Adonai was to be read instead, as seen in the alteration of those points after prefixes. He wrote: "There is a virtual scholarly consensus concerning this name" and "this is presented as fact in every introduction to Biblical Hebrew and every scholarly discussion of the name."[46] Gordon, disputing this consensus, wrote, "However, this consensus is not based on decisive proof. We have seen that the scholarly consensus concerning Yahweh is really just a wild guess," and went on to say that the vowel points of Adonai are not correct.[47] He argued that "the name is really pronounced Ye-ho-vah with the emphasis on 'vah'. Pronouncing the name Yehovah with the emphasis on 'ho' (as in English Jehovah) would quite simply be a mistake."[48]
Proponents of pre-Christian origin
18th-century theologian John Gill puts forward the arguments of 17th-century Johannes Buxtorf II and others in his writing, A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points and Accents.[49] He argued for an extreme antiquity of their use,[50] rejecting the idea that the vowel points were invented by the Masoretes. Gill presented writings, including passages of scripture, that he interpreted as supportive of his "Jehovist" viewpoint that the Old Testament must have included vowel-points and accents.[51] He claimed that the use of Hebrew vowel points of יְהֹוָה, and therefore of the name Jehovah /jəˈhoʊvə/, is documented from before 200 BCE, and even back to Adam, citing Jewish tradition that Hebrew was the first language. He argued that throughout this history the Masoretes did not invent the vowel points and accents, but that they were delivered to Moses by God at Sinai, citing[52] Karaite authorities[53][54] Mordechai ben Nisan Kukizov (1699) and his associates, who stated that "all our wise men with one mouth affirm and profess that the whole law was pointed and accented, as it came out of the hands of Moses, the man of God."[40] The argument between Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism on whether it was lawful to pronounce the name represented by the Tetragrammaton[52] is claimed to show that some copies were not pointed with the vowels because of "oral law", for control of interpretation by some Judeo sects, including non-pointed copies in synagogues.[55] Gill claimed that the pronunciation /jəˈhoʊvə/ can be traced back to early historical sources which indicate that vowel points and/or accents were used in their time.[56] Sources Gill claimed supported his view include:
The Book of Cosri and commentator Rabbi Judab Muscatus, which claim that the vowel points were taught to Adam by God.[57]
Saadiah Gaon (927 AD)[58]
Jerome (380 AD)[59]
Origen (250 AD)[60]
The Zohar (120 AD)[61]
Jesus Christ (31 AD), based on Gill's interpretation of Matthew 5:18[62]
Hillel the Elder and Shammai division (30 BC)[63]
Karaites (120 BCE)[52]
Demetrius Phalereus, librarian for Ptolemy II Philadelphus king of Egypt (277 BCE)[64]
Gill quoted Elia Levita, who said, "There is no syllable without a point, and there is no word without an accent," as showing that the vowel points and the accents found in printed Hebrew Bibles have a dependence on each other, and so Gill attributed the same antiquity to the accents as to the vowel points.[65] Gill acknowledged that Levita, "first asserted the vowel points were invented by "the men of Tiberias", but made reference to his condition that "if anyone could convince him that his opinion was contrary to the book of Zohar, he should be content to have it rejected." Gill then alludes to the book of Zohar, stating that rabbis declared it older than the Masoretes, and that it attests to the vowel-points and accents.[61]
William Fulke, John Gill, John Owen, and others held that Jesus Christ referred to a Hebrew vowel point or accent at Matthew 5:18, indicated in the King James Version by the word tittle.[66][67][68][69]
The 1602 Spanish Bible (Reina-Valera/Cipriano de Valera) used the name Iehova and gave a lengthy defense of the pronunciation Jehovah in its preface.[40]
Proponents of later origin
Despite Jehovist claims that vowel signs are necessary for reading and understanding Hebrew, modern Hebrew (apart from young children's books, some formal poetry and Hebrew primers for new immigrants), is written without vowel points.[70] The Torah scrolls do not include vowel points, and ancient Hebrew was written without vowel signs.[71][72]
The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1946 and dated from 400 BC to 70 AD,[73] include texts from the Torah or Pentateuch and from other parts of the Hebrew Bible,[74][75] and have provided documentary evidence that, in spite of claims to the contrary, the original Hebrew texts were in fact written without vowel points.[76][77] Menahem Mansoor's The Dead Sea Scrolls: A College Textbook and a Study Guide claims the vowel points found in printed Hebrew Bibles were devised in the 9th and 10th centuries.[78]
Gill's view that the Hebrew vowel points were in use at the time of Ezra or even since the origin of the Hebrew language is stated in an early 19th-century study in opposition to "the opinion of most learned men in modern times", according to whom the vowel points had been "invented since the time of Christ".[79] The study presented the following considerations:
The argument that vowel points are necessary for learning to read Hebrew is refuted by the fact that the Samaritan text of the Bible is read without them and that several other Semitic languages, kindred to Hebrew, are written without any indications of the vowels.
The books used in synagogue worship have always been without vowel points, which, unlike the letters, have thus never been treated as sacred.
The Qere Kethib marginal notes give variant readings only of the letters, never of the points, an indication either that these were added later or that, if they already existed, they were seen as not so important.
The Kabbalists drew their mysteries only from the letters and completely disregarded the points, if there were any.
In several cases, ancient translations from the Hebrew Bible (Septuagint, Targum, Aquila of Sinope, Symmachus, Theodotion, Jerome) read the letters with vowels different from those indicated by the points, an indication that the texts from which they were translating were without points. The same holds for Origen's transliteration of the Hebrew text into Greek letters. Jerome expressly speaks of a word in Habakkuk 3:5, which in the present Masoretic Text has three consonant letters and two vowel points, as being of three letters and no vowel whatever.
Neither the Jerusalem Talmud nor the Babylonian Talmud (in all their recounting of Rabbinical disputes about the meaning of words), nor Philo nor Josephus, nor any Christian writer for several centuries after Christ make any reference to vowel points.[80][81][82]
Early modern arguments
In the 16th and 17th centuries, various arguments were presented for and against the transcription of the form Jehovah.
Discourses rejecting Jehovah

Author
Discourse
Comments
John Drusius (Johannes Van den Driesche) (1550-1616) Tetragrammaton, sive de Nomine Die proprio, quod Tetragrammaton vocant (1604) Drusius stated "Galatinus first led us to this mistake ... I know [of] nobody who read [it] thus earlier..").[1]
 An editor of Drusius in 1698 knows of an earlier reading in Porchetus de Salvaticis however.[clarification needed][2]
 John Drusius wrote that neither יְהֹוָה nor יֱהֹוִה accurately represented God's name.[83]
Sixtinus Amama (1593–1659)[84] De nomine tetragrammato (1628) [3] Sixtinus Amama, was a Professor of Hebrew in the University of Franeker. A pupil of Drusius. [4]
Louis Cappel (1585–1658) De nomine tetragrammato (1624) Lewis Cappel reached the conclusion that Hebrew vowel points were not part of the original Hebrew language. This view was strongly contested by John Buxtorff the elder and his son.
James Altingius (1618–1679) Exercitatio grammatica de punctis ac pronunciatione tetragrammati James Altingius was a learned German divine[clarification needed]. [5]|
Discourses defending Jehovah

Author
Discourse
Comments
Nicholas Fuller (1557–1626) Dissertatio de nomine יהוה Nicholas was a Hebraist and a theologian. [6]
John Buxtorf (1564–1629) Disserto de nomine JHVH (1620); Tiberias, sive Commentarius Masoreticus (1664) John Buxtorf the elder [7] opposed the views of Elia Levita regarding the late origin (invention by the Masoretes) of the Hebrew vowel points, a subject which gave rise to the controversy between Louis Cappel and his (e.g. John Buxtorf the elder's) son, Johannes Buxtorf II the younger.
Johannes Buxtorf II (1599–1664) Tractatus de punctorum origine, antiquitate, et authoritate, oppositus Arcano puntationis revelato Ludovici Cappelli (1648) Continued his father's arguments that the pronunciation and therefore the Hebrew vowel points resulting in the name Jehovah have divine inspiration.
Thomas Gataker (1574–1654)[8] De Nomine Tetragrammato Dissertaio (1645) [9] See Memoirs of the Puritans Thomas Gataker.
John Leusden (1624–1699) Dissertationes tres, de vera lectione nominis Jehova John Leusden wrote three discourses in defense of the name Jehovah. [10]
Summary of discourses
In A Dictionary of the Bible (1863), William Robertson Smith summarized these discourses, concluding that "whatever, therefore, be the true pronunciation of the word, there can be little doubt that it is not Jehovah".[85] Despite this, he consistently uses the name Jehovah throughout his dictionary and when translating Hebrew names. Some examples include Isaiah [Jehovah's help or salvation], Jehoshua [Jehovah a helper], Jehu [Jehovah is He]. In the entry, Jehovah, Smith writes: "JEHOVAH (יְהֹוָה, usually with the vowel points of אֲדֹנָי; but when the two occur together, the former is pointed יֱהֹוִה, that is with the vowels of אֱלֹהִים, as in Obad. i. 1, Hab. iii. 19:"[86] This practice is also observed in many modern publications, such as the New Compact Bible Dictionary (Special Crusade Edition) of 1967 and Peloubet's Bible Dictionary of 1947.
Usage in English Bible translations
The following versions of the Bible render the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah either exclusively or in selected verses:
William Tyndale, in his 1530 translation of the first five books of the English Bible, at Exodus 6:3 renders the divine name as Iehovah. In his foreword to this edition he wrote: "Iehovah is God's name... Moreover, as oft as thou seeist LORD in great letters (except there be any error in the printing) it is in Hebrew Iehovah."
The Great Bible (1539) renders Jehovah in Psalm 33:12 and Psalm 83:18.
The Geneva Bible (1560) translates the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah in Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, Jeremiah 16:21, and Jeremiah 32:18.
In the Bishop's Bible (1568), the word Jehovah occurs in Exodus 6:3 and Psalm 83:18.
The Authorized King James Version (1611) renders Jehovah in Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, Isaiah 12:2, Isaiah 26:4, and three times in compound place names at Genesis 22:14, Exodus 17:15 and Judges 6:24.
Webster's Bible Translation (1833) by Noah Webster, a revision of the King James Bible, contains the form Jehovah in all cases where it appears in the original King James Version, as well as another seven times in Isaiah 51:21, Jeremiah 16:21; 23:6; 32:18; 33:16, Amos 5:8, and Micah 4:13.
Young's Literal Translation by Robert Young (1862, 1898) renders the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah 6,831 times.
In the Emphatic Diaglott (1864) a translation of the New Testament by Benjamin Wilson, the name Jehovah appears eighteen times.
The English Revised Version (1885) renders the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah where it appears in the King James Version, and another eight times in Exodus 6:2,6–8, Psalm 68:20, Isaiah 49:14, Jeremiah 16:21, and Habakkuk 3:19.
The Darby Bible (1890) by John Nelson Darby renders the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah 6,810 times.
The Five Pauline Epistles, A New Translation (1900) by William Gunion Rutherford uses the name Jehovah six times in the Book of Romans.
The American Standard Version (1901) renders the Tetragrammaton as Je-ho’vah in 6,823 places in the Old Testament.
The Modern Reader's Bible (1914) by Richard Moulton uses Jehovah in Exodus 6:2–9, Exodus 22:14, Psalm 68:4, Psalm 83:18, Isaiah 12:2, Isaiah 26:4 and Jeremiah 16:20.
The Holy Scriptures (1936, 1951), Hebrew Publishing Company, revised by Alexander Harkavy, a Hebrew Bible translation in English, contains the form Jehovah in Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, and Isaiah 12:2.
The New English Bible (1970) published by Oxford University Press uses Jehovah in Exodus 3:15 and 6:3, and in four place names at Genesis 22:14, Exodus 17:15, Judges 6:24 and Ezekiel 48:35.[87]
The Living Bible (1971) by Kenneth N. Taylor, published by Tyndale House Publishers, Illinois, uses Jehovah extensively, as in the 1901 American Standard Version, on which it is based.
In the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (1961, 1984, 2013) published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Jehovah appears 7,216 times, comprising 6,979 instances in the Old Testament,[88] and 237 in the New Testament—including 70 of the 78 times where the New Testament quotes an Old Testament passage containing the Tetragrammaton,[89] where the Tetragrammaton does not appear in any extant Greek manuscript.
The Bible in Living English (1972) by Steven T. Byington, published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, renders the word Jehovah throughout the Old Testament over 6,800 times.
Green's Literal Translation (1985) by Jay P. Green, Sr., renders the Tetragrammaton as "Jehovah" 6,866 times.
The American King James Version (1999) by Michael Engelbrite renders Jehovah in all the places where it appears in the original King James Version.
The Recovery Version (1999) renders the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah throughout the Old Testament 6,841 times.
The Original Aramaic Bible in Plain English (2010) by David Bauscher, a self-published English translation of the New Testament, from the Aramaic of The Peshitta New Testament with a translation of the ancient Aramaic Peshitta version of Psalms & Proverbs, contains the word "JEHOVAH" over 200 times in the New Testament, where the Peshitta itself does not.
The Divine Name King James Bible (2011), the Bible translators replaced the capitalized GOD and LORD with the English translation “Jehovah” in 6,972 places.
Non-usage
The Douay Version of 1609 renders the phrase in Exodus 6:3 as "and my name Adonai", and in its footnote says: "Adonai is not the name here vttered to Moyses but is redde in place of the vnknowen name".[90] The Challoner revision (1750) uses ADONAI with a note stating, "some moderns have framed the name Jehovah, unknown to all the ancients, whether Jews or Christians."[91]
Most modern translations exclusively use Lord or LORD, generally indicating that the corresponding Hebrew is Yahweh or YHWH (not JHVH), and in some cases saying that this name is "traditionally" transliterated as Jehovah:[8][9]:5
The Revised Standard Version (1952), an authorized revision of the American Standard Version of 1901, replaced all 6,823 usages of Jehovah in the 1901 text with "LORD" or "GOD", depending on whether the Hebrew of the verse in question is read "Adonai" or "Elohim" in Jewish practice. A footnote on Exodus 3:15 says: "The word LORD when spelled with capital letters, stands for the divine name, YHWH." The preface states: "The word 'Jehovah' does not accurately represent any form of the name ever used in Hebrew".[92]
The New American Bible (1970, revised 1986, 1991). Its footnote to Genesis 4:25-26 says: "... men began to call God by his personal name, Yahweh, rendered as "the LORD" in this version of the Bible."[93]
The New American Standard Bible (1971, updated 1995), another revision of the 1901 American Standard Version, followed the example of the Revised Standard Version. Its footnotes to Exodus 3:14 and 6:3 state: "Related to the name of God, YHWH, rendered LORD, which is derived from the verb HAYAH, to be"; "Heb YHWH, usually rendered LORD". In its preface it says: "It is known that for many years YHWH has been transliterated as Yahweh, however no complete certainty attaches to this pronunciation."[94]
The Bible in Today's English (Good News Bible), published by the American Bible Society (1976). Its preface states: "the distinctive Hebrew name for God (usually transliterated Jehovah or Yahweh) is in this translation represented by 'The Lord'." A footnote to Exodus 3:14 states: "I am sounds like the Hebrew name Yahweh traditionally transliterated as Jehovah."
The New International Version (1978, revised 2011). Footnote to Exodus 3:15, "The Hebrew for LORD sounds like and may be related to the Hebrew for I AM in verse 14."
The New King James Version (1982), though based on the King James Version, replaces JEHOVAH in Exodus 6:3 with "LORD", and adds a note: "Hebrew YHWH, traditionally Jehovah."
The God's Word Translation (1985).
The New Century Version (1987, revised 1991).
The New International Reader's Version (1995).
The English Standard Version (2001). Footnote to Exodus 3:15, "The word LORD, when spelled with capital letters, stands for the divine name, YHWH, which is here connected with the verb hayah, 'to be'."
Some translations use both Yahweh and LORD:
The Amplified Bible (1965, revised 1987) generally uses Lord, but translates Exodus 6:3 as: "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty [El-Shaddai], but by My name the Lord [Yahweh—the redemptive name of God] I did not make Myself known to them [in acts and great miracles]."
The New Living Translation (1996), produced by Tyndale House Publishers as a successor to the Living Bible, generally uses LORD, but uses Yahweh in Exodus 3:15 and 6:3.
The Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004, revised 2008) mainly uses LORD, but in its second edition increased the number of times it uses Yahweh from 78 to 495 (in 451 verses).[95]
Some translate the Tetragrammaton exclusively as Yahweh:
The Jerusalem Bible (1966).
The New Jerusalem Bible (1985).
The World English Bible (1997) is based on the 1901 American Standard Version, but uses "Yahweh" instead of "Jehovah".[96]
Other usage



 The name "Jehovah" on the dome of the Old Catholic St. Martinskirche in Olten, Switzerland, 1521
Following the Middle Ages, some churches and public buildings across Europe, both before and after the Protestant Reformation were decorated with the name Jehovah. For example, the Coat of Arms of Plymouth (UK) City Council bears the Latin inscription, Turris fortissima est nomen Jehova[97] (English, "The name of Jehovah is the strongest tower"), derived from Proverbs 18:10.
Jehovah has been a popular English word for the personal name of God for several centuries. Christian hymns[98] feature the name. The form "Jehovah" also appears in reference books and novels, for example, appearing several times in the novel The Greatest Story Ever Told by Roman Catholic author Fulton Oursler.[99] Some religious groups, notably Jehovah's Witnesses[100] and proponents of the King-James-Only movement, make prominent use of the name.
In Mormonism, "Jehovah" was the name by which Jesus was known in the Old Testament, as opposed to God the Father who is referred to in the Mormon faith as "Elohim".
Similar Greek names
Ancient
Ιουω (Iouō, [juɔ]): Pistis Sophia cited by Charles William King, which also gives Ιαω (Iaō, [jaɔ] but more frequently [101] (2nd century)
Ιεου (Ieou, [jeu]): Pistis Sophia[101] (2nd century)
ΙΕΗΩΟΥΑ (I-E-Ē-Ō-O-Y-A, [ieɛɔoya]), the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet arranged in this order. Charles William King attributes to a work that he calls On Interpretations[102] the statement that this was the Egyptian name of the supreme God. He comments: "This is in fact a very correct representation, if we give each vowel its true Greek sound, of the Hebrew pronunciation of the word Jehovah."[103] (2nd century)
Ιευώ (Ievō): Eusebius, who says that Sanchuniathon received the records of the Jews from Hierombalus, priest of the god Ieuo.[104] (c. 315)
Ιεωά (Ieōa): Hellenistic magical text[105] (2nd-3rd centuries), M. Kyriakakes[106] (2000)
Modern
Ἰεχοβά (like Jehova[h]): Paolo Medici[107] (1755)
Ἰεοβά (like Je[h]ova[h]): Greek Pentateuch[108] (1833), Holy Bible translated in Katharevousa Greek by Neophytus Vamvas[109] (1850)
Ἰεχωβά (like Jehova[h]): Panagiotes Trempelas[110] (1958)
Similar Latin and English transcriptions



 Excerpts from Raymond Martin's Pugio Fidei adversus Mauros et Judaeos (1270, p. 559), containing the phrase "Jehova, sive Adonay, qvia Dominus es omnium" (Jehovah, or Adonay, for you are the Lord of all).[111]


Geneva Bible, 1560. (Psalm 83:18)


 A Latin rendering of the Tetragrammaton has been the form "Jova", sounding very similar to "Jehovah".
 (Origenis Hexaplorum, edited by Frederick Field, 1875.)
Transcriptions of יְהֹוָה similar to Jehovah occurred as early as the 12th century.
Ieve: Petrus Alphonsi[112] (c. 1106), Alexander Geddes[113][114] (1800)
Jehova: Raymond Martin (Raymundus Martini)[111][115] (1278), Porchetus de Salvaticis[116][117] (1303), Tremellius (1575), Marcus Marinus (1593), Charles IX of Sweden[118] (1606), Rosenmüller[119] (1820), Wilhelm Gesenius (c. 1830)[120]
Yohoua: Raymond Martin[111] (1278)
Yohouah: Porchetus de Salvaticis[116] (1303)
Ieoa: Nicholas of Cusa (1428)
Iehoua: Nicholas of Cusa (1428), Peter Galatin (Galatinus)[121] (1516)
Iehova: Nicholas of Cusa (1428), Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (1514), Sebastian Münster (1526), Leo Jud (1543), Robert Estienne (1557)
Ihehoua: Nicholas of Cusa (1428)
Jova: 16th century,[122] Rosenmüller[119] (1820)
Jehovah: Paul Fagius (1546), John Calvin (1557), King James Bible (1671 [OT] / 1669 [NT]), Matthew Poole[123] (1676), Benjamin Kennicott[124] (1753), Alexander Geddes[113] (1800)
Iehouáh: Geneva Bible (1560)
Iehovah: Authorized King James Version (1611), Henry Ainsworth (1627)
Jovae: Rosenmüller[119] (1820)
Yehovah: William Baillie[125] (1843)
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Jehovah
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jehovah & Tetragrammaton.
See also
Allah
Ea
El
Enlil
God in Christianity, God in Islam, God in Judaism, God in Mormonism, God in the Bahá'í Faith
God the Father
Gott
I am that I am
Jah
Names of God
Names of God in Judaism
Theophoric names:
Jehoshaphat, Jehonadab, Tobijah
Yam (Ya'a, Yaw)

Notes
1.Jump up ^ GOD, NAMES OF - 5. Yahweh (Yahweh) - Bible Study Tools. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
2.Jump up ^ Preface to the New American Standard Bible
3.Jump up ^ Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon
4.Jump up ^ Pugio fidei by Raymund Martin, written in about 1270
5.^ Jump up to: a b c d Roy Kotansky, Jeffrey Spier, "The 'Horned Hunter' on a Lost Gnostic Gem", The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), p. 318. Quote: "Although most scholars believe "Jehovah" to be a late (c. 1100 CE) hybrid form derived by combining the Latin letters JHVH with the vowels of Adonai (the traditionally pronounced version of יהוה), many magical texts in Semitic and Greek establish an early pronunciation of the divine name as both Yehovah and Yahweh"
6.^ Jump up to: a b George Wesley Buchanan, "The Tower of Siloam", The Expository Times 2003; 115: 37; pp. 40, 41. Quote from Note 19: "This [Yehowah] is the correct pronunciation of the tetragramaton, as is clear from the pronunciation of proper names in the First Testament (FT), poetry, fifth-century Aramaic documents, Greek translations of the name in the Dead Sea Scrolls and church fathers."
7.^ Jump up to: a b In the 7th paragraph of Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible, Sir Godfry Driver wrote, "The early translators generally substituted 'Lord' for [YHWH]. [...] The Reformers preferred Jehovah, which first appeared as Iehouah in 1530 A.D., in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (Exodus 6.3), from which it passed into other Protestant Bibles."
8.^ Jump up to: a b English Standard Version Translation Oversight Committee Preface to the English Standard Version Quote: "When the vowels of the word adonai are placed with the consonants of YHWH, this results in the familiar word Jehovah that was used in some earlier English Bible translations. As is common among English translations today, the ESV usually renders the personal name of God (YHWH) with the word Lord (printed in small capitals)."
9.^ Jump up to: a b Bruce M. Metzger for the New Revised Standard Version Committee. To the Reader
10.Jump up ^ Source: The Divine Name in Norway,
11.Jump up ^ Jarl Fossum and Brian Glazer in their article Seth in the Magical Texts (Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphie 100 (1994), p. 86-92, reproduced here [11], give the name "Yahweh" as the source of a number of names found in pagan magical texts: Ἰάβας (p. 88), Iaō (described as "a Greek form of the name of the Biblical God, Yahweh", on p. 89), Iaba, Iaē, Iaēo, Iaō, Iaēō (p. 89). On page 92, they call "Iaō" "the divine name".
12.Jump up ^ Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible (2000), p. 1402
13.Jump up ^ Kristin De Troyer The Names of God, Their Pronunciation and Their Translation, – lectio difficilior 2/2005. Quote: "IAO can be seen as a transliteration of YAHU, the three-letter form of the Name of God" (p. 6).
14.^ Jump up to: a b c d e The Pronunciation of the Name
15.Jump up ^ Scott Jones - יהוה Jehovah יהוה
16.Jump up ^ Carl D. Franklin - Debunking the Myths of Sacred Namers יהוה - Christian Biblical Church of God - December 9, 1997 - Retrieved 25 August 2011.
17.Jump up ^ George Wesley Buchanan, "How God's Name Was Pronounced," Biblical Archaeology Review 21.2 (March -April 1995), 31-32
18.Jump up ^ "יְהֹוָה Jehovah, pr[oper] name of the supreme God amongst the Hebrews. The later Hebrews, for some centuries before the time of Christ, either misled by a false interpretation of certain laws (Ex. 20:7; Lev. 24:11), or else following some old superstition, regarded this name as so very holy, that it might not even be pronounced (see Philo, Vit. Mosis t.iii. p.519, 529). Whenever, therefore, this nomen tetragrammaton occurred in the sacred text, they were accustomed to substitute for it אֲדֹנָי, and thus the vowels of the noun אֲדֹנָי are in the Masoretic text placed under the four letters יהוה, but with this difference, that the initial Yod receives a simple and not a compound Sh’va (יְהֹוָה [Yehovah], not (יֲהֹוָה [Yahovah]); prefixes, however, receive the same points as if they were followed by אֲדֹנָי [...] This custom was already in vogue in the days of the LXX. translators; and thus it is that they every where translated יְהֹוָה by ὁ Κύριος (אֲדֹנָי)." (H. W. F. Gesenius, Gesenius's Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1979[1847]), p. 337)
19.Jump up ^ For example, Deuteronomy 3:24, Deuteronomy 9:26 (second instance), Judges 16:28 (second instance), Genesis 15:2
20.Jump up ^ R. Laird Harris, "The Pronunciation of the Tetragram," in John H. Skilton (ed.), The Law and the Prophets: Old Testament Studies Prepared in Honor of Oswald Thompson Allis (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974), 224.
21.^ Jump up to: a b c Jewish Encyclopedia: article: Name of God
22.Jump up ^ The Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome renders the name as Adonai at Exodus 6:3 rather than as Dominus.
23.Jump up ^ 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: article Jehovah (Yahweh)
24.Jump up ^ In the 7th paragraph of Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible, Sir Godfrey Driver wrote of the combination of the vowels of Adonai and Elohim with the consonants of the divine name, that it "did not become effective until Yehova or Jehova or Johova appeared in two Latin works dated in A.D. 1278 and A.D. 1303; the shortened Jova (declined like a Latin noun) came into use in the sixteenth century. The Reformers preferred Jehovah, which first appeared as Iehouah in 1530 A.D., in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (Exodus 6.3), from which it passed into other Protestant Bibles."
25.Jump up ^ At Gen.22:14; Ex.6:3; 17:15; Jg.6:24; Ps.83:18, Is.12:2; 26:4. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Iowa Falls: Word, 1994), 722.
26.Jump up ^ According to the preface, this was because the translators felt that the "Jewish superstition, which regarded the Divine Name as too sacred to be uttered, ought no longer to dominate in the English or any other version of the Old Testament".
27.Jump up ^ The original hymn, without "Jehovah", was composed in Welsh in 1745; the English translation, with "Jehovah", was composed in 1771 (Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah).
28.^ Jump up to: a b Paul Joüon and T. Muraoka. A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Subsidia Biblica). Part One: Orthography and Phonetics. Rome : Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblio, 1996. ISBN 978-8876535956. Quote from Section 16(f)(1)" "The Qre is יְהֹוָה the Lord, whilst the Ktiv is probably(1) יַהְוֶה (according to ancient witnesses)." "Note 1: In our translations, we have used Yahweh, a form widely accepted by scholars, instead of the traditional Jehovah"
29.^ Jump up to: a b c d Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906
30.Jump up ^ Marvin H. Pope "Job – Introduction, in Job (The Anchor Bible, Vol. 15). February 19, 1965 page XIV ISBN 9780385008945
31.Jump up ^ Moore, George Foot (1911). 311 "Jehovah" in Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 15. Edited by Hugh Chisholm (11th ed.)
32.Jump up ^ Dahlia M. Karpman "Tyndale's Response to the Hebraic Tradition" in Studies in the Renaissance, Vol. 14 (1967)), pp. 113, 118, 119. Note: Westcott, in his survey of the English Bible, wrote that Tyndale "felt by a happy instinct the potential affinity between Hebrew and English idioms, and enriched our language and thought for ever with the characteristics of the Semitic mind."
33.Jump up ^ The first English-language book to make a clear distinction between I and J was published in 1634. (The Cambridge History of the English Language, Richard M. Hogg, (Cambridge University Press 1992 ISBN=0-521-26476-6, p. 39). It was also only by the mid-1500s that V was used to represent the consonant and U the vowel sound, while capital U was not accepted as a distinct letter until many years later (Letter by Letter: An Alphabetical Miscellany, Laurent Pflughaupt, (Princeton Architectural Press ISBN 978-1-56898-737-8) pp. 123–124).
34.Jump up ^ William Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, ed. Henry Walter (Cambridge, 1848), p. 408.
35.Jump up ^ Wikisource-logo.svg "Jehovah (Yahweh)". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.
36.Jump up ^ Exodus 6:3-5 RSV
37.Jump up ^ Duane A. Garrett, A Modern Grammar for Classical Hebrew (Broadman & Holman 2002 ISBN 0-8054-2159-9), p. 13
38.Jump up ^ Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition), p. 38
39.Jump up ^ Christo H. J. Van der Merwe, Jackie A. Naude and Jan H. Kroeze, A Biblical Reference Grammar (Sheffield, England:Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), and Gary D. Pratico and Miles V. Van Pelt, Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publ. House, 2001)
40.^ Jump up to: a b c d e (In Awe of Thy Word, G.A. Riplinger-Chapter 11, page 416)Online
41.Jump up ^ Tiberias, sive Commentarius Masoreticus (1620; quarto edition, improved and enlarged by J. Buxtorf the younger, 1665)
42.Jump up ^ Tractatus de punctorum origine, antiquitate, et authoritate, oppositus Arcano puntationis revelato Ludovici Cappelli (1648)
43.Jump up ^ Biblical Theology (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1996 reprint of the 1661 edition), pp. 495-533
44.Jump up ^ An Essay on the Antiquity and Utility of the Hebrew Vowel-Points (Glasgow: John Reid & Co., 1833).
45.Jump up ^ Blätter für höhere Wahrheit vol. 11, 1832, pp. 305, 306.
46.Jump up ^ Nehemia Gordon, The Pronunciation of the Name,pp. 1-2
47.Jump up ^ Nehemia Gordon, The Pronunciation of the Name,p. 8
48.Jump up ^ Nehemia Gordon, The Pronunciation of the Name,p. 11
49.Jump up ^ Gill 1778
50.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 499–560
51.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 549–560
52.^ Jump up to: a b c Gill 1778, pp. 538–542
53.Jump up ^ In Awe of Thy Word, G.A. Riplinger-Chapter 11, pp. 422–435
54.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 540
55.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 548–560
56.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 462
57.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 461–462
58.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 501
59.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 512–516
60.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 522
61.^ Jump up to: a b Gill 1778, p. 531
62.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 535–536
63.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, pp. 536–537
64.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 544
65.Jump up ^ Gill 1778, p. 499
66.Jump up ^ One of the definitions of "tittle" in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is "a point or small sign used as a diacritical mark in writing or printing".
67.Jump up ^ pg. 110, Of the Integrity and Purity of the Hebrew and Greek Text of the Scripture; with Considerations on the Prolegomena and Appendix to the Late “Biblia Polyglotta,” in vol. IX, The Works of John Owen, ed. Gould, William H, & Quick, Charles W., Philadelphia, PA: Leighton Publications, 1865)
68.Jump up ^ For the meanings of the word κεραία in the original texts of Matthew 5:18 and Luke 16:17 see Liddell and Scott and for a more modern scholarly view of its meaning in that context see Strong's Greek Dictionary.
69.Jump up ^ "Search => [word] => tittle :: 1828 Dictionary :: Search the 1828 Noah Webster's Dictionary of the English Language (FREE)". 1828.mshaffer.com. 2009-10-16. Retrieved 2013-03-26.
70.Jump up ^ Jewish Virtual Library: Vowels and Points
71.Jump up ^ At Home with Hebrew
72.Jump up ^ Page H. Kenney, Biblical Hebrew: an introductory grammar 1992
73.Jump up ^ Old Testament Manuscripts
74.Jump up ^ James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, p. 30
75.Jump up ^ The Dead Sea Scrolls Biblical Manuscripts
76.Jump up ^ The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Graphological Investigation
77.Jump up ^ William P. Griffin, Killing a Dead Language: A Case against Emphasizing Vowel Pointing when Teaching Biblical Hebrew
78.Jump up ^ The Dead Sea Scrolls: A College Textbook and a Study Guide, pp. 75-76
79.Jump up ^ Godfrey Higgins, On the Vowel Points of the Hebrew Language, in The Classical Journal for March and June 1826, p. 145
80.Jump up ^ Higgins, pp. 146-149
81.Jump up ^ Augustin Calmet, Dictionary of the Bible, pp. 618-619
82.Jump up ^ B. Pick, The Vowel-Points Controversy in the XVI. and XVII. Centuries
83.Jump up ^ See Gérard Gertoux, The name of God Y.EH.OW.AH which is pronounced as it is written I_EH_OU_AH, pp. 209, 210.
84.Jump up ^ See page 8
85.Jump up ^ Smith commented, "In the decade of dissertations collected by Reland, Fuller, Gataker, and Leusden do battle for the pronunciation Jehovah, against such formidable antagonists as Drusius, Amama, Cappellus, Buxtorf, and Altingius, who, it is scarcely necessary to say, fairly beat their opponents out of the field; "the only argument of any weight, which is employed by the advocates of the pronunciation of the word as it is written being that derived from the form in which it appears in proper names, such as Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, &c. [...] Their antagonists make a strong point of the fact that, as has been noticed above, two different sets of vowel points are applied to the same consonants under certain circumstances. To this Leusden, of all the champions on his side, but feebly replies. [...] The same may be said of the argument derived from the fact that the letters מוכלב, when prefixed to יהוה, take, not the vowels which they would regularly receive were the present pronunciation true, but those with which they would be written if אֲדֹנָי, adonai, were the reading; and that the letters ordinarily taking dagesh lene when following יהוה would, according to the rules of the Hebrew points, be written without dagesh, whereas it is uniformly inserted."
86.Jump up ^ Image of it.
87.Jump up ^ Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible
88.Jump up ^ Revised New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. Accessed 14 October 2013.
89.Jump up ^ Of the 78 passages where the New Testament, using Κύριος (Lord) for the Tetragrammaton of the Hebrew text, quotes an Old Testament passage, the New World Translation puts "Jehovah" for Κύριος in 70 instances, "God" for Κύριος in 5 (Rom 11:2, 8; Gal 1:15; Heb 9:20; 1 Pet 4:14), and "Lord" for Κύριος in 3 (2 Thes 1:9; 1 Pet 2:3, 3:15) – Jason BeDuhn, Truth in Translation (University Press of America 2003 ISBN 0-7618-2556-8), pp. 174-175
90.Jump up ^ Rheims Douai, 1582-1610: a machine-readable transcript
91.Jump up ^ Douay-Rheims Bible
92.Jump up ^ Preface to the Revised Standard Version
93.Jump up ^ New American Bible, Genesis, Chapter 4
94.Jump up ^ Foreword and Preface to the New American Standard Bible
95.Jump up ^ John W. Gillis, The HCSB 2nd Edition and the Tetragrammaton
96.Jump up ^ How does the WEB compare to other translations?
97.Jump up ^ See CivicHeraldry.co.uk -Plymouth and here [12]. Also, Civic Heraldry of the United Kingdom)
98.Jump up ^ e.g. "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" (1771)
99.Jump up ^ Full text of "The Greatest Story Ever Told A Tale Of The Greatest Life Ever Lived" - Internet Archive - Retrieved 2 September 2011.
100.Jump up ^ "How God's Name Has Been Made Known". Awake!: 20. December 2007. "The commonly used form of God’s name in English is Jehovah, translated from the Hebrew [Tetragrammaton], which appears some 7,000 times in the Bible."
101.^ Jump up to: a b Charles William King, The Gnostics and their remains: Ancient and Mediaeval (1887), p. 285
102.Jump up ^ He speaks of it as anonymous: "the writer 'On Interpretations'". Aristotle's De Interpretatione does not speak of Egyptians.
103.Jump up ^ Charles William King, The Gnostics and their remains: Ancient and Mediaeval (1887), pp. 199-200.
104.Jump up ^ Praeparatio evangelica 10.9.
105.Jump up ^ The Grecised Hebrew text "εληιε Ιεωα ρουβα" is interpreted as meaning "my God Ieoa is mightier". ("La prononciation 'Jehova' du tétragramme", O.T.S. vol. 5, 1948, pp. 57, 58. [Greek papyrus CXXI 1.528-540 (3rd century), Library of the British Museum]
106.Jump up ^ Article in the Aster magazine (January 2000), the official periodical of the Greek Evangelical Church.
107.Jump up ^ Greek translation by Ioannes Stanos.
108.Jump up ^ Published by the British and Foreign Bible Society.
109.Jump up ^ Exodus 6:3, etc.
110.Jump up ^ Dogmatike tes Orthodoxou Katholikes Ekklesias (Dogmatics of the Orthodox Catholic Church), 3rd ed., 1997 (c. 1958), Vol. 1, p. 229.
111.^ Jump up to: a b c Pugio Fidei, in which Martin argued that the vowel points were added to the Hebrew text only in the 10th century (Thomas D. Ross, The Battle over the Hebrew Vowel Points Examined Particularly as Waged in England, p. 5).
112.Jump up ^ Dahlia M. Karpman, "Tyndale's Response to the Hebraic Tradition" (Studies in the Renaissance, Vol. 14 (1967)), p. 121.
113.^ Jump up to: a b See comments at Exodus 6:2, 3 in his Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures (1800).
114.Jump up ^ Rev. Richard Barrett's A Synopsis of Criticisms upon Passages of the Old Testament (1847) p. 219.
115.Jump up ^ Gérard Gertoux, The name of God Y.eH.oW.aH which is pronounced as it is written I_EH_OU_AH, page 152; a photo of a bilingual Latin (or Spanish) text and Hebrew text [side by side] written by Raymond Martin in 1278, with in its last sentence "יְהוָֹה" opposite "Yohoua".
116.^ Jump up to: a b Victory Against the Ungodly Hebrews. Gérard Gertoux, The name of God Y.eH.oW.aH, p. 153.
117.Jump up ^ [13]; George Moore, Notes on the Name YHWH (The American Journal of Theology, Vol. 12, No. 1. (Jan., 1908), pp. 34-52.
118.Jump up ^ Charles IX of Sweden instituted the Royal Order of Jehova in 1606.
119.^ Jump up to: a b c Scholia in Vetus Testamentum, vol. 3, part 3, pp. 8, 9, etc.
120.Jump up ^ For example, Gesenius rendered Proverbs 8:22 in Latin as: "Jehova creavit me ab initio creationis". (Samuel Lee, A lexicon, Hebrew, Chaldee, and English (1840) p. 143)
121.Jump up ^ "Non enim h quatuor liter [yhwh] si, ut punctat sunt, legantur, Ioua reddunt: sed (ut ipse optime nosti) Iehoua efficiunt." (De Arcanis Catholicæ Veritatis (1518), folio xliii. See Oxford English Dictionary Online, 1989/2008, Oxford University Press, "Jehovah"). Peter Galatin was Pope Leo X's confessor.
122.Jump up ^ Sir Godfrey Driver, Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible.
123.Jump up ^ See Poole's comments at Exodus 6:2, 3 in his Synopsis criticorum biblicorum.
124.Jump up ^ The State of the printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament considered: A Dissertation in two parts (1753), pp. 158, 159)
125.Jump up ^ The First Twelve Psalms in Hebrew, p. 22.
References
Gill, John (1778). "A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points, and Accents". A collection of sermons and tracts ...: To which are prefixed, memoirs of the life, writing, and character of the author 3. G. Keith.
External links
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Jehovah
 "Tetragrammaton". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
 "Jehovah". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
Wikisource-logo.svg "Jehovah". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
"Jehovah (Yahweh)", Catholic Encyclopedia 1910
"Tetragrammaton", Jewish Encyclopedia 1906


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Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions

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Part of a series on
Jehovah's Witnesses

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Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Bible prohibits ingesting blood and that Christians should not accept blood transfusions or donate or store their own blood for transfusion.[1] The belief is based on an interpretation of scripture that differs from that of other Christian denominations.[2] It is one of the doctrines for which Jehovah's Witnesses are most well known.[3]
Watch Tower Society publications teach that the Witnesses' refusal of transfusions of whole blood or its four primary components—red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma—is a non-negotiable religious stand and that those who respect life as a gift from God do not try to sustain life by taking in blood,[4][5] even in an emergency.[6] Witnesses are taught that the use of fractions such as albumin, immunoglobulins and hemophiliac preparations are "not absolutely prohibited" and a matter of personal choice.[5]
The doctrine was introduced in 1945, and has undergone some changes since then. Members of the religion who voluntarily accept a transfusion and are not deemed repentant are regarded as having disassociated themselves from the religion by abandoning its doctrines[7][8][9] and are subsequently shunned by members of the organization.[10] Although accepted by the majority of Jehovah's Witnesses, a minority does not endorse this doctrine.[11][12]
The Watch Tower Society has established Hospital Information Services to provide education and facilitate bloodless surgery. This service also maintains Hospital Liaison Committees, whose function is to provide support to adherents.


Contents  [hide]
1 Doctrine 1.1 Prohibited procedures
1.2 Permitted procedures and products
2 Bloodless surgery 2.1 Hospital Liaison Committees
2.2 Patient Visitation Groups
3 Acceptance among Jehovah's Witnesses
4 History of doctrine
5 Critical views 5.1 Scriptural interpretation
5.2 Coercion
5.3 Selective use of information
5.4 Outdated medical beliefs
5.5 Inconsistency
6 Further reading
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

Doctrine[edit]
On the basis of various biblical texts, including Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:10, and Acts 15:29, Jehovah's Witnesses believe:
Blood represents life[13] and is sacred to God.[14][15] After it has been removed from a creature, the only use of blood that God has authorized is for the atonement of sins.[16] When a Christian abstains from blood, they are in effect expressing faith that only the shed blood of Jesus Christ can truly redeem them and save their life.[14]
Blood must not be eaten or transfused,[10][17] even in the case of a medical emergency.[18]
Blood leaving the body of a human or animal must be disposed of.[16]
Certain medical procedures involving blood fractions or that use a patient's own blood during the course of a medical procedure, such as hemodilution or cell salvage, are a matter of personal choice, according to what a person's conscience permits.[19]
A baptized Witness who unrepentantly accepts a blood transfusion is deemed to have disassociated himself from the religion by abandoning its doctrines and is subsequently subject to organized shunning by other members.[8][10]
Certain medical procedures involving blood are specifically prohibited by Jehovah's Witnesses' blood doctrine. This includes the use of red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and blood plasma. Other fractions derived from blood are not prohibited. Watch Tower publications state that some products derived from one of the four primary components may be so similar to the function of the whole component and carry on such a life-sustaining role in the body that "most Christians would find them objectionable".[20] For procedures where there is no specific doctrinal prohibition, individuals are to obtain details from medical personnel and then make a personal decision.[21]
Prohibited procedures[edit]
The following medical procedures are prohibited:
Transfusion of allogeneic whole blood, or of its constituents of red cells, white cells, platelets or plasma.[22]
Transfusions of pre-operative self-donated (autologous) blood.[23]
Permitted procedures and products[edit]
The following procedures and products are not prohibited, and are left to the decision of individual members:[24]
Blood donation strictly for purpose of further fractionation of red cells, white cells, platelets or plasma for either allogeneic or autologous transfusion.[22][25]
Transfusions of autologous blood part of a "current therapy".[23]
Hemodilution, a modified technique in which equipment is arranged in a circuit that is constantly linked to the patient's circulatory system.[23]
Intraoperative blood salvage (autologous) or cell-saver scavenging, a method of picking up blood that has spilled from the circulatory system into an open wound, cleaning and re-infusing it.[23]
Heart-Lung Machine, a method in which blood is diverted to an artificial heart-lung machine and directed back into the patient.[23]
Dialysis, wherein blood circulates through a machine, is filtered and cleaned, then returned to the patient.[23]
Epidural Blood Patch, consisting of a small amount of the patient's blood injected into the membrane surrounding the spinal cord.[23]
Plasmapheresis, wherein blood is withdrawn and filtered, having the plasma removed and substituted, and returned to the patient.[23]
Labeling or Tagging, blood is withdrawn, mixed with medicine, and then returned to the patient by transfusion.[26][23]
Platelet Gel, blood is withdrawn and put into a solution rich in platelets and white blood cells.[23]
Fractions from red blood cells: Hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying component of red blood cells.
Fractions from white blood cells:[22] Interferons
Interleukins
Fractions from platelets:[22] Platelet factor 4
Fractions from blood plasma:[22] Albumin
Globulins
Cryoprecipitate
Cryosupernatant (cryo-poor plasma)[27]
Clotting factors, including Factor VIII and Factor IX derived from large quantities of stored blood
Wound healing factor
Erythropoietin (EPO).[22]
PolyHeme, a blood substitute solution of chemically modified human hemoglobin.[22]
Hemopure, a blood substitute solution of chemically stabilized bovine hemoglobin derived from cow's blood.[22]
See also: Blood substitutes
Bloodless surgery[edit]
Main article: Bloodless surgery
A variety of bloodless surgical techniques have been developed for use on patients who refuse blood transfusions for reasons that include concern about AIDS, hepatitis, and other blood-borne infections, or immune system reactions.[28] Thousands of physicians throughout the world have expressed a willingness to respect patients' preferences and provide bloodless treatment[29][need quotation to verify] and about 200 hospitals offer bloodless medicine and surgery programs for adult and pediatric patients who wish to avoid or limit blood transfusions, or to avoid treatment contrary to Jehovah's Witnesses' blood doctrine.[29] Bloodless surgery has been successfully performed in such invasive operations as open-heart surgery and total hip replacements.[30] However bloodless medical and surgical techniques have limitations, and surgeons say the use of various allogeneic blood products and/or pre-operative autologous blood transfusion is the standard of care for some patient presentations.[31][32]
In cases of certain medical emergencies when bloodless medicine is not available, blood transfusions may seem to be the only available way to save a life. Watch Tower publications suggest that in such instances, Jehovah's Witnesses request that doctors provide the best alternative care possible under the circumstances, with respect for their personal conviction.[33] The Watch Tower Society has acknowledged that some members have died after refusing blood.[34]
In some countries, including Canada and the UK, a parent or guardian's decision can be legally overruled by medical staff. In this case, medical staff may act without consent, by obtaining a court order in a non-emergency situation, or without such an order in an emergency.[35][36] In Japan, a doctor must respect the wish of an adult but can override the wishes of a child and their parents if the child is under 15. If a child is aged 15 to 17, a doctor will not perform a transfusion if the parents and the child refuse the transfusion. If a child aged from 15 to 17 objects to a transfusion but the parents demand the transfusion, then a doctor can override the child's wish.[citation needed] In the United States, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that in cases of "an imminent threat to a child's life", physicians in some cases may "intervene over parental objections".[37]
Hospital Liaison Committees[edit]
In 1988, the Watch Tower Society formed Hospital Information Services, a department to help locate doctors or surgical teams who are willing to perform medical procedures on Witnesses without blood transfusions.[38] The department was given oversight of each branch office's Hospital Information Desk,[39][40][41] and of one hundred Hospital Liaison Committees established throughout the United States.[42][43] As of 2003, about 200 hospitals worldwide provide bloodless medical programs.[29] As of 2006, there are 1,535 Hospital Liaison Committees worldwide coordinating communication between 110,000 physicians.[43][44]
Hospital Information Services researches medical journals to locate information on the availability and effectiveness of bloodless surgery methods.[45] It disseminates information about treatment options to local Hospital Liaison Committees, and to doctors and hospitals.[44]
Patient Visitation Groups[edit]
Annually since 2004, Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States have been informed that "with your consent, the law allows for the elders to learn of your admission [to hospital] and provide spiritual encouragement",[46] but that "elders serving on a Patient Visitation Group [could] have access to your name" only if patients made their wishes known according to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).[47]
Jehovah's Witnesses' branch offices communicate directly with congregations regarding "ways to benefit from the activities of the Hospital Liaison Committee (HLC) and the Patient Visitation Group (PVG)."[48] A Jehovah's Witnesses publication in 2000 reported that Argentina had fewer than a hundred HLC committeemen "giving vital information to the medical community", adding that "their work is complemented by hundreds of other self-sacrificing elders who make up Patient Visitation Groups that call on Witness patients to help and encourage them".[49] Each branch office appoints PVG committeemen, who serve as volunteers.[50][51]
Acceptance among Jehovah's Witnesses[edit]
Since the elaboration of the blood doctrine to the point of prohibiting transfusion, the majority of Jehovah's Witnesses have adopted the organization's position.[52][53][54] Those Jehovah's Witnesses who accept the blood doctrine typically hold strongly to their conviction.[55] In the August 1998 issue of Academic Emergency Medicine, Donald Ridley, a Jehovah's Witness and organization staff attorney, argued that carrying an up-to-date Medical Directive card issued by the organization indicates that an individual personally agrees with the established religious position of Jehovah's Witness.[56]
In 1958, The Watchtower reported on a particular member of Jehovah's Witnesses who voluntarily accepted blood transfusion, contrary to Watchtower doctrine.[57] The organization confirms that members have accepted blood transfusions, despite the imposition in 1961 of a communal shunning policy for willful acceptance.[58][59]
In 1982, a peer-reviewed case study of a congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses was undertaken by Drs. Larry J. Findley and Paul M. Redstone to evaluate individual belief in respect to blood among Jehovah's Witnesses. The study showed that 12% were willing to accept transfusion therapy forbidden by Jehovah's Witness doctrine.[52] One peer-reviewed study examining medical records indicated a similar percentage of Jehovah's Witnesses willing to accept blood transfusions for their children. Young adults also showed a willingness to accept blood transfusions.[60] In another study, Jehovah's Witness patients presented for labor and delivery showed a willingness to accept some form of blood or blood products. Of these patients, 10 percent accepted whole blood transfusion.[54]
Watch Tower publications have noted that within religions, the personal beliefs of members often differ from official doctrine.[61] Regarding Jehovah's Witnesses acceptance of the organization's official position on blood, Drs Cynthia Gyamfi and Richard Berkowitz state, "It is naïve to assume that all people in any religious group share the exact same beliefs, regardless of doctrine. It is well known that Muslims, Jews and Christians have significant individual variations in their beliefs. Why should that not also be true of Jehovah's Witnesses?"[62]
Ambivalence and rejection of the blood doctrine dates back to at least the 1940s. After the Watch Tower Society established the doctrine, teaching that blood should not be eaten (circa 1927-31), Margaret Buber, who was never a member of the religion, offered a firsthand eyewitness account of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Nazi Ravensbrück concentration camp. She relates that an overwhelming majority were willing to eat blood sausage despite having alternate food to choose from, and specifically after considering biblical statements regarding blood.[63]
History of doctrine[edit]
From 1931, when the name "Jehovah's witnesses" was adopted, Watch Tower Society publications maintained the view of Society founder Charles Taze Russell that the reference to abstaining from the eating of blood in the Apostolic Decree of Acts 15:19-29 was a "suggestion" to be given to Gentile converts.[64][65] Watch Tower publications during the presidency of Joseph Franklin Rutherford commended the commercial and emergency uses of blood.[66][67] A 1925 issue of The Golden Age commended a man for donating blood 45 times without payment.[68] In 1927, The Watchtower noted, without elaboration, that in Genesis 9, God decreed that Noah and his offspring "must not eat the blood, because the life is in the blood".[69] In 1940 Consolation magazine reported on a woman who accidentally shot herself with a revolver in her heart and survived a major surgical procedure during which an attending physician donated a quart of his own blood for transfusion.[70]
In 1944, with the Watch Tower Society under the administration of president Nathan Homer Knorr, The Watchtower asserted that the decrees contained in Genesis 9:4 and Leviticus 17:10-14 forbade the eating or drinking of blood in biblical times "whether by transfusion or by the mouth" and that this applied "in a spiritual way to the consecrated persons of good-will today, otherwise known as 'Jonadabs' of the Lord's 'other sheep'."[71]
In September 1945, representatives of the Watch Tower Society in the Netherlands commented on blood transfusion in the Dutch edition of Consolation. A translation of their comments into English reads:

When we lose our life because we refuse inoculations, that does not bear witness as a justification of Jehovah's name. God never issued regulations which prohibit the use of drugs, inoculations or blood transfusions. It is an invention of people, who, like the Pharisees, leave Jehovah's mercy and love aside.[72]
According to sociologist Richard Singelenbreg the statement appearing in the Dutch edition of Consolation may have been published without knowledge of the doctrinal position published in the English July 1945 issue of Consolation by the Watch Tower Society's headquarters in the United States.[73]
In 1945, the application of the doctrine on blood was expanded to prohibit blood transfusions of whole blood, whether allogeneic or autologous.[74] The prohibition did not specify any punitive measures for accepting a transfusion, but by January 1961—in what was later described as an application of "increased strictness"[75]—it was ruled that it was a disfellowshipping offense to conscientiously accept a blood transfusion.[76] Watch Tower publications warned that accepting a blood transfusion could prevent Witnesses from living eternally in God's new world, the hope held by members: "It may result in the immediate and very temporary prolongation of life, but that at the cost of eternal life for a dedicated Christian."[77]
In September 1956, Awake! stated, "certain blood fractions ... also come under the Scriptural ban".[78] A position against "the various blood fractions" was reiterated in September 1961.[79] In November of the same year, the doctrine was modified to allow individual members to decide whether they could conscientiously accept fractions used from blood for purposes such as vaccination.[80] This position has been expanded on since; the pre-formatted Durable Power of Attorney form provided by the Watch Tower Society includes an option for Jehovah's Witnesses to "accept all fractions derived from any primary component of blood."[81]
In 1964, Jehovah's Witnesses were prohibited from obtaining transfusions for pets, from using fertilizer containing blood, and were even advised (if their conscience troubled them) to write to dog food manufacturers to verify that their products were blood-free.[82] Later that year, it was stated that doctors or nurses who are Jehovah's Witness would not administer blood transfusions to fellow dedicated members. As to administering transfusions to non-members, The Watchtower stated that such a decision is "left to the Christian doctor's own conscience."[83]
In 1982, a Watchtower article declared that it would be wrong for a Witness to allow a leech to feed on his/her blood as part of a medical procedure, due to the sacredness of blood.[84]
In 1989 The Watchtower stated, "Each individual must decide" whether to accept hemodilution and autologous blood salvage (cell saver) procedures.[85] In 1990, a brochure entitled How Can Blood Save Your Life? was released, outlining Jehovah's Witnesses' general doctrine on blood.
In 2000, the Watch Tower Society's stand on blood fractions was clearly stated.[86] Members were instructed to personally decide if accepting a fraction would violate the doctrine on blood. In a later article, members were reminded that Jehovah's Witnesses do not donate blood or store their own blood prior to surgery.[87]
In May 2001, the Watch Tower Society revised its medical directives and identity cards addressing its doctrinal position on blood; the revised materials were distributed from May 3, 2001.[88] These revised documents specified that "allogeneic blood transfusions" were unacceptable whereas the former document (dated 1999) stated that "blood transfusions" were unacceptable. The revised 2001 documents were active until December 20, 2001. The Watch Tower Society then rescinded the revised document, stating, "After further review, it has been determined that the cards dated "md-E 6/01" and "ic-E 6/01" should not be used. Please destroy these items and make sure that they are not distributed to the publishers." Elders were instructed to revert to the older 1999 edition of the medical directives and identity cards.[89]
Watch Tower Society publications frequently claim negative consequences of blood transfusions:
A 1951 Watchtower declared: "And let the transfusion enthusiasts with a savior-complex ponder the fact that on many occasions transfusions do harm, spread disease, and frequently cause deaths, which, of course, are not publicized." [90]
A 1961 Watchtower quoted Brazilian surgeon Dr Américo Valério as saying transfusions were often followed by "moral insanity, sexual perversions, repression, inferiority complexes, petty crimes" and Dr Alonzo Jay Shadman claiming that a person's blood "contains all the peculiarities of the individual ... [including] hereditary taints, disease susceptibilities, poisons due to personal living, eating and drinking habits ... The poisons that produce the impulse to commit suicide, murder, or steal are in the blood."[91]
A 1969 Awake! reported on a man named Robert Khoury, who, after receiving a blood transfusion said, "When I recovered I found I had a terrible desire to steal."[92]
A 1974 Awake! cited a Centers for Disease Control report that as many as 35,000 deaths and 500,000 illnesses a year might be due to the presence of serum hepatitis in blood for transfusions.[93]
A 2006 Awake! highlighted dangers from transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI), citing a New Scientist report that suggested it was the cause of as many as 55200 reactions and 500 deaths in the United States in 2002.[94][95]
Critical views[edit]
Opposition to the Watch Tower doctrines on blood transfusions has come from both inside and outside the religion. A group of dissident Witnesses known as Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood (AJWRB) states that there is no biblical basis for the prohibition of blood transfusions and seeks to have some policies changed.[96] In a series of articles in the Journal of Medical Ethics American neurologist Osamu Muramoto, who is a medical adviser to the AJWRB, has raised issues including what he claims is coercion to refuse transfusions, doctrinal inconsistency, selective use of information by the Watch Tower Society to exaggerate the dangers of transfusions and the use of outdated medical beliefs.
Scriptural interpretation[edit]
Dissident Witnesses say the Society's use of Leviticus 17:12 to support its opposition to blood transfusions[97][98] conflicts with its own teachings that Christians are not under the Mosaic law.[99][100] Theologian Anthony Hoekema claims the blood prohibited in Levitical laws was not human, but animal. He cites other authors[101] who support his view that the direction at Acts 15 to abstain from blood was intended not as an everlasting covenant but a means of maintaining a peaceful relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians. He has described as "absurd literalism" the Witnesses' use of a scriptural prohibition on eating blood to prohibit the medical transfusion of human blood.[102]
Coercion[edit]
Osamu Muramoto has argued that the refusal by Jehovah's Witnesses of "life-saving" blood treatment[103] creates serious bio-medical ethical issues. He has criticized the "controlling intervention" of the Watch Tower Society by means of what he claims is information control and its policy of penalising members who accept blood transfusions or advocate freedom to choose blood-based treatment.[100][103] He says the threat of being classified as a disassociated Witness and subsequently shunned by friends and relatives who are members coerces Jehovah's Witnesses to accept and obey the prohibition on blood transfusions.[8][100][104] In one particular case involving a Russian district court decision, however, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found nothing in the judgments to suggest that any form of improper pressure or undue influence was applied. It noted: "On the contrary, it appears that many Jehovah’s Witnesses have made a deliberate choice to refuse blood transfusions in advance, free from time constraints of an emergency situation." The court said: "The freedom to accept or refuse specific medical treatment, or to select an alternative form of treatment, is vital to the principles of self-determination and personal autonomy. A competent adult patient is free to decide ... not to have a blood transfusion. However, for this freedom to be meaningful, patients must have the right to make choices that accord with their own views and values, regardless of how irrational, unwise or imprudent such choices may appear to others."[105]
Muramoto has claimed the intervention of Hospital Liaison Committees can add to "organisational pressure" applied by family members, friends and congregation members on Witness patients to refuse blood-based treatment. He notes that while HLC members, who are church elders, "may give the patient 'moral support', the influence of their presence on the patient is known to be tremendous. Case reports reveal JW patients have changed their earlier decision to accept blood treatment after a visit from the elders." He claims such organizational pressure compromises the autonomy of Witness patients and interferes with their privacy and confidentiality. He has advocated a policy in which the Watch Tower organization and congregation elders would not question patients on the details of their medical care and patients would not disclose such information. He says the Society adopted such a policy in 1983 regarding details of sexual activity between married couples.[106][107][108]
Watch Tower spokesman Donald T. Ridley says neither elders nor HLC members are instructed or encouraged to probe into the health care decisions of Witness patients and do not involve themselves in patient hospitalisations unless patients request their assistance. Yet Watchtower HLC representative David Malyon says he would respond to "sin" of Witnesses he is privy to by effectively saying "Are you going to tell them or shall I!"[109] Nevertheless Ridley says Muramoto's suggestion that Witnesses should be free to disregard Watch Tower scriptural teachings and standards is preposterous. He says loving God means obeying commandments, not disobeying them and hiding one's disobedience from others.[108][110]
Muramoto recommends doctors have a private meeting with patients to discuss their wishes, and that church elders and family members not be present, enabling patients to feel free of church pressure. He suggests doctors question patients on (a) whether they have considered that the Watch Tower Society might soon approve some medical practices they currently find objectionable, in the same manner that it has previously abandoned its opposition to vaccination and organ transplants; (b) whether Witness patients know which blood components are allowed and which are prohibited, and whether they acknowledge that those rulings are organizational policy rather than biblical teachings; and (c) whether they realize that although some Bible scriptures proscribe the eating of blood, eating and transfusing blood have entirely different effects on the body.[111] English HLC representative David Malyon has responded that Muramoto's suggested questions are an affront to coerce Jehovah's Witnesses with "complicated philosophical inquisition" and, if used by doctors, would be "an abusive transformation of the medical role of succour and care into that of devil's advocate and trickster".[109]
Selective use of information[edit]
Muramoto has claimed many Watch Tower Society publications employ exaggeration and emotionalism to emphasize the dangers of transfusions and the advantages of alternative treatments, but presents a distorted picture by failing to report any benefits of blood-based treatment. Nor do its publications acknowledge that in some situations, including rapid and massive haemorrhage, there are no alternatives to blood transfusions.[100][112] He claims Watch Tower Society publications often discuss the risk of death as a result of refusing blood transfusions, but give little consideration to the prolonged suffering and disability, producing an added burden on family and society, that can result from refusal.[113] Attorney and former Witness Kerry Louderback-Wood[114] also claims that Witness publications exaggerate the medical risks of taking blood and the efficiency of non-blood medical therapies in critical situations.[115]
Douglas E. Cowan, an academic in the sociology of religion, has claimed that members of the Christian countercult movement who criticize the Watch Tower Society, make selective use of information themselves. For example, Christian apologist Richard Abanes wrote that their ban on blood transfusions, "has led to countless Witness deaths over the years, including many children."[116] Cowan wrote: "When the careful reader checks [Abanes' footnote], however, looking perhaps for some statistical substantiation, he or she finds only a statistical conjecture based on 1980 Red Cross blood use figures." Cowan also says Abanes omits "critical issues" in an attempt to "present the most negative face possible." Cowan wrote that "the reader is left with the impression that the Watchtower Society knowingly presides over a substantial number of preventable deaths each year."[117]
Outdated medical beliefs[edit]
Osamu Muramoto says the Watch Tower Society relies on discarded, centuries-old medical beliefs to support its assertion that blood transfusions are the same as eating blood.[118] A 1990 Watch Tower brochure on blood quoted a 17th-century anatomist to support its view.[119] Muramoto says the view that blood is nourishment—still espoused in Watch Tower publications[120]—was abandoned by modern medicine many decades ago.[100] He has criticized an analogy commonly used by the Society[121] in which it states: "Consider a man who is told by the doctor that he must abstain from alcohol. Would he be obedient if he quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into his veins?"[118] Muramoto says the analogy is false, explaining: "Orally ingested alcohol is absorbed as alcohol and circulated as such in the blood, whereas orally eaten blood is digested and does not enter the circulation as blood. Blood introduced directly into the veins circulates and functions as blood, not as nutrition. Hence, blood transfusion is a form of cellular organ transplantation. And ... organ transplants are now permitted by the WTS."[100] He says the objection to blood transfusions on the basis of biblical proscriptions against eating blood is similar to the refusal of a heart transplant on the basis that a doctor warned a patient to abstain from eating meat because of his high cholesterol level.[122]
David Malyon, chairman of the English Hospital Liaison Committee in Luton, England, has claimed that Muramoto's discussion of the differences between consuming blood and alcohol is pedantic and says blood laws in the Bible are based upon the reverence for life and its association with blood, and that laws should be kept in the spirit as much as in the letter.[109]
Inconsistency[edit]
Muramoto has described as peculiar and inconsistent the Watch Tower policy of acceptance of all the individual components of blood plasma as long as they are not taken at the same time.[100] He says the Society offers no biblical explanation for differentiating between prohibited treatments and those considered a "matter of conscience", explaining the distinction is based entirely on arbitrary decisions of the Governing Body, to which Witnesses must adhere strictly of the premise of them being Bible-based "truth".[100] He has questioned why white blood cells (1 per cent of blood volume) and platelets (0.17 per cent) are forbidden, yet albumin (2.2 per cent of blood volume) is permitted.[100] He has questioned why donating blood and storing blood for autologous transfusion is deemed wrong, but the Watch Tower Society permits the use of blood components that must be donated and stored before Witnesses use them.[123] He has questioned why Witnesses, although viewing blood as sacred and symbolizing life, are prepared to let a person die by placing more importance on the symbol than the reality it symbolizes.[112]
Kerry Louderback-Wood alleges that by labeling the currently acceptable blood fractions as "minute" in relation to whole blood, the Watch Tower organization causes followers to misunderstand the scope and extent of allowed fractions.[115]
Witnesses respond that the real issue is not of the fluid per se, but of respect and obedience to God.[124][125] They say their principle of abstaining from blood as a display of respect is demonstrated by the fact that members are allowed to eat meat that still contains some blood. As soon as blood is drained from an animal, the respect has been shown to God, and then a person can eat the meat even though it may contain a small amount of blood.[126] Jehovah's Witnesses' view of meat and blood is different from that of kosher Jewish adherents, who go to great lengths to remove minor traces of blood.[127][128]
See also: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses § Blood
Further reading[edit]
Sloan JM, Ballen K (May 2008). "SCT in Jehovah's Witnesses: the bloodless transplant". Bone Marrow Transplant. 41 (10): 837–44. doi:10.1038/bmt.2008.5. PMID 18246110.
Bayam L, Tait WF, Macartney ID (2007). "Successful repair of a giant abdominal aortoiliac aneurysm in a Jehovah's Witness". Vasc Endovascular Surg 41 (5): 460–2. doi:10.1177/1538574407303172. PMID 17942864.
Massiah N, Athimulam S, Loo C, Okolo S, Yoong W (October 2007). "Obstetric care of Jehovah's Witnesses: a 14-year observational study". Arch Gynecol Obstet. 276 (4): 339–43. doi:10.1007/s00404-007-0346-0. PMID 17522882.
Putney, Leeann J. (July–September 2007), [Putney LJ (Jul–September 2007). "Bloodless cardiac surgery: not just possible, but preferable" (– SCHOLAR SEARCH). Crit Care Nurs Q 30 (3): 263–70. doi:10.1097/01.CNQ.0000278927.44691.8c. PMID 17579310. Check date values in: |date= (help)[dead link]
Eilers June, Rounds Luisa (2007). "Blood Transfusion or Not: A Literature Review of Bloodless Interventions to Treat Cancer Related Anemia". Oncology Nursing Forum 34 (2): 553–554.
See also[edit]
Blood transfusions
Bloodless surgery
Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses
Knocking, a documentary on Witnesses that features bloodless medicine.
The Children Act, a novel by Ian McEwan in which the issue is central to the plot.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Keep Yourself in God's Love, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 2008, page 77.
2.Jump up ^ Manya A. Brachear, "More doctors honor religious objections to blood transfusions", Chicago Tribune, 9 October 2012.
3.Jump up ^ Evans, Allan S.; Riley E. Moynes; Larry Martinello (1973). What man Believes: A study of the World's Great Faiths. McGraw-Hill Ryerson. p. 361. ISBN 0-07-077440-4. "Two elements of belief are probably better known than any other among non-Witnesses. One is the refusal to fight in war ... the other well-known belief is the refusal to accept blood transfusions."
4.Jump up ^ How Can Blood Save Your Life?. Watch Tower Society. pp. 3–7.
5.^ Jump up to: a b "Be Guided by the Living God", The Watchtower, June 15, 2004, page 22.
6.Jump up ^ "Godly Respect for Blood", The Watchtower, September 1, 1986, page 25.
7.Jump up ^ Muramoto, O (December 1999). "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses: Part 3. A proposal for a don't-ask-don't-tell policy.". Journal of medical ethics 25 (6): 463–8. PMC 479294. PMID 10635499.
8.^ Jump up to: a b c Muramoto, O. (6 January 2001). "Bioethical aspects of the recent changes in the policy of refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses". BMJ 322 (7277): 37–39. doi:10.1136/bmj.322.7277.37. PMC 1119307. PMID 11141155.
9.Jump up ^ Little, Jane (June 14, 2000). "Jehovah's Witnesses drop transfusion ban". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2004-06-18. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
10.^ Jump up to: a b c Jehovah's Witnesses Public Affairs Office press release, June 14, 2000.
11.Jump up ^ Lee Elder, The Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood, "Why some Jehovah's Witnesses accept blood and conscientiously reject official Watchtower Society blood policy", Journal of Medical Ethics, 2000, Vol 26, pages 375-380.
12.Jump up ^ Tom Blackwell, "Without fanfare, Jehovah’s Witnesses quietly soften position on blood transfusions", National Post, 20 December 2012.
13.Jump up ^ How Can Blood Save Your Life, published by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1990 p. 24, "God told all mankind that they must not eat blood. Why? Because blood represents life."
14.^ Jump up to: a b Awake!, August 2006 p. 11, "He also gave them his reason, equating blood with the soul, or life, of the creature. He later said: 'The soul [or life] is in the blood.' In the eyes of the Creator, blood is sacred. It represents the precious gift of life that each living soul possesses."
15.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 15, 2004 p. 21
16.^ Jump up to: a b The Watchtower, February 1, 1997 p. 29
17.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 1, 1969 pp. 326, 327
18.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, September 1, 1986 p. 25
19.Jump up ^ October 15, 2000 Watchtower, p. 31
20.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 15, 2004 P.24 par. 16
21.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, March 1, 1989, p. 31
22.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h The Watchtower, June 15, 2000 pp. 29-31
23.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j The Watchtower, October 15, 2000 pp. 30-31
24.Jump up ^ Our Kingdom Ministry, November 2006 pages 3,4 para.1-6
25.Jump up ^ Jehovah's Witness letter to Cliff Roche, July 30, 2001 (Published in the book Three Dissertations on the Teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses, by Greg Stafford, 2002 ISBN 0-9659814-2-8)
26.Jump up ^ Instructions for Filling in The Advance Decision Document, published by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 2005 p.1. This document specifically applies the term "transfusion" to a Jehovah's Witness patient having blood returned to their cardiovascular system after it was completely removed from their body.
27.Jump up ^ West, James. "Informed refusal — the Jehovah's Witness patient", Clinical Ethics in Anesthesiology: A Case-Based Textbook, Cambridge University Press, 2011 pp. 19-26.
28.Jump up ^ Farmer S, Webb D, Your Body Your Choice: The Layman's Complete Guide to Bloodless Medicine and Surgery, 2000; pages 11, 14, 75
29.^ Jump up to: a b c Ariga et al., Legal Medicine, 5 (2003) S72-S75
30.Jump up ^ [1], [2], [3], and [4] - successful cases of bloodless surgery
31.Jump up ^ Spence et al., Transfusion May 2003; Vol. 43 p. 668
32.Jump up ^ Transfusion-Free Medicine, edited by Dr Nicolas Jabbour, 2005 p. 13
33.Jump up ^ "Are You Ready to Face a Faith-Challenging Medical Situation?", Our Kingdom Ministry, November 1990.
34.Jump up ^ "Youths Who Have Power Beyond What Is Normal", Awake!, May 22, 1994, pages 9-15.
35.Jump up ^ Richards, Edward; Rathbun, Katharine (1983). "Medical Risk Management: Preventive Legal Strategies for Health Care Providers". http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/Books/aspen/Aspen.html. Chapter Nine, The Emergency Exception: Aspen Systems Corporation. Retrieved 12 July 2014.
36.Jump up ^ Hartman, Kurt; Liang, Bryan (March 1999). "Exceptions to Informed Consent in Emergency Medicine" (PDF). Hospital Physician 35 (3): 53–55. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
37.Jump up ^ American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics (1997). "Religious objections to medical care". Pediatrics 99 (2): 279–281. doi:10.1542/peds.99.2.279. PMID 9024462.
38.Jump up ^ Our Kingdom Ministry, September 1988, page 4.
39.Jump up ^ "Jehovah’s Witnesses—1998 Yearbook Report", 1998 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, ©1997 Watch Tower, page 23
40.Jump up ^ "Jehovah’s Witnesses—1996 Yearbook Report", 1996 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, ©1997 Watch Tower, page 26
41.Jump up ^ "Bridging the Gap Between Doctors and Witness Patients", Awake!, November 22, 1990, page 21
42.Jump up ^ "Are You Ready to Face a Faith-Challenging Medical Situation?", Our Kingdom Ministry, November 1990, page 3.
43.^ Jump up to: a b September 2002 Certificate of Recognition issued by Society for the Advancement of Blood Management, available online at http://www.jw-media.org/gbl/20021118.htm
44.^ Jump up to: a b January 3, 2006 Letter from Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses; To all Congregations
45.Jump up ^ Our Kingdom Ministry, November 1990 p. 3
46.Jump up ^ "Announcements", Our Kingdom Ministry, November 2005, page 3
47.Jump up ^ "Announcements", Our Kingdom Ministry, October 2004, page 7, emphasis added to quote
48.Jump up ^ "Service Meeting Schedule", Our Kingdom Ministry, January 2006, page 2
49.Jump up ^ "Argentina", 2001 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, ©2000 Watch Tower, page 212
50.Jump up ^ ""Follow Me Continually"", Our Kingdom Ministry, May 2006, page 1
51.Jump up ^ "No One Has Love Greater Than This", Come Be My Follower, ©2007 Watch Tower, pages 178-179
52.^ Jump up to: a b Findley LJ, Redstone PM (March 1982). "Blood transfusion in adult Jehovah's Witnesses. A case study of one congregation". Arch Intern Med. 142 (3): 606–7. doi:10.1001/archinte.142.3.606. PMID 7065795.
 This article presents a consensual survey of one congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses where the congregation elders provided the names and addresses of members, and the elders knew precisely the nature of the survey. 59 responses were received. Of the 59, 7 stipulated they would accept plasma transfusion (Table 1 on page 607). This result compelled Findley and Redstone to comment, "there is either some lack of understanding or refusal to follow doctrine among some members". Whether from misunderstanding or refusal to follow doctrine, at no point did Findley and Redstone question whether these responders had honestly expressed their personal conviction. Findley and Redstone also stipulated their methodology may have skewed the results towards official Jehovah's Witness doctrine. (Local elders provided the names to be surveyed, and those surveyed knew local elders would see the results of the study.) The authors also admit that this study may not describe the beliefs of "less religious Jehovah's Witnesses".
53.Jump up ^ Kaaron Benson, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute Cancer Control Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4, November/December 1995
54.^ Jump up to: a b Gyamfi C, Berkowitz RL (September 2004). "Responses by pregnant Jehovah's Witnesses on health care proxies". Obstet Gynecol 104 (3): 541–4. doi:10.1097/01.AOG.0000135276.25886.8e. PMID 15339766. "This review refutes the commonly held belief that all Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to accept blood or any of its products. In this population of pregnant women, the majority were willing to accept some form of blood or blood products."
55.Jump up ^ Knuti KA, Amrein PC, Chabner BA, Lynch TJ, Penson RT (2002). "Faith, identity, and leukemia: when blood products are not an option". Oncologist 7 (4): 371–80. doi:10.1634/theoncologist.7-4-371. PMID 12185299.
 "Ms. LF stated that she was a Jehovah's Witness and asserted with an advanced [sic] directive that she did not want blood product support…. The risks and benefits of continuing therapy were discussed with Ms. LF. She remained adamant in her refusal of blood products and repeated that she wanted to continue treatment and to 'die fighting' her disease."
56.Jump up ^ Migden DR, Braen GR (August 1998). "The Jehovah's Witness blood refusal card: ethical and medicolegal considerations for emergency physicians". Acad Emerg Med 5 (8): 815–24. doi:10.1111/j.1553-2712.1998.tb02510.x. PMID 9715245.
Ridley DT (August 1998). "Honoring Jehovah's Witnesses' advance directives in emergencies: a response to Drs. Migden and Braen". Acad Emerg Med 5 (8): 824–35. doi:10.1111/j.1553-2712.1998.tb02511.x. PMID 9715246.
57.Jump up ^ The Watchtower August 1, 1958 p. 478
58.Jump up ^ The Watchtower January 15, 1961 p. 63
59.Jump up ^ The Watchtower October 15, 1987 p. 14, "Three areas for attention were mentioned: secretly accepting a blood transfusion, masturbation, and alcohol abuse. After considering that material, quite a number of readers wrote letters of appreciation; they admitted that they had had those faults, but they had been moved to repent and change."
60.Jump up ^ Kaaron Benson, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute Cancer Control Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4, November/December 1995, "Therefore, while most adult Jehovah's Witness patients were unwilling to accept blood for themselves, most Jehovah's Witness parents permitted transfusions for their minor children, and many of the young adult patients also were willing to accept transfusions for themselves." Available online at http://www.moffitt.org/moffittapps/ccj/v2n6/article13.html
61.Jump up ^ "Where Are the Faithful?", Awake!, April 8, 1996, p. 4, "Nowadays official church dogma may bear scant resemblance to the personal beliefs of those who profess that particular religion."
62.Jump up ^ Thomas JM (February 2005). "Responses by pregnant Jehovah's Witnesses on health care proxies". Obstet Gynecol 105 (2): 441; author reply 442–3. doi:10.1097/01.AOG.0000149842.31312.e4. PMID 15684182.
63.Jump up ^ Buber, M., Under Two Dictators, 1949 pp. 222, 235-237. Buber states the Jehovah's Witness prisoners all ate blood sausage, until around 1943. At that time she relates that 25 of the 275 Jehovah's Witness prisoners refused to eat blood sausage. She underlines the fact that this occurred in the presence of knowledge of Biblical statements regarding blood.
64.Jump up ^ The Watch Tower, November 15, 1892 p. 351, "It will be noticed that nothing is said about keeping the ten commandments, nor any part of the Jewish law. It was evidently taken for granted that having received the spirit of Christ the new law of love would be a general regulation for them. The things mentioned were merely to guard against stumbling themselves or becoming stumbling blocks to others."
65.Jump up ^ The Watch Tower, April 15, 1909 pp. 116-117, "These prohibitions had never come to the Gentiles, because they had never been under the Law Covenant; but so deeply rooted were the Jewish ideas on this subject that it was necessary to the peace of the Church that the Gentiles should observe this matter also ... these items thus superadded to the Law of Love should be observed by all spiritual Israelites as representing the Divine will."
66.Jump up ^ The Golden Age, October 15, 1919 p. 47, "A serious difficulty which has been overcome in the use of plywood for airplanes construction was the making from blood of a glue that will stand any quantity of moisture without letting go…. In this plywood, stronger than steel, we have an illustration of how the Lord can take characters, weak in themselves, and surround them with such influence and so fortify them by his promises as to make them "mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds" of error and sin.—2 Cor. 10:4"
67.Jump up ^ The Golden Age, December 17, 1924 p. 163, "Remarkable Tale of Womanly Heroism…. Fearing the death of the child, the woman deliberately cut her arms and breast with glass from the windshield to provide blood to keep the child alive during the cold nights. The child will recover, but the heroine is expected to die."
68.Jump up ^ Golden Age, July 29, 1925 p. 683
69.Jump up ^ "One Reason for God's Vengeance", The Watchtower, December 15, 1927, p. 371.
70.Jump up ^ Consolation: 19. December 25, 1940. "one of the attending physicians in the great emergency gave a quart of his own blood for transfusion, and today the woman lives and smiles gaily over what happened to her in the busiest 23 minutes of her life." Missing or empty |title= (help)
71.Jump up ^ "The Stranger's Right Maintained", The Watchtower, December 1, 1944, p. 362
72.Jump up ^ Vertroosting (Consolation), September 1945 p. 29, "Wanneer wij ons leven verliezen, doordat wij weigeren, inspuitingen te laten maken, dient zulks niet tot een getuigenis ter rechtvaardiging van Jehova's Naam. God heeft nooit bepalingen uitgevaardigd die het gebruik van medicijnen, inspuitingen of bloedtransfusie verbiedt. Het is een ultvinding van menschen, die gelijk de Farizeën Jehova's barmhartigheid laten."
73.Jump up ^ The Blood Transfusion Taboo of Jehovah’s Witnesses: Origin, Development and Function of a Controversial Doctrine, Social Science Medicine, Singelenbreg, R., 1990, Vol. 31, No. 4, p. 516.)
74.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, July 1, 1945, p. 198-201
75.Jump up ^ "Assume Your Christian Obligations", The Watchtower, March 1, 1966, p. 142, "In the counsel from the pages of this magazine there has been a note of increased strictness with regard to pure worship, the placing of additional obligations on each one individually, strict counsel on morals, honesty, neutrality and such requirements as showing respect for the sanctity of blood."
76.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, January 15, 1961, p. 63.
77.Jump up ^ Blood, Medicine, and the Law of God, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1961, p. 54
78.Jump up ^ Awake!, September 8, 1956 p. 20
79.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, September 15, 1961, p. 558
80.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, November 1, 1961, p. 670
81.Jump up ^ Durable Power of Attorney form, published by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, January 2001 p. 1
82.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, February 15, 1964, p. 127-128
83.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, November 15, 1964, p. 680-683
84.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 15, 1982, p. 31
85.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, March 1, 1989 p. 30
86.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 15, 2000, p. 29-31
87.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, October 15, 2000, p. 31
88.Jump up ^ Letter to All Presiding Overseers and Secretaries in the United States, Watchtower May 3, 2001, and Enclosure
89.Jump up ^ Letter to All Presiding Overseers and Secretaries in the United States, Watchtower December 20, 2001
90.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, July 1, 1951, p. 414
91.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, September 15, 1961, p. 563-564
92.Jump up ^ Awake!, July 8, 1969, p. 30
93.Jump up ^ Awake!, May 22, 1974, page 18.
94.Jump up ^ Awake!, August 2006.
95.Jump up ^ New Scientist 25 September 2002
96.Jump up ^ Lee Elder, "Why some Jehovah's Witnesses accept blood and conscientiously reject official Watchtower Society blood policy", Journal of Medical Ethics, 2000, Vol.26, pages 375-380.
97.Jump up ^ "Rightly Value Your Gift of Life," The Watchtower, June 15, 2004, page 15.
98.Jump up ^ United in Worshop of the Only True God, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1983, page 160.
99.Jump up ^ "What Does Jehovah Ask of Us Today?" The Watchtower, September 15, 1999, page 21.
100.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Osamu Muramoto, "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 1", Journal of Medical Ethics, August 1998, Vol 24, Issue 4, page 223-230.
101.Jump up ^ F. F. Bruce, Commentary on Acts, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1955, R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles, Wartburg Press, Columbus, Ohio, 1944.
102.Jump up ^ Hoekema, Anthony A. (1963). The Four Major Cults. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans. pp. 249, 250. ISBN 0-8028-3117-6.
103.^ Jump up to: a b O. Muramoto, "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses: Part 3. A proposal for a don't-ask-don't-tell policy", Journal of Medical Ethics, December 1999, page 463.
104.Jump up ^ "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 296.
105.Jump up ^ ECHR Point number 136, 139
106.Jump up ^ O. Muramoto, "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses: Part 3. A proposal for a don't-ask-don't-tell policy", Journal of Medical Ethics, December 1999, page 467.
107.Jump up ^ "Honor Godly Marriage!", The Watchtower, March 15, 1983, page 31.
108.^ Jump up to: a b "Call for new approach to transfusion refusals", The Irish Times, February 27, 2010.
109.^ Jump up to: a b c David Malyon, "Transfusion-free treatment of Jehovah's Witnesses: respecting the autonomous patient's motives", Journal of Medical Ethics, 1998, Vol 24, page 380.
110.Jump up ^ Donald T. Ridley, "Jehovah's Witnesses' refusal of blood: obedience to scripture and religious conscience", Journal of Medical Ethics, 1999, Vol. 25, page 471.
111.Jump up ^ "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 298-299.
112.^ Jump up to: a b "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 301.
113.Jump up ^ "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 298.
114.Jump up ^ "Religion Today", New York Times, January 6, 2006
115.^ Jump up to: a b "Jehovah's Witnesses, Blood Transfusions and the Tort of Misrepresentation", Journal of Church and State, Autumn 2005, Volume 47, Number 4, p. 808: "[The Watchtower Society] builds a case that other doctors wish all surgeons would become bloodless surgeons, when in fact those doctors recognize the benefits of blood transfusions for those who are in desperate need."
116.Jump up ^ Cults, New Religious Movements, and Your Family: A Guide to Ten Non-Christian Groups Out to Convert Your Loved Ones p. 226
117.Jump up ^ Bearing False Witness? An Introduction to the Christian Countercult p. 146
118.^ Jump up to: a b Reasoning From the Scriptures, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1989, page 73.
119.Jump up ^ How Can Blood Save Your Life?, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1990, page 6.
120.Jump up ^ Reasoning From the Scriptures, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1989, page 70.
121.Jump up ^ The analogy is used in The Watchtower, June 1, 1969, page 326, The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, (1981, pg 167), Reasoning From the Scriptures (1989, pg 73), You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth (1989, pg 216), Yearbook (1989, pg 57), What Does the Bible Teach (2005, pg 130) and Awake!, August 2006, page 11.
122.Jump up ^ "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 299.
123.Jump up ^ "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 300.
124.Jump up ^ The Watchtower November 1, 1961 p. 669 Questions From Readers
125.Jump up ^ What Does The Bible Really Teach? 2005 P.128
126.Jump up ^ "Questions From Readers". The Watchtower: 669. 1 November 1961. "The important thing is that respect has been shown for the sanctity of blood, regard has been shown for the principle of the sacredness of life. What God's law requires is that the blood be drained from the animal when it is killed, not that the meat be soaked in some special preparation to draw out every trace of it."
127.Jump up ^ OK Kosher Certification — Salting of Meat
128.Jump up ^ My Jewish Learning: Making Meat Kosher
External links[edit]
Official website of Jehovah's Witnesses
How Can Blood Save Your Life? published by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
Why Don't Jehovah's Witnesses Accept Blood Transfusions? from the official website
Bloodless Surgeries and Jehovah's Witnesses PBS Religion & Ethics
Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood
BBC News - Refusing blood 'source of regret'
Critique of Jehovah's Witnesses' blood policy by Raymond Franz, a former member of Jehovah' Witnesses' Governing Body
Ethical Issues in Compulsory Medical Treatment: A Study of Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses teachings on blood from religioustolerance.org
The Jensen Letters—correspondence between a Jehovah's Witness elder and the Watchtower Society seeking answers to critical questions about important aspects of their blood doctrine. The correspondence begins in 1998 and concludes in 2003 with the writer's resignation as an elder.
  


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Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions

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W. H. Conley ·
 C. T. Russell

J. F. Rutherford ·
 N. H. Knorr

F. W. Franz ·
 M. G. Henschel

D. A. Adams

Formative influences

William Miller ·
 Henry Grew

George Storrs ·
 N. H. Barbour

John Nelson Darby


Notable former members

Raymond Franz ·
 Olin Moyle


Opposition

Criticism ·
 Persecution

Supreme Court cases
 by country

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Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Bible prohibits ingesting blood and that Christians should not accept blood transfusions or donate or store their own blood for transfusion.[1] The belief is based on an interpretation of scripture that differs from that of other Christian denominations.[2] It is one of the doctrines for which Jehovah's Witnesses are most well known.[3]
Watch Tower Society publications teach that the Witnesses' refusal of transfusions of whole blood or its four primary components—red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma—is a non-negotiable religious stand and that those who respect life as a gift from God do not try to sustain life by taking in blood,[4][5] even in an emergency.[6] Witnesses are taught that the use of fractions such as albumin, immunoglobulins and hemophiliac preparations are "not absolutely prohibited" and a matter of personal choice.[5]
The doctrine was introduced in 1945, and has undergone some changes since then. Members of the religion who voluntarily accept a transfusion and are not deemed repentant are regarded as having disassociated themselves from the religion by abandoning its doctrines[7][8][9] and are subsequently shunned by members of the organization.[10] Although accepted by the majority of Jehovah's Witnesses, a minority does not endorse this doctrine.[11][12]
The Watch Tower Society has established Hospital Information Services to provide education and facilitate bloodless surgery. This service also maintains Hospital Liaison Committees, whose function is to provide support to adherents.


Contents  [hide]
1 Doctrine 1.1 Prohibited procedures
1.2 Permitted procedures and products
2 Bloodless surgery 2.1 Hospital Liaison Committees
2.2 Patient Visitation Groups
3 Acceptance among Jehovah's Witnesses
4 History of doctrine
5 Critical views 5.1 Scriptural interpretation
5.2 Coercion
5.3 Selective use of information
5.4 Outdated medical beliefs
5.5 Inconsistency
6 Further reading
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

Doctrine[edit]
On the basis of various biblical texts, including Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:10, and Acts 15:29, Jehovah's Witnesses believe:
Blood represents life[13] and is sacred to God.[14][15] After it has been removed from a creature, the only use of blood that God has authorized is for the atonement of sins.[16] When a Christian abstains from blood, they are in effect expressing faith that only the shed blood of Jesus Christ can truly redeem them and save their life.[14]
Blood must not be eaten or transfused,[10][17] even in the case of a medical emergency.[18]
Blood leaving the body of a human or animal must be disposed of.[16]
Certain medical procedures involving blood fractions or that use a patient's own blood during the course of a medical procedure, such as hemodilution or cell salvage, are a matter of personal choice, according to what a person's conscience permits.[19]
A baptized Witness who unrepentantly accepts a blood transfusion is deemed to have disassociated himself from the religion by abandoning its doctrines and is subsequently subject to organized shunning by other members.[8][10]
Certain medical procedures involving blood are specifically prohibited by Jehovah's Witnesses' blood doctrine. This includes the use of red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and blood plasma. Other fractions derived from blood are not prohibited. Watch Tower publications state that some products derived from one of the four primary components may be so similar to the function of the whole component and carry on such a life-sustaining role in the body that "most Christians would find them objectionable".[20] For procedures where there is no specific doctrinal prohibition, individuals are to obtain details from medical personnel and then make a personal decision.[21]
Prohibited procedures[edit]
The following medical procedures are prohibited:
Transfusion of allogeneic whole blood, or of its constituents of red cells, white cells, platelets or plasma.[22]
Transfusions of pre-operative self-donated (autologous) blood.[23]
Permitted procedures and products[edit]
The following procedures and products are not prohibited, and are left to the decision of individual members:[24]
Blood donation strictly for purpose of further fractionation of red cells, white cells, platelets or plasma for either allogeneic or autologous transfusion.[22][25]
Transfusions of autologous blood part of a "current therapy".[23]
Hemodilution, a modified technique in which equipment is arranged in a circuit that is constantly linked to the patient's circulatory system.[23]
Intraoperative blood salvage (autologous) or cell-saver scavenging, a method of picking up blood that has spilled from the circulatory system into an open wound, cleaning and re-infusing it.[23]
Heart-Lung Machine, a method in which blood is diverted to an artificial heart-lung machine and directed back into the patient.[23]
Dialysis, wherein blood circulates through a machine, is filtered and cleaned, then returned to the patient.[23]
Epidural Blood Patch, consisting of a small amount of the patient's blood injected into the membrane surrounding the spinal cord.[23]
Plasmapheresis, wherein blood is withdrawn and filtered, having the plasma removed and substituted, and returned to the patient.[23]
Labeling or Tagging, blood is withdrawn, mixed with medicine, and then returned to the patient by transfusion.[26][23]
Platelet Gel, blood is withdrawn and put into a solution rich in platelets and white blood cells.[23]
Fractions from red blood cells: Hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying component of red blood cells.
Fractions from white blood cells:[22] Interferons
Interleukins
Fractions from platelets:[22] Platelet factor 4
Fractions from blood plasma:[22] Albumin
Globulins
Cryoprecipitate
Cryosupernatant (cryo-poor plasma)[27]
Clotting factors, including Factor VIII and Factor IX derived from large quantities of stored blood
Wound healing factor
Erythropoietin (EPO).[22]
PolyHeme, a blood substitute solution of chemically modified human hemoglobin.[22]
Hemopure, a blood substitute solution of chemically stabilized bovine hemoglobin derived from cow's blood.[22]
See also: Blood substitutes
Bloodless surgery[edit]
Main article: Bloodless surgery
A variety of bloodless surgical techniques have been developed for use on patients who refuse blood transfusions for reasons that include concern about AIDS, hepatitis, and other blood-borne infections, or immune system reactions.[28] Thousands of physicians throughout the world have expressed a willingness to respect patients' preferences and provide bloodless treatment[29][need quotation to verify] and about 200 hospitals offer bloodless medicine and surgery programs for adult and pediatric patients who wish to avoid or limit blood transfusions, or to avoid treatment contrary to Jehovah's Witnesses' blood doctrine.[29] Bloodless surgery has been successfully performed in such invasive operations as open-heart surgery and total hip replacements.[30] However bloodless medical and surgical techniques have limitations, and surgeons say the use of various allogeneic blood products and/or pre-operative autologous blood transfusion is the standard of care for some patient presentations.[31][32]
In cases of certain medical emergencies when bloodless medicine is not available, blood transfusions may seem to be the only available way to save a life. Watch Tower publications suggest that in such instances, Jehovah's Witnesses request that doctors provide the best alternative care possible under the circumstances, with respect for their personal conviction.[33] The Watch Tower Society has acknowledged that some members have died after refusing blood.[34]
In some countries, including Canada and the UK, a parent or guardian's decision can be legally overruled by medical staff. In this case, medical staff may act without consent, by obtaining a court order in a non-emergency situation, or without such an order in an emergency.[35][36] In Japan, a doctor must respect the wish of an adult but can override the wishes of a child and their parents if the child is under 15. If a child is aged 15 to 17, a doctor will not perform a transfusion if the parents and the child refuse the transfusion. If a child aged from 15 to 17 objects to a transfusion but the parents demand the transfusion, then a doctor can override the child's wish.[citation needed] In the United States, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that in cases of "an imminent threat to a child's life", physicians in some cases may "intervene over parental objections".[37]
Hospital Liaison Committees[edit]
In 1988, the Watch Tower Society formed Hospital Information Services, a department to help locate doctors or surgical teams who are willing to perform medical procedures on Witnesses without blood transfusions.[38] The department was given oversight of each branch office's Hospital Information Desk,[39][40][41] and of one hundred Hospital Liaison Committees established throughout the United States.[42][43] As of 2003, about 200 hospitals worldwide provide bloodless medical programs.[29] As of 2006, there are 1,535 Hospital Liaison Committees worldwide coordinating communication between 110,000 physicians.[43][44]
Hospital Information Services researches medical journals to locate information on the availability and effectiveness of bloodless surgery methods.[45] It disseminates information about treatment options to local Hospital Liaison Committees, and to doctors and hospitals.[44]
Patient Visitation Groups[edit]
Annually since 2004, Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States have been informed that "with your consent, the law allows for the elders to learn of your admission [to hospital] and provide spiritual encouragement",[46] but that "elders serving on a Patient Visitation Group [could] have access to your name" only if patients made their wishes known according to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).[47]
Jehovah's Witnesses' branch offices communicate directly with congregations regarding "ways to benefit from the activities of the Hospital Liaison Committee (HLC) and the Patient Visitation Group (PVG)."[48] A Jehovah's Witnesses publication in 2000 reported that Argentina had fewer than a hundred HLC committeemen "giving vital information to the medical community", adding that "their work is complemented by hundreds of other self-sacrificing elders who make up Patient Visitation Groups that call on Witness patients to help and encourage them".[49] Each branch office appoints PVG committeemen, who serve as volunteers.[50][51]
Acceptance among Jehovah's Witnesses[edit]
Since the elaboration of the blood doctrine to the point of prohibiting transfusion, the majority of Jehovah's Witnesses have adopted the organization's position.[52][53][54] Those Jehovah's Witnesses who accept the blood doctrine typically hold strongly to their conviction.[55] In the August 1998 issue of Academic Emergency Medicine, Donald Ridley, a Jehovah's Witness and organization staff attorney, argued that carrying an up-to-date Medical Directive card issued by the organization indicates that an individual personally agrees with the established religious position of Jehovah's Witness.[56]
In 1958, The Watchtower reported on a particular member of Jehovah's Witnesses who voluntarily accepted blood transfusion, contrary to Watchtower doctrine.[57] The organization confirms that members have accepted blood transfusions, despite the imposition in 1961 of a communal shunning policy for willful acceptance.[58][59]
In 1982, a peer-reviewed case study of a congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses was undertaken by Drs. Larry J. Findley and Paul M. Redstone to evaluate individual belief in respect to blood among Jehovah's Witnesses. The study showed that 12% were willing to accept transfusion therapy forbidden by Jehovah's Witness doctrine.[52] One peer-reviewed study examining medical records indicated a similar percentage of Jehovah's Witnesses willing to accept blood transfusions for their children. Young adults also showed a willingness to accept blood transfusions.[60] In another study, Jehovah's Witness patients presented for labor and delivery showed a willingness to accept some form of blood or blood products. Of these patients, 10 percent accepted whole blood transfusion.[54]
Watch Tower publications have noted that within religions, the personal beliefs of members often differ from official doctrine.[61] Regarding Jehovah's Witnesses acceptance of the organization's official position on blood, Drs Cynthia Gyamfi and Richard Berkowitz state, "It is naïve to assume that all people in any religious group share the exact same beliefs, regardless of doctrine. It is well known that Muslims, Jews and Christians have significant individual variations in their beliefs. Why should that not also be true of Jehovah's Witnesses?"[62]
Ambivalence and rejection of the blood doctrine dates back to at least the 1940s. After the Watch Tower Society established the doctrine, teaching that blood should not be eaten (circa 1927-31), Margaret Buber, who was never a member of the religion, offered a firsthand eyewitness account of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Nazi Ravensbrück concentration camp. She relates that an overwhelming majority were willing to eat blood sausage despite having alternate food to choose from, and specifically after considering biblical statements regarding blood.[63]
History of doctrine[edit]
From 1931, when the name "Jehovah's witnesses" was adopted, Watch Tower Society publications maintained the view of Society founder Charles Taze Russell that the reference to abstaining from the eating of blood in the Apostolic Decree of Acts 15:19-29 was a "suggestion" to be given to Gentile converts.[64][65] Watch Tower publications during the presidency of Joseph Franklin Rutherford commended the commercial and emergency uses of blood.[66][67] A 1925 issue of The Golden Age commended a man for donating blood 45 times without payment.[68] In 1927, The Watchtower noted, without elaboration, that in Genesis 9, God decreed that Noah and his offspring "must not eat the blood, because the life is in the blood".[69] In 1940 Consolation magazine reported on a woman who accidentally shot herself with a revolver in her heart and survived a major surgical procedure during which an attending physician donated a quart of his own blood for transfusion.[70]
In 1944, with the Watch Tower Society under the administration of president Nathan Homer Knorr, The Watchtower asserted that the decrees contained in Genesis 9:4 and Leviticus 17:10-14 forbade the eating or drinking of blood in biblical times "whether by transfusion or by the mouth" and that this applied "in a spiritual way to the consecrated persons of good-will today, otherwise known as 'Jonadabs' of the Lord's 'other sheep'."[71]
In September 1945, representatives of the Watch Tower Society in the Netherlands commented on blood transfusion in the Dutch edition of Consolation. A translation of their comments into English reads:

When we lose our life because we refuse inoculations, that does not bear witness as a justification of Jehovah's name. God never issued regulations which prohibit the use of drugs, inoculations or blood transfusions. It is an invention of people, who, like the Pharisees, leave Jehovah's mercy and love aside.[72]
According to sociologist Richard Singelenbreg the statement appearing in the Dutch edition of Consolation may have been published without knowledge of the doctrinal position published in the English July 1945 issue of Consolation by the Watch Tower Society's headquarters in the United States.[73]
In 1945, the application of the doctrine on blood was expanded to prohibit blood transfusions of whole blood, whether allogeneic or autologous.[74] The prohibition did not specify any punitive measures for accepting a transfusion, but by January 1961—in what was later described as an application of "increased strictness"[75]—it was ruled that it was a disfellowshipping offense to conscientiously accept a blood transfusion.[76] Watch Tower publications warned that accepting a blood transfusion could prevent Witnesses from living eternally in God's new world, the hope held by members: "It may result in the immediate and very temporary prolongation of life, but that at the cost of eternal life for a dedicated Christian."[77]
In September 1956, Awake! stated, "certain blood fractions ... also come under the Scriptural ban".[78] A position against "the various blood fractions" was reiterated in September 1961.[79] In November of the same year, the doctrine was modified to allow individual members to decide whether they could conscientiously accept fractions used from blood for purposes such as vaccination.[80] This position has been expanded on since; the pre-formatted Durable Power of Attorney form provided by the Watch Tower Society includes an option for Jehovah's Witnesses to "accept all fractions derived from any primary component of blood."[81]
In 1964, Jehovah's Witnesses were prohibited from obtaining transfusions for pets, from using fertilizer containing blood, and were even advised (if their conscience troubled them) to write to dog food manufacturers to verify that their products were blood-free.[82] Later that year, it was stated that doctors or nurses who are Jehovah's Witness would not administer blood transfusions to fellow dedicated members. As to administering transfusions to non-members, The Watchtower stated that such a decision is "left to the Christian doctor's own conscience."[83]
In 1982, a Watchtower article declared that it would be wrong for a Witness to allow a leech to feed on his/her blood as part of a medical procedure, due to the sacredness of blood.[84]
In 1989 The Watchtower stated, "Each individual must decide" whether to accept hemodilution and autologous blood salvage (cell saver) procedures.[85] In 1990, a brochure entitled How Can Blood Save Your Life? was released, outlining Jehovah's Witnesses' general doctrine on blood.
In 2000, the Watch Tower Society's stand on blood fractions was clearly stated.[86] Members were instructed to personally decide if accepting a fraction would violate the doctrine on blood. In a later article, members were reminded that Jehovah's Witnesses do not donate blood or store their own blood prior to surgery.[87]
In May 2001, the Watch Tower Society revised its medical directives and identity cards addressing its doctrinal position on blood; the revised materials were distributed from May 3, 2001.[88] These revised documents specified that "allogeneic blood transfusions" were unacceptable whereas the former document (dated 1999) stated that "blood transfusions" were unacceptable. The revised 2001 documents were active until December 20, 2001. The Watch Tower Society then rescinded the revised document, stating, "After further review, it has been determined that the cards dated "md-E 6/01" and "ic-E 6/01" should not be used. Please destroy these items and make sure that they are not distributed to the publishers." Elders were instructed to revert to the older 1999 edition of the medical directives and identity cards.[89]
Watch Tower Society publications frequently claim negative consequences of blood transfusions:
A 1951 Watchtower declared: "And let the transfusion enthusiasts with a savior-complex ponder the fact that on many occasions transfusions do harm, spread disease, and frequently cause deaths, which, of course, are not publicized." [90]
A 1961 Watchtower quoted Brazilian surgeon Dr Américo Valério as saying transfusions were often followed by "moral insanity, sexual perversions, repression, inferiority complexes, petty crimes" and Dr Alonzo Jay Shadman claiming that a person's blood "contains all the peculiarities of the individual ... [including] hereditary taints, disease susceptibilities, poisons due to personal living, eating and drinking habits ... The poisons that produce the impulse to commit suicide, murder, or steal are in the blood."[91]
A 1969 Awake! reported on a man named Robert Khoury, who, after receiving a blood transfusion said, "When I recovered I found I had a terrible desire to steal."[92]
A 1974 Awake! cited a Centers for Disease Control report that as many as 35,000 deaths and 500,000 illnesses a year might be due to the presence of serum hepatitis in blood for transfusions.[93]
A 2006 Awake! highlighted dangers from transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI), citing a New Scientist report that suggested it was the cause of as many as 55200 reactions and 500 deaths in the United States in 2002.[94][95]
Critical views[edit]
Opposition to the Watch Tower doctrines on blood transfusions has come from both inside and outside the religion. A group of dissident Witnesses known as Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood (AJWRB) states that there is no biblical basis for the prohibition of blood transfusions and seeks to have some policies changed.[96] In a series of articles in the Journal of Medical Ethics American neurologist Osamu Muramoto, who is a medical adviser to the AJWRB, has raised issues including what he claims is coercion to refuse transfusions, doctrinal inconsistency, selective use of information by the Watch Tower Society to exaggerate the dangers of transfusions and the use of outdated medical beliefs.
Scriptural interpretation[edit]
Dissident Witnesses say the Society's use of Leviticus 17:12 to support its opposition to blood transfusions[97][98] conflicts with its own teachings that Christians are not under the Mosaic law.[99][100] Theologian Anthony Hoekema claims the blood prohibited in Levitical laws was not human, but animal. He cites other authors[101] who support his view that the direction at Acts 15 to abstain from blood was intended not as an everlasting covenant but a means of maintaining a peaceful relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians. He has described as "absurd literalism" the Witnesses' use of a scriptural prohibition on eating blood to prohibit the medical transfusion of human blood.[102]
Coercion[edit]
Osamu Muramoto has argued that the refusal by Jehovah's Witnesses of "life-saving" blood treatment[103] creates serious bio-medical ethical issues. He has criticized the "controlling intervention" of the Watch Tower Society by means of what he claims is information control and its policy of penalising members who accept blood transfusions or advocate freedom to choose blood-based treatment.[100][103] He says the threat of being classified as a disassociated Witness and subsequently shunned by friends and relatives who are members coerces Jehovah's Witnesses to accept and obey the prohibition on blood transfusions.[8][100][104] In one particular case involving a Russian district court decision, however, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found nothing in the judgments to suggest that any form of improper pressure or undue influence was applied. It noted: "On the contrary, it appears that many Jehovah’s Witnesses have made a deliberate choice to refuse blood transfusions in advance, free from time constraints of an emergency situation." The court said: "The freedom to accept or refuse specific medical treatment, or to select an alternative form of treatment, is vital to the principles of self-determination and personal autonomy. A competent adult patient is free to decide ... not to have a blood transfusion. However, for this freedom to be meaningful, patients must have the right to make choices that accord with their own views and values, regardless of how irrational, unwise or imprudent such choices may appear to others."[105]
Muramoto has claimed the intervention of Hospital Liaison Committees can add to "organisational pressure" applied by family members, friends and congregation members on Witness patients to refuse blood-based treatment. He notes that while HLC members, who are church elders, "may give the patient 'moral support', the influence of their presence on the patient is known to be tremendous. Case reports reveal JW patients have changed their earlier decision to accept blood treatment after a visit from the elders." He claims such organizational pressure compromises the autonomy of Witness patients and interferes with their privacy and confidentiality. He has advocated a policy in which the Watch Tower organization and congregation elders would not question patients on the details of their medical care and patients would not disclose such information. He says the Society adopted such a policy in 1983 regarding details of sexual activity between married couples.[106][107][108]
Watch Tower spokesman Donald T. Ridley says neither elders nor HLC members are instructed or encouraged to probe into the health care decisions of Witness patients and do not involve themselves in patient hospitalisations unless patients request their assistance. Yet Watchtower HLC representative David Malyon says he would respond to "sin" of Witnesses he is privy to by effectively saying "Are you going to tell them or shall I!"[109] Nevertheless Ridley says Muramoto's suggestion that Witnesses should be free to disregard Watch Tower scriptural teachings and standards is preposterous. He says loving God means obeying commandments, not disobeying them and hiding one's disobedience from others.[108][110]
Muramoto recommends doctors have a private meeting with patients to discuss their wishes, and that church elders and family members not be present, enabling patients to feel free of church pressure. He suggests doctors question patients on (a) whether they have considered that the Watch Tower Society might soon approve some medical practices they currently find objectionable, in the same manner that it has previously abandoned its opposition to vaccination and organ transplants; (b) whether Witness patients know which blood components are allowed and which are prohibited, and whether they acknowledge that those rulings are organizational policy rather than biblical teachings; and (c) whether they realize that although some Bible scriptures proscribe the eating of blood, eating and transfusing blood have entirely different effects on the body.[111] English HLC representative David Malyon has responded that Muramoto's suggested questions are an affront to coerce Jehovah's Witnesses with "complicated philosophical inquisition" and, if used by doctors, would be "an abusive transformation of the medical role of succour and care into that of devil's advocate and trickster".[109]
Selective use of information[edit]
Muramoto has claimed many Watch Tower Society publications employ exaggeration and emotionalism to emphasize the dangers of transfusions and the advantages of alternative treatments, but presents a distorted picture by failing to report any benefits of blood-based treatment. Nor do its publications acknowledge that in some situations, including rapid and massive haemorrhage, there are no alternatives to blood transfusions.[100][112] He claims Watch Tower Society publications often discuss the risk of death as a result of refusing blood transfusions, but give little consideration to the prolonged suffering and disability, producing an added burden on family and society, that can result from refusal.[113] Attorney and former Witness Kerry Louderback-Wood[114] also claims that Witness publications exaggerate the medical risks of taking blood and the efficiency of non-blood medical therapies in critical situations.[115]
Douglas E. Cowan, an academic in the sociology of religion, has claimed that members of the Christian countercult movement who criticize the Watch Tower Society, make selective use of information themselves. For example, Christian apologist Richard Abanes wrote that their ban on blood transfusions, "has led to countless Witness deaths over the years, including many children."[116] Cowan wrote: "When the careful reader checks [Abanes' footnote], however, looking perhaps for some statistical substantiation, he or she finds only a statistical conjecture based on 1980 Red Cross blood use figures." Cowan also says Abanes omits "critical issues" in an attempt to "present the most negative face possible." Cowan wrote that "the reader is left with the impression that the Watchtower Society knowingly presides over a substantial number of preventable deaths each year."[117]
Outdated medical beliefs[edit]
Osamu Muramoto says the Watch Tower Society relies on discarded, centuries-old medical beliefs to support its assertion that blood transfusions are the same as eating blood.[118] A 1990 Watch Tower brochure on blood quoted a 17th-century anatomist to support its view.[119] Muramoto says the view that blood is nourishment—still espoused in Watch Tower publications[120]—was abandoned by modern medicine many decades ago.[100] He has criticized an analogy commonly used by the Society[121] in which it states: "Consider a man who is told by the doctor that he must abstain from alcohol. Would he be obedient if he quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into his veins?"[118] Muramoto says the analogy is false, explaining: "Orally ingested alcohol is absorbed as alcohol and circulated as such in the blood, whereas orally eaten blood is digested and does not enter the circulation as blood. Blood introduced directly into the veins circulates and functions as blood, not as nutrition. Hence, blood transfusion is a form of cellular organ transplantation. And ... organ transplants are now permitted by the WTS."[100] He says the objection to blood transfusions on the basis of biblical proscriptions against eating blood is similar to the refusal of a heart transplant on the basis that a doctor warned a patient to abstain from eating meat because of his high cholesterol level.[122]
David Malyon, chairman of the English Hospital Liaison Committee in Luton, England, has claimed that Muramoto's discussion of the differences between consuming blood and alcohol is pedantic and says blood laws in the Bible are based upon the reverence for life and its association with blood, and that laws should be kept in the spirit as much as in the letter.[109]
Inconsistency[edit]
Muramoto has described as peculiar and inconsistent the Watch Tower policy of acceptance of all the individual components of blood plasma as long as they are not taken at the same time.[100] He says the Society offers no biblical explanation for differentiating between prohibited treatments and those considered a "matter of conscience", explaining the distinction is based entirely on arbitrary decisions of the Governing Body, to which Witnesses must adhere strictly of the premise of them being Bible-based "truth".[100] He has questioned why white blood cells (1 per cent of blood volume) and platelets (0.17 per cent) are forbidden, yet albumin (2.2 per cent of blood volume) is permitted.[100] He has questioned why donating blood and storing blood for autologous transfusion is deemed wrong, but the Watch Tower Society permits the use of blood components that must be donated and stored before Witnesses use them.[123] He has questioned why Witnesses, although viewing blood as sacred and symbolizing life, are prepared to let a person die by placing more importance on the symbol than the reality it symbolizes.[112]
Kerry Louderback-Wood alleges that by labeling the currently acceptable blood fractions as "minute" in relation to whole blood, the Watch Tower organization causes followers to misunderstand the scope and extent of allowed fractions.[115]
Witnesses respond that the real issue is not of the fluid per se, but of respect and obedience to God.[124][125] They say their principle of abstaining from blood as a display of respect is demonstrated by the fact that members are allowed to eat meat that still contains some blood. As soon as blood is drained from an animal, the respect has been shown to God, and then a person can eat the meat even though it may contain a small amount of blood.[126] Jehovah's Witnesses' view of meat and blood is different from that of kosher Jewish adherents, who go to great lengths to remove minor traces of blood.[127][128]
See also: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses § Blood
Further reading[edit]
Sloan JM, Ballen K (May 2008). "SCT in Jehovah's Witnesses: the bloodless transplant". Bone Marrow Transplant. 41 (10): 837–44. doi:10.1038/bmt.2008.5. PMID 18246110.
Bayam L, Tait WF, Macartney ID (2007). "Successful repair of a giant abdominal aortoiliac aneurysm in a Jehovah's Witness". Vasc Endovascular Surg 41 (5): 460–2. doi:10.1177/1538574407303172. PMID 17942864.
Massiah N, Athimulam S, Loo C, Okolo S, Yoong W (October 2007). "Obstetric care of Jehovah's Witnesses: a 14-year observational study". Arch Gynecol Obstet. 276 (4): 339–43. doi:10.1007/s00404-007-0346-0. PMID 17522882.
Putney, Leeann J. (July–September 2007), [Putney LJ (Jul–September 2007). "Bloodless cardiac surgery: not just possible, but preferable" (– SCHOLAR SEARCH). Crit Care Nurs Q 30 (3): 263–70. doi:10.1097/01.CNQ.0000278927.44691.8c. PMID 17579310. Check date values in: |date= (help)[dead link]
Eilers June, Rounds Luisa (2007). "Blood Transfusion or Not: A Literature Review of Bloodless Interventions to Treat Cancer Related Anemia". Oncology Nursing Forum 34 (2): 553–554.
See also[edit]
Blood transfusions
Bloodless surgery
Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses
Knocking, a documentary on Witnesses that features bloodless medicine.
The Children Act, a novel by Ian McEwan in which the issue is central to the plot.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Keep Yourself in God's Love, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 2008, page 77.
2.Jump up ^ Manya A. Brachear, "More doctors honor religious objections to blood transfusions", Chicago Tribune, 9 October 2012.
3.Jump up ^ Evans, Allan S.; Riley E. Moynes; Larry Martinello (1973). What man Believes: A study of the World's Great Faiths. McGraw-Hill Ryerson. p. 361. ISBN 0-07-077440-4. "Two elements of belief are probably better known than any other among non-Witnesses. One is the refusal to fight in war ... the other well-known belief is the refusal to accept blood transfusions."
4.Jump up ^ How Can Blood Save Your Life?. Watch Tower Society. pp. 3–7.
5.^ Jump up to: a b "Be Guided by the Living God", The Watchtower, June 15, 2004, page 22.
6.Jump up ^ "Godly Respect for Blood", The Watchtower, September 1, 1986, page 25.
7.Jump up ^ Muramoto, O (December 1999). "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses: Part 3. A proposal for a don't-ask-don't-tell policy.". Journal of medical ethics 25 (6): 463–8. PMC 479294. PMID 10635499.
8.^ Jump up to: a b c Muramoto, O. (6 January 2001). "Bioethical aspects of the recent changes in the policy of refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses". BMJ 322 (7277): 37–39. doi:10.1136/bmj.322.7277.37. PMC 1119307. PMID 11141155.
9.Jump up ^ Little, Jane (June 14, 2000). "Jehovah's Witnesses drop transfusion ban". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2004-06-18. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
10.^ Jump up to: a b c Jehovah's Witnesses Public Affairs Office press release, June 14, 2000.
11.Jump up ^ Lee Elder, The Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood, "Why some Jehovah's Witnesses accept blood and conscientiously reject official Watchtower Society blood policy", Journal of Medical Ethics, 2000, Vol 26, pages 375-380.
12.Jump up ^ Tom Blackwell, "Without fanfare, Jehovah’s Witnesses quietly soften position on blood transfusions", National Post, 20 December 2012.
13.Jump up ^ How Can Blood Save Your Life, published by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1990 p. 24, "God told all mankind that they must not eat blood. Why? Because blood represents life."
14.^ Jump up to: a b Awake!, August 2006 p. 11, "He also gave them his reason, equating blood with the soul, or life, of the creature. He later said: 'The soul [or life] is in the blood.' In the eyes of the Creator, blood is sacred. It represents the precious gift of life that each living soul possesses."
15.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 15, 2004 p. 21
16.^ Jump up to: a b The Watchtower, February 1, 1997 p. 29
17.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 1, 1969 pp. 326, 327
18.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, September 1, 1986 p. 25
19.Jump up ^ October 15, 2000 Watchtower, p. 31
20.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 15, 2004 P.24 par. 16
21.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, March 1, 1989, p. 31
22.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h The Watchtower, June 15, 2000 pp. 29-31
23.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j The Watchtower, October 15, 2000 pp. 30-31
24.Jump up ^ Our Kingdom Ministry, November 2006 pages 3,4 para.1-6
25.Jump up ^ Jehovah's Witness letter to Cliff Roche, July 30, 2001 (Published in the book Three Dissertations on the Teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses, by Greg Stafford, 2002 ISBN 0-9659814-2-8)
26.Jump up ^ Instructions for Filling in The Advance Decision Document, published by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 2005 p.1. This document specifically applies the term "transfusion" to a Jehovah's Witness patient having blood returned to their cardiovascular system after it was completely removed from their body.
27.Jump up ^ West, James. "Informed refusal — the Jehovah's Witness patient", Clinical Ethics in Anesthesiology: A Case-Based Textbook, Cambridge University Press, 2011 pp. 19-26.
28.Jump up ^ Farmer S, Webb D, Your Body Your Choice: The Layman's Complete Guide to Bloodless Medicine and Surgery, 2000; pages 11, 14, 75
29.^ Jump up to: a b c Ariga et al., Legal Medicine, 5 (2003) S72-S75
30.Jump up ^ [1], [2], [3], and [4] - successful cases of bloodless surgery
31.Jump up ^ Spence et al., Transfusion May 2003; Vol. 43 p. 668
32.Jump up ^ Transfusion-Free Medicine, edited by Dr Nicolas Jabbour, 2005 p. 13
33.Jump up ^ "Are You Ready to Face a Faith-Challenging Medical Situation?", Our Kingdom Ministry, November 1990.
34.Jump up ^ "Youths Who Have Power Beyond What Is Normal", Awake!, May 22, 1994, pages 9-15.
35.Jump up ^ Richards, Edward; Rathbun, Katharine (1983). "Medical Risk Management: Preventive Legal Strategies for Health Care Providers". http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/Books/aspen/Aspen.html. Chapter Nine, The Emergency Exception: Aspen Systems Corporation. Retrieved 12 July 2014.
36.Jump up ^ Hartman, Kurt; Liang, Bryan (March 1999). "Exceptions to Informed Consent in Emergency Medicine" (PDF). Hospital Physician 35 (3): 53–55. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
37.Jump up ^ American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics (1997). "Religious objections to medical care". Pediatrics 99 (2): 279–281. doi:10.1542/peds.99.2.279. PMID 9024462.
38.Jump up ^ Our Kingdom Ministry, September 1988, page 4.
39.Jump up ^ "Jehovah’s Witnesses—1998 Yearbook Report", 1998 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, ©1997 Watch Tower, page 23
40.Jump up ^ "Jehovah’s Witnesses—1996 Yearbook Report", 1996 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, ©1997 Watch Tower, page 26
41.Jump up ^ "Bridging the Gap Between Doctors and Witness Patients", Awake!, November 22, 1990, page 21
42.Jump up ^ "Are You Ready to Face a Faith-Challenging Medical Situation?", Our Kingdom Ministry, November 1990, page 3.
43.^ Jump up to: a b September 2002 Certificate of Recognition issued by Society for the Advancement of Blood Management, available online at http://www.jw-media.org/gbl/20021118.htm
44.^ Jump up to: a b January 3, 2006 Letter from Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses; To all Congregations
45.Jump up ^ Our Kingdom Ministry, November 1990 p. 3
46.Jump up ^ "Announcements", Our Kingdom Ministry, November 2005, page 3
47.Jump up ^ "Announcements", Our Kingdom Ministry, October 2004, page 7, emphasis added to quote
48.Jump up ^ "Service Meeting Schedule", Our Kingdom Ministry, January 2006, page 2
49.Jump up ^ "Argentina", 2001 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, ©2000 Watch Tower, page 212
50.Jump up ^ ""Follow Me Continually"", Our Kingdom Ministry, May 2006, page 1
51.Jump up ^ "No One Has Love Greater Than This", Come Be My Follower, ©2007 Watch Tower, pages 178-179
52.^ Jump up to: a b Findley LJ, Redstone PM (March 1982). "Blood transfusion in adult Jehovah's Witnesses. A case study of one congregation". Arch Intern Med. 142 (3): 606–7. doi:10.1001/archinte.142.3.606. PMID 7065795.
 This article presents a consensual survey of one congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses where the congregation elders provided the names and addresses of members, and the elders knew precisely the nature of the survey. 59 responses were received. Of the 59, 7 stipulated they would accept plasma transfusion (Table 1 on page 607). This result compelled Findley and Redstone to comment, "there is either some lack of understanding or refusal to follow doctrine among some members". Whether from misunderstanding or refusal to follow doctrine, at no point did Findley and Redstone question whether these responders had honestly expressed their personal conviction. Findley and Redstone also stipulated their methodology may have skewed the results towards official Jehovah's Witness doctrine. (Local elders provided the names to be surveyed, and those surveyed knew local elders would see the results of the study.) The authors also admit that this study may not describe the beliefs of "less religious Jehovah's Witnesses".
53.Jump up ^ Kaaron Benson, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute Cancer Control Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4, November/December 1995
54.^ Jump up to: a b Gyamfi C, Berkowitz RL (September 2004). "Responses by pregnant Jehovah's Witnesses on health care proxies". Obstet Gynecol 104 (3): 541–4. doi:10.1097/01.AOG.0000135276.25886.8e. PMID 15339766. "This review refutes the commonly held belief that all Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to accept blood or any of its products. In this population of pregnant women, the majority were willing to accept some form of blood or blood products."
55.Jump up ^ Knuti KA, Amrein PC, Chabner BA, Lynch TJ, Penson RT (2002). "Faith, identity, and leukemia: when blood products are not an option". Oncologist 7 (4): 371–80. doi:10.1634/theoncologist.7-4-371. PMID 12185299.
 "Ms. LF stated that she was a Jehovah's Witness and asserted with an advanced [sic] directive that she did not want blood product support…. The risks and benefits of continuing therapy were discussed with Ms. LF. She remained adamant in her refusal of blood products and repeated that she wanted to continue treatment and to 'die fighting' her disease."
56.Jump up ^ Migden DR, Braen GR (August 1998). "The Jehovah's Witness blood refusal card: ethical and medicolegal considerations for emergency physicians". Acad Emerg Med 5 (8): 815–24. doi:10.1111/j.1553-2712.1998.tb02510.x. PMID 9715245.
Ridley DT (August 1998). "Honoring Jehovah's Witnesses' advance directives in emergencies: a response to Drs. Migden and Braen". Acad Emerg Med 5 (8): 824–35. doi:10.1111/j.1553-2712.1998.tb02511.x. PMID 9715246.
57.Jump up ^ The Watchtower August 1, 1958 p. 478
58.Jump up ^ The Watchtower January 15, 1961 p. 63
59.Jump up ^ The Watchtower October 15, 1987 p. 14, "Three areas for attention were mentioned: secretly accepting a blood transfusion, masturbation, and alcohol abuse. After considering that material, quite a number of readers wrote letters of appreciation; they admitted that they had had those faults, but they had been moved to repent and change."
60.Jump up ^ Kaaron Benson, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute Cancer Control Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4, November/December 1995, "Therefore, while most adult Jehovah's Witness patients were unwilling to accept blood for themselves, most Jehovah's Witness parents permitted transfusions for their minor children, and many of the young adult patients also were willing to accept transfusions for themselves." Available online at http://www.moffitt.org/moffittapps/ccj/v2n6/article13.html
61.Jump up ^ "Where Are the Faithful?", Awake!, April 8, 1996, p. 4, "Nowadays official church dogma may bear scant resemblance to the personal beliefs of those who profess that particular religion."
62.Jump up ^ Thomas JM (February 2005). "Responses by pregnant Jehovah's Witnesses on health care proxies". Obstet Gynecol 105 (2): 441; author reply 442–3. doi:10.1097/01.AOG.0000149842.31312.e4. PMID 15684182.
63.Jump up ^ Buber, M., Under Two Dictators, 1949 pp. 222, 235-237. Buber states the Jehovah's Witness prisoners all ate blood sausage, until around 1943. At that time she relates that 25 of the 275 Jehovah's Witness prisoners refused to eat blood sausage. She underlines the fact that this occurred in the presence of knowledge of Biblical statements regarding blood.
64.Jump up ^ The Watch Tower, November 15, 1892 p. 351, "It will be noticed that nothing is said about keeping the ten commandments, nor any part of the Jewish law. It was evidently taken for granted that having received the spirit of Christ the new law of love would be a general regulation for them. The things mentioned were merely to guard against stumbling themselves or becoming stumbling blocks to others."
65.Jump up ^ The Watch Tower, April 15, 1909 pp. 116-117, "These prohibitions had never come to the Gentiles, because they had never been under the Law Covenant; but so deeply rooted were the Jewish ideas on this subject that it was necessary to the peace of the Church that the Gentiles should observe this matter also ... these items thus superadded to the Law of Love should be observed by all spiritual Israelites as representing the Divine will."
66.Jump up ^ The Golden Age, October 15, 1919 p. 47, "A serious difficulty which has been overcome in the use of plywood for airplanes construction was the making from blood of a glue that will stand any quantity of moisture without letting go…. In this plywood, stronger than steel, we have an illustration of how the Lord can take characters, weak in themselves, and surround them with such influence and so fortify them by his promises as to make them "mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds" of error and sin.—2 Cor. 10:4"
67.Jump up ^ The Golden Age, December 17, 1924 p. 163, "Remarkable Tale of Womanly Heroism…. Fearing the death of the child, the woman deliberately cut her arms and breast with glass from the windshield to provide blood to keep the child alive during the cold nights. The child will recover, but the heroine is expected to die."
68.Jump up ^ Golden Age, July 29, 1925 p. 683
69.Jump up ^ "One Reason for God's Vengeance", The Watchtower, December 15, 1927, p. 371.
70.Jump up ^ Consolation: 19. December 25, 1940. "one of the attending physicians in the great emergency gave a quart of his own blood for transfusion, and today the woman lives and smiles gaily over what happened to her in the busiest 23 minutes of her life." Missing or empty |title= (help)
71.Jump up ^ "The Stranger's Right Maintained", The Watchtower, December 1, 1944, p. 362
72.Jump up ^ Vertroosting (Consolation), September 1945 p. 29, "Wanneer wij ons leven verliezen, doordat wij weigeren, inspuitingen te laten maken, dient zulks niet tot een getuigenis ter rechtvaardiging van Jehova's Naam. God heeft nooit bepalingen uitgevaardigd die het gebruik van medicijnen, inspuitingen of bloedtransfusie verbiedt. Het is een ultvinding van menschen, die gelijk de Farizeën Jehova's barmhartigheid laten."
73.Jump up ^ The Blood Transfusion Taboo of Jehovah’s Witnesses: Origin, Development and Function of a Controversial Doctrine, Social Science Medicine, Singelenbreg, R., 1990, Vol. 31, No. 4, p. 516.)
74.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, July 1, 1945, p. 198-201
75.Jump up ^ "Assume Your Christian Obligations", The Watchtower, March 1, 1966, p. 142, "In the counsel from the pages of this magazine there has been a note of increased strictness with regard to pure worship, the placing of additional obligations on each one individually, strict counsel on morals, honesty, neutrality and such requirements as showing respect for the sanctity of blood."
76.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, January 15, 1961, p. 63.
77.Jump up ^ Blood, Medicine, and the Law of God, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1961, p. 54
78.Jump up ^ Awake!, September 8, 1956 p. 20
79.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, September 15, 1961, p. 558
80.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, November 1, 1961, p. 670
81.Jump up ^ Durable Power of Attorney form, published by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, January 2001 p. 1
82.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, February 15, 1964, p. 127-128
83.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, November 15, 1964, p. 680-683
84.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 15, 1982, p. 31
85.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, March 1, 1989 p. 30
86.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 15, 2000, p. 29-31
87.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, October 15, 2000, p. 31
88.Jump up ^ Letter to All Presiding Overseers and Secretaries in the United States, Watchtower May 3, 2001, and Enclosure
89.Jump up ^ Letter to All Presiding Overseers and Secretaries in the United States, Watchtower December 20, 2001
90.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, July 1, 1951, p. 414
91.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, September 15, 1961, p. 563-564
92.Jump up ^ Awake!, July 8, 1969, p. 30
93.Jump up ^ Awake!, May 22, 1974, page 18.
94.Jump up ^ Awake!, August 2006.
95.Jump up ^ New Scientist 25 September 2002
96.Jump up ^ Lee Elder, "Why some Jehovah's Witnesses accept blood and conscientiously reject official Watchtower Society blood policy", Journal of Medical Ethics, 2000, Vol.26, pages 375-380.
97.Jump up ^ "Rightly Value Your Gift of Life," The Watchtower, June 15, 2004, page 15.
98.Jump up ^ United in Worshop of the Only True God, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1983, page 160.
99.Jump up ^ "What Does Jehovah Ask of Us Today?" The Watchtower, September 15, 1999, page 21.
100.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Osamu Muramoto, "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 1", Journal of Medical Ethics, August 1998, Vol 24, Issue 4, page 223-230.
101.Jump up ^ F. F. Bruce, Commentary on Acts, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1955, R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles, Wartburg Press, Columbus, Ohio, 1944.
102.Jump up ^ Hoekema, Anthony A. (1963). The Four Major Cults. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans. pp. 249, 250. ISBN 0-8028-3117-6.
103.^ Jump up to: a b O. Muramoto, "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses: Part 3. A proposal for a don't-ask-don't-tell policy", Journal of Medical Ethics, December 1999, page 463.
104.Jump up ^ "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 296.
105.Jump up ^ ECHR Point number 136, 139
106.Jump up ^ O. Muramoto, "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses: Part 3. A proposal for a don't-ask-don't-tell policy", Journal of Medical Ethics, December 1999, page 467.
107.Jump up ^ "Honor Godly Marriage!", The Watchtower, March 15, 1983, page 31.
108.^ Jump up to: a b "Call for new approach to transfusion refusals", The Irish Times, February 27, 2010.
109.^ Jump up to: a b c David Malyon, "Transfusion-free treatment of Jehovah's Witnesses: respecting the autonomous patient's motives", Journal of Medical Ethics, 1998, Vol 24, page 380.
110.Jump up ^ Donald T. Ridley, "Jehovah's Witnesses' refusal of blood: obedience to scripture and religious conscience", Journal of Medical Ethics, 1999, Vol. 25, page 471.
111.Jump up ^ "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 298-299.
112.^ Jump up to: a b "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 301.
113.Jump up ^ "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 298.
114.Jump up ^ "Religion Today", New York Times, January 6, 2006
115.^ Jump up to: a b "Jehovah's Witnesses, Blood Transfusions and the Tort of Misrepresentation", Journal of Church and State, Autumn 2005, Volume 47, Number 4, p. 808: "[The Watchtower Society] builds a case that other doctors wish all surgeons would become bloodless surgeons, when in fact those doctors recognize the benefits of blood transfusions for those who are in desperate need."
116.Jump up ^ Cults, New Religious Movements, and Your Family: A Guide to Ten Non-Christian Groups Out to Convert Your Loved Ones p. 226
117.Jump up ^ Bearing False Witness? An Introduction to the Christian Countercult p. 146
118.^ Jump up to: a b Reasoning From the Scriptures, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1989, page 73.
119.Jump up ^ How Can Blood Save Your Life?, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1990, page 6.
120.Jump up ^ Reasoning From the Scriptures, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1989, page 70.
121.Jump up ^ The analogy is used in The Watchtower, June 1, 1969, page 326, The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, (1981, pg 167), Reasoning From the Scriptures (1989, pg 73), You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth (1989, pg 216), Yearbook (1989, pg 57), What Does the Bible Teach (2005, pg 130) and Awake!, August 2006, page 11.
122.Jump up ^ "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 299.
123.Jump up ^ "Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses, part 2." Journal of Medical Ethics, October 1998, page 300.
124.Jump up ^ The Watchtower November 1, 1961 p. 669 Questions From Readers
125.Jump up ^ What Does The Bible Really Teach? 2005 P.128
126.Jump up ^ "Questions From Readers". The Watchtower: 669. 1 November 1961. "The important thing is that respect has been shown for the sanctity of blood, regard has been shown for the principle of the sacredness of life. What God's law requires is that the blood be drained from the animal when it is killed, not that the meat be soaked in some special preparation to draw out every trace of it."
127.Jump up ^ OK Kosher Certification — Salting of Meat
128.Jump up ^ My Jewish Learning: Making Meat Kosher
External links[edit]
Official website of Jehovah's Witnesses
How Can Blood Save Your Life? published by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
Why Don't Jehovah's Witnesses Accept Blood Transfusions? from the official website
Bloodless Surgeries and Jehovah's Witnesses PBS Religion & Ethics
Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood
BBC News - Refusing blood 'source of regret'
Critique of Jehovah's Witnesses' blood policy by Raymond Franz, a former member of Jehovah' Witnesses' Governing Body
Ethical Issues in Compulsory Medical Treatment: A Study of Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses teachings on blood from religioustolerance.org
The Jensen Letters—correspondence between a Jehovah's Witness elder and the Watchtower Society seeking answers to critical questions about important aspects of their blood doctrine. The correspondence begins in 1998 and concludes in 2003 with the writer's resignation as an elder.
  


Categories: Beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses
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Medical controversies
Transfusion medicine
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Jehovah's Witnesses and congregational discipline

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 This article's lead section may not adequately summarize key points of its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. (December 2011)
Part of a series on
Jehovah's Witnesses

Overview

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 and Tract Society
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History
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Leadership dispute
Splinter groups
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Demographics
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Beliefs ·
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Salvation ·
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The 144,000
Faithful and discreet slave
Hymns ·
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Blood ·
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Bibliography

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People

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W. H. Conley ·
 C. T. Russell

J. F. Rutherford ·
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D. A. Adams

Formative influences

William Miller ·
 Henry Grew

George Storrs ·
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John Nelson Darby


Notable former members

Raymond Franz ·
 Olin Moyle


Opposition

Criticism ·
 Persecution

Supreme Court cases
 by country

v ·
 t ·
 e
   
Jehovah's Witnesses employ various levels of congregational discipline as formal controls administered by congregation elders. Guilt and repentance are determined by a tribunal of elders, and hearings concerning what they term "serious sin" are performed by formal judicial committees. A variety of controls can be enforced, from restriction of duties performed in the congregation to excommunication, known as disfellowshipping, and shunning by the congregation. Members who are disfellowshipped have an opportunity to regain membership. The practice of disfellowshipping has been criticized by many non-members and ex-members.


Contents  [hide]
1 Correction
2 Discipline involving non-judicial situations 2.1 Local needs
2.2 Shepherding calls
2.3 Withheld recommendations or assignments
2.4 Loss of "special privileges"
2.5 Limited "privileges of service"
2.6 Marking
3 Discipline involving "serious sin" 3.1 List of "serious sins"
3.2 Procedures
3.3 Judicial committee
3.4 Reproof
3.5 Shunning 3.5.1 Reinstatement
3.5.2 Legality

4 Unbaptized publishers
5 Critical view
6 References

Correction[edit]
Non-judicial situations involve actions that are considered sinful or simply regrettable but are not considered to be of sufficient gravity to necessitate a judicial committee, and cannot result in disfellowshipping from the congregation; specific action by congregation elders is not administered in such situations, but counsel (or correction) may be provided by a mature Witness in addition to self-discipline and family discipline.[1] Elders may also give recommendations or warnings to members in non-judicial situations.
If an active baptized Witness is considered to have committed a "serious sin" for which the sinner must demonstrate formal repentance, correction (or, "discipline") is administered by the congregation’s body of elders. Such situations usually involve a "judicial committee" of three or more elders.[2]
Discipline involving non-judicial situations[edit]
At the elders' discretion, "non-judicial" situations may involve discipline of one or more of several types, presented here in escalating seriousness.
Local needs[edit]
At conventions and assemblies, and about once each month at a local Service Meeting, a short talk regarding "local needs" is presented.[3] An elder addresses matters that are relevant to the local congregation, with instructions outlining the course of action considered appropriate. No specific individuals are identified during the talk, but the talk may relate to a matter for which a member has recently been "reproved". At times, some temporary policy may be announced that might be seen as disciplinary; for example, it may be that an additional attendant is assigned outside a Kingdom Hall to discourage children from running on the sidewalk.[4]
Shepherding calls[edit]
Personal "shepherding visits" are intended to encourage members of the congregation, though may also include counsel and correction, then or on a subsequent visit.[5][6] Two elders (or an elder and a ministerial servant) may schedule and perform a particular shepherding visit on their own or at the direction of the body of elders.[7]
Withheld recommendations or assignments[edit]
The body of elders may withhold its recommendation for a member to serve in a new position of responsibility, though still permitting existing responsibilities.[8]
For example, a ministerial servant who consistently seems insufficiently prepared for his meeting parts may have such assignments withheld for a time, even though he may continue serving as a ministerial servant or in some other "special privilege of service".[9]
Loss of "special privileges"[edit]
Elders, ministerial servants, pioneers, or other appointed Witnesses can lose their "special privileges of service".[10][11] For example, an elder may be removed or choose to step aside voluntarily from his position if members of his household are not in "good standing".[12] After resignation or removal from an appointed position, an announcement is made during the congregation's Service Meeting indicating that the person is "no longer serving", without elaboration.[13]
Limited "privileges of service"[edit]
An active Jehovah's Witness may have their congregational "privileges of service" limited even without having committed a serious sin. For example, the body of elders may feel that a member wronged others by some investment scheme which was not necessarily fraudulent.[14] While Witnesses sometimes refer to field ministry, after-meeting cleanup, and other responsibilities as "privileges", the term "privileges of service" often implies a specific range of assignments assisting elders and ministerial servants with meeting demonstrations and other responsibilities.[15] Such limitations are usually temporary.[16]
Marking[edit]
Members who persist in a course considered scripturally wrong after repeated counsel by elders,[17] but who are not guilty of something for which they could be disfellowshipped,[17] can be "marked", based on Jehovah's Witnesses' interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 3:14. Though not shunned, "marked" individuals are looked upon as bad association and social interaction outside of formal worship settings is generally curtailed. This action is intended to "shame" the person into following a particular course of action.[17] "Marking" is indicated by means of a talk given at the Service Meeting outlining the shameful course, but without explicitly naming any particular individual. Members who know whose actions are being discussed may then consider the individual "marked".
Discipline involving "serious sin"[edit]
List of "serious sins"[edit]
Jehovah's Witnesses consider many actions to be "serious sins", for which baptized Witnesses are subject to a judicial committee hearing. Such actions include: abortion,[18] adultery, apostasy,[19] bestiality, blood transfusions,[20] "brazen conduct" or "loose conduct",[21][22] drug abuse,[23] drunkenness, extortion,[24] fornication, fraud,[25] gambling,[24] greed,[24] homosexual activity, idolatry, incest, interfaith activity,[26] lying,[27] manslaughter, murder, "perverted sex relations",[28] polygamy,[29] pornography,[30] reviling, sexual abuse,[31] slander,[25] spiritism, theft, and use of tobacco.[23][32][33]
If a baptized Witness teaches contrary to Witness doctrines, it is considered apostasy and grounds for disfellowshipping. A 1981 letter to overseers—reproduced in a book by former Governing Body member Raymond Franz—directed that a member who "persists in believing other doctrine", even without promoting such beliefs, may also be subject to disfellowshipping.[34] Elders usually try to reason with the individual before such action is taken.[35] If a person believes that a teaching should be adjusted or changed, he is encouraged "to be patient and wait on Jehovah for change".[36]The Watchtower states that "apostates are “mentally diseased,” and they seek to infect others with their disloyal teachings. (1 Timothy 6:3, 4 [NWT]).";[37][38] some have stated that this applies to all individuals who leave the organization.[39][40]
Procedures[edit]
Evidence for actions that can result in congregational discipline is obtained by voluntary confession to the elders or by witnesses of the violation. A minimum of two witnesses is required to establish guilt, based on their understanding of Deuteronomy 17:6 and Matthew 18:16, unless the person confesses voluntarily.[41] Members are instructed to report serious sins committed by others members.[42] Failure to report a serious sin of another member is viewed as sharing in the sins of others, a sin before God.[43] Witnesses are instructed that pledges of confidentiality may be broken to report what they believe to be transgressions.[44]
A congregation's body of elders considers confessions or credible allegations of serious sin, and decides whether a judicial committee will be formed to address the matter.[45] A judicial committee, usually consisting of three elders, investigates the details of the alleged sin further. The committee arranges a formal judicial hearing to determine the circumstances of the sin, whether the accused is repentant, and whether disciplinary actions will be taken.[46][47][48]
In certain situations, a body of elders may handle a situation involving "serious sin" by a baptized Witness without a judicial committee:
Minor or newly baptized - A minor or newly baptized Witness might commit one or two acts of "serious sin" involving tobacco or overdrinking;[49][50] repercussions as for 'non-judicial' situations may still be imposed.
Repentance - The body of elders may believe the sinner's repentance has been established and accepted. For example, if a member committed a "serious sin" several years ago, had formally repented in prayer, and the sin did not involve scheming.[51] Witnesses are strongly discouraged from waiting years to resolve such matters;[52] even if years have passed since the serious sin, it is typical for a judicial committee to be formed, and there may still be repercussions as for ‘non-judicial’ situations.
Judicial abeyance - Elders may become aware of a "serious sin" committed by a baptized Witness who has been inactive for some time and is not perceived as a Jehovah’s Witness. If the alleged sinner is not associating with active Witnesses, the elders may indefinitely postpone a judicial committee and formal hearing unless and until the individual renews their association with the congregation.[53]
Judicial committee[edit]
A person accused of a serious sin is informed of the allegations and invited to attend a judicial committee meeting. The individual is permitted to bring witnesses who can speak in their defense; observers are not allowed,[54] and the hearing is held privately even if the accused individual requests that it be heard openly so all may witness the evidence.[55][56] Recording devices are not permitted at the hearing.[54] If the accused repeatedly fails to attend an arranged hearing, the committee will proceed but will not make a decision until evidence and testimony by witnesses are considered.[54]
The committee takes the role of prosecutor, judge and jury when handling its cases.[57] After the hearing is opened with a prayer, the accused is invited to make a personal statement. If there is no admission of guilt, the individual is informed of the source of the charges and witnesses are presented one at a time to give evidence. Witnesses do not remain present for the entire hearing. Once all the evidence is presented, the accused and all witnesses are dismissed and the committee reviews the evidence and the attitude of the accused.[54]
The committee may determine that there was no "serious sin", or that mitigating circumstances absolve the accused individual. The committee may then proceed with discipline such as is described for 'non-judicial' situations.[58] Alternatively, the committee may decide that a serious sin was committed, in which case, the committee gives verbal admonitions and gauges the individual's attitude and repentance. The committee then decides whether discipline will involve formal reproof or disfellowshipping.
Reproof[edit]
Reproof involves actions for which a person could be disfellowshipped, and is said to be an effort to 'reach the heart' and convince a person of the need to hate the sanctioned actions[59][60] and repent.[61] Reproof is considered sufficient if the individual is deemed repentant.[62][63] Reproof is given before all who are aware of the transgression. If the conduct is known only to the individual and the judicial committee, reproof is given privately. If the sin is known by a small number, they would be invited by the elders, and reproof would be given before the sinner and those with knowledge of the sin. If the action is known generally by the entire congregation or the wider community, an announcement is made that the person "has been reproved".[64] A related local needs talk may be given, separately to the announcement, without naming anyone.[65]
In all cases of reproof, restrictions are imposed,[66] typically prohibiting the individual from sharing in meeting parts, commenting during meetings, and giving group prayers. A reproved Witness cannot enroll as a pioneer or auxiliary pioneer for at least one year after reproof is given.[67][68]
Shunning[edit]
All members are expected to abide by the beliefs and moral standards of Jehovah's Witnesses.[69] Serious violations of these requirements can result in disfellowshipping (similar to excommunication) and subsequent shunning if not deemed repentant.[70][71] When a judicial committee decides that a baptized Witness has committed a serious sin and is unrepentant, the person is disfellowshipped. A person can appeal if they believe that a serious error in judgment has been made. Requests for appeal must be made in writing and within seven days of the decision of the judicial committee. Their shunning policy is based on their interpretation of scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 5:11-13; Matthew 18:15-17; and 2 John 9-11.[72][73] Witness literature states that avoiding interaction with disfellowshipped former adherents helps to:[74]
avoid reproach on God's name and organization by indicating that violations of the Bible's standards in their ranks are not tolerated;
keep the congregation free of possible corrosive influences;[75] and
convince the disfellowshipped individual to re-evaluate their course of action, repent and rejoin the religion.[76]
Shunning is also practiced when a member formally resigns membership or is deemed to indicate by their actions—such as accepting a blood transfusion[77] or association with another religion[78] or military organization[79]—that they do not wish to be known as a Witness. Such individuals are said to have disassociated,[80][81] and are described by the Watch Tower Society as "lawless" in a spiritual sense.[82]
When a person is disfellowshipped or is deemed to have disassociated, an announcement is made at the next Service Meeting that the named individual "is no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses". Congregation members are not informed whether a person is being shunned due to "disfellowshipping" or "disassociation", nor on what grounds. Shunning starts immediately after the announcement is made.[83][84]
Failure to adhere to the directions on shunning is itself considered a serious offense. Members who continue to speak to or associate with a disfellowshipped or disassociated person are said to be sharing in their "wicked works"[85] and may themselves be disfellowshipped.[86] Exceptions are made in some cases such as business relations and immediate family household situations.[71] If a disfellowshipped person is living in the same home with other baptized family members, religious matters are not discussed, with the exception of minors, for whose training parents are still responsible.[87][88] Disfellowshipped family members outside the home are shunned.[89] Disfellowshipped individuals can continue attending meetings held at the Kingdom Hall, though they are shunned by the congregation.[90]
Reinstatement[edit]
Disfellowshipped individuals may be reinstated into the congregation if they are considered repentant of their previous actions and attitude. When a disassociated or disfellowshipped individual requests reinstatement, a judicial committee, (the committee originally involved, if available) seeks to determine whether the person has repented.[91] Such individuals must demonstrate that they no longer practice the conduct for which they were expelled from the congregation, as well as submission to the religion's regulations.[92][93][94] Individuals disfellowshipped for actions no longer considered serious sins, such as organ transplants, are not automatically reinstated. Attending meetings while being shunned is a requirement for eventual reinstatement.[95][90] Once a decision is made to reinstate, a brief announcement is made to the congregation that the individual is once again one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Elders are instructed to make an attempt each year to remind disfellowshipped individuals of the steps they can take to qualify for reinstatement.[71][96] No specific period of time is prescribed before this can happen, however the Watch Tower Society suggests a period of "perhaps many months, a year, or longer."[97] In 1974, the Watch Tower Society stated that about one third of those disfellowshipped eventually return to the group, based on figures gathered from 1963 to 1973.[98][needs update]
Legality[edit]
In June 1987, the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld the Witnesses' right to shun those who fail to live by the group's standards and doctrines, upholding the ruling of a lower court, finding that "shunning is a practice engaged in by Jehovah's Witnesses pursuant to their interpretation of canonical text, and we are not free to reinterpret that text … The defendants are entitled to the free exercise of their religious beliefs … The members of the Church [she] decided to abandon have concluded that they no longer want to associate with her. We hold that they are free to make that choice."[99][100]
Unbaptized publishers[edit]
An unbaptized individual who has previously been approved to share in Jehovah's Witnesses' formal ministry or participate in their Theocratic Ministry School, but who subsequently behaves in a manner considered inappropriate may lose privileges, such as commenting at meetings, receiving assignments, or even accompanying the congregation in the public ministry.[101]
If an unbaptized individual is deemed unrepentant of actions for which baptized members might be disfellowshipped, an announcement would be made that the person "is no longer a publisher of the good news."[102] Such individuals were previously shunned, but formal restrictions are no longer imposed on unbaptized individuals, though association is generally curtailed. The elders might privately warn individuals in the congregation if the unbaptized person is considered to pose "an unusual threat".[103]
Critical view[edit]
The only way to officially leave Jehovah's Witnesses is to disassociate or be disfellowshipped, and both entail the same set of prohibitions and penalties, with no provision for continued normal association. Sociologist Andrew Holden has claimed that fear of family break-up or loss causes people who might otherwise freely leave the religion to remain members.[104] Jehovah's Witnesses state that disfellowshipping is a scripturally documented method to protect the congregation from the influence of those who practice serious wrongdoing.[105] Critics contend that the judicial process itself, due to its private and nearly autonomous nature, directly contradicts the precedent found in the Bible and the organization's own teachings and can be used in an arbitrary manner if there is consensus among just a few to abuse their authority.[106]
According to Raymond Franz, a letter dated September 1, 1980, from the Watch Tower Society to all circuit and district overseers advised that a member who "merely disagrees in thought with any of the Watch Tower Society's teachings is committing apostasy and is liable for disfellowshipping."[107] The letter states that one does not have to "promote" different doctrines to be an apostate, adding that elders need to "discern between one who is a trouble-making apostate and a Christian who becomes weak in the faith and has doubts."[107] Watch Tower Society publications indicate that some type of action is required for a member to be disfellowshipped, rather than a 'disagreement in thought'.[108]
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Speak What "Is Good for Building Up"", "Keep Yourselves in God’s Love", page 142-143
2.Jump up ^ "Maintaining the Peace and Cleanness of the Congregation", Organized to Do Jehovah's Will, page 151
3.Jump up ^ Our Kingdom Ministry, Service meeting schedule, 1992-2009
4.Jump up ^ "Question Box", Our Kingdom Ministry, March 1972, page 4
5.Jump up ^ "Do You Accept Jehovah’s Help?", The Watchtower, December 15, 2004, page 21
6.Jump up ^ "Charisma—Praise to Man or Glory to God?", The Watchtower, February 15, 1998, page 27
7.Jump up ^ "How Christian Shepherds Serve You", The Watchtower, March 15, 1996, page 27
8.Jump up ^ "Announcements", Our Kingdom Ministry, June 2005, page 3
9.Jump up ^ "Guidelines for School Overseers", Benefit From Theocratic Ministry School Education, ©2001 Watch Tower, page 284, subheading "Making Assignments"
10.Jump up ^ Jehovah's Witnesses use the term "special privileges of service" for positions requiring formal appointment or approval, such as elder, ministerial servant, pioneer, Bethel (branch) service, and schools such as Gilead and Ministerial Training School; "Make Room for It", Our Kingdom Ministry, April 2003, page 1
11.Jump up ^ Draw Close To Jehovah chap. 26 pp. 268-269 par. 22
12.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 10/15/96 p. 21 par. 7 Father and Elder—Fulfilling Both Roles
13.Jump up ^ "Announcements", Our Kingdom Ministry, February 1991, page 7
14.Jump up ^ "Let Discernment Safeguard You", The Watchtower, March 15, 1997, page 19
15.Jump up ^ "Let Your Advancement Be Manifest", Theocratic Ministry School Guidebook, page 191
16.Jump up ^ "Are You Reaching Out?", The Watchtower, September 1, 1990, page 23
17.^ Jump up to: a b c The Watchtower 4/15/85 p. 31 Questions From Readers
18.Jump up ^ "Questions From Readers". The Watchtower: 12. 15 April 2009. "Understanding that timeless truth has helped millions of Christians to repudiate the practice of abortion, seeing it as a serious sin against God."
19.Jump up ^ "Apostasy" includes publicly challenging the religion's teachings
20.Jump up ^ Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom. pp. 182–184. "Consistent with that understanding of matters, beginning in 1961 any who ignored the divine requirement, accepted blood transfusions, and manifested an unrepentant attitude were disfellowshipped from the congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses."
21.Jump up ^ Shepherd the Flock of God, pages 60, "Rather than relating to bad conduct of a somewhat petty or minor nature, "brazen conduct" describes acts that reflect an attitude that betrays disrespect, disregard, or even contempt for divine standards, laws, and authority."
22.Jump up ^ "Questions from Readers: What does the expression 'loose conduct' as found at Galatians 5:19 mean?". (September 15, 1973). The Watchtower, p. 574, "It is not limited to acts of sexual immorality. And, rather than relating to bad conduct of a somewhat petty or minor nature, it apparently describes acts that reflect a brazen attitude, one that betrays disrespect, disregard or even contempt for standards, laws and authority. The ‘looseness' of the conduct, therefore, is not due principally to weakness but results from an attitude of disrespect, insolence or shamelessness."
23.^ Jump up to: a b "You Must Be Holy Because Jehovah Is Holy". The Watchtower: 123. 15 February 1976. "Jehovah has brought to the attention of his “holy” people the need to disfellowship those dedicated, baptized Christians who refuse to break and give up the drug and tobacco habits."
24.^ Jump up to: a b c Shepherd the Flock of God, page 69
25.^ Jump up to: a b Shepherd the Flock of God, p. 67-68
26.Jump up ^ Shepherd the Flock of God, page 65
27.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 15, 2009, p. 18, "Speak Truth With Your Neighbor".
28.Jump up ^ "Honor Godly Marriage!", The Watchtower, March 15, 1983, p. 31
29.Jump up ^ "Adjust the Bible to Polygamy?". The Watchtower: 10. 1 July 1985. "polygamy is not to be condoned for any Christian regardless of nationality or circumstance. ... This leaves no room for polygamy among true Christians."
30.Jump up ^ Watchtower 7/15/06 p. 31 Questions From Readers; "But not all viewing of pornography calls for a hearing before a judicial committee. … However, suppose a Christian has secretly viewed abhorrent, sexually degrading pornography for years and has done everything possible to conceal this sin. Such pornography might feature gang rape, bondage, sadistic torture, the brutalizing of women, or even child pornography. When others become aware of his conduct, he is deeply ashamed. He has not been brazen, but the elders may determine that he has ‘given himself over’ to this filthy habit and has practiced ‘uncleanness with greediness,’ that is, gross uncleanness. A judicial committee would be formed because gross uncleanness is involved. The wrongdoer would be disfellowshipped if he did not display godly repentance"
31.Jump up ^ "Prevention in the Home". Awake!: 10. 8 October 1993. "Similarly the Christian congregation today enforces strong laws against all forms of sexual abuse. Anyone who sexually abuses a child risks being disfellowshipped, put out of the congregation."
32.Jump up ^ "Personally Benefiting from the Bible’s Laws and Principles". The Watchtower: 404–405. 1 July 1970. "In the Christian congregation there are definite laws against adultery, incest, homosexuality, bestiality, murder, stealing and other things, any of which, when committed by a Christian, would bring reproach from the world against the congregation. These things the Bible has put under the authority of the congregation, that is, it is required to take some action."
33.Jump up ^ Insight on the Scriptures 1. p. 788. "Some of the offenses that could merit disfellowshipping from the Christian congregation are fornication, adultery, homosexuality, greed, extortion, thievery, lying, drunkenness, reviling, spiritism, murder, idolatry, apostasy, and the causing of divisions in the congregation."
34.Jump up ^ To All Circuit and District Overseers, September 1, 1980, "Keep in mind that to be disfellowshipped, an apostate does not have to be a promoter of apostate views. ... if a baptized Christian abandons the teachings of Jehovah, as presented by the faithful and discreet slave, and persists in believing other doctrine despite Scriptural reproof, then he is apostatizing. ... [If] he continues to believe the apostate ideas and rejects what he has been provided through the 'slave class,' then appropriate judicial action should be taken. ... [If] something reasonably substantial comes to the attention of the elders along this line, it would be appropriate to make a kindly, discreet inquiry so as to protect the flock." Letter reproduced in Crisis of Conscience, Raymond Franz, 1983, chapter 11.
35.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 6/1/98 p. 19 par. 17 "Put Up a Hard Fight for the Faith"!
36.Jump up ^ "Show a Waiting Attitude!" The Watchtower September 1, 2000 page 11. Retrieved on 2013-02-02.
37.Jump up ^ "Will You Heed Jehovah's Clear Warnings?", The Watchtower, July 15, 2011, pages 15 and
38.Jump up ^ Holden, Andrew (2002). Jehovah's Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement. Routledge. p. 163. ISBN 0-415-26609-2.
39.Jump up ^ Taylor, Jerome (27 September 2011). "War of words breaks out among Jehovah's Witnesses". The Independent.
40.Jump up ^ "Jehovah's Witnesses church likens defectors to 'contagious, deadly disease'", Sunday Herald Sun, page 39, October 2, 2011.
41.Jump up ^ Pay Attention to Yourselves and to All the Flock, p. 111
42.Jump up ^ August 15, 1997 Watchtower, p. 27
43.Jump up ^ Insight in the Scriptures, Volume 2, p. 969.
44.Jump up ^ "A Time to Speak--When?" Watchtower, September 1, 1987, pp. 12-15
45.Jump up ^ "New Arrangements for Congregation Organization", Our Kingdom Ministry, September 1977, pages 5-6
46.Jump up ^ ""Gifts in Men" to Care for Jehovah’s Sheep", The Watchtower, June 1, 1999, page 14
47.Jump up ^ "Elders, Judge With Righteousness", The Watchtower, July 1, 1992, page 16
48.Jump up ^ "Disfellowshipping—A Loving Provision?", The Watchtower, July 15, 1995, page 25
49.Jump up ^ "Jehovah’s Sheep Need Tender Care", The Watchtower, January 15, 1996, page 18
50.Jump up ^ "Questions From Readers", The Watchtower, July 15, 2006, pages 30-31"
51.Jump up ^ "Question Box", Our Kingdom Ministry, October 1972, page 8
52.Jump up ^ "Make Wise Use of Your Christian Freedom", June 1, 1992, page 19
53.Jump up ^ ""A Time to Speak"—When?", The Watchtower, September 1, 1987, page 14
54.^ Jump up to: a b c d Pay Attention to Yourselves and All the Flock, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1991, page 110-120.
55.Jump up ^ Raymond Franz, In Search of Christian Freedom, Commentary Press, 2007, page 321.
56.Jump up ^ It is unclear whether accused individuals have always had the option to call witnesses. The judicial committee hearing accusations that resulted in the disfellowshipping of Canadian Witness James Penton in February 1981 refused Penton's request to have a lawyer present and to call witnesses. See James A. Beverley, Crisis of Allegiance (Welch Publishing, 1986, page 71).
57.Jump up ^ M. James Penton, Apocalypse Delayed, University of Toronto Press, 1997, page 89.
58.Jump up ^ "New Arrangements for Congregation Organization", Our Kingdom Ministry, September 1977, page 6
59.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 12/1/76 p. 723 par. 15 How Wise Reprovers Aid Erring Ones
60.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 9/1/81 p. 23 par. 9 Repentance Leading Back to God
61.Jump up ^ "Imitate Jehovah—Exercise Justice and Righteousness", The Watchtower, August 1, 1998, page 17
62.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 9/15/87 p. 13 par. 13
63.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 9/1/81 p. 26 par. 23 Repentance Leading Back to God
64.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 12/1/76 p. 733 par. 14 Giving Reproof "Before All Onlookers"
65.Jump up ^ '"Maintaining the Peace and Cleanness of the Congregation", Organized to Do Jehovah's Will, ©2005 Watch Tower, page 151, "Elders will use reasonableness and discernment in determining whether a particular situation is sufficiently serious and disturbing to require a warning talk. This talk will not name the disorderly one. However, those who are aware of the situation described in the talk will take heed"
66.Jump up ^ Organized to Do Jehovah's Will 2005, p. 152.
67.Jump up ^ Our Kingdom Ministry March 1983, p. 3.
68.Jump up ^ "Always Accept Jehovah’s Discipline", The Watchtower, November 15, 2006, page 30, "During the time that an individual who has been judicially reproved is healing spiritually, ...it would be beneficial for the repentant one to listen rather than comment at meetings. The elders may arrange for someone to have a Bible study with him to strengthen him where he is weak so that he may again become “healthy in faith.” (Titus 2:2) All of this is done in love and is not intended to punish the wrongdoer."
69.Jump up ^ How Baptism Can Save Us The Watchtower Jan 15, 1989, p. 17.
70.Jump up ^ "Disfellowshiping—How to View It", The Watchtower, September 15, 1981, page 22, "Thus "disfellowshiping" is what Jehovah’s Witnesses appropriately call the expelling and subsequent shunning of such an unrepentant wrongdoer. [emphasis added]"
71.^ Jump up to: a b c "Beliefs—Frequently Asked Questions", Authorized Site of the Office of Public Information of Jehovah's Witnesses, As Retrieved 2009-08-28, "Do you shun former members? ... If, however, someone unrepentantly practices serious sins, such as drunkenness, stealing or adultery, he will be disfellowshipped and such an individual is avoided by former fellow-worshipers. ... The marriage relationship and normal family affections and dealings can continue. ... Disfellowshipped individuals may continue to attend religious services and, if they wish, they may receive spiritual counsel from the elders with a view to their being restored. They are always welcome to return to the faith [emphasis retained from source]"
72.Jump up ^ "Keep Yourselves in God's Love", page 35.
73.Jump up ^ "You May Gain Your Brother", The Watchtower, October 15, 1999, page 22.
74.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 11/15/06 p. 27 par. 6 Always Accept Jehovah’s Discipline
75.Jump up ^ Jealous for the Pure Worship of Jehovah, The Watchtower September 15, 1995, p. 11.
76.Jump up ^ The Bible's Viewpoint - Why Disfellowshipping Is a Loving Arrangement Awake! September 8, 1996, p. 26-27.
77.Jump up ^ "Jehovah's Witnesses drop transfusion ban". "transfusions have been relegated to 'non-disfellowshipping events' ... If a member has a transfusion, they will, by their actions disassociate themselves from the religion."
78.Jump up ^ Watchtower 10/15/86 p. 31 Questions From Readers | "… the person no longer wants to have anything to do with Jehovah’s people and is determined to remain in a false religion? They would then simply announce to the congregation that such one has disassociated himself and thus is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
79.Jump up ^ Watchtower 1/15/82 p. 31 Questions From Readers | "The second situation involves a person who renounces his standing in the congregation by joining a secular organization whose purpose is contrary to counsel such as that found at Isaiah 2:4, … neither will they learn war anymore."
80.Jump up ^ Questions from readers, The Watchtower, October 15, 1986, page 31.
81.Jump up ^ "Disfellowshiping—How to View It", The Watchtower, September 15, 1981, page 23.
82.Jump up ^ "Do You Hate Lawlessness?", The Watchtower, February 15, 2011, page 31, "Do we share Jesus’ view of those who have become set in their lawless course? We need to give thought to these questions: ‘Would I choose to associate regularly with someone who has been disfellowshipped or who has disassociated himself from the Christian congregation? What if that one is a close relative who no longer lives at home?’ Such a situation can be a real test of our loyalty to God."
83.Jump up ^ Pay Attention to Yourselves and to All the Flock. 1991. pp. 121–122.
84.Jump up ^ Shepherd the Flock of God, p. 104.
85.Jump up ^ Pay Attention to Yourselves and all the Flock, Unit 5(a) p. 103. The section cites 2 John 11 ("For he that says a greeting to him is a sharer in his wicked works.")
86.Jump up ^ Botting, Heather; Gary Botting (1984), The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses, University of Toronto Press, p. 91, ISBN 0-8020-6545-7
87.Jump up ^ "How to Treat a Disfellowshipped Person", "Keep Yourselves in God’s Love", ©2008 Watch Tower, page 207-208, "We do not have spiritual or social fellowship with disfellowshipped ones. ...In some instances, the disfellowshipped family member may still be living in the same home as part of the immediate household. Since his being disfellowshipped does not sever the family ties, normal day-to-day family activities and dealings may continue. Yet, by his course, the individual has chosen to break the spiritual bond between him and his believing family. So loyal family members can no longer have spiritual fellowship with him. [emphasis added]"
88.Jump up ^ "How Can You Help a 'Prodigal' Child?". Watchtower: 16–17. October 1, 2001.
89.Jump up ^ "Disfellowshiping—How to View It". Watchtower: 26. September 15, 1981. "It might be possible to have almost no contact at all with the relative. Even if there were some family matters requiring contact, this certainly would be kept to a minimum"
90.^ Jump up to: a b "Safeguard Your Heart". Awake!: 28. 8 July 1970. "And if he seeks reinstatement, he must show his sincerity by attending congregation meetings with no one speaking to him, all the while giving evidence of repentance."
91.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 4/15/91 p. 21 par. 6
92.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 8/1/98 p. 16 par. 16 Imitate Jehovah—Exercise Justice and Righteousness
93.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 5/1/98 p. 15 par. 10 " True repentance comes from the heart, from the depths of our being"
94.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 11/15/06 p. 27 par. 9 Always Accept Jehovah’s Discipline
95.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 8/15/92 p. 31 A Step on the Way Back
96.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 8/15/82 p. 31 A Step on the Way Back
97.Jump up ^ Shepherd the Flock of God. Watch Tower Society. p. 119.
98.Jump up ^ Divine Mercy Points the Way Back for Erring Ones The Watchtower Aug 1, 1974, p. 466 par. 24.
99.Jump up ^ "Discipline That Can Yield Peaceable Fruit", The Watchtower April 15, 1988, pages 26-30.
100.Jump up ^ "Religion: The Right To Shun", Time magazine, June 29, 1987, Online, "The Constitution's guarantee of "free exercise," said the appeals panel, applies even to unpopular groups and practices"
101.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 11/15/88 p. 18 par. 14 Helping Others to Worship God
102.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 11/15/88 p. 19 par. 17 Helping Others to Worship God
103.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 11/15/88 p. 19 par. 19 Helping Others to Worship God
104.Jump up ^ Holden, Andrew (2002). Jehovah's Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement. Routledge. pp. 150, 156–157. ISBN 0-415-26609-2.
105.Jump up ^ Jehovah’s Witnesses – Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom chap. 15 p. 232 "Development of the Organization Structure"
106.Jump up ^ Raymond Franz, In Search Of Christian Freedom, pp.374–390. Franz claims the Watch Tower organization ignores the "clear principle of openness in the conduct of judicial proceedings" and cites the Watch Tower Society publication, Insight on the Scriptures, Vol 1, p. 518, which states that "publicity that would be afforded any trial at the gate would tend to influence the judges toward care and justice in the trial proceedings and in their decisions".
107.^ Jump up to: a b Franz, Raymond. Crisis of Conscience. 4th ed. Atlanta: Commentary Press, 2004. pp. 341-2. ISBN 0-914675-24-9.
108.Jump up ^ The Watchtower March 15, 1986 p.15 paragraph 17 "Do Not Be Quickly Shaken From Your Reason"; The Watchtower October 15, 1986 p. 31 Questions From Readers; The Watchtower October 1, 1989 p. 19 paragraph 14 Maintain Your Faith and Spiritual Health; Pay Attention to Yourselves and all the Flock p. 94-95; The Watchtower May 1, 2000 p.12 par. 19 Firmly Uphold Godly Teaching; The Watchtower September 1, 2000 p. 13 par. 10 Show a Waiting Attitude!; The Watchtower April 1, 1986 pp. 30-31 Questions From Readers.
  


Categories: Beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses
Disengagement from religion
Punishments in religion










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Jehovah's Witnesses and congregational discipline

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Jehovah's Witnesses

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Beliefs ·
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Bibliography

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People

Watch Tower presidents

W. H. Conley ·
 C. T. Russell

J. F. Rutherford ·
 N. H. Knorr

F. W. Franz ·
 M. G. Henschel

D. A. Adams

Formative influences

William Miller ·
 Henry Grew

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 N. H. Barbour

John Nelson Darby


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Raymond Franz ·
 Olin Moyle


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Jehovah's Witnesses employ various levels of congregational discipline as formal controls administered by congregation elders. Guilt and repentance are determined by a tribunal of elders, and hearings concerning what they term "serious sin" are performed by formal judicial committees. A variety of controls can be enforced, from restriction of duties performed in the congregation to excommunication, known as disfellowshipping, and shunning by the congregation. Members who are disfellowshipped have an opportunity to regain membership. The practice of disfellowshipping has been criticized by many non-members and ex-members.


Contents  [hide]
1 Correction
2 Discipline involving non-judicial situations 2.1 Local needs
2.2 Shepherding calls
2.3 Withheld recommendations or assignments
2.4 Loss of "special privileges"
2.5 Limited "privileges of service"
2.6 Marking
3 Discipline involving "serious sin" 3.1 List of "serious sins"
3.2 Procedures
3.3 Judicial committee
3.4 Reproof
3.5 Shunning 3.5.1 Reinstatement
3.5.2 Legality

4 Unbaptized publishers
5 Critical view
6 References

Correction[edit]
Non-judicial situations involve actions that are considered sinful or simply regrettable but are not considered to be of sufficient gravity to necessitate a judicial committee, and cannot result in disfellowshipping from the congregation; specific action by congregation elders is not administered in such situations, but counsel (or correction) may be provided by a mature Witness in addition to self-discipline and family discipline.[1] Elders may also give recommendations or warnings to members in non-judicial situations.
If an active baptized Witness is considered to have committed a "serious sin" for which the sinner must demonstrate formal repentance, correction (or, "discipline") is administered by the congregation’s body of elders. Such situations usually involve a "judicial committee" of three or more elders.[2]
Discipline involving non-judicial situations[edit]
At the elders' discretion, "non-judicial" situations may involve discipline of one or more of several types, presented here in escalating seriousness.
Local needs[edit]
At conventions and assemblies, and about once each month at a local Service Meeting, a short talk regarding "local needs" is presented.[3] An elder addresses matters that are relevant to the local congregation, with instructions outlining the course of action considered appropriate. No specific individuals are identified during the talk, but the talk may relate to a matter for which a member has recently been "reproved". At times, some temporary policy may be announced that might be seen as disciplinary; for example, it may be that an additional attendant is assigned outside a Kingdom Hall to discourage children from running on the sidewalk.[4]
Shepherding calls[edit]
Personal "shepherding visits" are intended to encourage members of the congregation, though may also include counsel and correction, then or on a subsequent visit.[5][6] Two elders (or an elder and a ministerial servant) may schedule and perform a particular shepherding visit on their own or at the direction of the body of elders.[7]
Withheld recommendations or assignments[edit]
The body of elders may withhold its recommendation for a member to serve in a new position of responsibility, though still permitting existing responsibilities.[8]
For example, a ministerial servant who consistently seems insufficiently prepared for his meeting parts may have such assignments withheld for a time, even though he may continue serving as a ministerial servant or in some other "special privilege of service".[9]
Loss of "special privileges"[edit]
Elders, ministerial servants, pioneers, or other appointed Witnesses can lose their "special privileges of service".[10][11] For example, an elder may be removed or choose to step aside voluntarily from his position if members of his household are not in "good standing".[12] After resignation or removal from an appointed position, an announcement is made during the congregation's Service Meeting indicating that the person is "no longer serving", without elaboration.[13]
Limited "privileges of service"[edit]
An active Jehovah's Witness may have their congregational "privileges of service" limited even without having committed a serious sin. For example, the body of elders may feel that a member wronged others by some investment scheme which was not necessarily fraudulent.[14] While Witnesses sometimes refer to field ministry, after-meeting cleanup, and other responsibilities as "privileges", the term "privileges of service" often implies a specific range of assignments assisting elders and ministerial servants with meeting demonstrations and other responsibilities.[15] Such limitations are usually temporary.[16]
Marking[edit]
Members who persist in a course considered scripturally wrong after repeated counsel by elders,[17] but who are not guilty of something for which they could be disfellowshipped,[17] can be "marked", based on Jehovah's Witnesses' interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 3:14. Though not shunned, "marked" individuals are looked upon as bad association and social interaction outside of formal worship settings is generally curtailed. This action is intended to "shame" the person into following a particular course of action.[17] "Marking" is indicated by means of a talk given at the Service Meeting outlining the shameful course, but without explicitly naming any particular individual. Members who know whose actions are being discussed may then consider the individual "marked".
Discipline involving "serious sin"[edit]
List of "serious sins"[edit]
Jehovah's Witnesses consider many actions to be "serious sins", for which baptized Witnesses are subject to a judicial committee hearing. Such actions include: abortion,[18] adultery, apostasy,[19] bestiality, blood transfusions,[20] "brazen conduct" or "loose conduct",[21][22] drug abuse,[23] drunkenness, extortion,[24] fornication, fraud,[25] gambling,[24] greed,[24] homosexual activity, idolatry, incest, interfaith activity,[26] lying,[27] manslaughter, murder, "perverted sex relations",[28] polygamy,[29] pornography,[30] reviling, sexual abuse,[31] slander,[25] spiritism, theft, and use of tobacco.[23][32][33]
If a baptized Witness teaches contrary to Witness doctrines, it is considered apostasy and grounds for disfellowshipping. A 1981 letter to overseers—reproduced in a book by former Governing Body member Raymond Franz—directed that a member who "persists in believing other doctrine", even without promoting such beliefs, may also be subject to disfellowshipping.[34] Elders usually try to reason with the individual before such action is taken.[35] If a person believes that a teaching should be adjusted or changed, he is encouraged "to be patient and wait on Jehovah for change".[36]The Watchtower states that "apostates are “mentally diseased,” and they seek to infect others with their disloyal teachings. (1 Timothy 6:3, 4 [NWT]).";[37][38] some have stated that this applies to all individuals who leave the organization.[39][40]
Procedures[edit]
Evidence for actions that can result in congregational discipline is obtained by voluntary confession to the elders or by witnesses of the violation. A minimum of two witnesses is required to establish guilt, based on their understanding of Deuteronomy 17:6 and Matthew 18:16, unless the person confesses voluntarily.[41] Members are instructed to report serious sins committed by others members.[42] Failure to report a serious sin of another member is viewed as sharing in the sins of others, a sin before God.[43] Witnesses are instructed that pledges of confidentiality may be broken to report what they believe to be transgressions.[44]
A congregation's body of elders considers confessions or credible allegations of serious sin, and decides whether a judicial committee will be formed to address the matter.[45] A judicial committee, usually consisting of three elders, investigates the details of the alleged sin further. The committee arranges a formal judicial hearing to determine the circumstances of the sin, whether the accused is repentant, and whether disciplinary actions will be taken.[46][47][48]
In certain situations, a body of elders may handle a situation involving "serious sin" by a baptized Witness without a judicial committee:
Minor or newly baptized - A minor or newly baptized Witness might commit one or two acts of "serious sin" involving tobacco or overdrinking;[49][50] repercussions as for 'non-judicial' situations may still be imposed.
Repentance - The body of elders may believe the sinner's repentance has been established and accepted. For example, if a member committed a "serious sin" several years ago, had formally repented in prayer, and the sin did not involve scheming.[51] Witnesses are strongly discouraged from waiting years to resolve such matters;[52] even if years have passed since the serious sin, it is typical for a judicial committee to be formed, and there may still be repercussions as for ‘non-judicial’ situations.
Judicial abeyance - Elders may become aware of a "serious sin" committed by a baptized Witness who has been inactive for some time and is not perceived as a Jehovah’s Witness. If the alleged sinner is not associating with active Witnesses, the elders may indefinitely postpone a judicial committee and formal hearing unless and until the individual renews their association with the congregation.[53]
Judicial committee[edit]
A person accused of a serious sin is informed of the allegations and invited to attend a judicial committee meeting. The individual is permitted to bring witnesses who can speak in their defense; observers are not allowed,[54] and the hearing is held privately even if the accused individual requests that it be heard openly so all may witness the evidence.[55][56] Recording devices are not permitted at the hearing.[54] If the accused repeatedly fails to attend an arranged hearing, the committee will proceed but will not make a decision until evidence and testimony by witnesses are considered.[54]
The committee takes the role of prosecutor, judge and jury when handling its cases.[57] After the hearing is opened with a prayer, the accused is invited to make a personal statement. If there is no admission of guilt, the individual is informed of the source of the charges and witnesses are presented one at a time to give evidence. Witnesses do not remain present for the entire hearing. Once all the evidence is presented, the accused and all witnesses are dismissed and the committee reviews the evidence and the attitude of the accused.[54]
The committee may determine that there was no "serious sin", or that mitigating circumstances absolve the accused individual. The committee may then proceed with discipline such as is described for 'non-judicial' situations.[58] Alternatively, the committee may decide that a serious sin was committed, in which case, the committee gives verbal admonitions and gauges the individual's attitude and repentance. The committee then decides whether discipline will involve formal reproof or disfellowshipping.
Reproof[edit]
Reproof involves actions for which a person could be disfellowshipped, and is said to be an effort to 'reach the heart' and convince a person of the need to hate the sanctioned actions[59][60] and repent.[61] Reproof is considered sufficient if the individual is deemed repentant.[62][63] Reproof is given before all who are aware of the transgression. If the conduct is known only to the individual and the judicial committee, reproof is given privately. If the sin is known by a small number, they would be invited by the elders, and reproof would be given before the sinner and those with knowledge of the sin. If the action is known generally by the entire congregation or the wider community, an announcement is made that the person "has been reproved".[64] A related local needs talk may be given, separately to the announcement, without naming anyone.[65]
In all cases of reproof, restrictions are imposed,[66] typically prohibiting the individual from sharing in meeting parts, commenting during meetings, and giving group prayers. A reproved Witness cannot enroll as a pioneer or auxiliary pioneer for at least one year after reproof is given.[67][68]
Shunning[edit]
All members are expected to abide by the beliefs and moral standards of Jehovah's Witnesses.[69] Serious violations of these requirements can result in disfellowshipping (similar to excommunication) and subsequent shunning if not deemed repentant.[70][71] When a judicial committee decides that a baptized Witness has committed a serious sin and is unrepentant, the person is disfellowshipped. A person can appeal if they believe that a serious error in judgment has been made. Requests for appeal must be made in writing and within seven days of the decision of the judicial committee. Their shunning policy is based on their interpretation of scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 5:11-13; Matthew 18:15-17; and 2 John 9-11.[72][73] Witness literature states that avoiding interaction with disfellowshipped former adherents helps to:[74]
avoid reproach on God's name and organization by indicating that violations of the Bible's standards in their ranks are not tolerated;
keep the congregation free of possible corrosive influences;[75] and
convince the disfellowshipped individual to re-evaluate their course of action, repent and rejoin the religion.[76]
Shunning is also practiced when a member formally resigns membership or is deemed to indicate by their actions—such as accepting a blood transfusion[77] or association with another religion[78] or military organization[79]—that they do not wish to be known as a Witness. Such individuals are said to have disassociated,[80][81] and are described by the Watch Tower Society as "lawless" in a spiritual sense.[82]
When a person is disfellowshipped or is deemed to have disassociated, an announcement is made at the next Service Meeting that the named individual "is no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses". Congregation members are not informed whether a person is being shunned due to "disfellowshipping" or "disassociation", nor on what grounds. Shunning starts immediately after the announcement is made.[83][84]
Failure to adhere to the directions on shunning is itself considered a serious offense. Members who continue to speak to or associate with a disfellowshipped or disassociated person are said to be sharing in their "wicked works"[85] and may themselves be disfellowshipped.[86] Exceptions are made in some cases such as business relations and immediate family household situations.[71] If a disfellowshipped person is living in the same home with other baptized family members, religious matters are not discussed, with the exception of minors, for whose training parents are still responsible.[87][88] Disfellowshipped family members outside the home are shunned.[89] Disfellowshipped individuals can continue attending meetings held at the Kingdom Hall, though they are shunned by the congregation.[90]
Reinstatement[edit]
Disfellowshipped individuals may be reinstated into the congregation if they are considered repentant of their previous actions and attitude. When a disassociated or disfellowshipped individual requests reinstatement, a judicial committee, (the committee originally involved, if available) seeks to determine whether the person has repented.[91] Such individuals must demonstrate that they no longer practice the conduct for which they were expelled from the congregation, as well as submission to the religion's regulations.[92][93][94] Individuals disfellowshipped for actions no longer considered serious sins, such as organ transplants, are not automatically reinstated. Attending meetings while being shunned is a requirement for eventual reinstatement.[95][90] Once a decision is made to reinstate, a brief announcement is made to the congregation that the individual is once again one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Elders are instructed to make an attempt each year to remind disfellowshipped individuals of the steps they can take to qualify for reinstatement.[71][96] No specific period of time is prescribed before this can happen, however the Watch Tower Society suggests a period of "perhaps many months, a year, or longer."[97] In 1974, the Watch Tower Society stated that about one third of those disfellowshipped eventually return to the group, based on figures gathered from 1963 to 1973.[98][needs update]
Legality[edit]
In June 1987, the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld the Witnesses' right to shun those who fail to live by the group's standards and doctrines, upholding the ruling of a lower court, finding that "shunning is a practice engaged in by Jehovah's Witnesses pursuant to their interpretation of canonical text, and we are not free to reinterpret that text … The defendants are entitled to the free exercise of their religious beliefs … The members of the Church [she] decided to abandon have concluded that they no longer want to associate with her. We hold that they are free to make that choice."[99][100]
Unbaptized publishers[edit]
An unbaptized individual who has previously been approved to share in Jehovah's Witnesses' formal ministry or participate in their Theocratic Ministry School, but who subsequently behaves in a manner considered inappropriate may lose privileges, such as commenting at meetings, receiving assignments, or even accompanying the congregation in the public ministry.[101]
If an unbaptized individual is deemed unrepentant of actions for which baptized members might be disfellowshipped, an announcement would be made that the person "is no longer a publisher of the good news."[102] Such individuals were previously shunned, but formal restrictions are no longer imposed on unbaptized individuals, though association is generally curtailed. The elders might privately warn individuals in the congregation if the unbaptized person is considered to pose "an unusual threat".[103]
Critical view[edit]
The only way to officially leave Jehovah's Witnesses is to disassociate or be disfellowshipped, and both entail the same set of prohibitions and penalties, with no provision for continued normal association. Sociologist Andrew Holden has claimed that fear of family break-up or loss causes people who might otherwise freely leave the religion to remain members.[104] Jehovah's Witnesses state that disfellowshipping is a scripturally documented method to protect the congregation from the influence of those who practice serious wrongdoing.[105] Critics contend that the judicial process itself, due to its private and nearly autonomous nature, directly contradicts the precedent found in the Bible and the organization's own teachings and can be used in an arbitrary manner if there is consensus among just a few to abuse their authority.[106]
According to Raymond Franz, a letter dated September 1, 1980, from the Watch Tower Society to all circuit and district overseers advised that a member who "merely disagrees in thought with any of the Watch Tower Society's teachings is committing apostasy and is liable for disfellowshipping."[107] The letter states that one does not have to "promote" different doctrines to be an apostate, adding that elders need to "discern between one who is a trouble-making apostate and a Christian who becomes weak in the faith and has doubts."[107] Watch Tower Society publications indicate that some type of action is required for a member to be disfellowshipped, rather than a 'disagreement in thought'.[108]
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Speak What "Is Good for Building Up"", "Keep Yourselves in God’s Love", page 142-143
2.Jump up ^ "Maintaining the Peace and Cleanness of the Congregation", Organized to Do Jehovah's Will, page 151
3.Jump up ^ Our Kingdom Ministry, Service meeting schedule, 1992-2009
4.Jump up ^ "Question Box", Our Kingdom Ministry, March 1972, page 4
5.Jump up ^ "Do You Accept Jehovah’s Help?", The Watchtower, December 15, 2004, page 21
6.Jump up ^ "Charisma—Praise to Man or Glory to God?", The Watchtower, February 15, 1998, page 27
7.Jump up ^ "How Christian Shepherds Serve You", The Watchtower, March 15, 1996, page 27
8.Jump up ^ "Announcements", Our Kingdom Ministry, June 2005, page 3
9.Jump up ^ "Guidelines for School Overseers", Benefit From Theocratic Ministry School Education, ©2001 Watch Tower, page 284, subheading "Making Assignments"
10.Jump up ^ Jehovah's Witnesses use the term "special privileges of service" for positions requiring formal appointment or approval, such as elder, ministerial servant, pioneer, Bethel (branch) service, and schools such as Gilead and Ministerial Training School; "Make Room for It", Our Kingdom Ministry, April 2003, page 1
11.Jump up ^ Draw Close To Jehovah chap. 26 pp. 268-269 par. 22
12.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 10/15/96 p. 21 par. 7 Father and Elder—Fulfilling Both Roles
13.Jump up ^ "Announcements", Our Kingdom Ministry, February 1991, page 7
14.Jump up ^ "Let Discernment Safeguard You", The Watchtower, March 15, 1997, page 19
15.Jump up ^ "Let Your Advancement Be Manifest", Theocratic Ministry School Guidebook, page 191
16.Jump up ^ "Are You Reaching Out?", The Watchtower, September 1, 1990, page 23
17.^ Jump up to: a b c The Watchtower 4/15/85 p. 31 Questions From Readers
18.Jump up ^ "Questions From Readers". The Watchtower: 12. 15 April 2009. "Understanding that timeless truth has helped millions of Christians to repudiate the practice of abortion, seeing it as a serious sin against God."
19.Jump up ^ "Apostasy" includes publicly challenging the religion's teachings
20.Jump up ^ Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom. pp. 182–184. "Consistent with that understanding of matters, beginning in 1961 any who ignored the divine requirement, accepted blood transfusions, and manifested an unrepentant attitude were disfellowshipped from the congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses."
21.Jump up ^ Shepherd the Flock of God, pages 60, "Rather than relating to bad conduct of a somewhat petty or minor nature, "brazen conduct" describes acts that reflect an attitude that betrays disrespect, disregard, or even contempt for divine standards, laws, and authority."
22.Jump up ^ "Questions from Readers: What does the expression 'loose conduct' as found at Galatians 5:19 mean?". (September 15, 1973). The Watchtower, p. 574, "It is not limited to acts of sexual immorality. And, rather than relating to bad conduct of a somewhat petty or minor nature, it apparently describes acts that reflect a brazen attitude, one that betrays disrespect, disregard or even contempt for standards, laws and authority. The ‘looseness' of the conduct, therefore, is not due principally to weakness but results from an attitude of disrespect, insolence or shamelessness."
23.^ Jump up to: a b "You Must Be Holy Because Jehovah Is Holy". The Watchtower: 123. 15 February 1976. "Jehovah has brought to the attention of his “holy” people the need to disfellowship those dedicated, baptized Christians who refuse to break and give up the drug and tobacco habits."
24.^ Jump up to: a b c Shepherd the Flock of God, page 69
25.^ Jump up to: a b Shepherd the Flock of God, p. 67-68
26.Jump up ^ Shepherd the Flock of God, page 65
27.Jump up ^ The Watchtower, June 15, 2009, p. 18, "Speak Truth With Your Neighbor".
28.Jump up ^ "Honor Godly Marriage!", The Watchtower, March 15, 1983, p. 31
29.Jump up ^ "Adjust the Bible to Polygamy?". The Watchtower: 10. 1 July 1985. "polygamy is not to be condoned for any Christian regardless of nationality or circumstance. ... This leaves no room for polygamy among true Christians."
30.Jump up ^ Watchtower 7/15/06 p. 31 Questions From Readers; "But not all viewing of pornography calls for a hearing before a judicial committee. … However, suppose a Christian has secretly viewed abhorrent, sexually degrading pornography for years and has done everything possible to conceal this sin. Such pornography might feature gang rape, bondage, sadistic torture, the brutalizing of women, or even child pornography. When others become aware of his conduct, he is deeply ashamed. He has not been brazen, but the elders may determine that he has ‘given himself over’ to this filthy habit and has practiced ‘uncleanness with greediness,’ that is, gross uncleanness. A judicial committee would be formed because gross uncleanness is involved. The wrongdoer would be disfellowshipped if he did not display godly repentance"
31.Jump up ^ "Prevention in the Home". Awake!: 10. 8 October 1993. "Similarly the Christian congregation today enforces strong laws against all forms of sexual abuse. Anyone who sexually abuses a child risks being disfellowshipped, put out of the congregation."
32.Jump up ^ "Personally Benefiting from the Bible’s Laws and Principles". The Watchtower: 404–405. 1 July 1970. "In the Christian congregation there are definite laws against adultery, incest, homosexuality, bestiality, murder, stealing and other things, any of which, when committed by a Christian, would bring reproach from the world against the congregation. These things the Bible has put under the authority of the congregation, that is, it is required to take some action."
33.Jump up ^ Insight on the Scriptures 1. p. 788. "Some of the offenses that could merit disfellowshipping from the Christian congregation are fornication, adultery, homosexuality, greed, extortion, thievery, lying, drunkenness, reviling, spiritism, murder, idolatry, apostasy, and the causing of divisions in the congregation."
34.Jump up ^ To All Circuit and District Overseers, September 1, 1980, "Keep in mind that to be disfellowshipped, an apostate does not have to be a promoter of apostate views. ... if a baptized Christian abandons the teachings of Jehovah, as presented by the faithful and discreet slave, and persists in believing other doctrine despite Scriptural reproof, then he is apostatizing. ... [If] he continues to believe the apostate ideas and rejects what he has been provided through the 'slave class,' then appropriate judicial action should be taken. ... [If] something reasonably substantial comes to the attention of the elders along this line, it would be appropriate to make a kindly, discreet inquiry so as to protect the flock." Letter reproduced in Crisis of Conscience, Raymond Franz, 1983, chapter 11.
35.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 6/1/98 p. 19 par. 17 "Put Up a Hard Fight for the Faith"!
36.Jump up ^ "Show a Waiting Attitude!" The Watchtower September 1, 2000 page 11. Retrieved on 2013-02-02.
37.Jump up ^ "Will You Heed Jehovah's Clear Warnings?", The Watchtower, July 15, 2011, pages 15 and
38.Jump up ^ Holden, Andrew (2002). Jehovah's Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement. Routledge. p. 163. ISBN 0-415-26609-2.
39.Jump up ^ Taylor, Jerome (27 September 2011). "War of words breaks out among Jehovah's Witnesses". The Independent.
40.Jump up ^ "Jehovah's Witnesses church likens defectors to 'contagious, deadly disease'", Sunday Herald Sun, page 39, October 2, 2011.
41.Jump up ^ Pay Attention to Yourselves and to All the Flock, p. 111
42.Jump up ^ August 15, 1997 Watchtower, p. 27
43.Jump up ^ Insight in the Scriptures, Volume 2, p. 969.
44.Jump up ^ "A Time to Speak--When?" Watchtower, September 1, 1987, pp. 12-15
45.Jump up ^ "New Arrangements for Congregation Organization", Our Kingdom Ministry, September 1977, pages 5-6
46.Jump up ^ ""Gifts in Men" to Care for Jehovah’s Sheep", The Watchtower, June 1, 1999, page 14
47.Jump up ^ "Elders, Judge With Righteousness", The Watchtower, July 1, 1992, page 16
48.Jump up ^ "Disfellowshipping—A Loving Provision?", The Watchtower, July 15, 1995, page 25
49.Jump up ^ "Jehovah’s Sheep Need Tender Care", The Watchtower, January 15, 1996, page 18
50.Jump up ^ "Questions From Readers", The Watchtower, July 15, 2006, pages 30-31"
51.Jump up ^ "Question Box", Our Kingdom Ministry, October 1972, page 8
52.Jump up ^ "Make Wise Use of Your Christian Freedom", June 1, 1992, page 19
53.Jump up ^ ""A Time to Speak"—When?", The Watchtower, September 1, 1987, page 14
54.^ Jump up to: a b c d Pay Attention to Yourselves and All the Flock, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1991, page 110-120.
55.Jump up ^ Raymond Franz, In Search of Christian Freedom, Commentary Press, 2007, page 321.
56.Jump up ^ It is unclear whether accused individuals have always had the option to call witnesses. The judicial committee hearing accusations that resulted in the disfellowshipping of Canadian Witness James Penton in February 1981 refused Penton's request to have a lawyer present and to call witnesses. See James A. Beverley, Crisis of Allegiance (Welch Publishing, 1986, page 71).
57.Jump up ^ M. James Penton, Apocalypse Delayed, University of Toronto Press, 1997, page 89.
58.Jump up ^ "New Arrangements for Congregation Organization", Our Kingdom Ministry, September 1977, page 6
59.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 12/1/76 p. 723 par. 15 How Wise Reprovers Aid Erring Ones
60.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 9/1/81 p. 23 par. 9 Repentance Leading Back to God
61.Jump up ^ "Imitate Jehovah—Exercise Justice and Righteousness", The Watchtower, August 1, 1998, page 17
62.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 9/15/87 p. 13 par. 13
63.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 9/1/81 p. 26 par. 23 Repentance Leading Back to God
64.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 12/1/76 p. 733 par. 14 Giving Reproof "Before All Onlookers"
65.Jump up ^ '"Maintaining the Peace and Cleanness of the Congregation", Organized to Do Jehovah's Will, ©2005 Watch Tower, page 151, "Elders will use reasonableness and discernment in determining whether a particular situation is sufficiently serious and disturbing to require a warning talk. This talk will not name the disorderly one. However, those who are aware of the situation described in the talk will take heed"
66.Jump up ^ Organized to Do Jehovah's Will 2005, p. 152.
67.Jump up ^ Our Kingdom Ministry March 1983, p. 3.
68.Jump up ^ "Always Accept Jehovah’s Discipline", The Watchtower, November 15, 2006, page 30, "During the time that an individual who has been judicially reproved is healing spiritually, ...it would be beneficial for the repentant one to listen rather than comment at meetings. The elders may arrange for someone to have a Bible study with him to strengthen him where he is weak so that he may again become “healthy in faith.” (Titus 2:2) All of this is done in love and is not intended to punish the wrongdoer."
69.Jump up ^ How Baptism Can Save Us The Watchtower Jan 15, 1989, p. 17.
70.Jump up ^ "Disfellowshiping—How to View It", The Watchtower, September 15, 1981, page 22, "Thus "disfellowshiping" is what Jehovah’s Witnesses appropriately call the expelling and subsequent shunning of such an unrepentant wrongdoer. [emphasis added]"
71.^ Jump up to: a b c "Beliefs—Frequently Asked Questions", Authorized Site of the Office of Public Information of Jehovah's Witnesses, As Retrieved 2009-08-28, "Do you shun former members? ... If, however, someone unrepentantly practices serious sins, such as drunkenness, stealing or adultery, he will be disfellowshipped and such an individual is avoided by former fellow-worshipers. ... The marriage relationship and normal family affections and dealings can continue. ... Disfellowshipped individuals may continue to attend religious services and, if they wish, they may receive spiritual counsel from the elders with a view to their being restored. They are always welcome to return to the faith [emphasis retained from source]"
72.Jump up ^ "Keep Yourselves in God's Love", page 35.
73.Jump up ^ "You May Gain Your Brother", The Watchtower, October 15, 1999, page 22.
74.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 11/15/06 p. 27 par. 6 Always Accept Jehovah’s Discipline
75.Jump up ^ Jealous for the Pure Worship of Jehovah, The Watchtower September 15, 1995, p. 11.
76.Jump up ^ The Bible's Viewpoint - Why Disfellowshipping Is a Loving Arrangement Awake! September 8, 1996, p. 26-27.
77.Jump up ^ "Jehovah's Witnesses drop transfusion ban". "transfusions have been relegated to 'non-disfellowshipping events' ... If a member has a transfusion, they will, by their actions disassociate themselves from the religion."
78.Jump up ^ Watchtower 10/15/86 p. 31 Questions From Readers | "… the person no longer wants to have anything to do with Jehovah’s people and is determined to remain in a false religion? They would then simply announce to the congregation that such one has disassociated himself and thus is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
79.Jump up ^ Watchtower 1/15/82 p. 31 Questions From Readers | "The second situation involves a person who renounces his standing in the congregation by joining a secular organization whose purpose is contrary to counsel such as that found at Isaiah 2:4, … neither will they learn war anymore."
80.Jump up ^ Questions from readers, The Watchtower, October 15, 1986, page 31.
81.Jump up ^ "Disfellowshiping—How to View It", The Watchtower, September 15, 1981, page 23.
82.Jump up ^ "Do You Hate Lawlessness?", The Watchtower, February 15, 2011, page 31, "Do we share Jesus’ view of those who have become set in their lawless course? We need to give thought to these questions: ‘Would I choose to associate regularly with someone who has been disfellowshipped or who has disassociated himself from the Christian congregation? What if that one is a close relative who no longer lives at home?’ Such a situation can be a real test of our loyalty to God."
83.Jump up ^ Pay Attention to Yourselves and to All the Flock. 1991. pp. 121–122.
84.Jump up ^ Shepherd the Flock of God, p. 104.
85.Jump up ^ Pay Attention to Yourselves and all the Flock, Unit 5(a) p. 103. The section cites 2 John 11 ("For he that says a greeting to him is a sharer in his wicked works.")
86.Jump up ^ Botting, Heather; Gary Botting (1984), The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses, University of Toronto Press, p. 91, ISBN 0-8020-6545-7
87.Jump up ^ "How to Treat a Disfellowshipped Person", "Keep Yourselves in God’s Love", ©2008 Watch Tower, page 207-208, "We do not have spiritual or social fellowship with disfellowshipped ones. ...In some instances, the disfellowshipped family member may still be living in the same home as part of the immediate household. Since his being disfellowshipped does not sever the family ties, normal day-to-day family activities and dealings may continue. Yet, by his course, the individual has chosen to break the spiritual bond between him and his believing family. So loyal family members can no longer have spiritual fellowship with him. [emphasis added]"
88.Jump up ^ "How Can You Help a 'Prodigal' Child?". Watchtower: 16–17. October 1, 2001.
89.Jump up ^ "Disfellowshiping—How to View It". Watchtower: 26. September 15, 1981. "It might be possible to have almost no contact at all with the relative. Even if there were some family matters requiring contact, this certainly would be kept to a minimum"
90.^ Jump up to: a b "Safeguard Your Heart". Awake!: 28. 8 July 1970. "And if he seeks reinstatement, he must show his sincerity by attending congregation meetings with no one speaking to him, all the while giving evidence of repentance."
91.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 4/15/91 p. 21 par. 6
92.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 8/1/98 p. 16 par. 16 Imitate Jehovah—Exercise Justice and Righteousness
93.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 5/1/98 p. 15 par. 10 " True repentance comes from the heart, from the depths of our being"
94.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 11/15/06 p. 27 par. 9 Always Accept Jehovah’s Discipline
95.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 8/15/92 p. 31 A Step on the Way Back
96.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 8/15/82 p. 31 A Step on the Way Back
97.Jump up ^ Shepherd the Flock of God. Watch Tower Society. p. 119.
98.Jump up ^ Divine Mercy Points the Way Back for Erring Ones The Watchtower Aug 1, 1974, p. 466 par. 24.
99.Jump up ^ "Discipline That Can Yield Peaceable Fruit", The Watchtower April 15, 1988, pages 26-30.
100.Jump up ^ "Religion: The Right To Shun", Time magazine, June 29, 1987, Online, "The Constitution's guarantee of "free exercise," said the appeals panel, applies even to unpopular groups and practices"
101.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 11/15/88 p. 18 par. 14 Helping Others to Worship God
102.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 11/15/88 p. 19 par. 17 Helping Others to Worship God
103.Jump up ^ The Watchtower 11/15/88 p. 19 par. 19 Helping Others to Worship God
104.Jump up ^ Holden, Andrew (2002). Jehovah's Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement. Routledge. pp. 150, 156–157. ISBN 0-415-26609-2.
105.Jump up ^ Jehovah’s Witnesses – Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom chap. 15 p. 232 "Development of the Organization Structure"
106.Jump up ^ Raymond Franz, In Search Of Christian Freedom, pp.374–390. Franz claims the Watch Tower organization ignores the "clear principle of openness in the conduct of judicial proceedings" and cites the Watch Tower Society publication, Insight on the Scriptures, Vol 1, p. 518, which states that "publicity that would be afforded any trial at the gate would tend to influence the judges toward care and justice in the trial proceedings and in their decisions".
107.^ Jump up to: a b Franz, Raymond. Crisis of Conscience. 4th ed. Atlanta: Commentary Press, 2004. pp. 341-2. ISBN 0-914675-24-9.
108.Jump up ^ The Watchtower March 15, 1986 p.15 paragraph 17 "Do Not Be Quickly Shaken From Your Reason"; The Watchtower October 15, 1986 p. 31 Questions From Readers; The Watchtower October 1, 1989 p. 19 paragraph 14 Maintain Your Faith and Spiritual Health; Pay Attention to Yourselves and all the Flock p. 94-95; The Watchtower May 1, 2000 p.12 par. 19 Firmly Uphold Godly Teaching; The Watchtower September 1, 2000 p. 13 par. 10 Show a Waiting Attitude!; The Watchtower April 1, 1986 pp. 30-31 Questions From Readers.
  


Categories: Beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses
Disengagement from religion
Punishments in religion










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