The Watchtower and Johannes Greber

Anyone familiar with the Watchtower and the religion called Jehovah’s witnesses may also be aware of their unique teaching that Jesus Christ is an angel and “a god’, but not God Himself. Of course they aren’t the only ones who believe this, but its likely they are the most well known. They even translated their own version of the Old Testament back in the early 50’s. They released the complete New World Translation of both the old and new testament of the Bible in 1961.

After the New World Translation was released, many people noticed some huge differences. In John 1:1 almost all translations render the verse “…and the Word was God” The New World Translation rendered it “…and the Word was a god” Being there was no ‘a’ in the original Greek, the Watchtower had to assume an “a”. That they did and they also assumed “god” should not be capitalized, when referring to the Word, in contrast to Isaiah 9:6 where they do capitalize “God” as it refers to Christ. Where do they get their assumption from? From Charles Russell on…mostly by relying on human reasoning and human understanding, which absolutely can not be relied on to define God’s divine nature, anymore than we can use human reasoning to figure out how Christ walked on water, or turned water into wine. In that case, when they assumed, they assumed wrong.

They’ve relied on scriptures showing Jesus was human, which no one disputes, and inferior to God in order to prove He wasn’t God, yet they’ll turn right around and claim Jesus was both human and angel. As a man, Jesus was inferior to His position as an angel. That puts them in a very awkward position. It becomes impossible to follow their logic that Jesus could be an angel, which is greater than a man, but using the same argument to say Jesus couldn’t be God. This is their position and they’re sticking to it no matter how much of a double standard it creates. Well, if this was the only reason for doubting the Watchtower position on John 1:1 and other verses, there’s an even better reason. Johannes Greber. First off it helps to confirm that the Watchtower did, at one time, cite Greber’s translation as support for their own. Here is the confirmation—

Questions From Readers

■ Why, in recent years, has The Watchtower not made use of the translation by the former Catholic priest, Johannes Greber?

This translation was used occasionally in support of renderings of Matthew 27:52, 53 and John 1:1, as given in the New World Translation and other authoritative Bible versions. But as indicated in a foreword to the 1980 edition of The New Testament by Johannes Greber, this translator relied on “God’s Spirit World” to clarify for him how he should translate difficult passages. It is stated: “His wife, a medium of God’s Spirit world was often instrumental in conveying the correct answers from God’s Messengers to Pastor Greber.” The Watchtower has deemed it improper to make use of a translation that has such a close rapport with spiritism. (Deuteronomy 18:10-12) The scholarship that forms the basis for the rendering of the above-cited texts in the New World Translation is sound and for this reason does not depend at all on Greber’s translation for authority. 4/1/1983 issue of “The Watchtower”, page 31, “Questions from Readers”

According to the 1983 Question from readers it might appear they only had recently discovered Greber’s occult connection and chose to stop citing it in support of their own. But is that true? No, it isn’t true. They actually knew Greber’s translation was influenced by the occult as early as 1956 Here is an excerpt from a 2/15/1956 Watchtower, pages 110-111, para 10, “Triumphing Over Wicked Spirit Forces”:

Says Johannes Greber in the introduction of his translation of The New Testament, copyrighted in 1937: “I myself was a Catholic priest, and until I was forty-eight years old had never as much as believed in the possibility of communicating with the world of God’s spirits. The day came, however, when I involuntarily took my first step toward such communication, and experienced things that shook me to the depths of my soul. . . . My experiences are related in a book that has appeared in both German and English and bears the title, Communication with the Spirit-World: Its Laws and Its Purpose.” (Page 15, ¶ 2, 3) In keeping with his Roman Catholic extraction Greber’s translation is bound with a gold-leaf cross on its stiff front cover. In the Foreword of his aforementioned book ex-priest Greber says: “The most significant spiritualistic book is the Bible.” Under this impression Greber endeavors to make his New Testament translation read very spiritualistic. Triumphing over Wicked Spirit Forces — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY (jw.org)

So they knew Greber was into spiritism back when they were citing his translation and condemning others for messing around in the occult. At the same time they were in the process of finishing the New World Translation they were citing Greber’s translation as support for these two verses—- John 1:1 and Matthew 27:52-53 .

In the book “Aid to Bible Understanding” pg. 1669, they cite Greber in connection with John 1:1—

A translation by a former Roman Catholic priest, Johannes Greber (1937 ed.) renders the second appearance of the word “god” in the sentence as “a god.”

Here is a paragraph taken from the 10/15/1975 Watchtower, “Question from Readers” pg. 640 where they refer to Greber’s translation to support their own New World Translation

“Without wresting the Greek grammar, a translator can render Matthew 27:52, 53 in a way that suggests that a similar exposing of corpses resulted from the earthquake occurring at Jesus’ death. Thus the translation by Johannes Greber (1937) renders these verses: ‘Tombs were laid open, and many bodies of those buried there were tossed upright. In this posture they projected from the graves and were seen by many who passed by the place on their way back to the city.’”—Compare the New World Translation.” 

By all means, “compare to the New World Translation”. What did Jesus say about trees and their fruit? One would think by now the Watchtower would have discarded the rotten fruit they picked from a bad tree in order to make their own Bible. Unfortunately they merely discarded the original tree, but the kept the rotten fruit.

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 bought his book off Amazon after I left watchtower and it helped me. It’s called Communications with the Spirit World of God – It’s laws and purposes. The whole middle of the book is about how to conduct seances.

Researching this religion has taken me places I never expected to go, as far as other translations and religions go. For instance, in order to criticize the Watchtower for their translation, it means having to look at others for comparison

Without Greber’s translation of John 1:1, the Watchtower still has a few other sources they can point to in support of the way they translate John 1:1, I haven’t found any other support they can cite for translating Matthew 27:52-53 like they do except in Greber’s occult inspired translation. By leaving that verse as is, its sort of like a silent witness to the fact they once relied on Greber and his Bible translation for John 1:1 and still do for Matthew 27:52-53

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ts noteworthy that the name they chose for themselves, Jehovah’s witnesses and their Bible, the New World Translation, were inspired and influenced by two Catholic priests. Of course Greber left the Catholic church 14 years before publishing his translation of the Bible that the Watchtower later chose to cite as support for their new world translation.

In 1923, he attended a séance and his life was changed. He renounced his vows and left the Catholic church. Johannes Greber – Wikipedia

It’s great that you’ve pointed this out. I don’t think many exJWs are aware of the connection with the Bible of Johannes Greber. One thing I knew about the WT Questions from Readers is that they’re really not questions from readers. They’re questions that the organization made up to answer for themselves. They would have an answer, then make up the question. 😆

Personally, I still use the NWT. When I was full on PIMI, I read it daily and completed it in a year, every year. It was the Bible that I used when I was born again; it’s the one where I had my first ever experience on God speaking to me through His Word; and its the one Christ used to get me out of the religion by opening up my mind to see and understand what I read.

It’s not the only one I use, though. We’re in the information age, so there’s too much out there to take any English translation too seriously. With Bible Hub and research websites, the NWT is just another translation. I do like the wide margins, however. It’s plenty of room to take notes and correct their translation errors. 😅😅

They stopped citing his translation in 1980 claiming in an ‘answer to a reader’ that revealed the 1980 edition of Greber’s Bible was derived by spiritistic practices. They knew very well the translation they’d been citing since the 1950’s was published in 1937, but implied in 1983 they didn’t know until 1980.

If you go to the watchtower online library you will find only one reference article to Greber and that is the 1983 article where they disavowed him. Below I’ve pasted a link to a list of Watchtower articles where they did cite Greber for John 1:1 and Matthew 27:52-53

The Watchtower and Johannes Greber | docbob.org

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To borrow an analogy about avoiding Holidays due to their spiritual connotations.

We might have found that candy in the gutter, but it tasted too much like our own brand so we couldn’t help but eat it.

We’ll dip into the devil’s pot for a morsel or two, citing how even a blind squirrel finds some nuts and a broken clock is still right twice a day.

I remember a brother once saying that you only ever get half-truths from the devil. I’ve also heard that no one in connection with Satan can do anything but what his lord allows. Where did this man get the whole truth from then?