Who was the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses? JW Org states it was not Russell

by ToesUp 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  ToesUp

  Found this article in the about page on JW Org. I was a born in and was always taught Charles Taze Russell was the founder. Guess I was wrong!

  The modern-day organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses began at the end of the 19th century. At that time, a small group of Bible students who lived near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States, began a systematic analysis of the Bible. They compared the doctrines taught by the churches with what the Bible really teaches. They began publishing what they learned in books, newspapers, and the journal that is now called The Watchtower—Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom.

  Among that group of sincere Bible students was a man named Charles Taze Russell. While Russell took the lead in the Bible education work at that time and was the first editor of The Watchtower, he was not the founder of a new religion. The goal of Russell and the other Bible Students, as the group was then known, was to promote the teachings of Jesus Christ and to follow the practices of the first-century Christian congregation. Since Jesus is the Founder of Christianity, we view him as the founder of our organization.—Colossians 1:18-20.
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  NVR2L8

  Of course the Watch Tower has Jesus Christ as its founder...Charles Taze Russell only lead a group of men who were keen to re-establish true Christianity...blablabla. I don't blame them for trying to distance themselves from CTR who's writings are utter lunacy.
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  Half banana

  If the JW religion continues as a wealthy cult by teaching "the perpetual imminence of Christ's return"... it will always be necessary to cut off its actual roots since its doctrines only have a short shelf life when they can be perceived as being remotely credible by the faithful. (One can only be astonished at the transparent fraud of the "overlapping generation" excuse!)

  They have denounced Russell which really only leaves the unsavoury scoundrel JF Rutherford as the founder, the one who introduced the term Jehovah's Witnesses---having borrowed that term from others.

  If this is God's organization I would think God must be desperate to choose this lot.
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  flipper

  " While Russell took the lead in the Bible education work at that time and was the first editor of the Watchtower, he was NOT the founder of a new religion ".

  Bullshit. Todays GB and WT leaders are trying to re-write JW organization history to newer JW members so they won't have to explain Russell's crazy teachings like " Miracle Wheat " or the " world coming to an end in 1914 " . It's just like what happened in the book 1984 written by George Orwell - the leaders in power in that book destroyed any of the past beliefs or teachings by burning up the written rules in the incinerator and re-wrote new rules for people to follow and denied they ever taught differently. THAT is what's happening here- today. WT Society is re-writing their history in order to deceive newer JW's into thinking they never believed other teachings . Really disgusting and deceitful
  
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  DATA-DOG

  That's just weasely, political, spin. JWism is a catch-as-catch-can, tax free Real Estate machine/cult. The person who buys into such propaganda, is precisely the person they want as a drone.

  If the WTBTS was honest, they would make every single publication, in its original, un-edited version, available to the public. We all know that will never happen. This is a cult that is happy to spend $4000.00 USD a day to keep internal documents away from court authorities.

  DD
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  slimboyfat

  Willaim Henry Conley, first president of the Watch Tower Society.

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Conley
  
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  blondie

  1879 to 1930, called Bible Students, Russell died in 1916

  1931 J.F. Rutherford, then President of the WTS changed the name to Jehovah's Witnesses. Many Bible Students left before then and were never jws.
  
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  blondie

  But then the WTS quibbles about this by using the following phrase in articles about events prior to 1931

  Another Romanian who learned Bible truth in the United States and returned to Romania prior to World War I was Alexa Romocea.

  ...

  Before long, a small group of Bible Students, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then known, was formed and began to meet in the area.

  is no surprise, then, that during a trip to Europe in 1891, Charles Taze Russell, who took the lead among the early Bible Students (as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then known), made contact with a local Waldensian pastor, Daniele Rivoir.

  What arrangement went into effect in 1919, and how was it beneficial?

  4 In the early part of the last days, the congregations of Bible Students, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then known, democratically elected their elders and deacons.
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  MarkofCane

  They are just trying to distance themselves from Russell, that way if people ever read anything he wrote they can just say it was his own understanding nothing else. Ironically Russell referred to himself as the faithful and discrete slave, the new spin is he was just a bible student. If anyone cares to do some critical research on the history of the watchtower they will find it completely laughable.
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  Cold Steel

  This is where the entire epic behind its claims begin to crumble. The organization does not claim to be a church; in fact, you can be thrown out of the outfit for even attending a church! Yet it's clear that Jesus organized a church and that he gave keys of authority to his apostles to bind, seal or affix on Earth, and that it would be recognized in Heaven. Or these keys could, conversely, loosen on Heaven or Earth. That meant their ordinations and baptisms would be binding and that when they cut people off for apostasy, that also would be recognized in Heaven.

  The church had specific offices. Bishops, priests, elders, teachers, deacons, apostles, prophets and others, yet the WTB&TS -- a publishing firm -- has not bothered to even claim these keys. So how can it cut off, or disfellowship, people if it lacks these keys? Or if it does have them, how did they come by them? Who conveyed them? Who received them? If they aren't relevant, why does the Bible mention them?

  How can a manmade organization acquire authority that anciently was conveyed by those who had authority?

  If I were a JW, I'd certainly want to know these things, especially if I were going to listen to a Governing Body that claimed to speak by and through the power of the Almighty, I would certainly like to know whereby their authority came. If the organization is the Church of Jesus Christ, for Jesus said that upon this rock he would build his church, then it can't be the work of man. And so far the claims of the Governing Body are anemic at best. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established, and so far the GB has failed to claim even one word from God, or an angel, or from Jesus Christ.