I'm scheduled to speak on this very topic at the Witnesses Now for Jesus convention in PA this October. Here's a little advance info from my notes in response to the Reasoning book quotations:
Jehovah's Witnesses do not claim to be inspired prophets.
Have you ever heard of an un-inspired prophet? In fact, in the Bible, it is not the prophet that is said to be “inspired,” it is the text of Scripture. However, if God is truly giving you a message by whatever means He chooses, then that is inspiration. To claim that you are speaking God’s words is to claim to be inspired – even if you don’t actually use the word “inspiration.” Remember Deuteronomy 18:20-22? The Law didn’t say that the prophet had to claim to be inspired, just that he spoke in the name of YHWH. The process by which God gives the message through His prophet is inspiration.
Also, the Watchtower uses all sorts of terms that mean the same thing, so it’s a distinction without a difference. They call themselves “Jehovah’s channel of communication.” They claim to be divinely guided and “spirit directed.” They say they are “God’s spokesmen” and that he has put his words into their mouths. With all these claims, do they really need to use the word, “inspired?”
They have made mistakes. Like the apostles of Jesus Christ, they have at times had some wrong expectations.-Luke 19:11; Acts 1:6.
One Watchtower article even claimed that they could not be false prophets because “false prophets do not admit their mistakes.” Now, that’s just absurd. False prophets are the only kind of prophets who have mistakes to admit. True prophets get their messages directly from God. If your message is from God, it will never be mistaken! The big mistake is to claim to speak for God when He is not giving you the message.
It’s true that the apostles appeared to have expected Christ’s return within their lifetimes. But they never set a date for it, and they never attached God’s name to any predicted event, calling it “the Creator’s promise” or “God’s dates, not ours.” What makes a false prophecy is, not a mistaken expectation, but the claim that the prophecy originates with God. Now, there is a specific instance in the Bible that some Witnesses will use to try to demonstrate that the apostles taught false teachings in the name of Jesus, and thus to argue that merely teaching falsely in God’s name doesn’t necessarily make one a false prophet. Their conclusion, of course, is that if it was OK for the apostles to teach falsely in Jesus’ name, then it’s also OK for their organization to do so. I’m referring to the account at John 21:20-23. Here’s what it says:
Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, "Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?" When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, "Lord, what about this man?" Jesus said to him, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!" So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?"
In other words, Jesus was telling Peter that it was none of his business what would happen to John, but that Peter needed to keep his eyes on Jesus. I have had a JW try to tell me that the apostles went around teaching, on Jesus’ authority, that John would not die before the return of Christ. But the text doesn’t say that, does it? All it says is that the saying spread among the brothers, not that it was taught by the apostles. All that had to happen was that Jesus’ actual words were somehow relayed among the brothers, and then the misunderstanding of those words became a rumor that took on a life of its own. That’s far different than saying that the apostles themselves taught such a thing, claiming Jesus’ authority to do so. So there is no parallel between this event and the false prophecies of the JW organization.