Are Jehovah Witnesses Sola Scriptura or..

[AmateurPianist]

do they have their own magisterium that is incapable of being incorrect.

In another thread in response to a Catholic who claimed JW are Sola Scriptura, I decided to do a little reasearch by plugging Jehovah Witness Infallible into google. I came across a number of web sites.

This web is representative. An interesting quote is below:

Have at it. Will be interested in various responses. Probably will not be doing much debating though.

The foundation stone, the sole spiritual authority for all Jehovah’s Witnesses, is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. The claims presented in any Watchtower publication are accepted without question by every Witness. The Bible translation most highly respected is THE NEW WORLD TRANSLATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, the work of the Watchtower Society. Yet, even this “Bible”, is considered a dark book, not understandable to any Jehovah’s Witnesses, without the divinely provided help of the Watchtower Bible “aids”. For all practical purposes, the Witness follows Watchtower instruction as though it comes directly from heaven. Even without the claim of divine inspiration, the Watchtower has managed to persuade its followers that it is divinely guided; and therefore its teachings are to be accepted as though they are infallible.

It is our contention that the Watchtower organization is a false authority over the lives of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Watchtower, like all false religious guides, employs the teachings and traditions of men to control its followers. (Mt. 15:9) The most unfortunate fact is that the Watchtower acts as a substitute mediator between God and the JW. For the Christian, there is only “one mediator also between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus.” (1 Tim. 2:5b)

This one is called “Lord”. Each follower of Christ accepts Him as the sole spiritual authority in his life, this identifies one as “saved” (Ro.10:9). Jehovah’s Witnesses can be saved by rejecting the Watchtower mediator for the mediator between God and men. There is great hope!

The biggest threat to Watchtower authority comes when the Witness begins to “Make sure of all things” (I Thess. 5:21a NWT). To combat any questioning of Watchtower teaching, the Society has published numerous articles encouraging JW obedience, especially since internal struggles began in the late 70’s. In the January 15, 1983 Watchtower, under the heading: “Avoid Independent Thinking”, the claim is made that it is Satan who first “called into question God’s way of doing things. He promoted independent thinking.” The rebellion of Adam and Eve against the instruction of God is given as the example for JWs today. The Society counsels, “How is such independent thinking manifested? A common way is by questioning the counsel that is provided by God’s visible organization.”

The Society gives us an even more pointed warning in the same magazine,
under the heading:

“Fight Against Independent Thinking”.

Such thinking is an evidence of pride. And the Bible says: “Pride is before a crash, and a haughty spirit before stumbling.” (Proverbs 16:18) If we get to thinking that we know better than the organization, we should ask ourselves", "Where did we learn Bible truth in the first place? Would we know the way of the truth if it had not been for guidance from the organization? Really, can we get along without the direction of God’s organization?
No, we cannot!

“Really”, no one can “get along” as a Jehovah’s Witness without the Watchtower as a guide for his life.

Exposing the Watchtower is undercutting the very foundation of the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses. When this happens, the sincere truth seeker is forced to seek guidance elsewhere. Oh, that he may listen to the One who teaches all the truth! Jesus said, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes , He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of mine and will disclose it to you.” (John 16:13-14)

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

Here is the official web-site of the JW’s. All it says in regards to the Bible is that they believe that it is God’s Word, that it is truth and that it is, “more reliable than tradition.”

watchtower.org/e/jt/article_03.htm

However wikipedia (take it for what it is) goes into a little more detail and explains that there is a “governing body which assumes responsibility for interpreting and applying Scripture.” It does say that they make no claims of infallibility though.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_witnesses#Sources_of_doctrine

God bless

 

[maggiemary]

I have Jehovah’s Witnesses who come weekly so we’ve talked a lot. Don’t worry I am really not interested in converting.

From the talks we have had, I think they would probably say they are sola scriptura. At least the ones who come to my home believe they follow the Bible alone. However, in practice they are not more so than perhaps other sects. The Bible is interpreted for them by the Watch Tower organization supposedly through the “faithful and discret slave class” who are the people born before 1914 who are the only ones going to heaven. Mostly the governing body at the headquarters makes the decisions.

When confronted with the Bible or the Watchtower, they will opt for the Watchtower. This happend today in fact in our study. We read the quote from Mathew that says to go forth and baptise in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They then proceeded to describe to me how someone is baptised and that they baptise in the name of the father, son, and Holy Spirit. Right after saying this, one lady then remarked but of course the Holy Spirit doesn’t have a name. This immediately after reading the Bible quote and remarking on it multiple times. They went with the belief of the Watch Tower as opposed to clear evidence in the Bible that the Holy Spirit is a force like electricity as opposed to a person so it therefore cannot have a name. They seem to be able to hold a lot of logical contradictions like that.

Their founder Charles Russell wrote a series titled Studies in Scripture at the turn of the century. It claimed that if you only read the series and stayed away from the Bible itself you would become very close to God in a short time. However, if you mainly focused on the Bible you would stray from the narrow path of the truth very quickly. The organization has since renounced that idea, however, in my experience with them the spirit of that doctrine is alive and well within the organization.