It's curious that the 'w' of witnesses is not capitalized. I wonder when they started to capitalize it?
When Rutherford Changed the Name to Jehovah's Witnesses
by Wild_Thing 23 Replies latest jw friends
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slimboyfat
I believe you are correct Was An Elder Once, but I don't have a reference.
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nonjwspouse
I found this reference:
The leadership structure of Jehovah's Witnesses was reorganized from January 1, 1976, with the power of the presidency passed to the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses and the establishment of six committees to oversee tasks such as writing, teaching, publishing and evangelizing work.[206] At this time, Watch Tower Society publications began using the capitalized name, Jehovah's Witnesses.
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Phizzy
I read somewhere that Rutherford admitted that he was struggling for a new angle for marketing, and the idea for a name change came to him not long before the Convention where he announced it, he stated something upon the lines that it was a brilliant idea....of his ! He also said that he had little else to talk about if the idea had not come to him.
Now whether this story is true or not I cannot say, but it fits with his huge ego, and his attitude that the religion was first and foremost a business to be kept going.
Very similar to today's Governing Body.
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JRK
It does kind of remind us of the latest "shell game" with JW dot ORGasm. Take a new direction and bury their past. Maybe the pedophilia stuff will fly over some heads. Maybe the flap about being an NGO for the UN will get buried too!
JK
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dropoffyourkeylee
I think it is noteworthy that the first time the words ‘ Jehovah’s Witness’ appeared in ant WT literature it was a reference to the Great Pyramid in the Studies. So in a way the name change was another part of the doctrinal changes that Rutherford engineered to distance the WT Bible Students from the non-JW Bible Students ( the evil slave, to use the terminology of the time period).
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Fred Franztone
It's such a lame name, I was embarrassed by it as a kid
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UnshackleTheChains
I wonder what Yahweh thinks 🤔
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Giordano
Rutherford screwed up grandly as President and chief of the WTBTS.
The bible students began breaking away as this chart shows.
Rutherford was a high control buffoon. His policies and actions almost destroyed the Society and it's followers (to bad he failed to accomplish that). Even in re-naming he used a made up name for God one that didn't explain anything. To this day a JW who is talking to a non JW has to say Jehovah God if the non JW is to understand who they are talking about.
It's takes a follower the long way arround to identify with Jesus Christ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses
There are something like 22 references in the NT to be a Witness of Jesus as opposed to one reference for a single prophet to be a witness to YHWH.
By choosing the name Jehovah's Witness he crossed the line on who was supposed to be a witnesses of who.
He pushed Jesus off the center stage of their made up belief and caused them to embrace the false name of a god who drowned a world for wickedness including all the little children and the unborn.
A Fubar from the get go.
A simplified chart of historical developments of major groups within Bible -
Wild_Thing
This is from the 1932 Yearbook. Evidently, "Jehovah" renamed them "Jehovah's Witnesses" in 1918, but forgot to tell the Judge until 1931. Don't you hate it when that happens?
