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Case 12 · Polemic · The class

Jehovah’s Witnesses

Jesus as Michael, the New World Translation, 607 BC and 1914, the failed dates, and the blood doctrine.

View the evidence

15 claims · 32 exhibits · 30 objections answered

What this case argues

  1. Jesus is not Michael the archangel: Hebrews says God never called any angel his Son and commands the angels to worship him, and Jude has Michael unable to rebuke the devil on his own authority.
  2. The New World Translation is the Watchtower’s own Bible, produced by a committee that has never been named, and it changes several key verses in the direction its doctrine needs.
  3. The two-class system has no basis in the text: Jesus makes the “other sheep” one flock with one shepherd, every believer is born of God, and Christ is the one mediator for all, yet the Watchtower bars almost everyone from the bread and cup.
  4. Jehovah’s Witnesses who leave or are removed are shunned, often by their own families, and a 2024 change of wording did not end the practice.
  5. The New World Translation’s rendering “the Word was a god” is contested on grammatical grounds and reads oddly against John’s own next verse.
  6. The word translated “firstborn” in Colossians 1:15 is used in Scripture for rank and heirship, so it does not by itself prove that Jesus was created.
  7. In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ hearers understood his calling God his own Father as a claim to equality with God, and Jesus did not take it back.
  8. The New Testament repeatedly shows Jesus doing and receiving things that Scripture reserves for God alone.
  9. The New Testament describes the Holy Spirit doing things only a person can do, which does not fit an impersonal force.
  10. The New Testament presents salvation as a gift received by grace through faith, apart from earning it by works.
  11. The exact title “Mighty God” that Isaiah gives to the promised child is used two chapters later of Jehovah himself, so it is not a lower rank of deity.
  12. Watch Tower teaching dates Jerusalem’s fall to 607 BC, while the standard historical date is 587 BC, and the 1914 chronology depends on the earlier date.
  13. The New World Translation inserts the name Jehovah into the New Testament 237 times, though no Greek manuscript of the New Testament contains it.
  14. The Watch Tower announced the end for 1914, 1925 and 1975 as God’s direction, each date passed, and each failure was reframed as “new light” that members must accept rather than acknowledged as error.
  15. The Watchtower’s blood doctrine has shifted repeatedly, and in 2026 it moved twice.

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