Glossary and terminology

Legal entities and names

Watch Tower, Watchtower, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Governing Body, congregations and the historical Bible Students are not interchangeable.

Bible Students (historical) #

The name used by C. T. Russell’s movement from the 1870s; the International Bible Students Association was used for meetings from 1910 and incorporated in London in 1914. Some Bible Student groups that did not follow J. F. Rutherford after 1917 continue separately today and are not Jehovah’s Witnesses. Source: Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom (book), 1993

Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and other corporations #

Corporations announced in 2002 after the Governing Body’s members left the Pennsylvania board in 2000: the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Religious Order of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Kingdom Support Services, Inc. In the UK the principal registered charities are the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Britain (1077961), the International Bible Students Association (216647) and The Kingdom Hall Trust (275946). Source: Our Kingdom Ministry, January 2002Source: Charity Commission for England and Wales, Register of Charities, 31 August 2025Source: Charity Commission for England and Wales, Register of Charities, 31 August 2025Source: Charity Commission for England and Wales, Register of Charities, 31 August 2025

Jehovah’s Witnesses #

The name adopted by resolution at the Columbus, Ohio convention on 26 July 1931. Before that the movement was known as Bible Students or the International Bible Students Association. Today the name refers to the worldwide religious community, not to any one corporation. Source: The Watchtower, 15 August 1955Source: Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom (book), 1993

Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania #

The oldest legal corporation, formed in 1884 as Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society and renamed in 1896. Membership of the corporation is by invitation. It holds copyright in the publications. Not the same thing as ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’, which is the name of the religious community. Source: jw.org (FAQ), 19 September 2026Source: Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom (book), 1993

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. #

A separate New York corporation that ‘facilitates our work in the United States’. It was the entity associated with the UN Department of Public Information from 1992 to 2001 and the seller of the Brooklyn properties. Source: The Watchtower, 15 January 2001Source: United Nations Department of Public Information, NGO Section, 4 March 2004

Organisational terms

Words that have a specific meaning inside the organisation’s publications.

‘J’ references #

The supports marked ‘J’ with a raised number in the New World Translation’s footnotes at the places where it reads ‘Jehovah’ in the Christian Greek Scriptures. On the translation committee’s own account they are translations of the Greek Scriptures into Hebrew made over the centuries — J2 dates from about 1385 and the rest run from 1555 onwards — rather than ancient Greek manuscripts; the committee says it ‘looked for some agreement with us by the Hebrew versions we consulted to confirm our rendering’. Source: The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (1985 edition), 1 January 1985Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), 2013

‘New light’ and ‘Beliefs Clarified’ #

Members’ shorthand for a change in teaching, from Proverbs 4:18 (‘the path of the righteous … grows brighter’). The organisation calls such changes clarifications and lists many of them under ‘Beliefs Clarified’ in its publications index; it likened them in 1981 to a ship ‘tacking’. Source: jw.org FAQ, 19 September 2026Source: The Watchtower, 1 December 1981Source: Watch Tower Publications Index (Research Guide) — 'Beliefs Clarified' entry, 2026

Anointed and ‘other sheep’ #

The ‘anointed’ are those who profess a heavenly hope (a small minority, counted each year as Memorial partakers); the ‘other sheep’ or ‘great crowd’ are the majority with an earthly hope. Since 2013 the ‘domestics’ fed by the faithful slave are said to include the other sheep. Source: The Watchtower (study edition), 15 July 2013Source: 2025 Service Year Report of Jehovah’s Witnesses Worldwide, 2025

Apostate #

In the publications, a person who leaves and actively opposes the organisation’s teaching. Members are instructed not to read such people’s literature or examine their websites (2011). Since 2024 the greeting prohibition of 2 John 10 is applied to apostates and active promoters of wrongdoing rather than to everyone removed. Source: The Watchtower (study edition), 15 July 2011Source: The Watchtower (Study Edition), August 2024

Appointed times of the nations (the ‘Gentile Times’) #

The expression at Luke 21:24 which Witness teaching identifies with the ‘seven times’ of Daniel 4 and reads as a fixed period with ‘a definite beginning and a definite end’, running from 607 BCE to 1914, during which God’s rulership through the line of David was interrupted. Older Watch Tower publications call the same period the Gentile Times: C. T. Russell’s The Time Is at Hand (1889) gives a chapter to ‘The Times of the Gentiles’ and lists what their close in 1914 would prove. Source: Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, 1988Source: Studies in the Scriptures, Series II: The Time Is at Hand (Millennial Dawn vol. 2), first edition, 1889

Armageddon and the great tribulation #

In Witness teaching, the coming period of destruction of the present world order, ending in God’s war (Armageddon) and followed by a thousand-year reign. Until 2024 the publications said no one could take a stand and survive once the tribulation began; in 2024 this was reconsidered. Source: The Watchtower, 1 September 1989Source: The Watchtower (study edition), May 2024

Branch office, circuit overseer, elder, ministerial servant #

A branch office is the administrative centre supervising congregations in a country or region. A circuit overseer is an experienced elder who visits each of about twenty congregations under the branch’s direction. Elders teach and provide pastoral care; ministerial servants assist with non-pastoral tasks. All are appointed, not elected. Source: jw.org (Global Communications), 19 September 2026Source: jw.org (FAQ), 19 September 2026

Disassociated #

A person who leaves by written statement or by an action the organisation treats as leaving. Announced with the same words as removal and, since 1981, treated in the same way. Source: The Watchtower, 15 September 1981Source: Organized to Do Jehovah’s Will (od), 2019

Faithful and discreet slave #

The group Jesus is said (Matthew 24:45) to have appointed to feed his followers. Until 2013 this was taught to be all anointed Christians collectively; since July 2013 it is ‘a small group of anointed brothers’ at headquarters, identified with the Governing Body, said to have been appointed in 1919. Source: The Watchtower, 15 March 1990Source: The Watchtower (study edition), 15 July 2013

Governing Body #

The small group of men at the world headquarters in Warwick, New York, who direct the doctrine, publications and organisation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Since 2013 it has been identified in Watchtower teaching as ‘the faithful and discreet slave’. Governing Body Updates are periodic video announcements on JW.org. Source: JW.org Global News (press release), 18 September 2026

Governing Body Update #

Periodic video announcements on JW.org in which Governing Body members announce adjustments in policy or practice. The 2026 blood changes, the 2023 beard change and the 2024 greeting change were all announced this way, often followed by published articles. Source: JW.org News, 18 September 2026Source: JW Broadcasting — 2023 Governing Body Update #8, 15 December 2023Source: jw.org (Governing Body Update video), 15 March 2024

Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Greek Scriptures #

The organisation’s usual names for the two parts of the Bible: the ‘Hebrew Scriptures’ for what is generally called the Old Testament, and the ‘Christian Greek Scriptures’ for the New Testament. Its publications commonly put ‘New Testament’ in quotation marks, as in the 2013 appendix headed ‘The Restoration of the Divine Name in the “New Testament”’. Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), 2013Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), 2013Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), 2013

Inactive #

A member who has stopped reporting ministry activity or attending. Not shunned by published rule and not announced; elders are to offer ‘spiritual assistance’. Source: Organized to Do Jehovah’s Will (od), 2019

Judicial committee and reinstatement #

A committee of elders that hears alleged serious wrongdoing and decides whether the person is repentant. Reinstatement requires a written request considered by a committee, typically after ‘many months, a year, or even longer’; since 2024 elders are to follow up after a few months. Source: Organized to Do Jehovah’s Will (od), 2019Source: The Watchtower (Study Edition), August 2024

Personal decision (matter of conscience) #

In Watchtower usage, a matter on which the organisation states that it will not direct members and on which the congregation ‘will not get involved’. This is different from something being approved: publications may still urge caution, and members may still be expected to weigh scriptural principles. Source: JW.org (Questions From Readers), 18 September 2026

Pivotal date #

A term from the organisation’s own chronology for a date in secular history it accepts as securely fixed and matches to an event recorded in the Bible, from which its other dates are counted. Its pivotal date is 539 BCE, the fall of Babylon to Cyrus, supported in Insight on the Scriptures from Diodorus, Africanus, Eusebius and Ptolemy ‘as well as the Babylonian tablets’; The Watchtower of 15 August 1968 called the same year an ‘absolute date’. Source: Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, 1988Source: The Watchtower, 15 August 1968

Publisher, pioneer, Bethel #

A ‘publisher’ is a member who reports participation in the public ministry; the organisation’s membership figures count publishers, not everyone raised in the faith. A ‘pioneer’ commits to a set annual number of hours in the ministry, reported monthly. ‘Bethel’ is a branch headquarters where unsalaried volunteers live and work as members of a religious order. Source: 2025 Service Year Report of Jehovah’s Witnesses Worldwide, 2025Source: jw.org (FAQ), 19 September 2026Source: jw.org (Global Communications), 19 September 2026

Questions From Readers #

A regular feature of The Watchtower (now also published on JW.org) in which the organisation answers a question and, often, states or adjusts policy. Many of the blood-policy changes documented here were announced in this format. Source: The Watchtower, 15 October 2000Source: JW.org (Questions From Readers), 18 September 2026

Removed from the congregation (formerly ‘disfellowshipped’) #

Expulsion of a baptised member judged unrepentant by a committee of elders, announced with the words ‘[Name] is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses’. Members are to stop keeping company with the person. The term ‘disfellowshipped’ was retired in August 2024. Source: Organized to Do Jehovah’s Will (od), 2019Source: The Watchtower (Study Edition), August 2024

The ‘seven times’ #

The period of madness decreed for King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter 4. Witness teaching also reads it as a prophecy of a far longer period: three and a half times are 1,260 days at Revelation 12, so seven times are 2,520 days, and a day-for-a-year rule turns these into 2,520 years, counted in the publications from Tishri 15 of 607 BCE to 4-5 October 1914. Source: Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, 1988Source: Pay Attention to Daniel’s Prophecy!, 1999

Theocratic organisation #

The organisation describes its government as ‘in no wise democratic’ but ‘strictly theocratic’: direction flows from the Governing Body through branch offices, circuit overseers and bodies of elders. Members do not vote on doctrine or appointments. Source: Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom (book), 1993Source: jw.org (FAQ), 19 September 2026

Medical terms

What clinicians commonly mean, and where each term sits in the organisation’s policy.

Allogeneic blood #

Blood or blood components from another person (a donor). The opposite of autologous. Source: AABB (Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies) News, 24 March 2026

Autologous blood #

The patient’s own blood. ‘Pre-operative autologous donation’ means drawing and storing it weeks before surgery for later reinfusion. In October 2000 The Watchtower said this ‘conflicts with God’s law’; on 20 March 2026 it became a personal decision. Source: The Watchtower, 15 October 2000Source: JW.org News, 20 March 2026

Blood fractions #

Products separated from one of the primary components: albumin, immunoglobulins, clotting-factor concentrates, prothrombin complex concentrate and fibrinogen concentrate are the examples in the organisation’s 2026 chart, which also lists cryoprecipitate as a ‘fraction’. Clinicians and the World Health Organization classify cryoprecipitate (plasma proteins precipitated by thawing frozen plasma) as a blood component alongside red cells, platelets and plasma. Jehovah’s Witness publications began treating some fractions as matters of personal conscience in the 1950s–1970s and all of them by 2000. Source: JW.org chart, 18 September 2026Source: How Can Blood Save Your Life? (brochure), 1990Source: World Health Organization fact sheet, 12 June 2026

Blood transfusion #

In clinical use, a procedure in which blood from a donor is given into a patient’s vein. In modern hospital practice the product given is almost always a component (red cells, platelets or plasma) rather than whole blood, which is why the distinction between ‘whole blood’ and ‘components’ matters when reading Jehovah’s Witness policy statements. The World Health Organization reports that 98% of donated blood in high-income countries is separated into components. Source: NHS (nhs.uk), 16 January 2025Source: World Health Organization fact sheet, 12 June 2026

Cell salvage #

Collecting blood lost during surgery into a reservoir, filtering and washing it, and returning it to the same patient. Watchtower publications accepted it as a matter of conscience where the equipment could be arranged as an uninterrupted circuit (1989). Source: The Watchtower, 1 March 1989Source: The Watchtower, 15 October 2000

Continuous-circuit procedures #

A term from Watchtower publications, not from clinical practice: procedures in which the patient’s blood leaves the body but is kept connected to the circulation, such as heart-lung bypass, dialysis, and haemodilution or cell salvage arranged so that the collected blood remains linked to the patient. Publications from 1989 onward left such arrangements to individual conscience while excluding storage of the patient’s blood, until the March 2026 change. Source: The Watchtower, 15 October 2000Source: The Watchtower, 1 March 1989

Haemodilution (acute normovolaemic) #

Withdrawing some of the patient’s blood immediately before or at the start of surgery into collection bags, replacing the volume with non-blood fluid, and returning the blood at the end. Watchtower publications accepted it as a matter of conscience only where the bags stayed connected to the patient; from 20 March 2026 all use of a patient’s own blood, including storage, is a personal decision. Source: The Watchtower, 15 October 2000Source: JW.org News, 20 March 2026

Plasma #

The liquid part of blood, about 55% of whole blood, carrying proteins including clotting factors. Transfused to help clotting. Prohibited for Witnesses until 18 September 2026; now a personal decision. Source: JW.org chart, 18 September 2026Source: NHS (nhs.uk), 16 January 2025

Platelets #

Cell fragments that help blood clot, less than 1% of whole blood. Transfused in bleeding and in some cancer treatments. Prohibited for Witnesses until 18 September 2026; now a personal decision. Source: JW.org chart, 18 September 2026Source: NHS (nhs.uk), 16 January 2025

Red blood cells (red cells) #

The oxygen-carrying cells, about 45% of whole blood by volume. Transfused to treat anaemia and blood loss. Covered by the transfusion prohibition from 1945 and named as unacceptable in the organisation’s publications from 1982 until 18 September 2026; now a personal decision. Source: JW.org chart, 18 September 2026Source: NHS (nhs.uk), 16 January 2025Source: Awake!, 22 June 1982

Volume expanders #

Non-blood fluids used to maintain circulating volume. The organisation’s 1990 brochure lists saline, lactated Ringer’s solution, dextran, Haemaccel and hetastarch as acceptable; its publications have never restricted them. They replace volume but not oxygen-carrying capacity or clotting. Several starch products have since been withdrawn or restricted in Europe; the brochure’s list is historical, not clinical guidance. Source: How Can Blood Save Your Life? (brochure), 1990

White blood cells (white cells) #

Infection-fighting cells, less than 1% of whole blood. Prohibited for Witnesses as a named component from 1982 until 18 September 2026; now a personal decision. Source: JW.org chart, 18 September 2026Source: Awake!, 22 June 1982

Whole blood #

Blood as it leaves the donor, before separation. Jehovah’s Witness publications have prohibited whole-blood transfusion since 1945 and still do after the 2026 changes. Source: JW.org (Questions From Readers), 18 September 2026

Other terms

Anarthrous #

Of a Greek noun: standing without the definite article (‘the’). What an English translator should supply in its place is a matter of judgement, and the question is central at John 1:1, where θεός has no article: the organisation argues that ‘a singular anarthrous predicate noun preceding the verb points to a quality about someone’ and renders ‘a god’, where the major English versions read ‘God’. Source: The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, 1985Source: Bible Hub parallel translations, 19 September 2026

Astronomical diary #

A Babylonian clay tablet recording night-by-night positions of the moon and planets, headed by the reigning king’s regnal year. Because a full set of such positions recurs only after a very long interval, a diary can be tied to one year in our own calendar; the organisation’s own reference work accepts that such a combination ‘would not be duplicated again in thousands of years’, but answers that ‘accuracy in astronomy does not prove accuracy in history’. Source: electronic Babylonian Library (eBL), fragment VAT.4956, 1988Source: Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, 1988

Babylonian Chronicles #

Babylonian tablets giving a terse year-by-year record of a reign: campaigns, accessions and deaths. BM 21946 records that in Nebuchadnezzar’s seventh year he ‘encamped against … the city of Judah and on the second day of the month of Adar he seized the city and captured the king’; the Nabonidus Chronicle records the fall of Babylon to Cyrus. The organisation does not dispute the tablets, but holds that the chronicles ‘provide an account for only 35 years of the Neo-Babylonian period’. Source: Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (626-556 B.C.) in the British Museum, 1956Source: electronic Babylonian Library (eBL), fragment BM.35382, 2026Source: The Watchtower, 1 November 2011

Business tablets #

Everyday Babylonian economic and administrative documents — receipts, loans, sales — each dated by day, month and regnal year. Because so many survive, the order and length of the reigns can be reconstructed from them; Parker and Dubberstein’s standard chronology lists, for each king, the last tablet of his reign and the first of his successor’s. The organisation points to apparent overlaps at two of those transitions. Source: Babylonian Chronology, 626 B.C. - A.D. 45 (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 24), 1942Source: The Watchtower, 1 November 2011

Conjectural emendation #

In textual scholarship, a change to a text made on an editor’s judgement about what it must originally have said, rather than on the evidence of any surviving manuscript. Jason BeDuhn applies the term to the New World Translation’s use of ‘Jehovah’ in the New Testament, which he calls ‘one peculiarity of this translation that by most conventions of translation would be considered an inaccuracy’. Source: Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament, 2003

Cuneiform #

The wedge-shaped script of ancient Mesopotamia, impressed into clay and published by scholars as a transliteration with a translation beside it. Almost all the documentary evidence about this period — chronicles, astronomical diaries, business tablets and royal inscriptions — is cuneiform, and an argument can turn on how a single sign is read, as it does over the third line of VAT 4956. Source: Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (626-556 B.C.) in the British Museum, 1956Source: The Watchtower, 1 November 2011Source: Online review (no journal of publication stated), 2008

Granville Sharp’s rule #

A rule of Greek syntax invoked at verses such as Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1: where two singular nouns describing persons are joined by καί (‘and’) and the definite article stands before the first only, both are taken to refer to one person — so that the verse calls Jesus ‘our great God and Savior’, as the main modern versions render it. The organisation reads two persons instead, arguing with C. F. D. Moule that that sense ‘is possible in κοινή Greek even without the repetition’ of the article; a nineteenth-century critical commentary had already concluded that the question ‘cannot be decided on purely grammatical grounds’. Source: The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, 1985Source: Bible Hub parallel translations, 19 September 2026Source: Critical and Exegetical Hand-book to the Epistles to Timothy and Titus (the Pastoral Epistles volume of Meyer’s Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar series)

Interlinear, and the Kingdom Interlinear Translation #

An interlinear prints the original-language text with a word-for-word English rendering beneath it, so that a reader without Greek can see what the words themselves say. The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures is the Watch Tower Society’s own: the Westcott and Hort Greek text, the Society’s literal English line under each Greek word, and the New World Translation in a parallel column, so that, in its publishers’ words, ‘the accuracy of any modern translation can be determined’. Source: The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (1985 edition), 1985Source: Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom, 1993

Koine Greek #

The common Greek of the Hellenistic and Roman world, distinguished by scholars from the earlier classical language. The organisation’s own appendix states that ‘The inspired writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures wrote in the common (koi·neʹ) Greek’, and the Kingdom Interlinear was published to open up ‘what the original koi·neʹ Greek basically or literally says’. Source: The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, 1985Source: The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (1985 edition), 1985

Masoretic Text #

The traditional Hebrew text of the Hebrew Scriptures, printed in standard scholarly editions such as Biblia Hebraica and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. The organisation states that the New World Translation was based on it; where a discussion here turns on ‘the Hebrew’ of a verse, as at Zechariah 12:10 or Jeremiah 29:10, this is the text meant. Source: The Watchtower (study edition), 15 December 2015Source: Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 2, 1988Source: Bible Hub Hebrew text analysis, 19 September 2026

Neo-Babylonian period #

The period of the Babylonian empire running from Nabopolassar to Nabonidus. Current scholarship places its six kings between 625 and 539 BCE, with Nebuchadnezzar II reigning 604-562 BCE; the organisation’s chronology places the same reigns twenty years earlier, dating Nebuchadnezzar’s accession to 625 BCE. Source: RIBo, Babylon 7: The Inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, 2020Source: Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, 1988

parousia (παρουσία) #

A Greek noun which the New World Translation renders ‘presence’ in all 24 of its occurrences, including Matthew 24:3, where the major modern versions read ‘coming’. Liddell, Scott and Jones give ‘presence’ as its first sense and ‘arrival’ as its second, so both renderings are lexically possible. In the organisation’s usage the word denotes ‘the royal presence of Jesus Christ since his enthronement as King’ — an invisible presence held to have begun in 1914. Source: A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell, Scott and Jones), 1940Source: The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, 1985Source: Bible Hub parallel translations, 19 September 2026

proskyneo (προσκυνέω) #

A Greek verb whose range the organisation’s own study note gives as ‘(fall down and) worship, do obeisance to, prostrate oneself before, do reverence to, welcome respectfully’. The New World Translation and the Society’s own interlinear render it ‘worship’ where the object is God and ‘do obeisance’ where the object is Jesus; the study note on Matthew 14:33 explains that ‘They rendered obeisance to him, not as to a god or a deity, but as to “God’s Son”’. Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), 2013Source: The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, 1985Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), 2013

Ptolemy’s canon #

A list of kings and the lengths of their reigns transmitted with the astronomical work of the second-century astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, long used as one framework for dating Babylonian and Persian history. The organisation names Ptolemy among the supports for its own pivotal date of 539 BCE, and accepts that ‘In general, Ptolemy’s canon is regarded as accurate’, but argues that because it omits rulers known from cuneiform records it should not be used ‘to provide a definite historical chronology’. Source: The Watchtower, 1 October 2011Source: Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, 1988

Regnal year and accession year #

Babylonian documents are dated by the year of the reigning king — ‘Year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon’ — so reigns can be counted up from the documents themselves. The part-year between a king taking the throne and the next new year is reckoned separately as his accession year: Insight on the Scriptures uses the same convention when it places Jerusalem’s fall in ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s 19th year of actual rule (counting from his accession year in 625 B.C.E.)’. Historians’ remaining disagreement over whether Jerusalem fell in 587 or 586 BCE turns on how Judah counted its own kings’ years. Source: electronic Babylonian Library (eBL), fragment VAT.4956, 1988Source: Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, 1988Source: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47/1, March 2004

ruach (רוּחַ) #

A Hebrew noun covering wind, breath and spirit; the word alone does not decide between a personal and an impersonal sense. At Genesis 1:2 the New World Translation renders רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים as ‘God’s active force’, with a footnote ‘Or “God’s spirit”’; the New Revised Standard Version and the New American Bible also read the phrase impersonally, as ‘a wind from God’ and ‘a mighty wind’. Source: Bible Hub Hebrew text analysis, 19 September 2026Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), 2013Source: Bible Hub parallel translations, 19 September 2026

Septuagint #

The ancient Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures, often abbreviated LXX, copies of which were in circulation in the first century. It matters here because a few pre-Christian copies write the divine name in Hebrew characters inside the Greek text, which is one of the grounds the organisation gives for putting ‘Jehovah’ into the Christian Greek Scriptures. Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), 2013Source: Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 2, 1988

stauros (σταυρός) and ‘torture stake’ #

The Greek noun used of the instrument on which Jesus was executed. Liddell, Scott and Jones give ‘upright pale or stake’ as its first sense and ‘cross, as the instrument of crucifixion’ as its second, citing Matthew 27:40 for the second; the organisation holds that it means ‘a simple stake, or pale, without a crossbeam of any kind’ and renders it ‘torture stake’. Since 2013 the New World Translation reads ‘executed on a stake’ where earlier editions read ‘impaled’. Source: A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell, Scott and Jones), 1940Source: The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, 1985Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 2013

Tetragrammaton and the divine name #

The four Hebrew letters יהוה (YHWH, or JHVH) that stand for the name of God; the organisation’s own reference work counts 6,828 occurrences in the Hebrew text printed in Biblia Hebraica. The New World Translation renders them ‘Jehovah’, while its own appendix concedes that ‘Yahweh’ is favoured by most Hebrew scholars and that ‘We simply do not know how God’s ancient servants pronounced this name in Hebrew’. Watch Tower publications use ‘the divine name’ for the same thing, and describe putting it into the Christian Greek Scriptures as ‘restoring’ it. Source: Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 2, 1988Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), 2013Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), 2013

VAT 4956 #

The museum number of a Babylonian astronomical diary in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, published by Sachs and Hunger as Diary No. -567. Its first line reads ‘Year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon’ and the observations it records fall in 568/567 BCE, which places Jerusalem’s destruction in 587 BCE; the king’s name and regnal year appear on the tablet in three places. Source: electronic Babylonian Library (eBL), fragment VAT.4956, 1988Source: electronic Babylonian Library (eBL), fragment VAT.4956, 1988

Westcott and Hort #

The Greek New Testament text edited by B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort and published in 1881. The organisation states that the New World Translation was based on it, and it is the Greek printed in the Kingdom Interlinear; in the 2013 revision ‘some changes were based on the weight of manuscript evidence rather than on the strict adherence to a single master Greek text’. Other scholarly editions of the Greek, such as those of Nestle and Aland and of the United Bible Societies, are cited alongside it in the organisation’s own study notes. Source: The Watchtower (study edition), 15 December 2015Source: The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (1985 edition), 1985Source: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), 2013