What Bible do the Jehovah Witnesses study?

I've been told that they believe we live in Hell on earth. How can they deny the parable that Jesus told of the weeds and the wheat? Mathew 13: 36-43

What Bible do the Jehovah Witnesses study?
Each Jehovah's Witness studies whichever translation of the bible he prefers, or whichever his student or householder prefers. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe that any one translation is inspired in a manner that others are not.





Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe the bible to teach that humankind currently lives "in hell on earth". Instead, the bible teaches that most of humankind's dead will be raised from the dead after Armageddon.


(John 11:23,24) Jesus said to her: “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him: “I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.”


(Acts 24:15) There is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.





Until that resurrection, there is no suffering in "hell", or the grave. Sometime after the resurrection, death and "hell" will themselves be destroyed.


(Ecclesiastes 9:5) For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all


(Ecclesiastes 9:10) there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol ["hell"]


(Revelation 20:14) And death and Hades ["hell"] were hurled into the lake of fire





Almighty Jehovah God selects those few who have the heavenly calling from among godfearing worshippers, so that these may assist Christ is ruling over the earth. Today, each true worshipper "feels" his own hope and each person's hope remains unquestioned by his fellow Christians. Still the vast majority (literally more than 99.9%*) of Jehovah's Witnesses expect an EARTHLY hope, the same hope given to Adam and Eve.


(Genesis 1:28) God blessed them and God said to them: “Be fruitful and become many and fill THE EARTH and subdue it [caps added]


(Genesis 2:17) You must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die [so never eating from that tree means never dying]





Interestingly, the Scriptures are full of references to this earthly hope.


(Psalms 37:11) 'the meek will possess the earth'


(Proverbs 2:21) 'upright will reside in the earth'


(Isaiah 45:18) 'God formed the earth to be inhabited'


(Matthew 5:5) 'the mild will inherit the earth'


(Revelation 21:3) The tent of God is with mankind





Learn more:


http://watchtower.org/e/20001001/article...


http://watchtower.org/e/20001001/


http://watchtower.org/e/jt/
Reply:Here is a wonderful example of "Do not believe everything you hear."





We believe that we are living in Satan's system


2 Cor 4:4.





We believe that Jesus is bringing a new system (age) which is a paradise earth. (Matt 24:3)





When I study, I use several bibles, I helps to get the flavor of God's word.





Matt 13:43 must agree with John 3:16;





Those that do not have faith perish.


Those thrown into the fiery furnace also perish.





Jesus said to be in fear of him that can destroy both body and soul.


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Reply: The earth: They believe that God’s original purpose for the earth will be fulfilled; that the earth will be completely populated by worshipers of Jehovah and that these will be able to enjoy eternal life in human perfection; that even the dead will be raised to an opportunity to share in these blessings.





 Death: They believe that the dead are conscious of absolutely nothing; that they are experiencing neither pain nor pleasure in some spirit realm; that they do not exist except in God’s memory, so hope for their future life lies in a resurrection from the dead.


 Last days: They believe that we are living now, since 1914, in the last days of this wicked system of things; that some who saw the events of 1914 will also see the complete destruction of the present wicked world; that lovers of righteousness will survive into a cleansed earth.
Reply:The New World Translation.....they have added and changed things about the bible wherever and whenever they felt like it. "If anything in the bible contradicts our beliefs, instead of changing our beliefs, let's just change the bible!" This is not an actual quote, though it could be.





Funny that I would get the thumbs down for answering this question honestly. Anyone who doesn't think the NWT is inaccurate to say the least needs to study things more.
Reply:if you look up the word hell, it is the common grave. we use the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures but we can use the king james bible also. our bible put Jehovah God's name in, in the places that it is suppose to be. we did not take away or add anything. the king james bible took out Jehovah God's name and put in God or Lord instead. also we do not follow the watchtower. that is a magazine. we follow the bible
Reply:it is my belief the JWs refer to the watchtower...the JWs founders name was a false prophet named Charles Taz..he prophesied the rapture would come in the latter 1800s and based this belief
Reply:My first recommendation is to ask a JW yourself before you go spouting off about what we believe. We DO NOT believe that we live in Hell in earth.
Reply:They have their own version of the bible that they created to support their doctrine.


I am not sure who told you they believe in hell on earth, but that isn't true. They don't believe in the traditional version of hell either.
Reply:Hell.





Definition: The word “hell” is found in many Bible translations. In the same verses other translations read “the grave,” “the world of the dead,” and so forth. Other Bibles simply transliterate the original-language words that are sometimes rendered “hell”; that is, they express them with the letters of our alphabet but leave the words untranslated. The Hebrew she’ohl′ and its Greek equivalent hai′des, which refer, not to an individual burial place, but to the common grave of dead mankind; also the Greek ge′en·na, which is used as a symbol of eternal destruction.





Psalms 146:4: “His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts* do perish.” (*“Thoughts,” "King James Version", 145:4 in Dyer; “schemes,” Jer. B.; “plans,” Revised Standard Version, "Today's English Version.")





“Much confusion and misunderstanding has been caused through the early translators of the Bible persistently rendering the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades and Gehenna by the word hell. The simple transliteration of these words by the translators of the revised editions of the Bible has not sufficed to appreciably clear up this confusion and misconception.”—'The Encyclopedia Americana' (1942), Vol. XIV, p. 81.





Translators have allowed their personal beliefs to color their work instead of being consistent in their rendering of the original-language words. For example: (1) The "King James Version" rendered she’ohl′ as “hell,” “the grave,” and “the pit”; hai′des is therein rendered both “hell” and “grave”; ge′en·na is also translated “hell.” (2) "Today’s English Version" transliterates hai′des as “Hades” and also renders it as “hell” and “the world of the dead.” But besides rendering “hell” from hai′des it uses that same translation for ge′en·na. (3) The Jerusalem Bible transliterates hai′des six times, but in other passages it translates it as “hell” and as “the underworld.” It also translates ge′en·na as “hell,” as it does hai′des in two instances. Thus the exact meanings of the original-language words have been obscured. Jer. 7:31: “They [apostate Judeans] have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, a thing that I had not commanded and that had not come up into my heart.” (If it never came into God’s heart, surely he does not have and use such a thing on a larger scale.)





Illustration: What would you think of a parent who held his child’s hand over a fire to punish the child for wrongdoing? “God is love.” (1 John 4:8.) Would he do what no right-minded human parent would do? Certainly not!





The origin of the teaching of hellfire -





In ancient Babylonian and Assyrian beliefs the “nether world . . . is pictured as a place full of horrors, and is presided over by gods and demons of great strength and fierceness.”  (The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Boston, 1898, Morris Jastrow, Jr., p. 581) Early evidence of the fiery aspect of Christendom’s hell is found in the religion of ancient Egypt. (The Book of the Dead, New Hyde Park, N.Y., 1960, with introduction by E. A. Wallis Budge, pp. 144, 149, 151, 153, 161) Buddhism, which dates back to the 6th century B.C.E., in time came to feature both hot and cold hells. (The Encyclopedia Americana, 1977, Vol. 14, p. 68) Depictions of hell portrayed in Catholic churches in Italy have been traced to Etruscan roots.—La civiltà etrusca (Milan, 1979), Werner Keller, p. 389.





But the real roots of this God-dishonoring doctrine go much deeper. The fiendish concepts associated with a hell of torment slander God and originate with the chief slanderer of God (the Devil, which name means “Slanderer”), the one whom Jesus Christ called “the father of the lie.”—John 8:44.





Matthew 13: Fire was used in Bible times as the most thorough means of destruction.





According to Jesus’ illustration of the symbolic “wheat” and “weeds,” at “the conclusion of the system of things,” the Son of man sends out his angelic reapers to “collect out from his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and persons who are doing lawlessness.” These “weeds” (“the sons of the wicked one”) are pitched into a figurative fiery furnace, whereas “the wheat” (“the sons of the kingdom”) are preserved and “will shine as brightly as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”





If you would like further information or a free home Bible study, please contact Jehovah's Witnesses at the local Kingdom Hall. Or visit %26lt;watchtower.org%26gt;