Here are books that we have either written and published ourselves, or helped others to publish.
Shutting the Door to the Kingdom of God
Eric Wilson (aka Meleti Vivlon)
This book uses the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures to prove that all the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses concerning the Last Days and the good news of salvation are unscriptural.
The author, an elder of Jehovah’s Witnesses for 40 years, shares the results of the last ten years of his research into such Watch Tower teachings as the 1914 invisible presence of Christ, the overlapping generation doctrine, the failed prophecies of 1925 and 1975, the fact that the Governing Body had evidence long ago showing that 607 BCE was not the date of the Babylonian exile, and most important of all, the abundant evidence that the salvation hope offered to the JW Other Sheep is a Rutherford invention wholly without support in Scripture.
He also shares his experience on how Witnesses who continue to believe in Jehovah and Jesus can move beyond JW.org without sacrificing their faith. This is a must-read for any Jehovah’s Witness who is a seeker of truth and unafraid to put his or her beliefs to the test.
Watch the launch video on YouTube.
Paperback Hardcover Kindle Audiobook
Also available in German, Italian, Romanian, Slovenian, and Spanish.
Rutherford’s Coup (Second Edition)
Rud Persson
Raised a Baptist, in 1906, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, a provincial Missouri attorney with a shrewd and scheming legal mind, became a baptized “Bible Student.” In 1907, Rutherford became the legal counselor for the group’s legally chartered corporation, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. Ten years later, he became the corporation’s president, serving as such for twenty-five years.
From the beginning of his presidency to his death, Rutherford turned a small relatively unknown sect into a major religious empire which, in 1931, he named Jehovah’s Witnesses. As a former staff researcher for the Watch Tower Corporation, I guarantee that no one is more knowledgeable about Joseph Rutherford’s presidency than Rud Persson.
This unique, eye-opening book is the result of decades of meticulous research. With an engaging style, and drawing on evidence from countless documents, he details how Rutherford and his cronies accomplished an illegal coup d’etat. This book represents the first methodical attempt to examine Rutherford’s rise to executive power amidst forceful opposition to his harsh authoritarianism, and it deserves a place on your bookshelf.
Watch our launch video.
Also available in Spanish.
The Gentile Times Reconsidered (Fourth Edition)
Carl Olof Jonsson
The Gentile Times Reconsidered, by Swedish author Carl Olof Jonsson, is a scholarly treatise based on careful and extensive research, including an unusually detailed study of Assyrian and Babylonian records relative to the date of Jerusalem’s destruction by Babylonian conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar.
The publication traces the history of a long string of interpretation theories connected with time prophecies extracted from the Bible books of Daniel and Revelation, beginning with those from Judaism in the early centuries, through Medieval Catholicism, the Reformers, and into nineteenth century British and American Protestantism. It reveals the actual origin of the interpretation which eventually produced the date of 1914 as a predicted year for the end of “the Gentile Times,” a date adopted and proclaimed worldwide to this day by the religious movement known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. The importance of this date for the exclusive claims of the movement is repeatedly stressed in its publications.
The Watchtower of October 15, 1990, for example, states on page 19:
“For 38 years prior to 1914, the Bible Students, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then called, pointed to that date as the year when the Gentile Times would end. What outstanding proof that is that they were true servants of Jehovah!”
The book contains a helpful discussion of the application of the Biblical prophecy regarding the “seventy years” of Babylonian domination of Judah. Readers will find the information refreshingly different from any other publication on this topic.
Watch our launch video on YouTube.
Also available in French and German.
Apocalypse Delayed
M. James Penton
Since 1876, Jehovah’s Witnesses have believed that they are living in the last days of the present world. Charles T. Russell, their founder, advised his followers that members of Christ’s church would be raptured in 1878, and by 1914 Christ would destroy the nations and establish his kingdom on earth. The first prophecy was not fulfilled, but the outbreak of the First World War lent some credibility to the second. Ever since that time, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been predicting that the world would end “shortly.” Their numbers have grown to many millions in over two hundred countries. They distribute a billion pieces of literature annually, and continue to anticipate the end of the world.
For almost thirty years, M. James Penton’s Apocalypse Delayed has been the definitive scholarly study of this religious movement. As a former member of the sect, Penton offers a comprehensive overview of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. His book is divided into three parts, each presenting the Witnesses’ story in a different context: historical, doctrinal, and sociological. Some of the issues he discusses are known to the general public, such as the sect’s opposition to military service and blood transfusions. Others involve internal controversies, including political control of the organization and the handling of dissent within the ranks.
Thoroughly revised, the third edition of Penton’s classic text includes substantial new information on the sources of Russell’s theology and on the church’s early leaders, as well as coverage of important developments within the sect since the second edition was published fifteen years ago.
Watch our interview with the author.
Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Third Reich
M. James Penton
Since the end of World War II, leaders of the Jehovah’s Witness movement in both Germany and elsewhere have steadfastly argued that Witnesses were united in their opposition to Nazism and did not collude with the Third Reich. Documents have been uncovered, however, that prove otherwise. Using materials from Witness archives, the U.S. State Department, Nazi files, and other sources, M. James Penton demonstrates that while many ordinary German Witnesses were brave in their opposition to Nazism, their leaders were quite prepared to support the Hitler government.
Penton begins his study with a close reading of the “Declaration of Facts” released by the Witnesses at a Berlin convention in June 1933. Witness leaders have called the document a protest against Nazi persecution, however closer examination shows it contained bitter attacks on Great Britain and the United States – jointly referred to as “the greatest and most oppressive empire on earth” – the League of Nations, big business, and above all, Jews, who are referred to as “the representatives of Satan the Devil.”
It was later, in 1933 – when the Nazis would not accept Witness blandishments- that leader J.F. Rutherford called on Witnesses to seek martyrdom by carrying on a campaign of passive resistance. Many ultimately died in prisons and concentration camps, and postwar Witness leaders have attempted to use this fact to assert that Jehovah’s Witnesses stood consistently against Nazism.
Drawing on his own Witness background and years of research on Witness history, Penton separates fact from fiction during this dark period.