ClaimAuthority and accountabilityverified1930sContext

Authority and accountability · Claim record

One sentence of the Declaration reads: “Although the Pharisees and priests then claimed to represent Jehovah God Jesus told them that they were in fact the representatives of Satan the Devil.” On the page its subject is the Pharisees and priests who opposed Jesus, in a passage quoting John 8:43-45; the paragraph that follows begins “We have no fight with any persons or religious teachers”.

Claim ID claim-authority-de33-satan-representatives-misreadConcerns 25 June 1933Context

Die Aussage und ihre Belege

Context · 25 June 1933 Verified

One sentence of the Declaration reads: “Although the Pharisees and priests then claimed to represent Jehovah God Jesus told them that they were in fact the representatives of Satan the Devil.” On the page its subject is the Pharisees and priests who opposed Jesus, in a passage quoting John 8:43-45; the paragraph that follows begins “We have no fight with any persons or religious teachers”. Source: Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses, 1934Source: Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses, 1934

Show the evidence (2 sources)
Primary JW publication Verified

Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses, “Germany”

1934 · p.133 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society

“Although the Pharisees and priests then claimed to represent Jehovah God Jesus told them that they were in fact the representatives of Satan the Devil.”

The sentence closes the Declaration’s quotation of John 8:43-45. Its subject is “the Pharisees and priests” who opposed Jesus, whom the preceding paragraph calls “the Jewish clergy”; the next paragraph begins “We have no fight with any persons or religious teachers”.

Provenance and verification note for Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses, Germany

Confidence note. Read on the page image of p. 133 (leaf 129) on 19 September 2026, whose own running head reads “Year Book 133”, and confirmed word for word. The printed text carries no comma after “Jehovah God”; the sentence is given here exactly as printed.

Scan provenance. Scan of the 1934 Year Book of Jehovah’s Witnesses held by the Internet Archive as item “1934-JwYearbook”. The item was uploaded to the Internet Archive in January 2012 by a private account; its “creator” field reads “watchtower”, but the upload is not by the publisher and the Internet Archive is not the publisher. The scanned title page names the corporate publishers as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, Peoples Pulpit Association and International Bible Students Association, Brooklyn, New York, and carries the notice “Copyright 1933”. The volume is the Year Book for 1934: it carries the branch reports for the 1933 service year, and it is dated here by its edition year, the form in which the organisation’s own publications cite it (“1934 Yearbook, pp. 127-146”, The Watchtower, 1 August 1955, footnote h).

Notes. On the page the subject of the sentence is the first-century religious leadership described in the preceding paragraph — “the Jewish clergy, that is to say, the Pharisees and priests” who opposed Jesus — and not the Jews as a people.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-de33-yb34-satan-representatives

Primary JW publication Verified

Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses, “Germany”

1934 · p.132 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society

“By the term 'clergy', as used in our literature, reference is made to that class of professed religious teachers, priests and Jesuits who employ improper political means to accomplish their ends and join forces even with those who deny God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The first paragraph printed beneath the centred subheading “Jews”. The quotation stops at the end of the definition; the paragraph then continues “That is the same class to whom Jesus referred as his persecutors.” and ends “We have no criticism of any honest religious teacher.” The section beneath the subheading runs from p. 132 to the foot of p. 134 and deals in turn with the Jewish religious leaders who opposed Jesus, with the charge that the Society was funded by Jews, and with the Anglo-American empire.

Provenance and verification note for Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses, Germany

Confidence note. Read on the page image of p. 132 (leaf 128) on 19 September 2026, whose own running head reads “132 Year Book”; the subheading “Jews” is printed type on the page, not an artefact of the optical character recognition. Re-read for an independent audit on the same page image.

Scan provenance. Scan of the 1934 Year Book of Jehovah’s Witnesses held by the Internet Archive as item “1934-JwYearbook”. The item was uploaded to the Internet Archive in January 2012 by a private account; its “creator” field reads “watchtower”, but the upload is not by the publisher and the Internet Archive is not the publisher. The scanned title page names the corporate publishers as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, Peoples Pulpit Association and International Bible Students Association, Brooklyn, New York, and carries the notice “Copyright 1933”. The volume is the Year Book for 1934: it carries the branch reports for the 1933 service year, and it is dated here by its edition year, the form in which the organisation’s own publications cite it (“1934 Yearbook, pp. 127-146”, The Watchtower, 1 August 1955, footnote h).

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-de33-yb34-jews-subheading

Claim page Correct or update

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