The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

The New York Times has posted a digital version of a June 12, 1977 article regarding the death of one Nathan H. Knorr on the Internet. Unbeknownst to most Bahamians, Knorr was the third president of the US based Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society - succeeding Judge Joseph Rutherford in 1942.

Rutherford would succeed Charles Taze Russell in 1916 or thereabouts. Russell would incorporate Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1884. He was the Society’s first president. Under the Knorr administration, the Watch Tower would ban blood transfusions in 1945. This earth shattering move was announced in July of 1945 in the Society’s publication, The Watchtower, in an article titled “The Sanctity of Blood.”

Interestingly, the Society had banned vaccinations in 1931 or thereabouts. This was announced in another publication formerly called Golden Age. Golden Age underwent a name change in 1937, when it was renamed Consolation. Consolation was renamed Awake! in 1946. Perhaps owing to pressure from the American government, the Watch Tower would reverse its ban on vaccinations in 1952. In 1967, however, it banned organ transplants, only to reverse this controversial decision in 1980.

Apparently, the Governing Body in New York has no qualms toying with the lives of its members, which today totals over 8.5 million Jehovah’s Witnesses. The name Jehovah’s Witness was adopted in 1931 by the Rutherford administration, in order to distinguish his group from the Dawn Bible Students Association and the Layman’s Home Missionary Movement. All three groups can rightly be considered theological offsprings of Russell. Knorr may have never visited The Bahamas during his lifetime. Yet it boggles the mind that his decision in 1945 regarding blood transfusions would directly impact Bahamian Jehovah’s Witness families. I will not call names for obvious reasons.

The thing that continues to trouble me regarding this Watch Tower injunction is the tragic and unnecessary loss of a young Bahamian life some years ago. This Bahamian was fatally injured by an assailant. I was told that the victim would’ve survived, had they received a blood transfusion. I am not privy to all of the facts surrounding this case.

However, I can only speculate that the young Jehovah’s Witness probably had a medical alert card in his possession, which notified medical personnel that under no circumstances must blood be given. Or it is quite possible that his Jehovah’s Witness family members informed the hospital about their religious stance on blood transfusions. Whatever the case may be, Knorr and the Watch Tower had twisted the meaning of Leviticus 17:10, 3:17, 17:26-27 and Acts 15:29. None of the passages referenced in the aforementioned 1945 Awake! article has anything to do with blood transfusions. Indeed, the biblical writers knew nothing about this modern medical procedure.

What was banned by the biblical writers was the consumption of blood. It was common among pagans to consume blood and to practice cannibalism. Hence, the apostles’ prohibition against blood consumption in Acts 15. How many more needless deaths must there be before Bahamian Jehovah’s Witnesses realize that Knorr used faulty hermeneutics to come to his blood transfusion conclusions? Concerning Knorr, he was not seminary trained. He along with Fredrick W. Franz, Albert D. Schroeder, George D. Gangas and Milton G. Henschel sat on the New World Translation Committee. Only Franz had a college education, and that was only two years. This is something worth considering when Bahamian Jehovah’s Witnesses “skylark” with the lives of their children who are in need of a blood donation.

I am not a physician. I am not an expert on medicine. Yet as a layman, I can see a clear distinction between eating blood and receiving it intravenously. I am appealing to officials at the Ministry of Health and Health and Wellness Minister Dr. Michael Darville to reach out to the local Kingdom Halls on New Providence, with the aim of convincing them that there’s nothing immoral about receiving a blood transfusion. Granted, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society in New York will undoubtedly excommunicate its Bahamian members for failing to abide by its injunction. But I would rather be guilty of breaking a man-made arbitrary injunction than standing idly by while watching another human being die needlessly.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport,

Grand Bahama.

February 7, 2023.