Historical Dictionary of Jehovah's Witnesses [Hardcover]

Originating from a small group of Bible students who met under Charles Taze Russells leadership and grew into an international Society, to which the second leader Joseph Franklin Rutherford and gave the name Jehovahs Witnesses. Two World Wars shaped Watch Tower attitudes to civil government, armed conflict, and medical innovations such as blood transfusion, as well as to mainstream churches. The twenty-first century has seen some important changes in the Watch Tower organization, and coverage is given to changes in organizational structure, its use of the World Wide Web, and its major relocation from Brooklyn to Warwick.



This updated second edition of Historical Dictionary of Jehovah's Witnesses contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on key concepts, themes, and people relating to Jehovahs Witnesses. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Jehovah's Witnesses.

George D. Chryssides is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, and York St John University. He has published extensively on new religious movements and he is the author of Historical Dictionary of Jehovah's Witnesses (2008) and Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements, Second Edition (2011). He is currently president of the International Society for the Study of New Religions and Co-Vice-Chair of Inform (Information Network on New Religious Movements), based at Kings College London.

No one is more qualified to write a dictionary of Jehovahs Witnesses than Chryssides (Univ. of Birmingham and York St. John University, UK). He has written several books on the Jehovahs Witnesses and new religious movements, and his Jehovahs Witnesses: Continuity and Change (2016) is noteworthy as the most objective social science analysis to date of the denomination. Chryssides's expertise shines in this contlÃ*