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Summary
- Jehovah’s Witnesses and Latter-day Saints (Mormons) are separate religions with no historical link: Joseph Smith organized his church in New York in 1830, and the Witnesses grew from Charles Taze Russell’s Bible class near Pittsburgh, begun in 1870.
- Both reject the Trinity. Witnesses believe the Father alone, Jehovah, is God and that Jesus was his first creation; Latter-day Saints believe the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are three separate beings and that Jesus is the Jehovah of the Old Testament.
- Witnesses accept only the 66 books of the Bible and prefer their New World Translation; Latter-day Saints add the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price.
- Witnesses teach that the dead cease to exist until the resurrection, that 144,000 will rule in heaven and that the rest of the faithful will live on a paradise earth; Latter-day Saints teach a spirit world after death and three kingdoms of glory.
- Witnesses refuse blood transfusions and do not celebrate Christmas, Easter or birthdays; Latter-day Saints keep Christmas and Easter, pay a tithe and avoid alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Ecclesiastes 9:5; John 1:1; 1 Corinthians 15:29, 41; Colossians 1:15; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 7:4). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
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