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Jehovah's Witnesses: A Comprehensive and Selectively Annotated Bibliography (Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies)

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To paraphrase with parenthesis the author of Ecclesiastes: 'to the making of books (by and about Jehovah's Witnesses) there is no end". A bewildering array of literature exists, for and against this extremely active religious organization. And now, thanks to Dr. Bergman, it has been almost exhaustively catalogued. His bibliography includes publications as diverse as "The Truth That Leads to Everlasting Life" (possibly the third most published book in the world) and "Judge Rutherford Uncovers the Fifth Column", which hardly anyone has ever heard of. Both have rolled off the impressive presses at the Watchtower's Brooklyn plant and bear the imprimateur of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. This thorough bibliography would be of immense help for any serious student of the Watchtower that desires to grasp the extraordinary diversity of doctrinal and chronological modifications that have taken place in that organization over the years since its inception. There is even a listing of splinter groups that have formed during periods of upheaval and internecine controversy, along with their esoteric doctrines. The breadth of Dr.Bergman's book is remarkable and easily surpasses anything heretofore published. As a former student at University of California, Berkeley, who dropped out in 1952 to become one of Jehovah's Witnesses (ultimately graduating from the Watchtower Bible School, Gilead, and later becoming a circuit overseer in both Pennsylvania and Brazil), I can vouch for its overall accuracy and fairness of presentation. My own library of Watchtower-related material is quite extensive and from the vantage point of a serious student of Watchtower history, I can enthusiastically endorse and heartily recommend this splendid bibliography.

Recently, Rodney Stark and Lawrence Iannaccone advised social scientists of religion to spend more time studying the Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs). They accused their colleagues of systematically neglecting the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WBTS) and its adherents. The membership of this more than 100-year-old religious movement may be highly visible in daily life, but it is practically ignored in journals and textbooks.

Whatever the reason may be, a lack of written sources can hardly be a valid explanation for this alleged indifference by the scientific community. In his second bibliography about the JWs, American psychologist Bergman compiles approximately 5000 titles of printed material by and about the WBTS and its membership. The author divides this work into five categories: official literature by the WBTS (chapter 1); material associated with the movement's genesis and early development (chapter 2); sources from outside observers such as books and newsletters (chapter 3) and magazine and journal articles (chapter 4). and, finally, material from the organization's offshoots (chapters 5 and 6). Only chapter 4 is arranged by separate subjects like court cases involving the JWs, the blood transfusion doctrine, the flag salute issue, and sociological and psychological studies. A name index concludes the book.

Though the bulk of the publications are in English, Bergman also presents many sources from Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia. Italian, Spanish, French, and Russian references are sparse while material in other languages is minimal. The time span covers more than a century and a half: from the 1840s - sources that, according to Bergman, were highly influential in the development of the views of founder Russell - until 1997. With regard to the amount of sociological research, a quick count yields approximately 20 Ph.D. dissertations and 50 articles in professional journals. If these numbers indicate "systematic neglect" as asserted by Stark and Iannaccone, one wonders what amount is required for "systematic attention."

This bibliography is a reasonably easy reference book for specialists. One may conclude that, with one exception, most of what any researcher on this religious movement will require is here. Particularly the final chapters that deal with the organization's many schisms offer interesting details. Social scientists may pay too little attention to the JWs; the offshoots of the WBTS are a virtual terra incognita.

Unfortunately, the bibliography's comprehensiveness is the only positive characteristic of this work. The annotations suffer from subjective usage, unfounded or incomplete evaluations, and tabloid irrelevance. Partially, these problems can be explained by the compiler's former religious allegiance; Bergman is an ex-JW and notorious adversary of the WBTS. The uninformed reader, however, is left in the dark about these facts. "He has been researching and writing about the Jehovah's Witness movement for nearly four decades," is the only biographical information provided. From the annotations, however, his present position and sentiments become clear.

He describes the organization as "corrupted," "inhuman," and "dishonest" while its various teachings, such as the blood transfusion doctrine and the prophetic year 1914, are evaluated as "tragic," "erroneous," and "wrong" (pp. 95, 98, 100, 111 ). Next, Bergman qualifies hundreds of sources including some of his own (p. 119) - as "excellent" without providing any argument for this appraisal. This applies to a Swedish treatise ("excellent review") that makes a stand against the movement's transfusion prohibition (p. 100) and a Dutch book that contains "much excellent information found nowhere else" (p. 109). How does he know? Has he mastered these languages? From the writer's acknowledgments, it seems that many opinions probably originate from foreign associates who contributed much of the nonEnglish material (p. ix).

Some annotations are painfully incomplete or embarrassingly void. A plain blunder is the comment on a publication commissioned by the former East German Secret Service with the specific intention to discredit the WBTS. Surely, Bergman labels the book "an Anti-Witness work," but he leaves out the vital (and well-known) information that the Stasi was behind its production (p. 97). Also, the pioneering studies of Bryan Wilson on the JWs are devoid of any comment (p. 256); and when the reader's interest may have been aroused by an obscure but unique experimental study on personality traits among German JWs, no details but the minimally required bibliographical data are provided (p. 101 ). In contrast, the author's comments on the seminal study of the JWs persecution in Nazi-Germany by historian Garbe are limited to the gratuitous remark that the movement's own historiography is "not always very accurate," rather than showing the theoretical merits of this work (p. 97). Further, Bergman overlooks numerous German (case) studies published since the early 90s about the fate of the JWs during the Hitter-regime. A separate section on this specific issue would have been appropriate.

An inclination to outright sensationalism can be detected in annotations about the alleged relationship between WBTS membership and adverse behavior. What does the author suggest with the comment "About the skinhead murder by three boys all of which were raised Witnesses" (p. 107)? So far, any significant association between upbringing in this religious milieu and criminal activities has not been demonstrated. The same goes for a JW lawyer who swindled his fellow believers (p. 241). These are unfortunate events, but by emphasizing these and similar isolated incidents it is unclear what information the writer wants to convey to the reader other than the negative stigmatization of a religious minority.

Concerning Bergman's classification criteria, one may wonder if grouping the socalled "human interest" category under the heading of "sociological and psychological studies" is advisable. Thus, articles in Sociological Analysis and Acta Psychiatrica Belgica alternate with a Penthouse interview with singer and JW-raised Patti Smith and an expose about a converted television star in Woman's Day (pp. 249-256). Finally, the observation that the non-English entries are saturated with language errors points to sloppy - if at all - final editing, the sophisticated external care of the book aside. The best advice to the reader would be to concentrate on the titles and ignore the annotations.

Richard Singelenberg

Dr. Jerry Bergman's work, Jehovah's Witnesses. A Comprehensive and Selectively Annotated Bibliography (Westport, Connecticut, and London: Greenwood Press, 1999), is, as the title indicates, a bibliography on the background, origin, and history of the Watchtower movement. The book contains nearly 10,000 references, and it is very well done. It is, in fact, a goldmine for researchers. This holds true especially of the literature in English, which is truly comprehensive.

Bergman was himself a Witness until the early 1980's, and he knows the Watchtower movement thoroughly from within. He has spent decades on researching, writing, and collecting material on it, and owns himself almost every piece of material listed in the book. It can safely be said that very few persons in the world has such an extensive library on the Witnesses at hand.

The bibliography is "selectively annotated", that is, it contains brief descriptions of the content of many of the publications. These are usually informative, although in some cases they may seem too brief. Many, if not most of the publications about the Witnesses are of very poor quality, and for this reason Bergman often calls attention to the exceptions, denoting them as "well written," "interesting," "excellent," etc. Such evaluations, although of necessity subjective, are certainly legitimate and helpful.

Many publications about the Watchtower organization are aimed at "exposing" the faults of its teachings and policies. The notes on the contents of such "anti-witness" publications do not necessarily reflect Bergman's own views (although they sometimes do), as I was led to believe when I first read Singelenberg's review, but primarily the negative evaluations of the authors of these publications. The same holds true, or course, of the notes on the Watchtower publications. When, for example, the entry on a booklet published in 1983 is followed by the comment, "The need to accept Watchtower teachings; directed at Muslims" (p. 48), this, of course, describes the contents of the booklet, not the view of Bergman.

The work is not just an annotated bibliography, but it also gives very valuable and interesting background information on the movement. Thus the Introduction presents a most valuable historical overview of the movement's background in the Second Advent groups that branched off from the Millerites after the failure of their 1844 date. Brief biographical notes are given on George Storrs, John H. Paton, Maria F. Russell, the Edgar brothers, Walter Salter, and others. Some of the most interesting and valuable chapters are the last two (5 and 6) dealing with the offshoots of the Watchtower Society, which contain important historical notes on the major groups. Few if any scholar has gathered so much information and literature on these offshoots as has Jerry Bergman.

As stated, the main focus is on publications in English. A selection of publications in a number other languages are also listed, although these are far from complete. Unfortunately, for some of these languages (including the Scandinavian languages) the entries had not been proof-read and therefore contain many errors, particularly spelling errors. These, and some other errors I have noticed should be corrected in the next edition. However, most of these errors are trifles compared to the enormous amount of sources that are made available to scholars through this book.

Researchers and writers on Jehovah's Witnesses will find this work to be an indispensible reference tool, as it will save them years of work in searching for relevant sources. And anyone interested in the Watchtower movement will find the historical information added at various places in the book of great interest.

This bibliography is the perfect reference tool for collectors, book dealers and researchers. Being a collector and researcher, I really put the bibliography to the test and have come to the conclusion that it should set the standard for many years to come in the field of Watchtower literature.

The first thing you notice is the excellent way it is set up with official Watchtower literature first followed by material associated with the Russell movement. Next are chapters titled: Books, Manuscripts, Tracts and Newsletters; Magazine and Journal Articles (written by both individual Jehovah's Witnesses (J.W.)and non-J.W.'s; both pro-J.W. material and anti-J.W. material). Finally, a list of literature by many Watchtower offshoots.

I found everything in my collection listed. Unfortunately, the publisher limited the author to a given number of pages forcing the author to eliminate some important W.T. material, i.e. official Post Cards starting as far back as 1910 (that I am aware of), audio records (hundreds of them were used in the door-to-door ministry during the 1930's), specially made portable record players of different designs (several of which I had in my collection for a number of years), etc.

The bibliography is most helpful in that most entries have annotations indicating what subject matter is covered by a particular publication. It also has a very useful Name Index which makes it easier to find all of an author's writing for they may be located under different chapters.

The one major disappointment I found, or maybe I should say "did not find", was a listing for my 899 page Bible Bibliography by the same publisher as Bergman's book, back in 1991 and is still in print and available from the publisher. I had a listing for every Watchtower Bible translation and their publication history and should have been included in this bibliography. However, to be fair, Mr. Bergman did list several articles I wrote for the International Society of Bible Collectors' quarterly.

Dr. Bergman's Bibliography it is a massive bibliographic listing of written material by and about Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) and the Watchtower Society from the 1800s through 1999. It is "comprehensive" in that it contains, according to the publisher, "nearly 10,000 references on the Watchtower movement and the dozen or so major schisms" of the Society. The book represents several decades worth of work by Dr. Bergman in compiling a comprehensive reference listing everything written on or by the Watchtower and their offshoots. In addition to listing every known publication produced by the Watchtower Society since its founding in the 1800s, it lists everything Bergman and his sources have found from a tabloid article in the National Enquirer to scholarly books and Ph.D theses on JWs. The "schisms" or offshoots of the Watchtower are the subject of the last two chapters. For those researching the origins of the Watchtower and C. T. Russell's beliefs, there is a valuable chapter listing the individuals and material that influenced Russell in the Millerite/Adventist movements.

As is typical of bibliographic listings of material, the book's references list the author, title, publisher, publication date and number of pages (where known) of each reference. Amazon's Table of Contents link on this page will give you a detailed overview of just how comprehensive this Bibliography is and the material it covers.

The book's references are "selectively annotated," which means many, but not all of the 10,000 references contain a one or two-sentence explanatory note by Bergman on the content or focus of the reference (article, book or manuscript). From the annotations the reader will know what the reference is about and thus if it is something that is needed as part of his/her research. In addition, each chapter and some of the subheadings contain an introductory explanatory text by Bergman on the chapter's material, what it covers, and discusses the most important and prominent individuals involved. These also often include advice on what may be the best, most important, or perhaps the most helpful material in the section for the researcher. Also helpful is Bergman's noting at various places where some of the rare material may be obtained in photocopy or where one can find reprints.

Being a bibliography, this book is not meant to be read from cover to cover (although I did just that for this review). It is a reference source for further reading and research, a means of finding material on JWs, both pro and con, without spending several decades tracking them down in libraries across several continents as Bergman has done.

Dr. Bergman's Bibliography is an indispensable reference for the researcher and writer on the Jehovah's Witnesses and their history. If you need a book on Jehovah's Witnesses as a source for research, this is the one to have. With nearly 10,000 references on the Watchtower and its history from the 1800s to 1999, you're bound to find much material that will assist your research.

The first review of this book claimed that Bergman's annotations "suffer from subjective usage, unfounded or incomplete evaluations, and tabloid irrelevance" and that Bergman claimed the Watchtower was "corrupt" and "inhuman," while some of its teachings were "erroneous" or "wrong" in the annotations. He even said, "An inclination to outright sensationalism can be detected in annotations" and that Bergman could only be trying to stigmatize a "religious minority" by "emphasizing" certain negative material on JWs. In my opinion, this apparently reflects more of the biases and preoccupations of the reviewer than in any defects in Bergman's annotations. It certainly is not a fair or accurate description. Bergman was simply stating what the references were about, not giving his personal "sentiments."

Bergman annotated much Watchtower material which he certainly doesn't believe in the same manner as the examples from anti-Witness works, thus the book is in general consistent, not biased against the Society in its annotations. For example, in annotating the second Watchtower president, J. F. Rutherford's various booklets, he annotated these as follows(pp. 41-43):

"Shows the only remedy for the evil world and clergy is the Watchtower kingdom."

"Discusses the work of the Watchtower which will cause all good persons to leave Christendom."

"on why the Watchtower is the only hope for mankind."

"an expose of Christendom and its false teachings."

Why would Bergman, that "notorious adversary of the WBTS," as he was called, say the Watchtower was the only hope for mankind and the clergy are evil? Was he trying to "stigmatize" a religious majority? No, anymore than he claimed the Society was "inhuman" etc. in his annotations. So for example the book Blood Crimes is not a negative review of the Society's blood transfusion doctrine, but is, as Bergman's annotation explains, "about the skinhead murder by three boys, all of which were raised Witnesses. Shows the critical importance of the J.W. faith and teachings in the crime."

It should be clear that the annotations simply state what the reference is about and its perspective at times in fairly neutral (unbiased) terms. Whether Bergman agrees or not with the author of the reference that the WT. is "the only hope for mankind" or is "corrupt" is irrelevant.

Who are these annoyingly persistent people known as Jehovah's Witnesses, who knock on our doors bright and early Saturday mornings, disturbing our rare opportunity to get a few extra winks? The person who desires a deeper understanding of this sect will get a jump-start on their search for information with this book. It is an extensive listing of the works written by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (the administrative head of the Jehovah's Witnesses religion), and also a listing of almost every work written by others about the Watchtower Society. His annotations--brief comments about the contents of the listing--are most helpful in narrowing down the publications one is looking for.

Dr. Bergman's book is a goldmine--a directive to a wealth of knowledge. It is like a map that directs one how to find the hidden buried treasure. Dr. Bergman has searched through hundreds of libraries for material about the Watchtower Society; he has invested an immense amount of time and effort in bringing his unique book to fruition, thus saving the writer, researcher, and persons interested in learning more about this religious movement an enormous amount of time and work.

Some may at first compare this Bibliography to a huge card catalog in a library whose shelves are bare, as many of the publications listed are very old and seemingly unavailable. As it took the author 30 years to compile this listing, one cannot expect to find all of the publications under one roof. The author assures, however, that most are obtainable through libraries in the United States, which can be accessed through one's local library on an inter-library loan basis; others can be obtained through the Library of Congress. Much of the older Watchtower Society publications can be purchased on CD-ROMs available from various Christian ministries.

In addition to the listings, Dr. Bergman has included a valuable section on the history of Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as a very interesting chapter on religions that have their roots entwined with them, "American Offshoots of the Watchtower Society".

As a Watchtower researcher myself and author of the upcoming book, AWAKENING OF A JEHOVAH'S WITNESS: Escape From the Watchtower Society, (Prometheus: January 2002), I can attest to the value of Dr. Bergman's book.