The title is a loaded question and I know it, however, I will back it up with verifiable information.
Taken from the July 1879 issue of Zion’s Watchtower and Herald of Christ’s Presence Reprints p. 8, 9:
“A truth presented by Satan himself is just as true as a truth stated by God.
Perhaps no class of people are more apt to overlook this fact than the Christian. How often do they in controversy overlook and ignore truth presented by their opponents. This is particularly the case when arguing with an infidel. They feel at perfect liberty to dispute everything he says on religious subjects. This is not the correct principle. Many infidels are honest–as anxious to speak and believe the truth as are Christians–and if in converse with them we ignore truths which they may advance, we not only fail to convince them of our truths, but put an end to all hope of reaching them; for our failure to admit the evident truth which they advance begets in them contempt for the one who is not honest enough to admit one truth because he does not see how it can be reconciled to another. Accept truth wherever you find it, no matter what it contradicts, and rely for ability to afterwards harmonize it with others upon “The Spirit of truth, which shall guide you into all truth,” as Jesus promised.
Is everything harmonized or just elements of it?
Today, I’d like to look at where the Watchtower goes in search of those who “make the truth true.”
What I will simply do is go over a list of resources and some background information about the author(s) and/or specific quotes on the material that was produced. Take special note of the material when it was published and if they had any connection with the Society.
Protestant and Catholic
Edmond de Presseznsé-The Early Years of Christianity. 1879
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown. A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments. 1873
William Carey. An Enquiry Into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. 1729
Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer. Critical and Exegetical Hand-book to the Gospel of John. 1884.
Exegetical Hand-Book to the Gospel of Matthew. 1880.
Alfred Edersheim. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. 1906. Jewish convert to Christianity.
J.E. Hunther. Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the General Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude. 1887
B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort. 1881. Used for the basis of the Greek side of the Kingdom Interlinear Translation. Christianity Today
Antoine Augustin Calmet. James Bruce’s Dictionary of The Holy Bible. 1832. Antoine died in 1757 and was a Catholic. How many times has the Society gone after the Catholic Church even though it bears much in common?
The Catholic Encyclopedia-the organization has used this numerous times.
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg. Christology of the Old Testament. 1839. died in 1869.
John H. Newman. Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. 1881 edition. A Catholic cardinal
William Dool Killen. The Ancient Church. 1859. Irish Presbyterian minister.
James Hastings. The Dictionary of the Apostolic Church. 1916. Scottish Presbyterian minister and biblical scholar
Patrick Fairbairn. The Imperial Bible-Dictionary. 1874. Scottish minister and theologian
Adventists
Bible Readings for the Home Circle. A Topical Study of the Bible, Systematically
Arranged for Home and Private Study. 1920 edition.
Similar to:
If the six volumes of SCRIPTURE STUDIES are practically the Bible topically arranged, with Bible proof-texts given, we might not improperly name the volumes– the Bible in an arranged form.
The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence. September 15, 1910. Reprints page 4685
Christadelphian
Benjamin Wilson. The Emphatic Diaglott. 1808
Eastern Orthodox
Cyril Lucar or Lucaris. Confession of Faith. 1629
Unitarian: Alvin Lamson
Michael Severtus: In 1538 Servetus, as Villeneuve, got into trouble with the faculty of medicine, the Parlement of Paris, and the Inquisition for mixing astrology with medicine. Although he was acquitted by the Inquisition, the Parlement ruled that his published self-defense was to be confiscated and he was to desist from the practice of astrology.
http://uudb.org/articles/michaelservetus.html
Last I checked the organization officially condemned it with the following:
Astrology is based on falsehoods and is therefore detestable to the God of truth, Jehovah. (Psalm 31:5) For that reason, the Bible clearly condemns it and urges people to have nothing to do with it. At Deuteronomy 18:10-12, God clearly states: “There should not be found in you . . . anyone who looks for omens or a sorcerer, . . . anyone who consults a spirit medium or a professional foreteller of events or anyone who inquires of the dead. For everybody doing these things is something detestable to Jehovah.”
The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom. June 1, 2010 p. 20, 21
However, they embrace him and regard him as one to look up to him even though he engaged in this practice.
Occult
It comes as no surprise that one Johannes Greber, a former Catholic clergyman, has become a spiritualist and has published the book entitled “Communication with the Spirit World, Its laws and Its Purpose.” (1932, Macoy Publishing Company, New York) In its Foreword he makes the typical misstatement: “The most significant spiritualistic book is the Bible; for its principal contents hinge upon the messages of the beyond to those existing in the present.”
The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom. October 1, 1955 p. 603
Says Johannes Greber in the introduction of his translation of The New Testament, copyrighted in 1937: “I myself was a Catholic priest, and until I was forty-eight years old had never as much as believed in the possibility of communicating with the world of God’s spirits. The day came, however, when I involuntarily took my first step toward such communication, and experienced things that shook me to the depths of my soul. . . . My experiences are related in a book that has appeared in both German and English and bears the title, Communication with the Spirit-World: Its Laws and Its Purpose.” (Page 15, ¶ 2, 3) In keeping with his Roman Catholic extraction Greber’s translation is bound with a gold-leaf cross on its stiff front cover. In the Foreword of his aforementioned book ex-priest Greber says: “The most significant spiritualistic book is the Bible.” Under this impression Greber endeavors to make his New Testament translation read very spiritualistic.
The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom February 15, 1956 p. 110, 111
A translation by a former Roman Catholic priest, Johannes Greber (1937 ed.) renders the second appearance of the word “god” in the sentence as “a god.” And The Four Gospels—A New Translation, by Professor Charles Cutler Torrey (second ed., 1947), says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. and the Word was god. When he was in the beginning with God all things were created through him; without him came no created thing into being.” (John 1:1-3) Note that what the Word is said to be is spelled without a capital initial letter, namely, “god.”
Aid To Bible Understanding. 1971 p. 1669
Thus the translation by Johannes Greber (1937) renders these verses: “Tombs were laid open, and many bodies of those buried there were tossed upright. In this posture they projected from the graves and were seen by many who passed by the place on their way back to the city.”—Compare the New World Translation.
The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom October 15, 1975 p. 640
A report in the Bible, as translated by Johannes Greber, says that when Jesus died, “the earth quaked, and the rocks were shattered.
The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom April 15, 1976 p. 231
Why, in recent years, has The Watchtower not made use of the translation by the former Catholic priest, Johannes Greber?
This translation was used occasionally in support of renderings of Matthew 27:52, 53 and John 1:1, as given in the New World Translation and other authoritative Bible versions. But as indicated in a foreword to the 1980 edition of The New Testament by Johannes Greber, this translator relied on “God’s Spirit World” to clarify for him how he should translate difficult passages. It is stated: “His wife, a medium of God’s Spirit world was often instrumental in conveying the correct answers from God’s Messengers to Pastor Greber.” The Watchtower has deemed it improper to make use of a translation that has such a close rapport with spiritism. (Deuteronomy 18:10-12) The scholarship that forms the basis for the rendering of the above-cited texts in the New World Translation is sound and for this reason does not depend at all on Greber’s translation for authority. Nothing is lost, therefore, by ceasing to use his New Testament.
The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom. April 1, 1983 p. 31
As you can see, this is just a small sampling of the material that the organization has quoted over the years.
Where would this organization be without the mix Christianity (the umbrella of Protestants, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox) and people involved in the occult? Would the Society even exist?
One quote from the book Babylon The Great Has Fallen, God’s Kingdom Rules. 1963: Because Great Babylon herself stands for the world empire of false religion with its priests clergymen, monks, nuns, astrologers, spiritists, sorcerers. p. 605, 606.
My question is this, why does this organization clearly align itself with Babylon the Great when it comes to producing material? This is evidenced by continually using Babylon the Great to cite material from. The book “Reasoning From the Scriptures” uses nothing but resources that those within the organization hates to prove that it is the one true organization. When all “false religion” as the society renders it is destroyed, does this mean the Society itself will fall?
This organization that calls itself “the truth” continually relies on Babylon the Great to try and gain credibility. Last I checked, this is not how it’s supposed to be.