Abstract

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, publishers and distributors of all documents used and disseminated by Jehovah’s Witnesses, claim that Jesus is subordinate to God the Father and that he is the first of his creation, and therefore not co-eternal or co-equal with him. The focus of this thesis is to investigate early Christian primary and secondary sources as well as contemporary scholarly opinions and compare them to Watchtower teachings to determine whether Jehovah’s Witnesses’ understanding of the ‘firstborn of creation’ of Colossians 1:15 can be said to be a legitimate interpretation of this expression and whether their Christology can be reconciled with New Testament writings. Based on the traditional Christian hermeneutical reappropriation of Hebrew texts and the traditional understanding of the entire Christian canon of Sripture, the claim that the Son must be a created being does not truly find irrefutable substantiation.