Usage By Jehovah's Witnesses
The ASV has been used for many years by the Jehovah's Witnesses. The reasons for their choosing of the ASV were twofold: its usage of "Jehovah" as the Divine Name, which was congruent with their doctrine, and they derived their name from Isaiah 43.10, 12, both of which contain the phrase, "Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah." Also, there was a perception that the ASV had improved the translation of some verses in the King James Version, and in other places it reduced the verses that they found to be erroneously translated in the KJV to mere footnotes, removed from the main text altogether.
Jehovah's Witnesses' publishing organization, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, had printed its own edition of the King James Version since 1926, but did not obtain the rights to print ASV until 1944. From 1944 to 1992, they printed and distributed over a million copies of the ASV. By the 1960s, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, made by members of their group and the rights to which they controlled, had largely replaced ASV as the Bible used most by Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses publications have continued to quote ASV renderings of Scripture, and have noted, "it would be good to have in your personal library the Authorized Version and the American Standard Version".
Read more about this topic: American Standard Version
Famous quotes containing the words usage, jehovah and/or witnesses:
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)
“Then did they to Jehovah cry
When they were in distress:
And therupon he bringeth them
Out of their anguishes.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm CVII (Bay Psalm Book)
“The writer isn’t made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)