Description
In 1989, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society published a pamphlet entitled Should You Believe in the Trinity? This pamphlet, of which millions were distributed, remains a resource on the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ official website.
Later that year, Robert M. Bowman Jr. published a point-by-point response to the pamphlet. His book, Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses, remained in print for many years. Over the years, the book proved very helpful both to Christians engaging Jehovah’s Witnesses in discussions and to Jehovah’s Witnesses transitioning to a sound Christian faith. At a conference of former Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2022, several attendees commented that they still had their copy of the book and that it had been instrumental in their accepting and understanding the doctrine of the Trinity.
Dr. Bowman has now brought the book back into print in a second edition. Other than a few references to the Watchtower’s 2013 edition of its New World Translation, the book’s citations are still all from works written or published in 1989 or earlier, and its arguments are almost entirely as they were in the first edition. Instead of producing a new book, the author has thoroughly edited it for style, checked its citations for accuracy, clarified various points, and made a few corrections and other necessary changes. The book thus remains a direct response to the Jehovah’s Witness publication in its 1989 context. Yet it also is of great benefit to today’s readers, not just as a rebuttal to the Watchtower’s arguments, but as an accessible introduction to the positive reasons for believing in the doctrine of the Trinity.
New Foreword by Paul Carden.
Endorsements
Despite the fact that Christians throughout church history have been fighting the battle for the doctrine of the Trinity, we cannot let up in our efforts today. The enemies of the truth of this most critical doctrine still need to be answered. We can be thankful that Robert Bowman decided to revise his excellent work that has helped so many over the years minister to their Jehovah’s Witness friends to help them see the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. In doing so, Dr. Bowman has demonstrated once again what a valuable resource he is to the Bible-believing Christian. This book should be on the shelf of every Christian, not only to bolster his own confidence in this truth, but also to be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks him a reason for that confidence.
Richard G. Howe, Ph.D.
Norman L. Geisler Chair of Christian Apologetics
Southern Evangelical Seminary
Robert Bowman is a preeminent Christian scholar whose research is always thorough and readily accessible for a wider general public. In our day and age of religious and spiritual confusion, Dr. Bowman’s second edition of Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses is a much-needed, sane, well-researched, and understandable resource for anyone interested in having thoughtful conversation with Jehovah’s Witnesses. He does an excellent job of distilling the doctrine of the Trinity, a very complex theological topic, into a compact yet comprehensive overview. In less than 150 pages, Dr. Bowman covers the history of the doctrine, many of the heresies that have come against the doctrine, and a solidly Christ-centered, biblical foundation for why Jehovah’s Witnesses’ understanding of the Trinity is simply false. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in thoughtfully engaging Jehovah’s Witnesses with truth and with love. Be ready the next time they knock at your door (1 Pet 3.15).
James K. Walker
President, Watchman Fellowship
Author, What the Qur’an Really Teaches about Jesus
This is a classic little presentation of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity in response to a Watchtower tract that has been widely distributed. The reason this response works so well is that Bowman takes the tract’s claims more seriously than the Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves who hand it out do. He has looked up each scholarly quotation and put it back into its actual context. He has considered each Bible passage and shown meticulous care for interpreting it properly. He has considered the whole Jehovah’s Witness system of doctrine and drawn the conclusions that follow from its created Son. I’m so glad to have Bowman’s book revised and back in print for apologetics and evangelism.
Fred Sanders
Torrey Honors College, Biola University
Author, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything
To the uninformed, the Jehovah’s Witness conceptualization of ‘God’ can appear logical and compelling. In Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses, Robert Bowman systematically deconstructs the Watchtower’s antitrinitarian booklet, revealing to the reader the full majesty of the biblical data: One God in Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This book is an essential apologetic resource for Christian scholars, evangelists, pastors, and laypersons alike. I cannot recommend this second edition highly enough. It is long overdue!
Jason J. E. Wright
Lecturer on new religious movements,
Lincoln Bishop University, England
Robert Bowman has done the church a great favor in his response to the Watchtower publication “Should You Believe in the Trinity?” Bowman is well-versed in the Jehovah’s Witness sources and repeatedly exposes quotes clearly out of context, blatant misrepresentations, bad Greek grammar, and crafty “eisegesis.” His own exegesis and discussion of numerous key passages is laid out clearly, logically, and in a most readable style, offering a fresh perspective on some familiar texts. … Aside from polemics the book has a warm pastoral thrust in places, discussing such issues as how much knowledge of the Trinity is necessary for saving faith, the importance of the Trinity for the Christian life and how God ought to be worshipped.
Stephen Sutherland
Evangelical Presbyterian, July–August 1995 (on the first edition)
