Sixteen years later, in the midst of World War II, the Society undertook the printing of the entire Bible. To this end, plates for the King James Version with marginal references were purchased in 1942 from the A. J. Holman Company, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This translation of the complete Bible into English was produced, not from the Latin Vulgate, but by scholars who were able to compare earlier translations with the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. A concordance, prepared by more than 150 collaborating servants of Jehovah, was added. This was specially designed to help Jehovah’s Witnesses find appropriate texts quickly when in the field ministry and thus use the Bible effectively as “the sword of the spirit,” to cut away and expose religious falsehood. (Eph. 6:17) In order to make the Bible available to people everywhere at a low cost, it was printed on a web rotary press—something that had never been attempted by other Bible printers. As of 1992, a total of 1,858,368 of these Bibles had been produced.

[Picture on page 606]

Watchtower edition of “King James Version,” with specially designed concordance (1942)