Eredetileg ők sem felekezetnévnek szánták, ráaásul eredetileg a "witnesses"-t is kis kezdőbetűvel írták. Egyébként formálisan ez a megkülönböztetés formálisan még is él, és most beidézek egy (elé vaskalapos) JT-párti szótárból (jehovah.to/glos/index.html):

"Jehovah's Witnesses
The identifying name Jehovah himself selected for his people. (Isa 43:10-12) Jehovah has had witnesses all through history, all the way back to Abel. Today all of them are Christians, so the fuller designation ``Jehovah's Christian Witnesses'' is sometimes heard. Even when the word Christian is not included, it is implied.
Until 1976 witnesses appeared in The Watchtower in lower case. Then in the April 1st issue, for what was apparently the first time, it appeared as ``Witnesses'', in upper case, in the third item under ``Insight on the News''. The change to upper case did not find its way into the blurb explaining the purpose of the magazine on the inside cover until the August 15, 1976 issue.

Although almost all dedicated and baptized persons are active in the preaching activity, the Society, in reporting numbers of Witnesses in various areas counts only those who are active as publishers, i.e., those who actually witness, whether baptized or not. The number of unbaptized publishers is probably roughly equal to the number of baptized ones who are irregular or inactive, effectively canceling out any inaccuracy conveyed by the statistic.

NOTE: Just as the work Jehovah has assigned his people is sometimes difficult to do, so the name he has given us is sometimes difficult to explain. It is grammatically correct to use the indefinite article and singular form. <<He is a Jehovah's Witness.>> However, it is awkward because it does not sound right to follow the indefinite article with a possessive, even though it is used functionally as a modifier.

Personally, I almost never use that form, but prefer to use the more verbose form. <<He is one of Jehovah's Witnesses.>> It is probably because of this awkwardness that some people, including a few Witnesses, have sometimes resorted to an ungrammatical form that drops the possessive. <<He is a Jehovah Witness.>> Not!! This expression is illiterate and a sign of great ignorance. But there is nothing wrong with just saying ``He is a Witness.'' (See Witness.)

Some people in the world refer to us as ``Jehovahs''. <<You Jehovahs are always knocking on my door!>> I have never heard anyone solidly based in the Truth use that form."

- - - -

És most egy kritikusabb szótárból:

" Jehovah’s Witness, a " - To refer to someone as a Jehovah’s Witness usually identifies the speaker as a non-Witness; a JW is taught to say one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, thus affirming that the expression is a descriptive term rather than a denominational name. "

" Jehovah’s Witnesses (also Jehovah’s witnesses) " - Second Watchtower president Joseph F. Rutherford asked assembled members to approve this new name in 1931 to distinguish the sect from other Russellite “Bible Students.” A lower case “w” was often used by Rutherford and some later writers to emphasize the claim that this is not a denominational name but rather a description of what the members actually are—witnesses of God.

Jehovah’s Witnesses not Jehovah’s Witnesses: Roughly 13 million people worldwide attend Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Halls as their place of worship and, as a result, are viewed in their communities as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yet the Witnesses themselves, if asked, will tell you that 7 million of these are not Jehovah’s Witnesses. They count as JWs only the 5 million who share in their door-to-door work. “If one does not preach he is not a minister of God and is not one of Jehovah’s witnesses [sic] and is not recognized by the Society as such.”—Qualified to be Ministers, 1955 edition, page 355"

" Jehovah’s Witnesses, one of " - A JW. JWs use this expression to affirm that they are actually witness-bearers of God rather than members of a denomination named Jehovah’s Witnesses, JWs are taught to use this expression in place of a Jehovah’s Witness.

Egyébként van még egy nagyobb hátulütője is ennek az elnevezésnek, hogy Jehova Tanúi, ti. összemossa a felekezetet a tagsággal. Pl. más esetben meg lehet különböztetni szóval az anglikanizmust az anglikánokból, így ha valaki az előbbit bírálja, eszébe se jut az, hogy az anglikán EMBEREKET bírálja. Ellenben ha "Jehova Tanúiról" beszélsz, akkor ez alapján nem lehet eldönteni, hogy a felekezetet (és annak doktrínáit) bírálod, vagy a személyeket, ezért kéznél van a tagságnál az a gondolatgátló klisé, hogy a tagságra, mint emberek csoportjára vegye, és ezért fel is horkan így: "Miért szidod Jehova TanúiT, nem ártottak senkinek és olyan rendes emberek!" - tehát mivel nem tudja szavak szintjén sem elkülöníteni a felekezetet, annak ideológiáját és a tagságot, mint az embereket, ezért gondolatok szinjén is így jelenik meg, ld. Sapir–Whorf-hipotézis.

Raymond Franz ezt írta a "Jehova Tanúi" elnevezésről az 'In Search of the Christian Freedom' könyvében:

Whence the Name “Jehovah’s Witnesses”?

For the first half century of the Watch Tower Society’s existence those affiliated with it had no particular denominational name. They were, they said, just “Bible students.” As we have seen in Chapter 4, the founder of the Watch Tower magazine and of the society connected with it, Charles Taze Russell, opposed the adoption of any distinguishing name, viewing this as a form of sectarianism [1]. The April, 1882, issue of the Watch Tower (pages 7, 8) which discussed this matter, quoted approvingly these words of John Bunyan, found in his well-known Pilgrim’s Progress:

“Since you would know by what name I would be distinguished from others, I tell you I would be, and hope I am, a Christian; and choose, if God should count me worthy, to be called a Christian, a believer, or other such name which is approved by the Holy Ghost. And as for those factious (or sect) titles of Anabaptist, Presbyterian, Independent, or the like, I conclude that they came neither from Antioch nor from Jerusalem, but from Hell and Babylon, for they tend to divisions; you may know them by their fruits.”

To resort to the use of specialized names was thus decried as a clear sign of sectarianism. This stand was repeated in the reply to another question appearing in the March, 1883, issue (page 6). Along with rejecting the idea of developing a visible organization, the response stated:

“We always refuse to be called by any other name than that of our Head—Christians—continually claiming that there can be no division among those continually led by his Spirit and example as made known through his Word.” [2]

It was in 1931 that Joseph F. Rutherford, Russell’s successor to the Watch Tower presidency, selected the name of “Jehovah’s Witnesses” for the organizational membership. Rutherford stated that the name chosen was “the name which the mouth of the Lord God has named, and we desire to be known as and called by the name, to wit, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses.’” Isaiah 43:10-12; 62:2 and Revelation 12:17 were cited as basis for the adoption of this name [3].
A reading of these passages, however, does not in any way reveal that God purposed that his words there spoken were to be formed into a distinctive name for Christians to bear as much as 2,600 years later. Isaiah 43:10-12 is the primary text used by the organization to justify its chosen name. This scripture, however, simply presents a figurative court scene, in which all nations are gathered and before whom the Israelites are called upon by God to bear testimony to His saving power exercised on their behalf. Why, out of all the statements God makes regarding the nation of Israel, should these words become “the name which the mouth of the Lord God has named” to be placed upon Christians today?
At Acts 11:26, we read that “the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” That was the name by which they were known and which they themselves used, as is shown in the texts at Acts 26:28 and 1 Peter 4:16. The New World Translation even renders Acts 11:26 as saying “it was first in Antioch that the disciples were by divine providence called Christians.” Whether such rendering is accurate or not, the question remains, by what right does any man or group of men decide to adopt a name other than the one used by first century Christians? Where is there the divine authorization or direction to do so? Among the last recorded words that God’s Son spoke on earth to his disciples is the command:

“You will be witnesses of me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the most distant parts of the earth.” (Acts 1:8.)

By what right, then, do men who claim to be footstep followers of God’s Son select a name which does not even bear witness to the Christ? How do they justify choosing a name that reaches back some 700 years before his appearance as the Messiah, back to words spoken to the Jewish people under the Law Covenant? [4]
The major justification resorted to in 1931 and thereafter has been that there is no longer anything distinctive about the name “Christian.” That name has been used by hundreds of millions of persons throughout the world, divided into hundreds of different denominations and sects. What, however, does the adoption of a different name prove or accomplish? It simply follows the pattern of those same hundreds of denominations. Each of them has done the same thing—they have all adopted a distinctive name as Roman Catholics, Orthodox Catholics, Marionite Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Church of Christ, Church of God, Mennonites, Society of Friends and so forth.
That not all who subsequently took the name “Christian” truly were such is evident. Christ Jesus warned of apostasy in his parable of the wheat and the weeds. The apostle Paul, who was known as a “Christian,” echoed that warning in his writings (Matthew 13:24-30; Acts 20:29, 30; 2 Timothy 4:3, 4.). In the Revelation, the apostle John laid bare the impure adulterated state already existing in some congregations in his day (Revelation chapters 2 and 3.). It was clearly recognized that there would be false Christians, many of them. But neither Christ nor Paul nor John nor any of the Bible writers indicated that a change of name would in any way remedy the situation. It was not by the adoption of some different name, a new label as it were, but by means of a life course that exemplified genuine Christianity and by means of adherence to truth as found in the teachings of God’s Son and his apostles and disciples that the only meaningful distinction could be made [5]. When the angels of God carry out the final part of the parabolic picture in effecting the harvest of the wheat from the weeds, labels in the form of denominational names surely will play no part.

- - - -

[1] See Chapter 4, pages 71-73, 75.
[2] See photocopy in Chapter 4, page 73.
[3] See Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose, pages 125, 126.
[4] Some years ago the Watchtower magazine occasionally modified the name in its articles by using the expression “Jehovah’s Christian witnesses.” (See also the 1971 book “The Nations Shall Know that I Am Jehovah,”,which frequently employs this term, as in pages 51-54, 76, 82, and so forth.) It was then learned that a group of former Witnesses had already adopted and registered legally this name. The Watchtower thereafter generally desisted from using the expression. An exception is found in the August 15, 1980, Watchtower, page 24.
[5] Matthew 5:16, 44, 45; John 13:35; 17:17-19; Romans 6:4, 8-10; Galatians 2:20; 1 John 2:5,6; 2 John 6. In addition to the group already mentioned officially known as “Jehovah’s Christian Witnesses” there are also a considerable number of earlier “Sacred Name” movements, prominent among which is that called “Assemblies of Yahweh.” None of these show any connection, in origin or otherwise, with the Watch Tower organization. These movements use the name derived from the Tetragrammaton with a frequency that is certainly equal to that of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and their Bible translations, such as the Holy Name Bible, use that name with even greater frequency in the New Testament scriptures. This information is based on a treatise by Rud Persson, mentioned later in this chapter.

@Johnny Joker: Arra szerintem nem panaszkodhat senki,hogy nagyon szigorú a moderáció. Én régebben,-amikor olyan blogon kommenteltem,amelyet Jehova Tanú vezetett, azt figyeltem meg,hogy sokkal visszafogottabb kommentárokat törölt,vagy dühösen kifogásolt a Blogger,-pedig annyi volt a "bűne",hogy nem értett egyet a Blogger postjával. (Ha még éles,cinikus hangvétellel írta volna....) De tudomásul kell venni: "ahány ház,annyi szokás" A Blog-tulaj a "házigazda". Sz.v.sz.: Ha JJ kivágná a vitriolos hangvételű,más kommentelőket leminősítő komment-írót,(bárki is legyen az) nem JJ-ről állítana ki negatív bizonyítványt.

@Aqwsed12345: tetszett az osszefoglalas, bar kisse terjedelmes. A Tanu szot osszefuggesbe lehet hozni egy birosagi perrel, ahol valaki egy vadlott mellett vagy ellen beszel. De nem minden 'tanusag' foglal beszedet feltetlenul magaba. Pl: ott vannak az un. 'tanu-hegyek', melyek egy valamikori talajszint magassagarol tanuskodnak es kiemelkednek a kornyezetukbol, mert kemenyebb anyagbol vannak, igy ellenalltak az erozionak.

@Zsolt520: Ezt a blogot szívesen olvasnám. Mármint amit Jehova Tanú vezetett. Megvan még a cím? Él még a blog?

@mjt: Az nincs már meg,megszűnt. De létezik -jelenleg még-aktív blog Jehova Tanújától: jehovaistenkirlysga.blogspot.com

Zsotza, érdekes ez a blog, amit linkeltél. Le sem tagadhatná, hogy még mindig aktív tanú. Igazából másról sem szól, mint Zűrtornyos cikkek bemásolásáról. A kérdés csak az lenne, hogy ő gépeli be őket? Vagy már kiadta a szervezet elektronikusan is az irományait magyarul? Ha ő gépelget, akkor aztán van kitartása. :]