Frederick William Franz

(Redirected from Frederick W. Franz)

Categories: Watchtower Society presidents | Jehovah's Witnesses people

Frederick William Franz - (12 September 1893–22 December 1992) served as the President of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, the Legal organization used to direct the work of Jehovah's Witnesses. He was President of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society from 1977 until his death in 1992. Prior to that, he had served as the group's Vice President from 1945. He was the oldest person to have led the society, and one of the oldest ever to hold such an office in any religion. In his last years, he was quite feeble.

Franz was born in Covington, Kentucky, and graduated high school in 1911. He attended the University of Cincinnati where he studied Biblical Greek, having already decided that he wanted to be a Presbyterian preacher. He was baptized as a Bible Student on 30 November 1913, and left the University in May of 1914. Franz immediately began evangelizing full time as a "colporteur" or "pioneer" (See: Practices of Jehovah's Witnesses, Evangelism).

He is considered, though not officially acknowledged, to have been a leading figure in the preparation of the Witnesses' New World Translation of the Bible, which was prepared anonymously, like most Watchtower publications.

Frederick Franz was the uncle of Raymond Franz, a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses who was disfellowshipped (excommunicated) for eating a meal with his employer who had recently resigned from the organization.el:Φρέντερικ Φρανς