Do Jehovah's Witnesses believe Jesus was resurrected?

Resurrected means: a standing back up. 

Let's see what the Watchtower has to say about Jesus' resurrection:

 

 "According to the inspired Scriptures, Jesus Christ was not raised to life in the flesh " (Watchtower 8/1/1975 p. 478)

 

Compare to Scripture: 

'Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up." The Jewish leaders said, "It took 46 years to build this temple and you're going to raise it again in three days?" But He was speaking of the temple of His BODY. (John 2:18-21)  

Chapter 17 of "You can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth" talks extensively of Jesus resurrection, saying:  "Having given up his flesh for the life of the world, Christ could never take it again and become a man once more. However, many persons believe that Christ took his fleshly body to heaven."

Most of this chapter is then dedicated to explaining the belief that Jesus was not resurrected in his fleshly body. This is addressed for at least 6 paragraphs, with the statement that "Only spirit persons with spiritual bodies can live in heaven."

The reasoning in this Watchtower book denies what the Bible says on the matter:

"They point to the fact that when Christ was raised from the dead, his fleshly body was no longer in the tomb. (Mark 16:5-7) Also, after his death Jesus appeared to his disciples in a fleshly body to show them that he was alive. Once He even had the apostle Thomas put his hand into the hole in His side so that Thomas would believe that He had actually been resurrected. (John 20:24-27) Does this not prove that Christ was raised alive in the same body in which he was put to death? No, it does not."

"But you may ask, Did not the apostle Thomas see and feel the wounds in Jesus’ side and hands, indicating that Jesus rose in the same body in which he died? How can this fact be explained?—John 20:26-28.

The Bible shows that invisible spirit creatures at times have assumed human bodies. This, many angels did in times past and this is what Jesus did upon his resurrection." (Watchtower 8/15/1969 p.484)

The first account of the resurrection that I thought of was Luke 24: 34-40 (which is missing from the citations in the above quotes) Let's see what it says in the New World Translation:  

“For a fact the Lord was raised up and he appeared to Simon!” ...

While they were speaking of these things he himself stood in their midst  ...But they were imagining they beheld a spirit. So he said to them: “Why are ​YOU​ troubled, and why is it doubts come up in ​YOUR​ hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; feel me and see, because a spirit does not have flesh and bones just as ​YOU​ behold that I have.” [[And as he said this he showed them his hands and his feet.]]

How do the Jehovah's Witnesses explain this? Was he being deceptive when he showed Thomas the holes in his hands and feet, holes that were in the body that died? Was Jesus lying when he convinced the disciples that he was not a spirit?

God evidently did away with Jesus’ body so that it could not be worshiped. (Compare Deuteronomy 34:6; Jude 9.) ... Yet once, in order to convince “doubting” Thomas, Jesus materialized a fleshly body that had wounds on it such as were on Christ’s body when he died. A careful reading of this account, though, confirms that it was an instance of a spirit creature’s materializing a body. (Awake! 9/22/1976 p.27)

We have seen that the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus was resurrected only as a spirit, his body gone forever. This is not what the Bible teaches. Why does the Watchtower go to such lengths to prove that Jesus' physical body was not resurrected?

But some may ask: ‘Did not the two angels present tell the apostles that Christ "will come thus in the same manner as you have beheld him going into the sky"?’ (Acts 1:11) Yes, they did. ... Thus his return also would be invisible, in a spiritual body. (Still in Chapter 17 of the Live Forever book.)"So then, those who refuse to recognize the signs of Jesus’ invisible presence because of looking for his coming in a body of flesh are mistaken." (Watchtower 9/1/1953 p. 520, The Fleshly Body of Jesus)

 

The title of chapter 17 in the Live Forever book also gives us a clue:
The title? Christ's Return-- How seen? The chapter concludes with this:

"As we have seen in the previous chapter, Bible evidence shows that in the year 1914 C.E. God’s time arrived for Christ to return and begin ruling... Since Christ’s return is invisible, is there a way to confirm that it has really occurred? Yes, there is."

So that is why the Watchtower teaches that Christ's resurrection was not bodily.
We see that it is to support the date of 1914 as Christ's return, and to claim that he returned invisibly. 

This blog has already addressed why this teaching so important to the Jehovah's Witness organization, and what the Bible has to say on the matter. 

But what of the bodily resurrection of Christ? This is the most important doctrines to a Christian. Let's take a look at why.