I am with Alan F, RR please provide your references so we can check it ourselves.
Charles T. Russell and the Pyramid Measurements
by VM44 17 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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VM44
The changes for the pyramid measurements are noted in the September 15, 1909 issue of The Watchtower.
Changes made in "Studies in the Scriptures"
Volume III, Page 342, lines 17, 18.
3416 inches, changed to, 3457 inches to agree with later accurate measurement, would seem to mark 1915. The former figures were "paper measure" from Piazzi Smith's illustration supposed to have been drawn to a scale, but found inaccurate.
This is a written admission made by Charles T. Russell and printed in the Watchtower that the measurements in Thy Kingdom Come were obtained by measuring a diagram published in Piazzi Smyth's book.
Knowing now the source of the erroneous number originally published in Thy Kingdom Come it is quite apparent that Russell was being both misleading and dishonest when he wrote in 1904 that the numbers had come from Piazzi Smyth. The truth is, they had NOT! Russell got them from the diagram Smyth published, and Russell was wrong to attribute any number obtained in that way to Smyth.
Russell knew this and that is why it took him 18 years from the time the book was published to finally admit the true source for the numbers he used.
--VM44
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VM44
Charles Piazzi Smyth who traveled to Egypt and made measurements of the Great Pyramid died in the year 1900.
So where did the "later accurate measurement" come from? Why is no source given?
Note that the change in the pyramid numbers was made in the 1905 edition of Thy Kingdom Come with no mention that any change had been made. It was just slipped in without mention. It took 4 more years before Russell would publish in the Watchtower that a change had been made in the book.
--VM44
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lovelylil
VM44,
Thanks so much for bringing that out. Many BS also say Russell did not use these measurements to arrive at the date 1914 but that he had the date correct prior to this. He merely saw that the great pyramid verified his date - but yet not one bible student will ever give me a reference proving this statement is true. Do you or anyone else have information to show this?
Many "preachers" during that time were fascinated with the pyramids and the thought that God himself built them for some biblical purpose. The first one ever to teach this was a man with the last name Taylor who wrote about it prior to Russell. Nowadays we have much more information about the Giza pyramid so we know who built it and why. I think Russell just got caught up with the ideas of his day. But like you said he was not forthcoming with the correct information.
While reading his SIS series I also found in the section on pyramids that he makes the statement that it is proven by many scriptures that God's plan is in the pyramid of Giza but yet does not offer these many scriptures to back it up. He offers only one which is Isaiah 19:19,20. Reading the surrounding texts we see this is not a reference to a pyramid but to an actual altar built to worship God. We know the Giza pyramid was used to worship Ra the sun God not the God we call the true God in the OT. How can anyone say this pyramid is a "great stone witness" by only reading this verse? If there are other verses like Russell claimed, can anyone share them with me? Lilly
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kid-A
In the original edition, of which I have an original printing, Russell repeatedly points to "1915" in both the text and diagrams as his end date.
He also emphasized "1910" as a crucial year in which the churches would come under "fiery" persecution. His emphasis on 1910 was eventually forgotten
as a significant prophetic date.
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RR
The changes for the pyramid measurements are noted in the September 15, 1909 issue of The Watchtower.
This shows that Russell did not make the chnages because of some failed prophecy AFTER 1914, because he made the corrections in 1909, five years before!
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Bryan
Okay, just so I have this correct...
Russell came up with 1914/1915 (how?) before he used the Giza measurements?
Thanks,
Bryan
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VM44
lovelylil,
You raise some very good questions, questions that should have been asked of Russell when he was alive.
I have come to the conclusion that Russell included the Great Pyramid material as a way of taking advantage of the then popular interest in the Great Pyramid. This was to get people interested in buying his book who would normally have passed it by.
The facts show that Russell had to "bend" the measurements of the Great Pyramid in order for it to collaborate his chronology. Russell deliberately withheld information from the readers of his book, Thy Kingdom Come, so that they could not easily check if the numbers he gave in the book for the Great Pyramid's Descending passage were consistent with the values given by Charles Piazzi Smyth.
The omission of Smyth's original numbers shows that Russell knew what he was doing. He was fully aware that Smyth's numbers could not be published in his book without raising questions of consistency from the readers, so when Russell reprinted Smyth's pyramid diagram in the Kingdom Come book, he erased from it the numerical values Smyth had included.
Russell deliberately obfuscated, or made unclear, the Smyth's diagram for his own purposes!
Now, is this something a person of integrity would do?
--VM44
See this article for some good information:
"C. Piazzi Smyth, Charles Taze Russell and the Great Pyramid of Gizeh"