C.T. Russell and 1914

by Quendi 18 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Quendi

  I'm sure there are those on this board who can help me with some research questions. They concern Charles Taze Russell and his infatuation with 1914 and were posed to me by a member of my own small group. We call ourselves JWA for Jehovah's Witnesses Anonymous.

  We know that Charles Taze Russell wasn't the only religious personality who taught that 1914 would be a significant year that would fulfill Bible prophecy. We also know that he had two methods for determining the significance of that date. One was using the measurements of the Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt. The other was calculating the length of the "Gentile Times" of Luke 21:24 and tying that in with the tree-dream of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel's interpretation of that dream in Daniel chapter 4.

  The questions I was given is these: Which came first, the pyramid measurements or the "Gentile Times" calculation? When were both of these teachings first put forward? And if the pyramid teaching was indeed first, as I believe, when was it dropped in favor of counting the "Gentile Times"? Furthermore, what role, if any, did Maria Russell play in developing Charles Taze Russell's theology? I believe she had significant input on his 1914 fixations as well as other teachings he advanced. Thanks in advance for all of your help and counsel on this.

  Quendi
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  Doug Mason

  Quendi,

  Wow! What questions.

  I have a very large file (21 meg!, sorry) in which I list people whom CTR wrote of glowingly.

  http://www.jwstudies.com/People_important_to_Russell.pdf

  On page 27, you will see an extract from Nelson Barbour's book, while on page 23 you will see a sample page from Barbour's magazine; CTR was his co-editor. I presume you have researched how CTR was impacted by Second Adventists and by Barbour. In 1823, Brown wrote his prophetic interpretation that ended in 1917; of course, we know of William Miller and the subsequent list of prophetic speculators that followed him (including those who spawned the Rapturists - Moody, Schofield, etc.).

  CTR was a product of his time. The pyramid idea came from a British-Israelite, the Scottish Astronomer General Piazzi Smythe.

  CTR did not rely greatly on Daniel 4; from memory he used Leviticus 26:18ff.

  When Rutherford dropped the pyramids in the mid-1920s, he lost a large bulk of his followers.

  CTR did not expect 1914 to usher in war; he taught that the Parousia had taken place in 1874, to be followed by 40 years of the "Time of Trouble", and 1914 would usher in unprecedented peace under the Zionists. You can see that in the name of his magazine, "Zion's Watchtower and Herald of Christ's Presence". He was working as a watchtower for the Zionists as they would be managing a peaceful earth from 1914, and he was also announcing that Christ was present since 1874 -- a teaching he got from Barbour.

  http://www.jwstudies.com/Changed_MD_and_SS_words.pdf

  Doug
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  Leolaia

  As far as I know, 1914 as a terminus for the "Gentile Times" was first advanced by Rev. E. B. Elliot in Horae Apocalypticae (1844, Vol. 3, pp. 1429-1431), utilizing an exegetical tradition that goes back at least as far as John Aquila Brown's The Even-Tide (1823, Vol. 2, pp. 130-152), which reckoned the 2,520 years as ending in 1917. Then the 1914 date was adopted by Nelson Barbour, who first published it in the September 1875 issue of Herald of the Morning (p. 52). Then Russell adopted Barbour's reckoning and published it in the October 1876 issue of The Bible Examiner (p. 27; published by George Storrs). Barbour published a book-length treatment of his chronology in 1877 in The Three Worlds (which was financed by Russell). Nowhere in any of these first sources is there any mention of pyramidology.

  The source of pyramid speculation was C. Piazzi Smyth, who developed the system of pyramid interpretation pioneered by John Taylor beginning in his 1859 book The Great Pyramid: Why Was It Built? And Who Built It? Smyth published prolifically on the mathematical precision of the Great Pyramid in the 1860s: Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid (1864), Life and Work at the Great Pyramid (1867), and On the Antiquity of Intellectual Man (1868). None of these books afaik advanced a 1914 date, but Our Inheritance contains a datum that was later utilized to produce 1914. The inclined floor length of the Grand Gallery was 1,881 "pyramid inches" long (p. 375; 1874 ed.), preceded by 33 inches to the mouth of a pit; this latter distance was interpreted to refer to "the years of the Saviour's earthly life, expressed at the rate of a Pyramid inch to a year" (p. 387-388). Smyth added: "Three-and-thirty inch-years therefore, or thereabout, bring us right over against the mouth of the well, the type of His death, and His glorious resurrection too; while the long, lofty Grand Gallery shows the dominating rule in the world of the blessed religion which He established thereby". Then in the January 1876 issue of Herald of the Morning, Barbour discussed the measurements from Our Inheritance, summarized in a "pamphlet" he had before him:

  "The mouth of the well, the type of Christ's death, is 33 inches from the Grand Gallery; and these 33 inches added to the measure of the Grand Gallery floor 1881, make 1914, the date of the end of 'The Times of the Gentiles' .... The measure back from the Grand Gallery to the mouth of the entrance passage represent the year B.C. 2527; which would be 56 years before the Flood, 4442 inch years straight down the descending passage, where it enters the bottomless pit, bring us to A.D. 1914: when, according to the period measuring 'The Times of the Gentiles', the 'dragon' should be bound" (pp. 7-9).

  I think this was the earliest Second Adventist use of the "pyramid inch" to obtain a confirmation of the 1914 date. Then in June 1876, George Storrs reprinted a 1873 article by Piazzi Smyth in his Second Adventist journal The Bible Examiner, the same publication where Russell would publish his article on the "Gentile Times" a few months later. Then in 1877 the Lutheran minister Joseph Seiss, who likely influenced Russell's "invisible presence" and annihilationist teachings, published Miracle in Stone, which Russell would later quote in Thy Kingdom Come (1891). And in the November 1877 issue of The Bible Examiner, William Wilson's pamphet summation of Our Inheritance was profiled; then in 1878 George Storrs published several articles on the pyramid in The Herald of Life and the Coming Kingdom. So it looks like the pyramid computation was used as confirmation of the 1914 date some time after Barbour had adopted the date from Elliot. As for Russell, he didn't make any reference to the Great Pyramid in his 1878 and 1879 articles in Barbour's Herald of the Morning. The earliest reference I could find to the Great Pyramid in Russell's writings was a May 1881 article in Zion's Watch Tower, and there he explicitly designated the dates obtained from the pyramid as merely "corroboration" of his chronology and "a poor and weak foundation" by itself. So it appears that Russell was perhaps a "late adopter" of this meme.

  As far as Maria Russell was concerned, Barbara Anderson would probably be in the best position to answer that question.
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  Doug Mason

  Terrific, Leo!
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  breakfast of champions

  Nice summary. Thanks!
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  thetrueone

  Its amazing what can be conjured up in mens minds when they have the forethought about particular articles to be published .
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  thetrueone

  Supporting evidence is elusive where your proclamations are invisible in nature.

  1914 and what was said to have happen in that year remains in the imagination of the men who imagined a special event.
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  Quendi

  My thanks and gratitude to both Doug Mason and Leolaia for their help and research on my questions. Doug, thanks for the hyperlinks which I will certainly check out. Leolaia, you're absolutely amazing! I'll go to Barbara Anderson's Watchtower Documents website to learn what I can about Maria Russell. I know my small group will be very happy to study the findings both of you have provided.

  Quendi
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  bats in the belfry

  Leolaia > Terminus for the "Gentile Times"

  William Whiston, a contemporary of Sir Isaac Newton, in " An essay on the revelation of Saint John " (1706), writes about the times of the Gentiles. In " Memoirs of the life and writings of Mr. William Whiston " (1753) we find the expression "Gentile Times".

  As for 1914, John Aquila Brown is the man. Without spreadsheet and PC down to 1917 AD - close enough:

  2520 years to 1917 AD .

  Linking the 1260, 1290, and 1335 "Days of Daniel" to 1844 AD, 1873 AD, and 1917 AD .

  "Reign of the Messiah" in 1917 AD .
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  reslight2

  Russell, in 1876, accepted and adopted from N. H. Barbour the teaching that Jesus' return was in 1874 and the Gentile Times would end in 1914. The measurements of the Great Pyramid (not pyramids -- plural) confirm those dates and many other dates; the source of the dates, however, are from application of time prophecies given in the Bible, not the Great Pyramid.

  Someone stated:

  CTR did not expect 1914 to usher in war; he taught that the Parousia had taken place in 1874, to be followed by 40 years of the "Time of Trouble", and 1914 would usher in unprecedented peace under the Zionists.

  This was Russell's earlier view which he had adopted from Barbour. In 1904 (ten years before 1914), however, he rejected Barbour's view that the time of trouble was to end in 1914, and came to realize that the ending of the Gentile Times would signify the beginning, not the end, of the time of trouble, and that the blessings of peace would be sometime after that time of trouble. He stated that he did not know how long the time of trouble would last after 1914. I believe that the time of trouble did begin in 1914, and we are still in that time of trouble.

  As to his expectatiion that the time of trouble would bring war about 1914, Russell did indeed speak of "warfare" in connection with the end of the times of the Gentiles, thus it is not true that "CTR did not expect 1914 to usher in war."

  I have collected a lot of quotes from Russell, especially between 1904 up to 1914, regarding his expectations for 1914.

  http://ctr.reslight.net/?p=1301

  http://ctr.reslight.net/?p=40

  Russell, however, presented several lines of Biblical prohecy that indicate the year 1914, not just that of the "seven times" of Daniel 4. The JWs dropped all these except for that of Daniel 4.

  The basic calculations for arriving at the year 1914 were given in Volumes 2 and 3 of Russell's Studies in the Scriptures:

  http://mostholyfaith.com/bible/volumes/index.asp#vol2

  http://mostholyfaith.com/bible/volumes/index.asp#vol3