What went WRONG with the Great Pyramid teachings of Isaac Newton, Piazzi Smyth, Pastor C.T. Russel

by Terry 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Terry

  PYRAMIDOLOGY

  of Isaac Newton, Piazzi Smyth, Pastor C.T. Russell:)
  WHAT WENT WRONG?
  
  Let’s keep our investigation simple!
  WHERE and HOW was the obsession with THE GREAT PYRAMID begun?
  
  (Historical Fact)
  THE TALLEST manmade structure in the world for four thousand years was the Great Pyramid in Egypt.
  How impressive is that? Pretty damn interesting!
  
  1. Oxford astronomy professor John Greaves (1602–1652), journeyed to Egypt in 1638 to make measurements of the pyramid. His findings were published in his Pyramidographia (1646)
  2. Additional measurements made by French engineers during Napoleon's expedition in Egypt, were studied by John Taylor (1781–1864). Taylor claimed that the measurements indicated that the ancients had used a unit of measure about 1/1000 greater than a modern British inch. This is the origin of what became known as THE PYRAMID INCH or sacred cubit.

  3. Sir Isaac Newton accepted the human frame as the basis of all ancient measurements and attempted to estimate the length of the sacred cubit based on the lengths of the parts for the body.
  
  Now we have connected our dots and drawn lines toward an investigation of the Great Pyramid fraud. It was based on certain assumptions and analogies in good faith by reasonable, credible, well-educated men of science. There intended no fraud at all. So, how did Pyramidology become the corrupt source of pseudoscience and religious malpractice? Read on!
  
  

  
  We start with Tools of measurement and strategies used by pre-scientific thinkers.
  
  In ancient times the easiest way to measure things was to use the most convenient "tools" available that anybody could afford to own: your OWN BODY PARTS!
  
  How so?

  We all have something at the end of our leg we call a (FOOT.)

  We have the length from our elbow to the tip of our middle finger. (CUBIT.)

  The distance between your nose and outstretched arm to the tip of your finger would be a (YARD.)

  From smaller increments we could use the width of our own thumb. (INCH)

  Ingenious, clever, and simple. It was called a RULE OF THUMB for this reason.

  The King's body parts using HIS proprietary measurements and making them the fixed STANDARD by which all other things would conform is the reason why the measuring stick is called A RULER. (King = Ruler, Duh!)

  (Q’s voice: “Now, pay attention Double 0 seven…”)
  
  
  Don’t be too quick to admire what appears to be reasoning based on *“1st principles.”
  
  *“reasoning from first principles,” the idea is to break down complicated problems into basic elements and then reassemble them from the ground up. It’s one of the best ways to learn to think for yourself, unlock your creative potential, and move from linear to non-linear results.
  The difference between reasoning by first principles and reasoning by analogy is like the difference between being a chef and being a cook. If the cook lost the recipe, he’d be screwed. The chef, on the other hand, understands the flavor profiles and combinations at such a fundamental level that he doesn’t even use a recipe. He has real knowledge as opposed to know-how.
  _____
  First off - reasoning by ANALOGY is a kind of copycat analysis.
  Early efforts to invent an airplane were based on an analogy of the flight of birds. Years wasted, fortunes lost, bodily injury served to teach a hard lesson:
  The flapping of wings just wasn’t going to work!

  
  
  
  _________________
  
  If at first you don’t succeed --- keep on sucking till you do succeed!
  __________________
  
  FIRST PRINCIPLE REASONING
  
  Start with reality: start with what is True rather than using intuition analogy.
  
  Sir Isaac Newton was a brilliant scientist who gave us modern PHYSICS.
  He was a curious man of intellect. His gravitas and reputation was beyond question.
  He did have one gaping flaw, however!
  He accepted THE HOLY BIBLE as an inerrant source of Divine Wisdom.
  
  A chain of Logic is only as strong as the weakest link.
  
  Sir Isaac Newton became obsessed with the study of Solomon’s Temple.
  Newton used Greaves’s measurements of the Great Pyramid and systematically compared them with measurements given by ancient sources such as Herodotus, et al.
  (Newton’s private studies were published after his death and became a hot item!)
  
  (False) PREMISE
  Newton accepted that the human frame was the basis of all ancient measurements. Man, as created, was perfect. All of man’s buildings were measured by man’s body parts. The Great Pyramid -if God’s inspired message in stone - could be deciphered using knowledge of the exact key: the sacred cubit (Pyramid inch.)
  
  
  (file:///home/chronos/u-6a71d1d98f06c35db6ea47d2b49e74eadb0c047d/MyFiles/Downloads/Morrison2010_Article_TheBodyTheTempleAndTheNewtonia.pdf)
  
  ________
  One false conclusion after another were each built on the FIRST faulty assumption.
  One scholar after another accepted the Authority before them.
  Who would dare argue with Sir Isaac Newton?
  
  Martin Gardner noted:

  It was not until 1859 that Pyramidology was born. This was the year that John Taylor, an eccentric partner in a London publishing firm, issued his The Great Pyramid: Why was it Built? And Who Built it? ... Taylor never visited the Pyramid, but the more he studied its structure, the more he became convinced that its architect was not an Egyptian, but an Israelite acting under divine orders. Perhaps it was Noah himself.
  
  

  
  Adopting Joseph Seiss's designation that the Great Pyramid of Giza was "the Bible in stone" Pastor C.T. Russell taught that it played a special part in God's plan during the "last days'' basing his interpretation on Isaiah 19:19-20 which says - "In that day shall there be an altar (pile of stones) to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar (Hebrew matstebah, or monument) at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign, and for a witness unto the Lord of Hosts in the land of Egypt."
  
  
  _______________________________
  THE WATCHTOWER magazine, 05/15/1925, page 148:

  “The great Pyramid of Egypt, standing as a silent and manimate

  witness of the Lord, is a messenger; and its testimony speaks

  with great eloquence concerning the divine plan (Isaiah 19:19)”
  
  C.T. Russell jumped on the Pyramid bandwagon and his teachings were maintained
  Until 1928 when successor J.F.Rutherford flipped the script - calling it of demonic origin.
  
  
  
  ________________
  
  
  Peer Amid Inches (of speculative) Calculations
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzX80jmoEgA&ab_channel=SabineHossenfelder

  
  
• 

  dropoffyourkeylee

  I remember reading something in an old 1800's book somewhere an argument that the metric system of measurement was 'profane' because the English standard of measure was inherited from God (through the design of the Great Pyramid and the supposed Pyramid Inch).
• 

  Phizzy

  Thanks for the info. Terry. Several things in your Post I had not actually registered before, although I had read about them.

  It is evident that C.T. Russell was a terrible plagiarist, rather than an original thinker, when looking at this matter a decade or so ago I read in my edition of Studies in the Scriptures a Letter that Russell had reproduced from Piazzi-Smythe commenting on Russell's Book. If you read that Letter with an open mind, rather than praising Russells conclusions, Piazzi-Smythe merely is polite enough to acknowledge the Book.

  Also, Piazzi-Smythe was not a great, reliable academic to seek praise from !

  Also, when reliable measurements were actually made of the Great Pyramid, they differed from the ones Russell was using ! So all his Charts and calculations were rubbish as you say, "Pyramid Inch" or not.

  How strange that the JW's still accept, and in fact make as their foundation for all teaching, and indeed their Orgs very existence, the 1914 nonsense that Russell also devised, with very little adjustment. Russell also plagiarized this idea too, from William Miller and later Adventists, yet without it, JW's would not be.
• 

  Terry

  Russell "fudged" the figures in reprints of Studies in the Scriptures in the latter years and that , to me, is proof enough of his intentions.
  This is a religion of gimmicks which outlived its mythos after the advent of the internet.
• 

  dropoffyourkeylee

  Russell's belief in the Pyramid prophecy measurements is one of the most embarassing and damning of his teachings. Rutherford, for all his faults, at least had the sense to ditch the Pyramid. It lives on however, in a way. The first time the term 'Jehovah's Witness' appeared in WT literature was in the Studies in the Scriptures in reference to the Great Pyramid.
• 

  Harry

  This is a religion of gimmicks which outlived its mythos after the advent of the internet.

  Its also a religion (JWS) based and rooted in theological apostasy and false teachings.

  Good work on this Terry

  One thing to note and keep in mind is that many people who became JWS during the 1930's > up even to this day dont know about C T Russel's Pyramidology, which was used to firstly calculate 1914.

  Nevertheless the leaders of the WTS (J Rutherford) were still endeavored to sell Christ's return and mankind is living in the last days as a means toward selling and proliferating the literature the WTS published, subsequently it did work.
  

  This theological teaching is still used by the WTS/JWorg and it all got started by the nonsensical pagan rooted teaching of Pyramidology .
  
• 

  Beth Sarim

  • "Its also a religion (JWS) based and rooted in theological apostasy and false teachings.
    

    Good work on this Terry

    One thing to note and keep in mind is that many people who became JWS during the 1930's > up even to this day dont know about C T Russel's Pyramidology, which was used to firstly calculate 1914.

    Nevertheless the leaders of the WTS (J Rutherford) were still endeavored to sell Christ's return and mankind is living in the last days as a means toward selling and proliferating the literature the WTS published, subsequently it did work.
    

    This theological teaching is still used by the WTS/JWorg and it all got started by the nonsensical pagan rooted teaching of Pyramidology ."

    Yes. Awesome work Terry and great posts by many others.

    I just want to mention if anybody has the ''Proclaimers'' book, I beg, urge you to guard it with dear life.

    Like King of Faders said in a video, the "Proclaimers'' book is better than CoC.

    
    
• 

  Terry

  I'd go so far as to say this. The last twenty or thirty JW's I've spoken to don't know 90 per cent of the cringe-worthy history of their own religion.
  WT and the GB have gone out of their way to sanitize themselves.
  The policy of destroying old "literature" is especially noteworthy. Hillary Clinton would be proud.
• 

  betterdaze

  It's a tomb, people. A tomb built for an Egyptian pharaoh. Part of a multi-structure pagan funerary site for a government ruler opposed to Jehovah. Let that sink in.

  AS IF the god of Moses, and father of Jesus, would choose a pagan tomb as his "witness" to the all the future crackpots that came crawling out of the woodwork.
  

  Once you review Russell's teachings (any of which would get you disfellowshipped today) and see how he recycled the failed "science" and "math" of those before him, it all just falls apart.
  

  Ru$$ell made up myths to sell books. He sold the "good news" with FAKE NEWS to gain subscribers. That's all.
  
• 

  Terry

  For me, speaking only for myself, the most glaring flaw in a genuine GOD as Supreme Being

  (as told in scripture) is his low intellect approach to maintenance.of humans.
  Instead of a direct communication telling everybody EXACTLY what they should know, there is
  way too much reliance on a silly, roundabout, open to re-interpretation game of hide-the-cheese.
  Imagine going to your doctor for medicine or a diagnosis and he examine you and hands you a photo of the Great Pyramid and tells you, "It's in here."