CT Russell, a Great Pyramid Faker!

by VM44 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  VM44

  In the other thread I started, http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/98474/1.ashx, it is shown that Charles Taze Russell obtained measurements critical for his obtaining significant prophetic dates from the Great Pyramid, such as the year he believed Jesus returned (1874), by measuring line figures in a diagram from a book written by pyramid expert Dr Piazzi Smyth! It is now apparent that Russell did more than that! CT Russell actually MADE UP a critical measurement number from the pyramid that he used in his calculation! Russell was so in love with the idea that the Great Pyramid was "God's silent stone witness" that he simply made up the Descending Passage measurement (3416 inches), or fudged it, or whatever, so that he would get the year 1874. As each inch in the measurement represented one year in his calculations, it was essential that all the measurements were accurate down to within one inch in value. Russell knew quite well that any "paper measurement" he made would not give the accuracy required to get the precision down to one inch, so he just picked the number that would make his calculation work! His reasoning was that as the Great Pyramid was used by God to give the prophetic year when Jesus returned (1874), then this critical measurement must have the value 3416 inches! The "paper measurement" he made gave a value consistent with that specific number, so in Russell's mind that was enough to go ahead and use the specific value 3416 inches in chapter 10 of volume 3 of "Studies in the Scriptures"! The pyramid HAD to have measurement value because Russell’s ideas HAD to be correct. As I mentioned above, Russell was in love with his ideas! Russell then tried to justify his made-up pyramid number to the reader of SIS3 by printing the letter he received from Piazzi Smyth saying how much good material there was in Vol.3, and how only one measurement that Smyth corrected was off by only an inch. SIS Vol3 was first published in 1890, and for 15 years the value 3416 was unquestioned, until someone wrote to the Watchtower and DID question where the value came from. Russell replied that he had "no reason" to think that the number not accurate, but a reason to question the number must have soon come to Russell’s mind as in the very next edition of Vol. 3 a NEW number, 3457, appeared for the Descending Passage, this new number was said to be more accurate and gave the year 1915 when used in Russell's calculation. Although claimed to be more accurate, no source was given as to where the new value 3457 was obtained. And although the measurement was changed in the 1905 edition, Russell kept in the new edition Smyth's letter of praise for the work, and the comments about how Smyth only corrected one measurement value for the first edition. No mention is made in the 1905 edition that a critical value was changed and that Smyth did not have the opportunity to check the new value for accuracy (Smyth having died in the year 1900). The conclusion is: Russell simply chose a pyramid number that would make his calculations give the year he already chosen as significant from his Biblical studies, and that he tried to justify the number to his readers in a less than straightforward manner by using the name of a pyramid authority Dr. Piazzi Smyth, who, with the revised 1905 edition number, never had an opportunity to verify the number's accuracy . --VM44
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  Terry

  What was made up out of whole cloth (i.e. pulled out of his ass) was the concept of a PYRAMID INCH.

  There is no such standard of measurement.

  T.
• 

  VM44

  Hi Terry,

  Here is a description of the "pyramid inch" from James Randi's site.

  http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/pyramid%20inch.html

  pyramid inch A unit of measurement proposed by Charles Piazzi Smyth, a Scottish astronomer who was obsessed with the Great Pyramid of Giza, which see. The original outside “casing” layer of stones that had covered the Great Pyramid had been carted away over the ages, so that the true dimensions were unknown until investigators began finding a few of the stones buried at the foot of the structure. Smyth measured the first casing stone that was uncovered, divided the width by twenty-five (the reason for choosing 25 was never given), and obtained what he called the basic unit used in the pyramid's construction, the pyramid inch. This was just slightly greater than the English inch.

  Though it was soon found that other casing stones measured different widths, Smyth's definition was retained by believers in the myth, and it is still used today by those who accept that the Great Pyramid is a tool of prophecy.
• 

  VM44

  Here are some interesting webpages that through light upon "pyramid inches" and the non-prophetic nature of the Great Pyramid.

  http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/pyramidinch.htm

  The Father of William Flinders Petrie (the Father of Modern Egyptology) was a frequent quest at the home of Piazzi Smyth, and may have even come close to marrying Smyth's daughter. He did in fact meet and apparently court the woman he would marry in their home. Furthermore, Petrie wrote in his "Seventy years in Archaeology" (1932):

  … A new stir arose when one day I brought back from Smith's bookstall, in 1866, a volume by Piazzi Smyth, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid. The views, in conjunction with his old friendship for the author, strongly attracted my father, and for some years I was urged on in what seemed so enticing a field of coincidence. I little thought how, fifteen years later, I should reach the "ugly little fact which killed the beautiful theory"; but it was this interest which led my father to encourage me to go out and do the survey of the Great Pyramid; of that, later on.

  By this, what Petrie means is that he was influenced by Smyth's work, but latter scientifically disproved some of his theories. It was actually Petrie who first coined the term, "pyramidiot" to describe what he saw as a quasi-religious cult.

  and what was this "ugly little fact which killed the beautiful theory"? We find out at the website: http://www.biblecentre.net/reference/archold/chapter1.htm

  Petrie's first archaeological expedition was in 1880, when he went out from England to Egypt to attempt to measure accurately the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. He had been led into this venture some fourteen years earlier by the purchase of a curious book written by Piazzi Smyth, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, a work of fantastic theories based on an amazing correlation—so Smyth alleged—between the measurements of the Great Pyramid and the history of the world as it is written in the Bible. Petrie's father, who was a friend of Piazzi Smyth, encouraged the young Flinders to enter this enticing field of seeming coincidence. Alas, the facts established through the painstaking labor of this first season at Gizeh did not support Smyth's theory, but in the demonstration of its fallacy Petrie had found his career.

  Many years later, as he looked back at the day he purchased Smyth's book, Sir Flinders reflected: "I little thought, how, fifteen years later, I should reach 'the ugly little fact which killed the beautiful theory.'

  The "ugly little fact" was the discovery that the measurement of the base of the pyramid was not 9,140, as supposed by the theorists, but 9,069 inches. A difference of 71 inches may not seem like much, but when an inch was supposed to represent a year it was enough to convince Petrie that there were no chronological secrets in the measurements of the pyramid.
• 

  VM44

  CONCLUSION: Russell, and others, were deluded by a "beautiful theory" that turned out to be based upon nothing but error. --VM44
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  Nathan Natas

  ...a theory that is still taught by Bible Students TODAY.
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  lawrence

  Great post! BTW - what is the measurement of the chamber instead of 3416/3417? Are there variances in measurements. Read a wonderful book 2 years ago on the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone - well done, a joy to read.
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  el jarocho mayor

  must be a pyramid scheme!
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  Cygnus

  Yeah, some Bible Stduents believe it to this day... but so what. Several hundred million on this planet believe in an invisible man in the sky who has 10 rules you cannot break, and if you do he'll send you to a place of fire and screaming and agony and pain and suffering.................... but he loves you.
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  Wasanelder Once

  Here ya go Russell,

  beat this!

  666 (Which is the number of the Anti-Christ) There is something very sinister about this. 666 is exactly 2.138 times the height of the pyramid of Cheops and if we multiply the height of the pyramid by 3.36 million, we get the EXACT, let me repeat that - EXACT - distance to the moon.
  This next part is much more than mere coincidence: if you drop the zeros off 3.36 million and then add the first 3 to the 36, you get a figure which is EXACTLY equal to the age that Bill Gates would have been on his 39th birthday.
  This provides CONCLUSIVE proof that Bill Gates is either an extraterrestrial or a pyramid.

  Found this on line somewhere. The truth is out there!

  Pyramids, schmeeramids.....

  W.Once