This is a follow up to my last post about the history written by Schulz and de Vienne. They've posted sample pages from their forth coming book on their blog. Take a look.
Old Goat
JoinedPosts by Old Goat
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Sample Pages
by Old Goat inthis is a follow up to my last post about the history written by schulz and de vienne.
they've posted sample pages from their forth coming book on their blog.
http://truthhistory.blogspot.com/.
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Can you help?
by Old Goat ini seldom post here, though i read the posts here daily.
i spend most of my time just growing older.
(i became a witness in 1948, so you can guess my age.
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Old Goat
Nathan,
That's a very interesting comment. I've read snippets of their material on Paton. There is a finished chapter with his biography. It's really good. I see that they see him as a bit nasty. I've read some of their notes on his break with Russell, and though I reject Universalism, some of what he wrote strikes me as very thoughtful. In this era Russell associated with G Myers, a Restitution evangelist. I've read some of his sermons. I can see why he didn't stay with the Watch Tower, and I wish they were more readily avialable. Do you have any other names of "the thoughtful" that fall into the period before 1890? This topic interests me.
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6
Can you help?
by Old Goat ini seldom post here, though i read the posts here daily.
i spend most of my time just growing older.
(i became a witness in 1948, so you can guess my age.
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Old Goat
As I understand it, A. D. Jones does not come off well. He became a major fraudster and was responsible for someone's death. He was arrested and fled NYC for points west. One of the authors told me that Conley hired a clergyman for his faith cure house that seduced the young women. Conley was suitably horrified, I suppose. I've read bits of their research on A P Adams. Apparently he was a corpulent bully.
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6
Can you help?
by Old Goat ini seldom post here, though i read the posts here daily.
i spend most of my time just growing older.
(i became a witness in 1948, so you can guess my age.
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Old Goat
I seldom post here, though I read the posts here daily. I spend most of my time just growing older. (I became a Witness in 1948, so you can guess my age.) I have an enduring interest in Witness history. I follow the two history blogs run by Schulz and de Vienne, the authors of the biography of Nelson Barbour. They endlessly impress me with their work.
Today on the public blog one of them posted a question concerning their next book. They are considering publishing volume one now. I’ve read almost all of this in rough draft as they post it on their private blog. It’s startlingly good. The research is the best I’ve ever seen and it is readable. In a quiet and scholarly way (they’re both teachers) the authors reveal parts of the Watchtower’s past I’d guess the Watchtower Society does not itself know and in detail. It’s not the expose some of us might want. It’s good, solid history.
It’s drawn from original sources including the private papers of the principals. I’ve noted in their footnotes private letters from J. C. Sunderlin, family papers from the von Zech family, Stetson's private letters and similar things. The chapter on Russell’s childhood and young adult years is the most complete I’ve ever seen, and it’s illustrated with photos of original documents. The photos they’ve uncovered are sometimes poor quality, but that they found them at all is amazing.
The problem is they’re considering shutting down their project. It’s not in anyone’s interest to have that happen. If you’re at all interested in a really good, solidly researched, professionally written history of the Watchtower, please go to their public blog and tell them so:
http://truthhistory.blogspot.com/
Their book considers the years from Russell’s childhood to about 1887. It documents the development of Zion’s Watch Tower readers into a separate religious identity. But, unlike Zygmunt and others, does so from a historian’s perspective, rather than from a sociologist’s view. A chapter on the early “study group” dissects their doctrinal development. The authors connect what Russell wrote about it to the books he read, the controversies of the day and tells the sources of their early beliefs. It was for me a myth-busting read.
There is a section on Russell’s business ventures. Interestingly, part of it is taken from the Ross libel trial. I’ve looked for decades for a fragment of that and never found it. They trash what some have written about Russell's businesses, noting in footnotes and text (with supporting documentation) what really happened.
They are occasionally snippy over what others have written. A recent book by Zydeck is trashed in some detail. Things Witness writers have said are found to be untrue. They smack some anti-Witness writers for bad research.
They take up the widely held belief that Russell was primarily influenced by Adventists. This turns out to be a distortion. In chapters two and three they take us back through the pages of The Restitution, the Bible Examiner and other papers and show us just who these people were and with whom they affiliated. They present things I’d never seen and I’ve researched this subject since the 1950s.
One thing that impresses me is their willingness to understand religious foible and to still present events bluntly. If the Watchtower Society had done this years ago, instead of foisting off propaganda as history, some of us would have a better view of them. I would at least.
I can’t praise them enough, as you can see. If you value this kind of research, go to their blog and tell them so. I do not want this project to die, and personally, I would like them to publish volume one as soon as possible. Will you help?
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A handy CHRONOLOGY of the life and times of Charles and Maria Russell
by Terry in1852 charles taze russell was born in(february 16) in pittsburgh, pennsylvania.
he was raised in a strict presbyterian home.. 1868 (age 16) in an encounter with a non-believer he became disillusioned over the subject of whether god as a heavenly father would burn his children in hell.
side note: 1869 (joseph franklin rutherford was born and raised a baptist).
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Old Goat
Keith wasn't a Second Adventist. He was a resident of Dannsville, New York, who heard Barbour in 1867 and was persuaded. The Keith's were Presbyterians first, then Methodists. Several writers have suggested that Keith was active in the Millerite movement. This is improbable, unless he was a very precocious three year old.
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A handy CHRONOLOGY of the life and times of Charles and Maria Russell
by Terry in1852 charles taze russell was born in(february 16) in pittsburgh, pennsylvania.
he was raised in a strict presbyterian home.. 1868 (age 16) in an encounter with a non-believer he became disillusioned over the subject of whether god as a heavenly father would burn his children in hell.
side note: 1869 (joseph franklin rutherford was born and raised a baptist).
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Old Goat
The idea put forward as Keith's was of a two-stage, partially invisible presence. This can be traced back to the 1600's and was an issue among aglican expositors in the 1700s who distinguished between a "real" and a "virtual" parousia. When Keith undertook the study, Shimeall, a presbyterian minister, had just published a book that advocated the idea. Keith points to Liddell and Scotts Lexicon, the Emphatic Diaglott and D. D. Wheadon's commentary. (Wheadon was a methodist). Most of what Keith suggested comes from the pages of Wheadon's commentary on Luke. (See Schulz and de Vienne: Nelson Barbour: The Millennium's forgotten prophet. This book is on Barns and Noble as an ebook, on lulu.com as paperback. Well worth the money.)
The problem here is that some are willing to make sweeping statements without having done the research. Our arguments become weak when they're based on imagination. The strongest arguments are based on provable fact. An oft repeated mistake is still a mistake. Senic's statement is an example. Russell did discern an invisible return. The problem isn't with what the proclaimer's book said, but with what it did not say. He discerned it because he got it from others. In this case, he believed it before meeting Barbour and Keith. He tells us in To Readers of the Herald of the Morning, that he got it from Seiss's Last Times.
Russell didn't believe in a totally invisible presence until about 1880. The shift in doctrine was quietly argued among Watch Tower writers; the discussion being prompted by an article by Lizzie A. Allen.
It puzzles me that some are willing to make strong assertions without proof or in disregard to the actual meaning of words. If you want to make a strong argument, you should be accurate. If you just want to rant, then, I suppose, it does not matter.
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A handy CHRONOLOGY of the life and times of Charles and Maria Russell
by Terry in1852 charles taze russell was born in(february 16) in pittsburgh, pennsylvania.
he was raised in a strict presbyterian home.. 1868 (age 16) in an encounter with a non-believer he became disillusioned over the subject of whether god as a heavenly father would burn his children in hell.
side note: 1869 (joseph franklin rutherford was born and raised a baptist).
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Old Goat
The no-sex agreement was mutual. If Russell had a 'problem' here, so did Maria. Who knows, a good romp in the hay might have solved their disagreements.
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A handy CHRONOLOGY of the life and times of Charles and Maria Russell
by Terry in1852 charles taze russell was born in(february 16) in pittsburgh, pennsylvania.
he was raised in a strict presbyterian home.. 1868 (age 16) in an encounter with a non-believer he became disillusioned over the subject of whether god as a heavenly father would burn his children in hell.
side note: 1869 (joseph franklin rutherford was born and raised a baptist).
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Old Goat
You're still presuming, on second hand testiony from someone with an agenda of her own, that it happened. Bad practice. "Where there's smoke there's fire," is a bad basis for a conclusion. Personally, and without any better proof, I believe something happened. I don't believe it happened as Maria told it. The ideal find would be personal papers of Rose Ball's tellling her version of the story.
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A handy CHRONOLOGY of the life and times of Charles and Maria Russell
by Terry in1852 charles taze russell was born in(february 16) in pittsburgh, pennsylvania.
he was raised in a strict presbyterian home.. 1868 (age 16) in an encounter with a non-believer he became disillusioned over the subject of whether god as a heavenly father would burn his children in hell.
side note: 1869 (joseph franklin rutherford was born and raised a baptist).
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Old Goat
That all seems accurate. I'm not sure there is a lie here, though. The only photo of her I have is from very late in life. I'd like to see a photo of her at 25 or so.
As my granddaughter would say, "Russell was a creeper." But probably not in the ways everyone assumes. Russell's enemies presume that Rose told the truth, or that Maria repeated what she said accurately. I see no reason to do that. From the point of view of "proof" everything is third-hand.
I've suspened judgment until I can find something more substantial.
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A handy CHRONOLOGY of the life and times of Charles and Maria Russell
by Terry in1852 charles taze russell was born in(february 16) in pittsburgh, pennsylvania.
he was raised in a strict presbyterian home.. 1868 (age 16) in an encounter with a non-believer he became disillusioned over the subject of whether god as a heavenly father would burn his children in hell.
side note: 1869 (joseph franklin rutherford was born and raised a baptist).
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Old Goat
Rutherford was wrong. The census data is online. You can check it for yourself. There was no legal child care document. She was in her bother's care while living with the russells. There is no proof that Russell did anything with Rose Ball. There is proof that she carried tales, true or not. No one suggested that Rose "asked" for anything. You've got the story wrong. Do the research, starting with the census data.