Posts by Old Goat

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The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs

by Maat13 in

according to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.

as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.

ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.

Old Goat

http://www.lulu.com/shop/b-w-schulz/a-separate-identity-organizational-identity-among-readers-of-zions-watch-tower-1870-1887/paperback/product-21546337.html

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The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs

by Maat13 in

according to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.

as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.

ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.

Literalist interpretation developed in Europe and the UK in the 17th Century. (There are earlier examples, but that's when it became a well established theology.) It devleoped first in the Netherlands and Germany. British writers adopted it, and it was the principal theological viewpoint from roughly 1600 through the 1870s in the US and England.

In very simplified form, they were millennialists. They looked for Christ's near return. Unlike Millerites, they believed the Bible should be taken literially unless it clearly indicated something was symbolic. So they believed in the restoration of the Jews to divine favor. Some adopted second-probation. Adventists (Millerites) rejected the idea that many would be given "a second chance" to hear the truth and be saved. Those Literalists who adopted second probation said many had never had a chance to hear God's word, and they were in fact not advocating a second chance, but a fair chance at salvation for all.

In America Literalist belief was the standard approach to prophecy. Russell was exposed to it by the two ministers of the Congregational Church he attended. One of them wrote on prophetic themes. Russell never adopted the Adventists' spiritualizing approach, but remained a literalist. It is from that source that most of his doctrines come.

In Schulz' Separate Identity one finds a detailed analysis of Russell's doctrines. Almost none of them are distinctively Adventist. Most were rejected by Adventists, but not by Literialists. In the US most literalists were called "age to come" believers and some (those with whom Russell most clearly identified) called themsleves The One Faith. These centered on the paper The Restitution.

Schulz and Froom (Prophetic Faith of our Fathers) have good discussions of the difference between Adventists and Millinarian One Faith belief.

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The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs

by Maat13 in

according to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.

as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.

ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.

Old Goat

Bad typo. That should be 87.

Believe mine is the only one worth considering? No. Believe yours is at all correct. No.

Would I admit reading Miller. Yes. I would. Russell's statement rings true because he could not clearly define what Miller taught.

You've transfered your own behavior type to Russell. You wouldn't admit to it. I suggest that Russell would have. He often told his readers where he found his ideas. He names Thurman, Seiss, Hastings, and many others. He disagreed with many of these, but he tells us he read their work. Thurman was no less a fruitcake than Miller. If he would admit to reading Thurman's Sealed Book Opened, then he would admit to reading Miller if he had. Miller was irrelevant to his theology.

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The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs

by Maat13 in

according to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.

as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.

ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.

Old Goat

An additional comment. Storrs left Millerite Adventism in the mid-1840s and adopted Literalist belief. This led to a huge controversy. Even when associated with the Life and Advent Union, Storrs did not advocate Millerite Adventism. By the time Russell met him, Storrs was fully literalist in belief, and he was not viewed with favor by any Adventist body. Many on this board make assertions about Storrs that are not at all true. Almost every issue of Bible Examiner is fairly easy to find and read. The problem here and elsewhere is that no one reads them. So the simplified view that he was an Millerite is all you see.

For instance, in the July 1849 issue of Bible Examiner we find Storrs writing thus:

Whatever the “church” or ‘the world’ may understand by Millerism, I understand it to have three peculiarities, and nothing more: viz. “Definite time for the advent,” …. That view I gave up in the winter of ’44 and ’45; and time has since demonstrated that I was right in so doing. The two other peculiarities of Millerism I gave up, one in the month of Feb. ’44, and the other in June ’45. The three may be summed up thus, 1. “Definite time for the advent, not to go beyond ’47.” 2, “No return of the literal posterity of Jacob to the land wherein their fathers have dwelt.” 3, “The earth all to be melted at the time of the advent, and none of its inhabitants left upon it.”

These three points constitute the whole of what I call Millerism. … The second personal advent of Christ – that advent premillennial – nigh, even at the door – the kingdom of God on earth, or the earth the inheritance of the saints – the earth renewed, Paradise restored, and all those kindred doctrines relating to the kingdom of God, are no part nor parcel of Millerism: They had a distinct existence from his theory, and before his views were published to the world. The fact that some who embraced his theory had no knowledge that these other points had been published, by English Literalists, years before they heard from Mr. Miller, does not make them really any part of his peculiarities: they are not, and never were, any of his peculiar views. … The three points I have named are all that constitutes the peculiarities of Millerism.

The leaders in his theory did not like to retain the name of Millerites after 1843-4 passed by, though they gloried in being called so in those years. No sooner did the time pass away, and they commenced the work of organizing churches, than they assumed the name of Adventists; thus showing they were unwilling to go forward under their former one, and so assumed that which is equally appropriate to all believers in the speedy return of Christ and his personal reign on earth, of whom there are many who never were Millerites. In assuming the name Adventists they wronged this latter class of believers; who thus became, in the public mind, identified with them; and they were as really a sect as any other. Why should they have left the name Millerite, by which they were every where known, to assume another without having given up one of Mr. Miller’s peculiarities? Was it to cover their errors without “confession?” It certainly has that appearance, whatever might have been their design. -- G. Storrs: Misapprehension Corrected, Bible Examiner, July 1849, page 106.

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The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs

by Maat13 in

according to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.

as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.

ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.

Old Goat

There were many who had no connection to Miller that believed the end was near. Literalist belief extends back to German, Dutch and English expositors from the 17th Century. Belief in the near advent of Christ was not unique to Miller. It was the characteristic belief of most in Christendom both before and after Miller. Millerite Adventists were in the minority among belevers in the near close of the age. If you really had read Russell's Studies in the Scriptures you would have seen that he never read anything Miller wrote. (He says so, and it's obvious from content.) Russell was an Age to Come Literalist. He spent the years from 1870-1876 associating with them and believed their distinctive doctrine. Literialist doctrine is not Adventism.

That you associate all end of age belief with Miller suggests that your research is very shallow. By 1876 Barbour was no longer an Adventist. He left that belief for Mark Allen's Blessed Hope theology. Russell, Barbour and their associates did not expect end-times events to be what Millerite Adventists expected. They owed their expectations to a trail of expositors that took them back to the German Piscator, and the Baptist Whiston and others none of whose theology is remotely similar to Millerite Adventism.

Russell's sole connection to Miller was the belief inherited from Barbour that the 1843 movement, though doctrinally flawed, woke the virgins to serious study. All of Russell's doctrines come from sources other than Adventism. For instance, Russell's "fair chance" doctrine came from other sources and was rejected uniformly by Adventists.

If I misunderstood your comment, I am sorry. My point remains the same. Russell was not Adventist in doctine or outlook. His end of the age teaching owed more to Presbyterian expostors and One Faith belief than to any other movement.

Besides ... I like the Oz books.

Glasses? Yes, I turn 98 in a few months. I use glasses.

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The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs

by Maat13 in

according to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.

as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.

ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.

Old Goat

S o P, Have you ever read anything Russell wrote? I bet not.

38

The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs

by Maat13 in

according to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.

as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.

ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.

Old Goat

Russell never read anything Miller wrote. Russell's principal anticedents were not adventists but British Literalists.

38

The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs

by Maat13 in

according to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.

as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.

ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.

Old Goat

Schulz and de Vienne's Separate Identity breaks down Russell's beliefs and tells in detail where and from whom he got them. There were surprises. You should read that book. Volume One is available at lulu.com

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