Quite a number of different groups later emerged from the wreckage of William Miller's "Great Disappointment" of 1844. These included some that are still here today, such as the Seventh Day Adventist Church and the Christadelpians. It also included others, however, that have since been and gone.
Amongst the latter was a group led by Nelson H. Barbour, which was known as the "Second Adventist Church".
The Second Adventists "did a William Miller", and predicted that the world was going to end in 1873 (Later amended to 1874).
When this failed to eventuate, one of Barbour's followers (somebody by the name of Elliott) suggested that perhaps The Lord had in fact arrived after all in 1874 - he had just done so invisibly!
This idea of Christ's invisible presence was eagerly embraced by Nelson Barbour, who also now predicted that the end of the world would occur in 1914. When C.T. Russell met with Nelson Barbour in 1876; he, too, adopted both ideas. (Of course, Barbour and Russell later parted company - not over these issues - although much later, Barbour did discard his 1914 date).
This is where the Witnesses got the idea from that 1914 is a key date in bible prophecy - a fact attested to in Raymond Franz's Crisis of Conscience. It is also the origin of their doctrine about "Christ's Invisible Presence."
Incredible as it may now seem, for a time during the 19th Century, the pseudo-science of Pyramidology was treated very seriously. A Professor Charles Smyth published a book in 1864, entitled The Great Pyramid - Its Secrets and Mysteries Revealed. Russell quoted heavily from this and other similar works, and must have been quite excited when "chronology marks" on the Great Pyramid of Gizeh appeared to mark such signficant dates as the year of The Exodus, the death of Jesus Christ, AND - the year 1914. (the website http://www.gizapyramid.com/pyr.htm contains quite a discussion about prophetic timelines in the pyramid).
While C.T. Russell's predictions about 1914 did not originate from a study of Pyramidology, he did use it as further evidence to point to that date. Too bad that this "evidence" was from a pseudo-scientific source! (Moral of the story - if two dates appear to line up, it means nothing at all!).
Certainly, neither of these foundations of JW doctrine - the date 1914 and Christ's Invisible Presence - are orginal ideas. Both were borrowed from the Second Adventist church ; and the "Invisible Presence" doctrine was an escape clause dreamed up, not by the group's leader, but one of his obscure followers.
Bill.
