We are
entering on some of the most complex and difficult research we’ve undertaken. (I
wish Ton were still alive!) Here’s what we have before us.
1. After
Russell established Zion’s Watch Tower the controversies over the
Ransom/Atonement doctrine continued and grew more complex. There is little you
can do to help us with this. It requires a massive amount of reading, and even
more “thinkin’ ‘bout it.”
What you
can do:
We need to
see the issues of Jones’ Day Star in the Library of Congress. This
requires a personal visit and a good digital camera. The LC is over 3000 miles
from my front door, and I can’t afford the trip, but if you live near or will
visit soon, please help.
We have
four years of A. P. Adams’ Spirit of the Word. This is a very small
collection compared to the total we know were published. If you have any, even
a single issue, please scan them for us.
We need a
clear copy or scan of Myers’ The-At-One-Ment.
Newspaper
articles touching on this issue are illusive. Anyone?
We need any
issues of Paton’s World’s Hope. Ask before you copy or scan. We have a
fair but very incomplete file.
2. We think
it important to connect Watch Tower adherents and their beliefs to contemporary
events. This is very time consuming, and it will require some perceptive
re-reading of Zion’s Watch Tower. This will spill past the 1887 date
that is the putative end of Separate Identity. We are equipped to do this. We
aren’t as well prepared to analyze how events in Europe influenced Watch Tower
belief and opinion. Russell’s comments on European events were drawn from
American newspapers and from clippings and letters sent from adherents in the
UK. We need perceptive comments on the Watch Tower’s view of European events.
We don’t
expect you to write an essay. Just read through the early issues, and, if you
find something that ‘clicks’, email me.
3. We are adding
a part 2 to the Food for Thinking Christians chapter. As written, it presents
the first circulation of Food in satisfying detail. There is an unexplored
after story that we can’t leave out. At first we saw it as a minor issue worthy
of a paragraph. It’s far more important.
I don’t see
anything here with which our readers can help. Perhaps newspaper articles from
1883 and 1884 that mention Food.
There is
more, of course, but these are the difficult issues for the days ahead.
1 comment:
I hope someone can visit the Library of Congress for Day Star, but it won't be available to a casual visitor who calls in on their vacation. (I did try and set that up several years ago and the friends had to fly home before it could be retrieved from another building). When I corresponded with the Library, it took several days for them to extract the volume from its controlled environment, examine it, ho-hum on it, and then officially decide it was too fragile to copy in the usual way. They have a special machine to do it, and it is on their list of things to do, so the suggestion was made that I might like to contact them again in about four years' time... Great! We hope you have published volume 3 by then. So any visit to the Library, armed with a camera, will require advance preparation and no doubt a guarantee of permission when they get there.
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