New to my Research Collection.

 

1925 Song Book

 I need a good pdf file of the 1925 song book, Kingdom Hymns. 

Dating the Bible House photo series

     

Most readers here will be familiar with the set of sixteen numbered photographs taken at the Bible House that were published in various places including as a set of postcards (see below).

     The most familiar pictures are probably CTR at his desk, and then the Bible House family (without CTR) having a group photograph taken outside the building.

     Can we date these photographs?

     We can start to narrow it down by the picture of CTR at his desk in his study. On the bookcase shelf to his right are the International Sunday School Lessons books for 1905 and 1906. Zion’s Watch Tower mirrored these lessons with its own comments on the Bible verses for many years. But this would suggest that the photograph was taken after 1906.

     At the end of 1908 they prepared to move to Brooklyn, so there would be no point in a series of promotional photographs for Bible House. New photographs were soon taken in Brooklyn and many of these can be found in the 1909 convention report.

     So most sources suggest the Bible House picture series dates from some time in 1907. We should also note that the group picture outside the main building includes Francis and Susan Winton, sitting together in the front row. They both died within days of each other in January 1908.

     We can now establish that the photo series was taken on May 3, 1907. A professional photographer, using a 5 x 7 inch glass plate camera, would probably have taken them all over one day, and one photograph contains a date.

     It is the Mail and Express Department.

     The three figures in the picture are (from left to right), Morgan T Lewis, Carl E Franklin and Frederick L Scheerer. Between Morgan and Carl on the wall is the number 3.

     You will not be able to see it on this reproduction, but if you had an original photograph and a strong magnifying glass or microscope you would see above the 3 in a darker color the year 1907. In between the 1907 and the number 3 is the month of May. So the calendar for this working day displays May 3, 1907. As noted above, the whole picture set was likely taken on that same day.

     With grateful thanks to Andrew F, Mike C, Brian K, and Bernhard B for their combined research which made this article possible.

Brooklyn Tabernacle

 

Update

 I'm experiencing difficult health issues, most of them age related. So my research has slowed to a crawl. I have some unanswered emails. If you're waiting on a reply, consider this to be it. If you said nice things about the blog or wished me well, you have my thanks.

If you want to help, research the post- 1881 interactions between Russell and Paton. Your summary should be footnoted to sources. I need something similar for the relations between Adams and Russell, also post- 1881.

I appreciate all my volunteers. 

I have three surgeries in August. I'll be "out of service" for about two or maybe three weeks. So if you want to write a guest post, now would be a good time. Maybe a summary of everything posted to this blog about A. D. Jones?

Pyramids

     The examination of Egyptian pyramids caused massive speculation in the 19^th century. Reflecting the religious beliefs of the Egyptians, with their concept of the afterlife, mixed in with astrology and the shape of the sun’s rays, the structures soon inspired theories as to their construction and purpose. In particular this applied to the Great Pyramid of Giza.

     The founding father of what came to be commonly known as pyramidology was John Taylor who published The Great Pyramid: Why was it Built? And Who Built it? in 1859. He greatly influenced Charles Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal of Scotland, who followed with Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid in 1864. Smyth visited Egypt – something Taylor never did – and as a respected astronomer gained considerable attention. Moved by his beliefs, when he died in 1900, his monument in the graveyard of St. John’s Church, Sharow, near Ripon, was a pyramid.

Smyth’s pyramid – photo credit Julia & Keld

     After Smyth’s book, the baton was taken up by an American Lutheran minister, Joseph Augustus Seiss, in 1877, with the publication of The Great Pyramid of Egypt, Miracle in Stone. As a result, in the last few decades of the 19^th century many religious groups believed that the Giza pyramid was not a tomb, but had been constructed to reveal God’s plan for mankind to future generations. The measurements of certain features would equate to time periods, and would tie in with scripture.

     The concept was widely accepted, although the interpretations of the “evidence” varied from writer to writer. It also changed as different surveyors re-measured the edifice and came up with revised figures from those accepted by Seiss and early writers. Today it is often associated with Anglo-Israelites, those who believe that the ten lost tribes of Israel can be traced down to the British nation.

     Charles Taze Russell would be one of many who mentioned the pyramid. In his 1916 forward to Volume 3 of Studies, he wrote: “We have never attempted to place the Great Pyramid, sometimes called the Bible in Stone, on a parallel or equality with the Word of God as represented by the Old and New Testament Scriptures – the latter stand pre-eminent always as the authority.”

     However, he did view the Great Pyramid to be a corroborative witness.

     Certain other Bible Students focused on the pyramid far more extensively. William Wright corresponded with Piazzi Smyth (the correspondence is in Studies volume 3) and two brothers, John and Morton Edgar of Glasgow, wrote several books on the subject, including Great Pyramid Passages volumes 1 and 2.

     When the Watch Tower Society arranged for its own burial plot at United Cemeteries, Ross Township, a central memorial for the plot was designed by John Adam Bohnet in the shape of a pyramid. However, this was not a special sign or even a grave marker for any individual, but rather a communal monument designed to record the names of those buried on site in four quadrants around it, linked to the four pyramid sides. As it happened, only nine names were ever recorded before the idea was abandoned. The structure was eventually removed for safety reasons.

Pyramid (L) and CTR’s grave marker (R) c. 1921

     As time passed, general interest in pyramid theories waned in the mainstream. Finally, in 1928, after little comment for several years, the Watch Tower magazine produced two articles on the subject in the November 15 and December 1, 1928, issues. The gist of their arguments, which were against the Giza pyramid being of God, were reproduced in more recent times, in The Watchtower for May 15, 1956.

     The correspondence columns of the Watch Tower had various responses after the 1928 articles, best summed up by a future president of the Watch Tower Society (issue of July 1, 1929):

     The Golden Age magazine (January 23, 1929) had some fun naming certain individuals who no longer associated with the I.B.S.A. and who had made new predictions based on the pyramid. One was Morton Edgar.

     Of course, those who did not agree with the Watch Tower’s new position continued to believe in pyramidology, and in at least one case, tried to emulate Smyth. From a Yeovil (Somerset, UK) cemetery is this example.

     The last inscription on its sides was for Clara Hallett, who died in 1938.

     Her husband, Bible Student William Henry Hallett, had died in 1921.

     Perhaps surprisingly, the family who had done so much to promote the concept, the Edgars, did not go for a pyramid monument themselves. Most of the Edgars, including writers John and Morton, are buried in a family plot in the Eastwood (Old) Cemetery, Glasgow, and chose to have no monuments or headstones at all.

     With thanks to the Glasgow and West of Scotland Family History Society volunteer who checked the printed records and then took the photograph. There are sixteen Edgar graves (four plots, four deep) on either side of the tree in the middle of the picture. One wonders what size the tree was when the plots were sold originally,

     Perhaps to end on a really bizarre note:  London could today have had the largest pyramid in the world if the plans of architect Thomas Willson (1781-1866) had been realised. Detailed plans were drawn up and investors invited for what would be called The Metropolitan Sepulchre.

     It was designed to work a bit like a modern multi-storey car park and was to be built on top of Primrose Hill. Had it been approved it would have been four times the height of St Paul’s Cathedral, and would hold an estimated five million dead Londoners.

     What a landmark that would have become, towering far higher than the Great Pyramid of Giza if put side by side. The plans were first put before parliament in 1830, and later at the Crystal Palace Great Exhibition of 1851 for another proposed location. But ultimately garden cemeteries (out of town with help from new-fangled railways) and later crematoria were more practical solutions.

     Can you imagine the problems Willson’s pyramid would have caused for future generations when it was full? And what a useful landmark it could have been for German bombers in World War 2. One clear strike and there could have been five million extra cadavers spread across London. Now there’s an alternative history for you.