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Charles Taze Russell, and the pyramid that measured the dates
Almost everything written about Russell online is exaggerated in one direction or the other. This page uses court records, contemporary newspapers and the movement's own magazines, says plainly where the popular version cannot be supported, and labels what is disputed as disputed.
Charles Taze Russell began publishing Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence in July 1879, as its editor and publisher, after breaking with N. H. Barbour over the ransom; the first issue was printed in 6,000 copies. Source: Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), 1993
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The organisation's own history presents this as the start of the work from which Jehovah's Witnesses came, while stressing that Russell claimed no new truths of his own: “not as new, not as our own, but as the Lord's”.
1993 · pp.42-60 (quoted passage: 47-48) · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“C. T. Russell, though, felt that to withdraw from the Herald was not enough; the ransom doctrine must be defended and Christ's presence must be proclaimed. Hence, in July 1879, Russell began publishing Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence. Russell was the editor and publisher, with five others originally listed as contributors to its columns. The first issue had a printing of 6,000 copies.”
The chapter is the organisation's standard modern life of Russell: born at Allegheny 16 February 1852; a partner in his father's clothing business at eleven; repelled by eternal torment; steadied in 1869 by hearing the Adventist preacher Jonas Wendell; indebted to George Storrs and George W. Stetson; persuaded by N. H. Barbour in 1876 that Christ's invisible presence had begun in 1874; separated from Barbour in 1879 over the ransom.
Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Chapter 5: Proclaiming the Lord's Return (1870-1914)
Confidence note. Whole chapter read on the Watchtower Online Library; the document’s own citation code is “jv chap. 5 p. 42 – p. 60” and the quoted sentences straddle the page marker for 48. The chapter contains no mention of the Ross prosecution, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle litigation, Miracle Wheat, or the marriage and its court proceedings.
Notes. The chapter quotes Russell's own disclaimer: “Our work … has been to bring together these long scattered fragments of truth and present them to the Lord's people—not as new, not as our own, but as the Lord's.”
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-jv-1993-ch5-life
Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society was formed on 16 February 1881 with W. H. Conley as president and Russell as secretary and treasurer, and was legally incorporated in 1884 with Russell as president, chartered for “the dissemination of Bible Truths in various languages”. Source: Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), 1993
1993 · p.576 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society was formed on February 16, 1881, with W. H. Conley as president and C. T. Russell as secretary and treasurer. ... In 1884, Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society was legally incorporated, with C. T. Russell as president, and its charter showed that it was more than a society that would direct publishing. Its real objective was religious; it was chartered for “the dissemination of Bible Truths in various languages.””
The chapter traces the Society's publishing from Russell's first article in George Storrs's Bible Examiner in 1876 to the 1918 dismantling of the Brooklyn headquarters.
Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Chapter 26: Producing Bible Literature for Use in the Ministry
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library (jv chap. 26 p. 575 – p. 602); page marker 576 precedes the passage.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-jv-1993-p576-society
The organisation’s position or later explanation: Proclaimers (1993) says the title “was not a self-assumed title” because congregations conferred it by vote, and adds that Jehovah's Witnesses today do not use “pastor” or “elder” as titles and do not elect elders locally.
“In view of the pastoral work that he was doing under the Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ, certain congregations acknowledged by vote that he was their pastor. It was not a self-assumed title. The first group to vote him their pastor was the congregation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1882. Thereafter, he was voted pastor by some 500 other congregations, in the United States and Britain. ... Today, Christian elders among Jehovah's Witnesses are not elected by local congregations but are appointed by the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses. Care is also exercised not to use expressions such as “pastor” or “elder” as titles.”
A box answering the frequent criticism that Russell styled himself “Pastor” without ordination. The organisation's answer is that congregations conferred it; the box does not address ordination.
Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Why Called Pastor (box)
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library; the box is labelled “[Box on page 54]” in the document, which sits in chapter 5 (jv chap. 5 p. 42 – p. 60).
7 May 1915 · pp.121-124 · Appellate Division Reports
“The plaintiff was the editor of a publication purporting to be devoted to a religious propaganda. In it he informed his sympathetic readers that one of his associates had accumulated Miracle wheat, which the associate was disposed to sell to the readers of that publication for one dollar a pound. The associate promised to give the entire proceeds to a corporation organized and controlled by the plaintiff. In the article it was represented that the yield of Miracle wheat was ten or fifteen times as great as the yield of common wheat. The record offered in evidence tended to show, as the result of governmental experiment, that Miracle wheat was no more prolific than brands of wheat in general use and of ordinary quality. There was independent evidence that other wheats could be purchased at prices so low in comparison as to make the advertised price of Miracle wheat exorbitant.”
Russell sued over a cartoon headed “Easy Money Puzzle” carrying the line “If Pastor Russell can get a dollar a pound for Miracle wheat, what could he have got for Miracle stocks and bonds as a director in the old Union Bank?” The trial judge told the jury the cartoon was libellous and left the defence of truth to them; the jury found for the Eagle. The appeal court held the United States Department of Agriculture reports properly admitted and affirmed, with costs.
Provenance and verification note for New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, Charles T. Russell, Appellant, v. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Respondent, 168 A.D. 121
Confidence note. The full official-reporter text was downloaded and read on 19 September 2026. It records that judgment for the defendant was entered on 3 February 1913 and the motion for a new trial denied on 10 February 1913, and that J. F. Rutherford was on the brief for Russell on appeal. The opinion describes Russell as “an unordained preacher”.
Scan provenance. Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library) static edition of the official reporter, New York Appellate Division Reports vol. 168.
Notes. The opinion is per curiam; Jenks, P. J., Thomas, Carr, Stapleton and Putnam, JJ., concurred, and the judgment and order were unanimously affirmed with costs. This is the appellate record of the trial that Russell reported to his own readers in The Watch Tower of 15 February 1913.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-ad-1915-0507-russell-v-eagle
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The Watchtower of 15 May 1953 states plainly that “Brother Russell had specifically said that he did not know Greek”, and quotes the Hamilton court record in which he agreed he was not schooled in Latin or in Greek.
1 December 1916 · pp.354-356 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Charles Taze Russell, known the world over as Pastor Russell, author, lecturer and minister of the Gospel, was born at Pittsburgh, Pa., February 16, 1852; died October 31, 1916. ... He was educated in the common schools and under private tutors. ... He was married in 1879 to Maria Frances Ackley. No children blessed this union. Seventeen years later they disagreed about the management of his journal and a separation followed. ... He was the greatest religious teacher since St. Paul ... He was not the founder of a new religion, and never made such claim.”
The official obituary biography published in the first issue after Russell's death, printed above his will. It is the source of the sentence about his education, of the Society's one-clause account of the separation, and of the “not the founder of a new religion” formula that the organisation still uses.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Biography
Confidence note. Read in the Reprints volume for 1916. The Biography opens immediately after the masthead “VOL. XXXVII … BROOKLYN, N. Y., DECEMBER 1, 1916”, on the Reprints page following the marker [5995], and runs past the marker [5997]; the running head printed over it reads “(354-356)” (the second running head in this run is damaged in the OCR). Proclaimers (1993) independently cites the “not the founder” sentence as page 356 of this issue, which agrees.
Scan provenance. The Internet Archive item titled “The watch tower and herald of Christ’s presence, 1916” is the Watch Tower Reprints volume for 1916: it reproduces each issue with its masthead, and every page carries a continuous Reprints page number in square brackets together with the original magazine pages in parentheses in the running head. Read in the item’s OCR text file.
1993 · pp.42-60 (quoted passage: 47-48) · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“C. T. Russell, though, felt that to withdraw from the Herald was not enough; the ransom doctrine must be defended and Christ's presence must be proclaimed. Hence, in July 1879, Russell began publishing Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence. Russell was the editor and publisher, with five others originally listed as contributors to its columns. The first issue had a printing of 6,000 copies.”
The chapter is the organisation's standard modern life of Russell: born at Allegheny 16 February 1852; a partner in his father's clothing business at eleven; repelled by eternal torment; steadied in 1869 by hearing the Adventist preacher Jonas Wendell; indebted to George Storrs and George W. Stetson; persuaded by N. H. Barbour in 1876 that Christ's invisible presence had begun in 1874; separated from Barbour in 1879 over the ransom.
Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Chapter 5: Proclaiming the Lord's Return (1870-1914)
Confidence note. Whole chapter read on the Watchtower Online Library; the document’s own citation code is “jv chap. 5 p. 42 – p. 60” and the quoted sentences straddle the page marker for 48. The chapter contains no mention of the Ross prosecution, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle litigation, Miracle Wheat, or the marriage and its court proceedings.
Notes. The chapter quotes Russell's own disclaimer: “Our work … has been to bring together these long scattered fragments of truth and present them to the Lord's people—not as new, not as our own, but as the Lord's.”
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-jv-1993-ch5-life
15 May 1953 · p.319 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“The “perjury” charge was not made in court, but in a tract written later by an irresponsible slanderer against whom Brother Russell had brought a libel case. The official record of the case in question (Police Court of the City of Hamilton, Ontario, March 17, 1913) says: “Q. You don't profess, then, to be schooled in the Latin language? A. No, sir. Q. Or in Greek? A. No, sir.” After this he was asked if he knew individual Greek letters, and it was over this that the question of his knowledge of Greek arose. ... Not only has the question they “quote” been reworded, but Brother Russell had specifically said that he did not know Greek.”
A reader asked whether tract charges that the Society's first president was immoral, profiteered from “miracle wheat” and committed perjury about Greek were true. The article answers “No. They were deliberate falsehoods,” and deals with all three.
Provenance and verification note for The Watchtower, Questions From Readers
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026; the page marker in the document is 319 and the citation code printed in the page is w53 5/15. The organisation here quotes a transcript of the Hamilton hearing of 17 March 1913 and concedes that Russell said he was not schooled in Greek; it disputes the wording of the version circulated by critics, not the underlying admission.
For about thirty years the Bible Students generally understood Russell himself to be the “faithful and wise servant” of Matthew 24:45. The organisation records that the idea was publicly expressed by Russell’s wife and that “Brother Russell did not reject their view”, although he avoided applying the text to himself. Source: Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), 1993
The organisation’s position or later explanation: Proclaimers presents the collective understanding of 1881, reaffirmed in 1927, as the correct one, and quotes Russell's 1906 disclaimer: “I claim nothing of superiority, nor supernatural power, dignity or authority.”
1993 · p.143 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Over a decade later, however, Brother Russell's wife publicly expressed the idea that Russell himself was the faithful and wise servant. The view that she voiced concerning the identity of the ‘faithful servant’ came to be generally held by the Bible Students for some 30 years. Brother Russell did not reject their view, but he personally avoided making such an application of the text.”
The chapter contrasts the 1881 Watch Tower statement that the ‘faithful and wise servant’ was the whole body of Christ with the later identification of Russell himself, and notes that the collective understanding was reaffirmed in 1927. It also quotes Russell in 1906: “The truths I present, as God's mouthpiece, were not revealed in visions or dreams …”
Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Chapter 10: Growing in Accurate Knowledge of the Truth
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library (jv chap. 10 p. 120 – p. 148); page marker 143 sits immediately before the passage. A full-text search of the library returns exactly one occurrence of the phrase “Russell’s wife” in the whole of Proclaimers — this one. The book does not name her.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-jv-1993-p143-faithful-servant
This is the single most quoted passage of Russell’s, and unlike much of what circulates it is in the magazine, under his own editorship, and can be read today.
In The Watch Tower of 15 September 1910 Russell told readers that someone who set aside his Studies in the Scriptures and went “to the Bible alone” would, within two years, “go into darkness”, while someone who read the Studies and “not a page of the Bible, as such” would still be in the light. Source: The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, 15 September 1910
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The same article says the volumes “are not intended to supplant the Bible” and urges readers to test every point against Scripture before accepting it, saying: “I will not take it because these studies say so; I wish to see what the Bible says.”
15 September 1910 · pp.298-299 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“if anyone lays the Scripture Studies aside, even after he has used them, after he has become familiar with them, after he has read them for ten years—if he then lays them aside and ignores them and goes to the Bible alone, though he has understood his Bible for ten years, our experience shows that within two years he goes into darkness. On the other hand, if he had merely read the Scripture Studies with their references, and had not read a page of the Bible, as such, he would be in the light at the end of the two years, because he would have the light of the Scriptures.”
The passage sits under the sub-heading “Is the Reading of ‘Scripture Studies’ Bible Study?”. The same page says the six volumes “are not merely comments on the Bible, but they are practically the Bible itself”, and a later paragraph urges readers to test the books against Scripture rather than accept them because “these studies say so”.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Is the Reading of “Scripture Studies” Bible Study?
Confidence note. Read in the Reprints volume for 1910 on the Internet Archive. The issue masthead reads “Vol. XXXI BROOKLYN, N. Y., SEPTEMBER 15, 1910 No. 18” and the running head above the passage reads “[4684] September 15, 1910 THE WATCH TOWER (298-299)”, so the passage stands on magazine pages 298-299 of that issue. Obvious OCR artefacts (broken hyphenation, stray marks) have been repaired; wording is otherwise as printed.
Scan provenance. The Internet Archive item titled “The watch tower and herald of Christ’s presence, 1910” is the Watch Tower Reprints volume for 1910: it reproduces each issue with its masthead, and every page carries a continuous Reprints page number in square brackets together with the original magazine pages in parentheses in the running head. Read in the item’s OCR text file.
Notes. Commonly cited simply as “p. 298”. The magazine's own running head brackets the passage as pages 298-299.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-wt-1910-0915-scripture-studies
if anyone lays the Scripture Studies aside, even after he has used them, after he has become familiar with them, after he has read them for ten years—if he then lays them aside and ignores them and goes to the Bible alone, though he has understood his Bible for ten years, our experience shows that within two years he goes into darkness. On the other hand, if he had merely read the Scripture Studies with their references, and had not read a page of the Bible, as such, he would be in the light at the end of the two years, because he would have the light of the Scriptures.
In 1913 Russell prosecuted a clergyman for criminal defamatory libel over a pamphlet attacking him. The case matters because Russell was cross-examined about his qualifications, on oath, and because the popular account of that cross-examination is not the same as what can be sourced.
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The Watchtower of 15 May 1953 confirms that Russell “had brought a libel case” against the author of the tract and cites the Hamilton police-court record of 17 March 1913, but does not say how the case ended.
1913 · pp.18-19 · Rev. J. J. Ross · Book Department, Philadelphia School of the Bible
““Do you know the Greek”? Asked the Attorney. “Oh, yes,” was Russell’s reply. Here he was handed a copy of the New Testament in Greek, by Westcott & Hort, and asked to read the letters of the alphabet as they appear on the top of page 447. He did not know the alphabet. “Now,” asked Mr. Staunton, “Are you familiar with the Greek language?” “No,” said Mr. Russell, without a blush.”
Ross, a Baptist minister in Hamilton, Ontario, was prosecuted by Russell for defamatory libel over a leaflet Ross had published in June 1912. This pamphlet is Ross’s own account of the proceedings, published after they ended, and the passage above is his narrative of the examination of 17 March 1913 with snatches of dialogue quoted inside it — not a transcript. Elsewhere in the same pamphlet Ross does print question-and-answer material, which he says he holds as certified transcripts.
Provenance and verification note for Some Facts and More Facts About the Self-Styled “Pastor” Charles T. Russell (of Millennial Dawn Fame), Pamphlet, sub-titled ‘The history of the Libel Case: “Pastor” Russell before the Courts’
Confidence note. Both separately digitised printings were opened and the passage read; the wording is the same in each, so it is not an artefact of one scan. In both printings this is the only place in the pamphlet where the words “alphabet” or “447” occur, and the tidy question-and-answer version that circulates online appears in neither. What cannot be confirmed is the content: this is the defendant in Russell’s own prosecution writing about his own case, and no court record, official transcript or contemporary newspaper report of the Hamilton examination was located. It is not the court record, and it is not evidence of what was said in court.
Scan provenance. Two separately digitised printings were opened: the “Forty-sixth Thousand” (Philadelphia School of the Bible) at archive.org/details/SomeFactsAndMoreFactsAboutCharlesTazeRussell, and the “Thirteenth Thousand” (North-West Bible and Tract Depot, Winnipeg) filmed by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions at archive.org/details/cihm_87677.
Notes. The same pamphlet reproduces, in question-and-answer form, passages of Maria Russell’s sworn direct examination in the Pennsylvania Common Pleas trial, which Ross says he holds as a transcript certified by the official court reporter Alexander Callow. Ross also records that “the jury found absolutely no ground for libel and handed down the verdict ‘no bill’” (page 15), and, writing on 26 May 1913, that this was “on the 1st ult.”, that is 1 April 1913. The pamphlet’s reliability is limited on its face: the leaflet of June 1912 that it reprints states that Russell’s wife “divorced him a few years ago on the ground of cruelty and of having wrong relations with other women” and that “In court, she proved improprieties between her husband and one Rose Ball” — both of which the record in this ledger contradicts.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-ross-1913-some-facts-more-facts
15 May 1953 · p.319 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“The “perjury” charge was not made in court, but in a tract written later by an irresponsible slanderer against whom Brother Russell had brought a libel case. The official record of the case in question (Police Court of the City of Hamilton, Ontario, March 17, 1913) says: “Q. You don't profess, then, to be schooled in the Latin language? A. No, sir. Q. Or in Greek? A. No, sir.” After this he was asked if he knew individual Greek letters, and it was over this that the question of his knowledge of Greek arose. ... Not only has the question they “quote” been reworded, but Brother Russell had specifically said that he did not know Greek.”
A reader asked whether tract charges that the Society's first president was immoral, profiteered from “miracle wheat” and committed perjury about Greek were true. The article answers “No. They were deliberate falsehoods,” and deals with all three.
Provenance and verification note for The Watchtower, Questions From Readers
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026; the page marker in the document is 319 and the citation code printed in the page is w53 5/15. The organisation here quotes a transcript of the Hamilton hearing of 17 March 1913 and concedes that Russell said he was not schooled in Greek; it disputes the wording of the version circulated by critics, not the underlying admission.
Organisation's explanation · 17 March 1913Verified
The Watchtower of 15 May 1953 quotes what it calls “the official record of the case in question (Police Court of the City of Hamilton, Ontario, March 17, 1913)” as recording this exchange: “Q. You don’t profess, then, to be schooled in the Latin language? A. No, sir. Q. Or in Greek? A. No, sir.” It adds, in its own voice, that “Brother Russell had specifically said that he did not know Greek”. Source: The Watchtower, 15 May 1953
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The Watchtower presents the exchange as a refutation of critics, arguing that the “perjury” charge is false because Russell never claimed to know Greek; it does not dispute that he said he did not.
15 May 1953 · p.319 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“The “perjury” charge was not made in court, but in a tract written later by an irresponsible slanderer against whom Brother Russell had brought a libel case. The official record of the case in question (Police Court of the City of Hamilton, Ontario, March 17, 1913) says: “Q. You don't profess, then, to be schooled in the Latin language? A. No, sir. Q. Or in Greek? A. No, sir.” After this he was asked if he knew individual Greek letters, and it was over this that the question of his knowledge of Greek arose. ... Not only has the question they “quote” been reworded, but Brother Russell had specifically said that he did not know Greek.”
A reader asked whether tract charges that the Society's first president was immoral, profiteered from “miracle wheat” and committed perjury about Greek were true. The article answers “No. They were deliberate falsehoods,” and deals with all three.
Provenance and verification note for The Watchtower, Questions From Readers
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026; the page marker in the document is 319 and the citation code printed in the page is w53 5/15. The organisation here quotes a transcript of the Hamilton hearing of 17 March 1913 and concedes that Russell said he was not schooled in Greek; it disputes the wording of the version circulated by critics, not the underlying admission.
The widely circulated account in which Russell is said to have claimed under oath to know Greek and then failed to read the Greek alphabet reaches us through Ross’s own pamphlet, where it is narrated with snatches of quoted dialogue rather than transcribed. The tidy question-and-answer version that circulates online is in neither printing of the pamphlet examined — in both, the only place the words “alphabet” or “447” appear is Ross’s narrative — and no court record or contemporary newspaper report of that exchange was located. Source: Some Facts and More Facts About the Self-Styled “Pastor” Charles T. Russell (of Millennial Dawn Fame), 1913Source: The Watchtower, 15 May 1953
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The Watchtower of 15 May 1953 says the charge “was not made in court, but in a tract written later”, that “the question they ‘quote’ [has] been reworded”, and that Russell had in any case said he did not know Greek.
1913 · pp.18-19 · Rev. J. J. Ross · Book Department, Philadelphia School of the Bible
““Do you know the Greek”? Asked the Attorney. “Oh, yes,” was Russell’s reply. Here he was handed a copy of the New Testament in Greek, by Westcott & Hort, and asked to read the letters of the alphabet as they appear on the top of page 447. He did not know the alphabet. “Now,” asked Mr. Staunton, “Are you familiar with the Greek language?” “No,” said Mr. Russell, without a blush.”
Ross, a Baptist minister in Hamilton, Ontario, was prosecuted by Russell for defamatory libel over a leaflet Ross had published in June 1912. This pamphlet is Ross’s own account of the proceedings, published after they ended, and the passage above is his narrative of the examination of 17 March 1913 with snatches of dialogue quoted inside it — not a transcript. Elsewhere in the same pamphlet Ross does print question-and-answer material, which he says he holds as certified transcripts.
Provenance and verification note for Some Facts and More Facts About the Self-Styled “Pastor” Charles T. Russell (of Millennial Dawn Fame), Pamphlet, sub-titled ‘The history of the Libel Case: “Pastor” Russell before the Courts’
Confidence note. Both separately digitised printings were opened and the passage read; the wording is the same in each, so it is not an artefact of one scan. In both printings this is the only place in the pamphlet where the words “alphabet” or “447” occur, and the tidy question-and-answer version that circulates online appears in neither. What cannot be confirmed is the content: this is the defendant in Russell’s own prosecution writing about his own case, and no court record, official transcript or contemporary newspaper report of the Hamilton examination was located. It is not the court record, and it is not evidence of what was said in court.
Scan provenance. Two separately digitised printings were opened: the “Forty-sixth Thousand” (Philadelphia School of the Bible) at archive.org/details/SomeFactsAndMoreFactsAboutCharlesTazeRussell, and the “Thirteenth Thousand” (North-West Bible and Tract Depot, Winnipeg) filmed by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions at archive.org/details/cihm_87677.
Notes. The same pamphlet reproduces, in question-and-answer form, passages of Maria Russell’s sworn direct examination in the Pennsylvania Common Pleas trial, which Ross says he holds as a transcript certified by the official court reporter Alexander Callow. Ross also records that “the jury found absolutely no ground for libel and handed down the verdict ‘no bill’” (page 15), and, writing on 26 May 1913, that this was “on the 1st ult.”, that is 1 April 1913. The pamphlet’s reliability is limited on its face: the leaflet of June 1912 that it reprints states that Russell’s wife “divorced him a few years ago on the ground of cruelty and of having wrong relations with other women” and that “In court, she proved improprieties between her husband and one Rose Ball” — both of which the record in this ledger contradicts.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-ross-1913-some-facts-more-facts
15 May 1953 · p.319 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“The “perjury” charge was not made in court, but in a tract written later by an irresponsible slanderer against whom Brother Russell had brought a libel case. The official record of the case in question (Police Court of the City of Hamilton, Ontario, March 17, 1913) says: “Q. You don't profess, then, to be schooled in the Latin language? A. No, sir. Q. Or in Greek? A. No, sir.” After this he was asked if he knew individual Greek letters, and it was over this that the question of his knowledge of Greek arose. ... Not only has the question they “quote” been reworded, but Brother Russell had specifically said that he did not know Greek.”
A reader asked whether tract charges that the Society's first president was immoral, profiteered from “miracle wheat” and committed perjury about Greek were true. The article answers “No. They were deliberate falsehoods,” and deals with all three.
Provenance and verification note for The Watchtower, Questions From Readers
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026; the page marker in the document is 319 and the citation code printed in the page is w53 5/15. The organisation here quotes a transcript of the Hamilton hearing of 17 March 1913 and concedes that Russell said he was not schooled in Greek; it disputes the wording of the version circulated by critics, not the underlying admission.
Searched in full for any report of the Hamilton, Ontario prosecution. The only occurrence of the name Ross in the 1912 volume is a reprinted newspaper item about a Baptist debate on communion; the 1913 volume contains no occurrence of the name at all, and neither volume contains the phrases “Hamilton, Ont”, “criminal libel” or “no bill”.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Bound volumes for 1912 and 1913 (complete years)
Confidence note. Both OCR texts were downloaded and searched, and the searches were repeated independently on 19 September 2026 with the same result: one occurrence of “Ross” in the 1912 volume (a reprinted newspaper report of a Toronto Baptist debate on communion at which “the Rev. J. J. Ross” spoke), none in 1913, and no occurrence in either volume of “Hamilton, Ont”, “criminal libel” or “no bill”. This is a search of optical character recognition, not of the printed page, so a misread word could in principle be missed.
Scan provenance. Watch Tower Reprints volumes for 1912 and 1913 on the Internet Archive; OCR text files downloaded in full and searched.
Notes. A negative finding, recorded because the absence of any Watch Tower report is itself part of the record.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-wt-1912-1913-bound-volumes
1913 · pp.18-19 · Rev. J. J. Ross · Book Department, Philadelphia School of the Bible
““Do you know the Greek”? Asked the Attorney. “Oh, yes,” was Russell’s reply. Here he was handed a copy of the New Testament in Greek, by Westcott & Hort, and asked to read the letters of the alphabet as they appear on the top of page 447. He did not know the alphabet. “Now,” asked Mr. Staunton, “Are you familiar with the Greek language?” “No,” said Mr. Russell, without a blush.”
Ross, a Baptist minister in Hamilton, Ontario, was prosecuted by Russell for defamatory libel over a leaflet Ross had published in June 1912. This pamphlet is Ross’s own account of the proceedings, published after they ended, and the passage above is his narrative of the examination of 17 March 1913 with snatches of dialogue quoted inside it — not a transcript. Elsewhere in the same pamphlet Ross does print question-and-answer material, which he says he holds as certified transcripts.
Provenance and verification note for Some Facts and More Facts About the Self-Styled “Pastor” Charles T. Russell (of Millennial Dawn Fame), Pamphlet, sub-titled ‘The history of the Libel Case: “Pastor” Russell before the Courts’
Confidence note. Both separately digitised printings were opened and the passage read; the wording is the same in each, so it is not an artefact of one scan. In both printings this is the only place in the pamphlet where the words “alphabet” or “447” occur, and the tidy question-and-answer version that circulates online appears in neither. What cannot be confirmed is the content: this is the defendant in Russell’s own prosecution writing about his own case, and no court record, official transcript or contemporary newspaper report of the Hamilton examination was located. It is not the court record, and it is not evidence of what was said in court.
Scan provenance. Two separately digitised printings were opened: the “Forty-sixth Thousand” (Philadelphia School of the Bible) at archive.org/details/SomeFactsAndMoreFactsAboutCharlesTazeRussell, and the “Thirteenth Thousand” (North-West Bible and Tract Depot, Winnipeg) filmed by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions at archive.org/details/cihm_87677.
Notes. The same pamphlet reproduces, in question-and-answer form, passages of Maria Russell’s sworn direct examination in the Pennsylvania Common Pleas trial, which Ross says he holds as a transcript certified by the official court reporter Alexander Callow. Ross also records that “the jury found absolutely no ground for libel and handed down the verdict ‘no bill’” (page 15), and, writing on 26 May 1913, that this was “on the 1st ult.”, that is 1 April 1913. The pamphlet’s reliability is limited on its face: the leaflet of June 1912 that it reprints states that Russell’s wife “divorced him a few years ago on the ground of cruelty and of having wrong relations with other women” and that “In court, she proved improprieties between her husband and one Rose Ball” — both of which the record in this ledger contradicts.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-ross-1913-some-facts-more-facts
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The 1975 Yearbook says the seed was donated by two readers on the condition that it be sold at that price for the Society's benefit, that gross receipts were about $1,800, and that “Russell himself did not get a penny of this money”.
15 June 1911 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Brother Bohnet writes us that he has gradually accumulated a crop of miracle wheat from the few grains he obtained as a start. He prefers that the first opportunity for obtaining this wheat shall go to The Watch Tower readers. He will sell it for $1 per pound, including postage, and give the entire proceeds to our Society.”
A short notice in the 15 June 1911 issue, giving an address for orders and advising that “miracle wheat should be sowed one-fourth as thick as common wheat” and that “Ordinarily it should produce from ten to fifteen times as much proportionately to the amount sown.”
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, A Donation of Miracle Wheat
Confidence note. Read in the Reprints volume for 1911. The notice falls between the issue mastheads for 15 June and 1 July 1911, and the Watch Tower of 1 August 1911 refers back to it as “The notice in The Watch Tower of June 15”. It sits on the Reprints page marked [4843], whose running head is too damaged in this scan’s OCR to be read (“(178-195)”); the nearest legible running heads are [4842] “June 15, 1911 THE WATCH TOWER (190-191)” and [4847] “(202-203)”. No magazine page number is therefore recorded here.
Scan provenance. The Internet Archive item titled “The watch tower and herald of Christ’s presence, 1911” is the Watch Tower Reprints volume for 1911: it reproduces each issue with its masthead, and every page carries a continuous Reprints page number in square brackets together with the original magazine pages in parentheses in the running head. Read in the item’s OCR text file.
Notes. One dollar a pound is sixty dollars a bushel. That is the figure the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and J. J. Ross both used, and the figure the 1975 Yearbook quotes when restating the charge.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-wt-1911-0615-miracle-wheat-donation
1 August 1911 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“The notice in The Watch Tower of June 15 that Brother Bohnet has “miracle wheat” in abundance now, and that he will sell it at $1 per pound and donate the entire proceeds to our Tract Fund, has brought in many orders. These will be filled between August 15 and September 1. No limit as to supply has been noted. Sent by Express, prepaid, the price will be twenty-two pounds for $20; fifty-five pounds for $50; larger quantities at the latter rate. The merits of this wheat over the common variety have been mentioned in previous issues of The Watch Tower.”
A follow-up notice reporting demand for the seed and setting bulk prices. It appears in the issue between the mastheads for 1 August and 15 August 1911.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Miracle Wheat in Demand
Confidence note. Read in the Reprints volume for 1911. The notice falls between the issue mastheads for 1 August and 15 August 1911, on the Reprints page that ends at the marker [4866]; the running heads on either side are too damaged in this scan’s OCR to yield a magazine page number, so none is recorded.
Scan provenance. The Internet Archive item titled “The watch tower and herald of Christ’s presence, 1911” is the Watch Tower Reprints volume for 1911: it reproduces each issue with its masthead, and every page carries a continuous Reprints page number in square brackets together with the original magazine pages in parentheses in the running head. Read in the item’s OCR text file.
1975 · pp.70-71 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“his enemies have charged that he sold a great quantity of ordinary wheat seed under the name of “Miracle Wheat” at one dollar per pound, or sixty dollars per bushel. They have held that from this Russell realized an enormous personal profit. However, these charges are absolutely false. ... The wheat was received and sent out by the Society and the gross receipts from it amounted to about $1,800. Russell himself did not get a penny of this money. ... When others criticized this sale, all who had contributed were informed that if they were dissatisfied their money would be returned. In fact, the identical money received for the wheat was held for a year for that purpose. But not one person asked for a refund.”
The Yearbook's account names K. B. Stoner of Fincastle, Virginia as the grower, records the 1907 United States Department of Agriculture report that first drew Russell's attention, and says two Watch Tower readers, J. A. Bohnet and S. J. Fleming, donated about thirty bushels in 1911 on condition it be sold at a dollar a pound for the Society's benefit.
Provenance and verification note for 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, Part 1—United States of America (“Miracle Wheat”)
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library; page markers 70 and 71 bracket the passage, and the organisation’s own Index 1930-1985 cites this treatment as “yb75 70-71”. The account does not mention the Brooklyn Daily Eagle trial, the jury’s verdict against Russell, the 1915 appeal, or the government seed tests put in evidence at that trial; a full-text search of the Watchtower Online Library returns no occurrence of “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” anywhere in this Yearbook.
Notes. The Yearbook says the donors gave “about thirty bushels”; Russell’s own account in The Watch Tower of 15 February 1913 says “the total amount being twenty bushels”. The discrepancy is on the record and neither figure should be published as settled.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-yb-1975-p70-miracle-wheat
The organisation’s position or later explanation: Russell told readers on 15 February 1913 that the verdict was “very unjust”, that he had “nothing whatever to do with” the wheat or its naming, and that he had acted “merely as intermediary”. The 1975 Yearbook calls the charges against him “absolutely false” and does not mention the trial or the verdict.
7 May 1915 · pp.121-124 · Appellate Division Reports
“The plaintiff was the editor of a publication purporting to be devoted to a religious propaganda. In it he informed his sympathetic readers that one of his associates had accumulated Miracle wheat, which the associate was disposed to sell to the readers of that publication for one dollar a pound. The associate promised to give the entire proceeds to a corporation organized and controlled by the plaintiff. In the article it was represented that the yield of Miracle wheat was ten or fifteen times as great as the yield of common wheat. The record offered in evidence tended to show, as the result of governmental experiment, that Miracle wheat was no more prolific than brands of wheat in general use and of ordinary quality. There was independent evidence that other wheats could be purchased at prices so low in comparison as to make the advertised price of Miracle wheat exorbitant.”
Russell sued over a cartoon headed “Easy Money Puzzle” carrying the line “If Pastor Russell can get a dollar a pound for Miracle wheat, what could he have got for Miracle stocks and bonds as a director in the old Union Bank?” The trial judge told the jury the cartoon was libellous and left the defence of truth to them; the jury found for the Eagle. The appeal court held the United States Department of Agriculture reports properly admitted and affirmed, with costs.
Provenance and verification note for New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, Charles T. Russell, Appellant, v. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Respondent, 168 A.D. 121
Confidence note. The full official-reporter text was downloaded and read on 19 September 2026. It records that judgment for the defendant was entered on 3 February 1913 and the motion for a new trial denied on 10 February 1913, and that J. F. Rutherford was on the brief for Russell on appeal. The opinion describes Russell as “an unordained preacher”.
Scan provenance. Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library) static edition of the official reporter, New York Appellate Division Reports vol. 168.
Notes. The opinion is per curiam; Jenks, P. J., Thomas, Carr, Stapleton and Putnam, JJ., concurred, and the judgment and order were unanimously affirmed with costs. This is the appellate record of the trial that Russell reported to his own readers in The Watch Tower of 15 February 1913.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-ad-1915-0507-russell-v-eagle
15 February 1913 · pp.62-63 · Charles Taze Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“My suit against The Eagle for slanderous defamation of reputation has been decided in its favor. A jury of twelve men have decided that The Eagle was justified in making its vicious onslaughts upon me, notwithstanding the Judge's charge that, according to the law, the cartoon, at least, was a slanderous, vicious libel in fact. ... I have no complaint, nor murmuring against the divine providences which permitted what I consider to be a very unjust verdict.”
Russell's own report to readers immediately after the Brooklyn Daily Eagle libel trial. In the same article he sets out his account of the Miracle Wheat sales, says the seed was donated by two readers and that “we merely acted as intermediary”, and complains that the Eagle's counsel “was allowed to ridicule the ‘Miracle Wheat,’ although I had nothing whatever to do with it, nor with the naming of it”.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, “As Deceivers and Yet True”
Confidence note. Read in the Reprints volume for 1913. The article opens on the Reprints page whose running head reads “[5188] FEBRUARY 15, 1913 THE WATCH TOWER (61-62)” and runs on to the next page, [5189]; it is followed by the masthead of the 1 March 1913 issue at [5190]. The magazine pages are therefore 62-63.
Scan provenance. The Internet Archive item titled “The watch tower and herald of Christ’s presence, 1913” is the Watch Tower Reprints volume for 1913: it reproduces each issue with its masthead, and every page carries a continuous Reprints page number in square brackets together with the original magazine pages in parentheses in the running head. Read in the item’s OCR text file.
1975 · pp.70-71 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“his enemies have charged that he sold a great quantity of ordinary wheat seed under the name of “Miracle Wheat” at one dollar per pound, or sixty dollars per bushel. They have held that from this Russell realized an enormous personal profit. However, these charges are absolutely false. ... The wheat was received and sent out by the Society and the gross receipts from it amounted to about $1,800. Russell himself did not get a penny of this money. ... When others criticized this sale, all who had contributed were informed that if they were dissatisfied their money would be returned. In fact, the identical money received for the wheat was held for a year for that purpose. But not one person asked for a refund.”
The Yearbook's account names K. B. Stoner of Fincastle, Virginia as the grower, records the 1907 United States Department of Agriculture report that first drew Russell's attention, and says two Watch Tower readers, J. A. Bohnet and S. J. Fleming, donated about thirty bushels in 1911 on condition it be sold at a dollar a pound for the Society's benefit.
Provenance and verification note for 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, Part 1—United States of America (“Miracle Wheat”)
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library; page markers 70 and 71 bracket the passage, and the organisation’s own Index 1930-1985 cites this treatment as “yb75 70-71”. The account does not mention the Brooklyn Daily Eagle trial, the jury’s verdict against Russell, the 1915 appeal, or the government seed tests put in evidence at that trial; a full-text search of the Watchtower Online Library returns no occurrence of “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” anywhere in this Yearbook.
Notes. The Yearbook says the donors gave “about thirty bushels”; Russell’s own account in The Watch Tower of 15 February 1913 says “the total amount being twenty bushels”. The discrepancy is on the record and neither figure should be published as settled.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-yb-1975-p70-miracle-wheat
The evidence at the centre of the appeal was the United States Department of Agriculture’s own record of governmental experiment with the seed, which the Appellate Division held admissible: it “tended to show, as the result of governmental experiment, that Miracle wheat was no more prolific than brands of wheat in general use and of ordinary quality”. The court also recorded “independent evidence that other wheats could be purchased at prices so low in comparison as to make the advertised price of Miracle wheat exorbitant”. Source: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, 7 May 1915Source: 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, 1975
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The 1975 Yearbook cites a favourable 1907 report by a government agriculturalist about the original grower's crop and says the Society “made no claim for the wheat on its own knowledge”; it does not mention the later government tests put in evidence at the trial.
7 May 1915 · pp.121-124 · Appellate Division Reports
“The plaintiff was the editor of a publication purporting to be devoted to a religious propaganda. In it he informed his sympathetic readers that one of his associates had accumulated Miracle wheat, which the associate was disposed to sell to the readers of that publication for one dollar a pound. The associate promised to give the entire proceeds to a corporation organized and controlled by the plaintiff. In the article it was represented that the yield of Miracle wheat was ten or fifteen times as great as the yield of common wheat. The record offered in evidence tended to show, as the result of governmental experiment, that Miracle wheat was no more prolific than brands of wheat in general use and of ordinary quality. There was independent evidence that other wheats could be purchased at prices so low in comparison as to make the advertised price of Miracle wheat exorbitant.”
Russell sued over a cartoon headed “Easy Money Puzzle” carrying the line “If Pastor Russell can get a dollar a pound for Miracle wheat, what could he have got for Miracle stocks and bonds as a director in the old Union Bank?” The trial judge told the jury the cartoon was libellous and left the defence of truth to them; the jury found for the Eagle. The appeal court held the United States Department of Agriculture reports properly admitted and affirmed, with costs.
Provenance and verification note for New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, Charles T. Russell, Appellant, v. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Respondent, 168 A.D. 121
Confidence note. The full official-reporter text was downloaded and read on 19 September 2026. It records that judgment for the defendant was entered on 3 February 1913 and the motion for a new trial denied on 10 February 1913, and that J. F. Rutherford was on the brief for Russell on appeal. The opinion describes Russell as “an unordained preacher”.
Scan provenance. Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library) static edition of the official reporter, New York Appellate Division Reports vol. 168.
Notes. The opinion is per curiam; Jenks, P. J., Thomas, Carr, Stapleton and Putnam, JJ., concurred, and the judgment and order were unanimously affirmed with costs. This is the appellate record of the trial that Russell reported to his own readers in The Watch Tower of 15 February 1913.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-ad-1915-0507-russell-v-eagle
1975 · pp.70-71 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“his enemies have charged that he sold a great quantity of ordinary wheat seed under the name of “Miracle Wheat” at one dollar per pound, or sixty dollars per bushel. They have held that from this Russell realized an enormous personal profit. However, these charges are absolutely false. ... The wheat was received and sent out by the Society and the gross receipts from it amounted to about $1,800. Russell himself did not get a penny of this money. ... When others criticized this sale, all who had contributed were informed that if they were dissatisfied their money would be returned. In fact, the identical money received for the wheat was held for a year for that purpose. But not one person asked for a refund.”
The Yearbook's account names K. B. Stoner of Fincastle, Virginia as the grower, records the 1907 United States Department of Agriculture report that first drew Russell's attention, and says two Watch Tower readers, J. A. Bohnet and S. J. Fleming, donated about thirty bushels in 1911 on condition it be sold at a dollar a pound for the Society's benefit.
Provenance and verification note for 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, Part 1—United States of America (“Miracle Wheat”)
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library; page markers 70 and 71 bracket the passage, and the organisation’s own Index 1930-1985 cites this treatment as “yb75 70-71”. The account does not mention the Brooklyn Daily Eagle trial, the jury’s verdict against Russell, the 1915 appeal, or the government seed tests put in evidence at that trial; a full-text search of the Watchtower Online Library returns no occurrence of “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” anywhere in this Yearbook.
Notes. The Yearbook says the donors gave “about thirty bushels”; Russell’s own account in The Watch Tower of 15 February 1913 says “the total amount being twenty bushels”. The discrepancy is on the record and neither figure should be published as settled.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-yb-1975-p70-miracle-wheat
Russell and his wife separated, and the litigation ran for years. It is often described in lurid terms online. What a court actually decided is narrower, and the most-quoted phrase from it is not securely attributable.
On 19 October 1908 the Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the decree entered on a jury’s verdict for Maria F. Russell against her husband, on the ground of indignities to her person. The court described his conduct as “one of continual arrogant domination”, and found he had treated her as a menial in front of servants, intimated that she was of unsound mind, and made her fear proceedings to test her sanity. The decree was a separation, not a dissolution of the marriage: the 1975 Yearbook quotes its words as ordering that the parties “be separated from bed and board”. Source: Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 19 October 1908Source: 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, 1975
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The 1975 Yearbook quotes Russell's own account: “The decree of the court was not divorce, but separation … My wife's charge was cruelty, but the only cruelty put in evidence was my refusal on one occasion to give her a kiss when she had requested it.” It is right that no absolute divorce was granted; the reported judgment describes the evidence very differently.
19 October 1908 · pp.348-354 · Orlady, J. · Superior Court of Pennsylvania
“His course of conduct toward his wife evidenced such insistent egotism and extravagant self-praise that it would be manifest to the jury that his conduct towards her was one of continual arrogant domination, that would necessarily render the life of any sensitive Christian woman a burden and make her condition intolerable. The indignities offered to her in treating her as a menial in the presence of servants, intimating that she was of unsound mind, and that she was under the influence of designing and wicked persons fully warranted her withdrawal from his house, and justified her fear that he intended to further humiliate her by a threat to resort to legal proceedings to test her sanity.”
The appeal (No. 202, April Term 1908) was brought by Charles T. Russell from the decree of the Court of Common Pleas No. 1, Allegheny County (June Term 1903, No. 459), entered on a jury's verdict for Maria F. Russell. The Superior Court affirmed. The opinion also records that Russell said of his wife that “she is a woman of high intellectual qualities and of perfect moral character”, and quotes his own letter: “I conclude that I am adapted to no one, and that no one is adapted to me, except the Lord.”
Provenance and verification note for Superior Court of Pennsylvania, Russell v. Russell, Appellant, 37 Pa. Super. 348
Confidence note. The full official-reporter text was downloaded and read. The libel charged “indignities to the person”; the reporter’s syllabus is headed “Divorce — Cruel and barbarous treatment — Mental suffering — Evidence”, the head matter records the appeal as being “from decree of C. P. No. 1, Allegheny Co., June T., 1903, No. 459, granting divorce in case of Maria F. Russell, by her next friend, Emma H. Russell, v. Charles T. Russell”, and the opinion speaks of evidence sufficient “to warrant them in finding the facts essential to a lawful dissolution of the marriage tie”. This report does not itself describe the decree as one from bed and board; that wording comes from the decree as quoted in the 1975 Yearbook. The opinion makes no mention of the “jellyfish” testimony or of any allegation of adultery. One OCR break in the reporter’s text (“fully warranted hex-withdrawal from his house”) has been repaired to “her withdrawal” in the quotation above.
Scan provenance. Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library) static edition of the official reporter, Pennsylvania Superior Court Reports vol. 37.
Notes. The head matter records the argument date as 7 May 1908 and the judgment as “Affirmed”, and names the trial judge as MacFarlane, J. The 1975 Yearbook names the trial judge as “Justice Collier”; the discrepancy is unresolved and neither name should be published as settled.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-pasuper-1908-1019-russell-v-russell
1975 · pp.67-68 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Without notice, she separated from him in 1897, after nearly eighteen years of marriage. ... In June 1903 Mrs. Russell filed in the Court of Common Pleas at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a suit for legal separation. During April 1906 the case came up for trial before Justice Collier and a jury. Nearly two years later, on March 4, 1908, a decree was issued that was styled “In Divorce.” The language of the decree is: “It is now ordered, adjudged and decreed that Maria F. Russell, the Libellant; and Charles T. Russell, the Respondent, be separated from bed and board.” ... This was a legalized separation and there never was an absolute divorce, as some erroneously have held.”
The Society's fullest published account of the marriage. It also quotes Russell's own answer given at Dublin in 1911: “I am not divorced from my wife. The decree of the court was not divorce, but separation, granted by a sympathetic jury, which declared that we would both be happier separated. My wife's charge was cruelty, but the only cruelty put in evidence was my refusal on one occasion to give her a kiss when she had requested it.”
Provenance and verification note for 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, Part 1—United States of America
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library; the page markers 67 and 68 bracket the passage and the document’s citation code is yb75 pp. 34-109. The Yearbook is correct that no absolute divorce was granted, and it is the source of the decree’s own wording. Its characterisation of the evidence differs materially from the Superior Court’s description of that evidence.
The “jellyfish” words attributed to Russell come from Maria Russell’s sworn account, at the April 1906 trial, of what a young woman in the household had told her. Russell denied them, the judge ruled the incident outside the ground of the case and it was struck from the record, and the reported appeal judgment makes no reference to it. The organisation is the source for all of this: it published the words, the denial and the ruling in the 1975 Yearbook. Source: 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, 1975Source: Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 19 October 1908
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The 1975 Yearbook quotes the trial judge — “This little incident about this girl that was in the family, that is beyond the ground of the libel and has nothing to do with the case” — and notes that Mrs Russell's own counsel said: “We make no charge of adultery.”
1975 · pp.69-70 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“On the witness stand C. T. Russell emphatically denied the “jellyfish” story, and all this matter was stricken from the court record, the judge saying in his charge to the jury: “This little incident about this girl that was in the family, that is beyond the ground of the libel and has nothing to do with the case.” ... In the suit for separate maintenance, Mrs. Russell's attorney had said: “We make no charge of adultery.””
The Yearbook quotes the “jellyfish” words, attributes them to Mrs Russell's testimony about what a young woman in the household had told her, and then sets out the organisation's answer: that Russell denied it, that it was struck from the record, and that Mrs Russell's own counsel disclaimed any charge of adultery.
Provenance and verification note for 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, Part 1—United States of America (“Not Immoral”)
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library; page markers 69 and 70 bracket the passage. The Superior Court's reported opinion, which was also read, contains no reference to this testimony, which is consistent with the Yearbook's statement that it was struck.
19 October 1908 · pp.348-354 · Orlady, J. · Superior Court of Pennsylvania
“His course of conduct toward his wife evidenced such insistent egotism and extravagant self-praise that it would be manifest to the jury that his conduct towards her was one of continual arrogant domination, that would necessarily render the life of any sensitive Christian woman a burden and make her condition intolerable. The indignities offered to her in treating her as a menial in the presence of servants, intimating that she was of unsound mind, and that she was under the influence of designing and wicked persons fully warranted her withdrawal from his house, and justified her fear that he intended to further humiliate her by a threat to resort to legal proceedings to test her sanity.”
The appeal (No. 202, April Term 1908) was brought by Charles T. Russell from the decree of the Court of Common Pleas No. 1, Allegheny County (June Term 1903, No. 459), entered on a jury's verdict for Maria F. Russell. The Superior Court affirmed. The opinion also records that Russell said of his wife that “she is a woman of high intellectual qualities and of perfect moral character”, and quotes his own letter: “I conclude that I am adapted to no one, and that no one is adapted to me, except the Lord.”
Provenance and verification note for Superior Court of Pennsylvania, Russell v. Russell, Appellant, 37 Pa. Super. 348
Confidence note. The full official-reporter text was downloaded and read. The libel charged “indignities to the person”; the reporter’s syllabus is headed “Divorce — Cruel and barbarous treatment — Mental suffering — Evidence”, the head matter records the appeal as being “from decree of C. P. No. 1, Allegheny Co., June T., 1903, No. 459, granting divorce in case of Maria F. Russell, by her next friend, Emma H. Russell, v. Charles T. Russell”, and the opinion speaks of evidence sufficient “to warrant them in finding the facts essential to a lawful dissolution of the marriage tie”. This report does not itself describe the decree as one from bed and board; that wording comes from the decree as quoted in the 1975 Yearbook. The opinion makes no mention of the “jellyfish” testimony or of any allegation of adultery. One OCR break in the reporter’s text (“fully warranted hex-withdrawal from his house”) has been repaired to “her withdrawal” in the quotation above.
Scan provenance. Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library) static edition of the official reporter, Pennsylvania Superior Court Reports vol. 37.
Notes. The head matter records the argument date as 7 May 1908 and the judgment as “Affirmed”, and names the trial judge as MacFarlane, J. The 1975 Yearbook names the trial judge as “Justice Collier”; the discrepancy is unresolved and neither name should be published as settled.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-pasuper-1908-1019-russell-v-russell
This is the part of Russell’s work with the clearest bearing on what Jehovah’s Witnesses still teach, because the pyramid was used to confirm the chronology that produces 1914. The dates it was said to confirm are set out in the chronology collection and the 1914 evidence bundle.
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The Watchtower of 1 January 2000 calls this ‘a false idea’ that ‘the watchman class’ held ‘for some decades’, and says Jehovah ‘needed no stone monument built by pagan pharaohs’.
1891 · p.311 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“he has already prepared the Great Pyramid as a part of his instrumentality for convincing the world of his wisdom, foreknowledge and grace”
The sentence states that God himself prepared the building. The surrounding paragraphs say its witness is ‘chiefly intended for the world of mankind during the Millennial age’ and treat it as corroborative evidence additional to the written Scriptures.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 311 opened and read in this session; wording confirmed against the page's own running head.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
1891 · p.313 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“We thus introduce this “Witness” because the inspiration of its testimony will doubtless be as much disputed as that of the Scriptures, by the prince of darkness, the god of this world, and those whom he blinds to the truth.”
The preceding sentence says the structure is ‘repeatedly referred to in the Scriptures’ and that its testimony will ‘honor Jehovah, and fully correspond with his written Word’. The building's testimony is described as inspired, and disputing it is attributed to the devil.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 313 opened and read in this session; wording confirmed against the page's own running head.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
Notes. This bears directly on the 1928 reversal, which reached the opposite conclusion: that reliance on the pyramid was itself a device of Satan.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1891-inspiration-witness
1891 · p.316 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“a divine wisdom which must have been worked out under the supervision of some inspired servant of God”
The chapter argues that the design shows knowledge the Egyptians could not have had, and reports the resulting conjecture that Melchizedek was the builder, while adding ‘Of this we can know little’.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 316 opened and read in this session; wording confirmed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
1891 · pp.371-372 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“Some may scoff at the testimony of this stone “Witness,” as they also scoff at God's written Word, but to their scoffs we answer: Account for this peculiar fitness of things, or else venture to prophesy of the future … Prove to us that it requires no inspiration to foretell future events.”
The closing argument of the chapter places the building's testimony alongside the Bible's and treats rejection of the one as of a piece with rejection of the other.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Pages 371 and 372 opened and read in this session; wording confirmed. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t' (for example 'destru6lion', 'fa6l', 'jun6tion'). These have been expanded to 'destruction', 'fact' and 'junction' in the quotation; no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
Notes. Thirty-seven years later the organisation's own magazine told readers to ‘avoid the pyramid of Gizeh and its measurements’.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1891-scoff
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The Watch Tower of 1 December 1928 replied that the ‘altar’ and ‘pillar’ of Isaiah 19 are the anointed remnant, and that ‘It is impossible to fit the literal pyramid of Gizeh to the prophet’s description’.
1891 · p.307 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
““In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt.” — Isa. 19: 19, 20.”
Isaiah 19:19, 20 is printed as the epigraph of the chapter, immediately below the chapter title and the summary of contents. It is the scriptural warrant offered for treating the pyramid as a divine monument, and it is the same passage the organisation reinterpreted in 1928.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 307 of the 1891 printing opened and read in this session; chapter title, contents summary and epigraph confirmed. The printed page number appears in the page's own running head.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
1891 · p.318 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar [pyramid] at the border thereof, to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt.”
Isaiah 19:19, 20 is quoted again here with the word ‘pyramid’ inserted in square brackets after ‘pillar’, so that the identification is made inside the quotation of the verse itself. The next sentence adds that the building stands ‘in the geographical center of the land surface of the world’.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 318 opened and read in this session; the bracketed insertion is present in the scan and is not an artefact of transcription.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
Notes. The square brackets are Russell's own insertion into the text of the verse. In the scan the words 'in the midst' are set in italics, as they are in the epigraph on p. 307.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1891-pillar-gloss
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The Watchtower of 1 January 2000 describes the method as measuring ‘the length of certain passages’ to fix ‘the time for the beginning of the “great tribulation”’.
1891 · p.336 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“Then measuring down the “Entrance Passage” from that point, to find the distance to the entrance of the “Pit,” representing the great trouble and destruction with which this age is to close, when evil will be overthrown from power, we find it to be 3416 inches, symbolizing 3416 years from the above date, B. C. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1874 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 B. C. plus 1874 A. D. equals 3416 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble”
The method is set out on the preceding page: one inch of passage is read as one year. The junction of the First Ascending Passage with the Grand Gallery is taken as the birth of Christ; the measure back down to the Entrance Passage, 1542 inches, gives 1542 BCE; the descending passage is then measured from that point to the mouth of the Pit.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 336 opened and read in this session; the figure 3416 and the date 1874 confirmed. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t' (for example 'destru6lion', 'fa6l', 'jun6tion'). These have been expanded to 'destruction', 'fact' and 'junction' in the quotation; no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
1898 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we find it to be 3416 inches, symbolizing 3416 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows a. d. 1874 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1874 years A. d. equals 3416 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble”
The 1898 printing carries the descending-passage calculation in the same terms as 1891: 3416 inches and the date 1874.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come (1898 printing), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 342 of the 1898 printing opened and read in this session; the figure 3416 and the date 1874 confirmed. The 1898 printing is already set to the pagination used by the later printings, so this passage stands on p. 342 here and on p. 342 in the 1910, 1914, 1915 and 1918 printings — the same page, with the figure changed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennial-dawn-vol.3-thy-kingdom-come-edition-1898'. The item has a French-language title and description but reproduces the English 1898 printing. Public domain. The item has no page_numbers.json, so page-level text was extracted from its djvu.xml and the printed page number read from the running heads: the leaf carrying this passage falls between one headed 'The Great Pyramid. 341' and one headed 'The Great Pyramid. 343'.
Notes. This printing fixes the lower bound of the revision: the original figure was still in print in 1898. It also shows that the passage already stood on p. 342 before the figure was changed, so the change was made within an existing setting of the page rather than in a general resetting of the book.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1898-descending-3416-1874
1891 · pp.358-359 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“Prof. Smyth found the first of these measures (a) to be 1874 Pyr. inches; the second (b) to be 1881 Pyr. inches, and the third (c) to be 1910 Pyr. inches … and give the dates (a) October, 1874, (b) October, 1881 and (c) October, 1910, A. D. This threefold ending is in full accord with what we have found taught in the Scriptures”
Three sets of measurements of the floor of the Grand Gallery are described on p. 358: (a) to the Step and then along its upper surface, omitting the riser; (b) through the Step, as though it were not there; and (c) over the whole floor and up the riser of the Step. The ellipsis in the quotation covers an intermediate step the reader should know about: Flinders Petrie's measures are noted as eight-tenths of an inch longer, the figures are rounded up to 1875, 1882 and 1911, and one and a quarter inches are then deducted from each to correct for the era, giving 1873¾, 1880¾ and 1909¾, from which the three October dates are read.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Pages 358 and 359 opened and read in this session; the three figures and the three dates confirmed. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t' (for example 'destru6lion', 'fa6l', 'jun6tion'). These have been expanded to 'destruction', 'fact' and 'junction' in the quotation; no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
Notes. These three figures and the three dates they were said to give were not altered in later printings: they stand in the same terms on pp. 362-363 of the 1910 printing, where the wording has been lightly reset but no figure and no date has changed.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1891-gallery-triple
1910 · pp.362-363 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Prof. Smyth found the first of these measures (a) to be 1874 Pyramid inches, the second (b), 1881 Pyramid inches, and the third (c), 1910 Pyramid inches … and give the dates (a) October, 1874, (b) October, 1881 and (c) October, 1910, a. d.”
The Grand Gallery measurements and the three dates they were said to yield are unchanged from the 1891 edition, in the same printing in which the descending-passage figure was altered. The first half of the quotation stands on p. 362 and the dates on p. 363; the ellipsis covers the same intermediate steps as in 1891 (the Flinders Petrie adjustment, the rounding, and the deduction of one and a quarter inches).
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (839,000 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Pages 362 and 363 of the 839,000 Edition opened and read in this session; figures and dates confirmed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
Notes. The revision was selective. October 1874 was retained as a pyramid-attested date in one calculation while being removed from another in the same chapter.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-ss3-1910-gallery-triple
1891 · pp.359-360 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“we may well accept as correct the testimony of the Great Pyramid that the last members of the “body” or “bride” of Christ will have been tested and accepted and will have passed beyond the vail before the close of A. D. 1910. Is not this a most remarkable agreement between this stone “Witness” and the Bible? The dates, October, 1874, and October, 1881, are exact, while the date 1910, though not furnished in the Scriptures, seems more than a reasonable one.”
The practical conclusion drawn from the third Grand Gallery measurement: that the glorification of the anointed would be complete before the end of 1910. The sentence runs across the foot of p. 359 and the head of p. 360.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Pages 359 and 360 opened and read in this session; wording confirmed. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t' (for example 'destru6lion', 'fa6l', 'jun6tion'). These have been expanded to 'destruction', 'fact' and 'junction' in the quotation; no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
Notes. This sentence was removed from later printings and replaced with a vaguer statement. It is the clearest single instance of an edition-to-edition change in the chapter.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1891-1910-glorification
1891 · p.360 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“this date limit — A. D. 1914 — must not only witness the completion of the selection and trial and glorification of the entire body of Christ, but it must also witness the purifying of that larger company of consecrated believers … The four years from 1910 to the end of 1914 indicated thus in the Great Pyramid, will be quite sufficient for the extreme of all that trouble”
The 1891 text treats 1914 as a firm outer limit and states in the indicative what must happen before it.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 360 opened and read in this session; wording confirmed. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t' (for example 'destru6lion', 'fa6l', 'jun6tion'). These have been expanded to 'destruction', 'fact' and 'junction' in the quotation; no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
A prophecy that rests on a measurement can be adjusted by adjusting the measurement. That is what happened, and the timing is what makes it significant.
1891 · p.336 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“Then measuring down the “Entrance Passage” from that point, to find the distance to the entrance of the “Pit,” representing the great trouble and destruction with which this age is to close, when evil will be overthrown from power, we find it to be 3416 inches, symbolizing 3416 years from the above date, B. C. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1874 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 B. C. plus 1874 A. D. equals 3416 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble”
The method is set out on the preceding page: one inch of passage is read as one year. The junction of the First Ascending Passage with the Grand Gallery is taken as the birth of Christ; the measure back down to the Entrance Passage, 1542 inches, gives 1542 BCE; the descending passage is then measured from that point to the mouth of the Pit.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 336 opened and read in this session; the figure 3416 and the date 1874 confirmed. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t' (for example 'destru6lion', 'fa6l', 'jun6tion'). These have been expanded to 'destruction', 'fact' and 'junction' in the quotation; no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
1898 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we find it to be 3416 inches, symbolizing 3416 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows a. d. 1874 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1874 years A. d. equals 3416 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble”
The 1898 printing carries the descending-passage calculation in the same terms as 1891: 3416 inches and the date 1874.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come (1898 printing), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 342 of the 1898 printing opened and read in this session; the figure 3416 and the date 1874 confirmed. The 1898 printing is already set to the pagination used by the later printings, so this passage stands on p. 342 here and on p. 342 in the 1910, 1914, 1915 and 1918 printings — the same page, with the figure changed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennial-dawn-vol.3-thy-kingdom-come-edition-1898'. The item has a French-language title and description but reproduces the English 1898 printing. Public domain. The item has no page_numbers.json, so page-level text was extracted from its djvu.xml and the printed page number read from the running heads: the leaf carrying this passage falls between one headed 'The Great Pyramid. 341' and one headed 'The Great Pyramid. 343'.
Notes. This printing fixes the lower bound of the revision: the original figure was still in print in 1898. It also shows that the passage already stood on p. 342 before the figure was changed, so the change was made within an existing setting of the page rather than in a general resetting of the book.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1898-descending-3416-1874
1910 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we find it to be 3457 inches, symbolizing 3457 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1915 years A. D. equals 3457 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble”
The same sentence as in 1891 and 1898, with the measurement of the descending passage given as 41 inches longer and the resulting date moved from 1874 to 1915. The tense also changes: the close of 1874 ‘was’ the beginning becomes the close of 1914 ‘will be’ the beginning.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (839,000 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 342 of the 839,000 Edition opened and read in this session; the figure 3457 and the dates 1915 and 1914 confirmed. The title page reads 'SERIES III / Thy Kingdom Come / 839,000 Edition' and '1910'. The Internet Archive catalogue record gives the year as 1906, which the title page does not support; the title page has been followed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
Notes. The revised figure was therefore already in print in 1910, four years before 1914 passed. The change cannot be explained as a response to the disappointment of 1914.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-ss3-1910-descending-3457-1915
1914 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · International Bible Students Association
“we find it to be 3457 inches … This calculation shows A. d. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble … Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble”
The printing whose title page reads '1,385,000 Edition' and '1914' carries the revised figure.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (1,385,000 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 342 opened and read in this session; figure and dates confirmed. Title page reads 'SERIES III / Thy Kingdom Come / 1,385,000 Edition' and '1914'.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
1915 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · International Bible Students Association
“we find it to be 3457 inches, symbolizing 3457 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1915 years A. D. equals 3457 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble”
A further intermediate printing carrying the revised figure, in the same words and on the same page as the 1910, 1914 and 1918 printings.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (1,104,000 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 342 of the 1,104,000 Edition opened and read in this session; the figure 3457 and the dates 1915 and 1914 confirmed, and the printed page number read from the page's own running head ('342 Thy Kingdom Come.'). The title page reads 'SERIES III / Thy Kingdom Come / 1,104,000 Edition' and '1915'. The Internet Archive catalogue record gives the year as 1914, which the title page does not support; the title page has been followed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
1918 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · International Bible Students Association
“Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation”
A printing issued after 1914 had come and gone still carries the sentence in the future tense, and still carries, on p. 364, the statement that ‘The four years from 1910 to the end of 1914 … will doubtless be a time of “fiery trial” upon the Church’.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (1,595,500 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Pages 342 and 364 opened and read in this session, the printed numbers read from the running heads. The title page was also opened as an image and is clearly legible: 'SERIES III / Thy Kingdom Come / 1,595,500 Edition / INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION / BROOKLYN, LONDON, MELBOURNE, BARMEN, COPENHAGEN, OREBRO, CHRISTIANIA, GENEVA / 1918', with a University of Illinois accession stamp of 4 February 1920 above it. The year 1918 is the title page's own, not the Internet Archive catalogue's. The printing also carries Russell's Author's Foreword dated 1 October 1916.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
Notes. A printing made four years after 1914 still carries the sentence about 1914 in the future tense, and still carries on p. 364 the statement that the four years from 1910 to the end of 1914 "will doubtless be" a time of fiery trial upon the Church.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-ss3-1918-descending-3457-1915
1898 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we find it to be 3416 inches, symbolizing 3416 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows a. d. 1874 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1874 years A. d. equals 3416 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble”
The 1898 printing carries the descending-passage calculation in the same terms as 1891: 3416 inches and the date 1874.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come (1898 printing), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 342 of the 1898 printing opened and read in this session; the figure 3416 and the date 1874 confirmed. The 1898 printing is already set to the pagination used by the later printings, so this passage stands on p. 342 here and on p. 342 in the 1910, 1914, 1915 and 1918 printings — the same page, with the figure changed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennial-dawn-vol.3-thy-kingdom-come-edition-1898'. The item has a French-language title and description but reproduces the English 1898 printing. Public domain. The item has no page_numbers.json, so page-level text was extracted from its djvu.xml and the printed page number read from the running heads: the leaf carrying this passage falls between one headed 'The Great Pyramid. 341' and one headed 'The Great Pyramid. 343'.
Notes. This printing fixes the lower bound of the revision: the original figure was still in print in 1898. It also shows that the passage already stood on p. 342 before the figure was changed, so the change was made within an existing setting of the page rather than in a general resetting of the book.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1898-descending-3416-1874
1910 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we find it to be 3457 inches, symbolizing 3457 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1915 years A. D. equals 3457 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble”
The same sentence as in 1891 and 1898, with the measurement of the descending passage given as 41 inches longer and the resulting date moved from 1874 to 1915. The tense also changes: the close of 1874 ‘was’ the beginning becomes the close of 1914 ‘will be’ the beginning.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (839,000 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 342 of the 839,000 Edition opened and read in this session; the figure 3457 and the dates 1915 and 1914 confirmed. The title page reads 'SERIES III / Thy Kingdom Come / 839,000 Edition' and '1910'. The Internet Archive catalogue record gives the year as 1906, which the title page does not support; the title page has been followed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
Notes. The revised figure was therefore already in print in 1910, four years before 1914 passed. The change cannot be explained as a response to the disappointment of 1914.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-ss3-1910-descending-3457-1915
1891 · pp.359-360 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“we may well accept as correct the testimony of the Great Pyramid that the last members of the “body” or “bride” of Christ will have been tested and accepted and will have passed beyond the vail before the close of A. D. 1910. Is not this a most remarkable agreement between this stone “Witness” and the Bible? The dates, October, 1874, and October, 1881, are exact, while the date 1910, though not furnished in the Scriptures, seems more than a reasonable one.”
The practical conclusion drawn from the third Grand Gallery measurement: that the glorification of the anointed would be complete before the end of 1910. The sentence runs across the foot of p. 359 and the head of p. 360.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Pages 359 and 360 opened and read in this session; wording confirmed. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t' (for example 'destru6lion', 'fa6l', 'jun6tion'). These have been expanded to 'destruction', 'fact' and 'junction' in the quotation; no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
Notes. This sentence was removed from later printings and replaced with a vaguer statement. It is the clearest single instance of an edition-to-edition change in the chapter.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1891-1910-glorification
1891 · p.360 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“this date limit — A. D. 1914 — must not only witness the completion of the selection and trial and glorification of the entire body of Christ, but it must also witness the purifying of that larger company of consecrated believers … The four years from 1910 to the end of 1914 indicated thus in the Great Pyramid, will be quite sufficient for the extreme of all that trouble”
The 1891 text treats 1914 as a firm outer limit and states in the indicative what must happen before it.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 360 opened and read in this session; wording confirmed. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t' (for example 'destru6lion', 'fa6l', 'jun6tion'). These have been expanded to 'destruction', 'fact' and 'junction' in the quotation; no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
1910 · p.364 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we may understand the reference to be to the anarchous trouble which will follow October, 1914; but a trouble chiefly upon the Church may be expected about 1910 A. D. … the date 1910, though not furnished in the Scriptures, seems more than a reasonable one for some important event in the Church's experience and final testing … The four years from 1910 to the end of 1914, indicated thus in the Great Pyramid, will doubtless be a time of “fiery trial” upon the Church”
This is the rewritten form of the passage that in 1891 had said the bride of Christ ‘will have passed beyond the vail before the close of A. D. 1910’. The definite prediction is gone. In the same passage the 1891 wording ‘it must also witness the purifying of that larger company’ becomes ‘it may also witness the purifying of some of that larger company’, and ‘These, before the end of this period, must come up out of the great tribulation’ becomes ‘Some of these … may come up out of the great tribulation’.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (839,000 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 364 of the 839,000 Edition opened and read in this session and set beside pp. 359-360 of the 1891 printing; every difference quoted here was read in both scans.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
1891 · pp.358-359 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“Prof. Smyth found the first of these measures (a) to be 1874 Pyr. inches; the second (b) to be 1881 Pyr. inches, and the third (c) to be 1910 Pyr. inches … and give the dates (a) October, 1874, (b) October, 1881 and (c) October, 1910, A. D. This threefold ending is in full accord with what we have found taught in the Scriptures”
Three sets of measurements of the floor of the Grand Gallery are described on p. 358: (a) to the Step and then along its upper surface, omitting the riser; (b) through the Step, as though it were not there; and (c) over the whole floor and up the riser of the Step. The ellipsis in the quotation covers an intermediate step the reader should know about: Flinders Petrie's measures are noted as eight-tenths of an inch longer, the figures are rounded up to 1875, 1882 and 1911, and one and a quarter inches are then deducted from each to correct for the era, giving 1873¾, 1880¾ and 1909¾, from which the three October dates are read.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Pages 358 and 359 opened and read in this session; the three figures and the three dates confirmed. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t' (for example 'destru6lion', 'fa6l', 'jun6tion'). These have been expanded to 'destruction', 'fact' and 'junction' in the quotation; no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
Notes. These three figures and the three dates they were said to give were not altered in later printings: they stand in the same terms on pp. 362-363 of the 1910 printing, where the wording has been lightly reset but no figure and no date has changed.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1891-gallery-triple
1910 · pp.362-363 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Prof. Smyth found the first of these measures (a) to be 1874 Pyramid inches, the second (b), 1881 Pyramid inches, and the third (c), 1910 Pyramid inches … and give the dates (a) October, 1874, (b) October, 1881 and (c) October, 1910, a. d.”
The Grand Gallery measurements and the three dates they were said to yield are unchanged from the 1891 edition, in the same printing in which the descending-passage figure was altered. The first half of the quotation stands on p. 362 and the dates on p. 363; the ellipsis covers the same intermediate steps as in 1891 (the Flinders Petrie adjustment, the rounding, and the deduction of one and a quarter inches).
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (839,000 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Pages 362 and 363 of the 839,000 Edition opened and read in this session; figures and dates confirmed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
Notes. The revision was selective. October 1874 was retained as a pyramid-attested date in one calculation while being removed from another in the same chapter.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-ss3-1910-gallery-triple
1910 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we find it to be 3457 inches, symbolizing 3457 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1915 years A. D. equals 3457 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble”
The same sentence as in 1891 and 1898, with the measurement of the descending passage given as 41 inches longer and the resulting date moved from 1874 to 1915. The tense also changes: the close of 1874 ‘was’ the beginning becomes the close of 1914 ‘will be’ the beginning.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (839,000 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 342 of the 839,000 Edition opened and read in this session; the figure 3457 and the dates 1915 and 1914 confirmed. The title page reads 'SERIES III / Thy Kingdom Come / 839,000 Edition' and '1910'. The Internet Archive catalogue record gives the year as 1906, which the title page does not support; the title page has been followed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
Notes. The revised figure was therefore already in print in 1910, four years before 1914 passed. The change cannot be explained as a response to the disappointment of 1914.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-ss3-1910-descending-3457-1915
A printing of the volume issued after 1914 had passed still carried the sentence ‘the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble’ and still said that the four years from 1910 to the end of 1914 ‘will doubtless be a time of “fiery trial” upon the Church’. Source: Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (1,595,500 Edition), 1918
1918 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · International Bible Students Association
“Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation”
A printing issued after 1914 had come and gone still carries the sentence in the future tense, and still carries, on p. 364, the statement that ‘The four years from 1910 to the end of 1914 … will doubtless be a time of “fiery trial” upon the Church’.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (1,595,500 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Pages 342 and 364 opened and read in this session, the printed numbers read from the running heads. The title page was also opened as an image and is clearly legible: 'SERIES III / Thy Kingdom Come / 1,595,500 Edition / INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION / BROOKLYN, LONDON, MELBOURNE, BARMEN, COPENHAGEN, OREBRO, CHRISTIANIA, GENEVA / 1918', with a University of Illinois accession stamp of 4 February 1920 above it. The year 1918 is the title page's own, not the Internet Archive catalogue's. The printing also carries Russell's Author's Foreword dated 1 October 1916.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
Notes. A printing made four years after 1914 still carries the sentence about 1914 in the future tense, and still carries on p. 364 the statement that the four years from 1910 to the end of 1914 "will doubtless be" a time of fiery trial upon the Church.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-ss3-1918-descending-3457-1915
The organisation’s position or later explanation: Proclaimers (1993), p. 201: ‘For some 35 years, Pastor Russell thought that the Great Pyramid of Gizeh was God’s stone witness, corroborating Biblical time periods.’
1 October 1916 · pp.ii-iii · C. T. Russell · International Bible Students Association
“The Great Pyramid of Egypt discussed in this Volume has not lost any of its interest to the author. … 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 … We do, however, still believe that the structure of this Pyramid, so different from that of all other pyramids, was designed of the Lord and intended to be a Pyramid and a witness in the midst and on the border of the land of Egypt. (Isaiah 19:19.) … It should be read with just as fresh interest as in the first edition, because its lessons have not altered or changed.”
The foreword is signed 'Charles T. Russell. Brooklyn, N. Y., October 1, 1916', about a month before his death on 31 October 1916. In the paragraph immediately before the words quoted here, Russell restates the chapter's symbolic readings one by one — the Descending Passage, the First Ascending Passage, the Grand Gallery, the Step — and says that 'The connection between the top of the Grand Gallery and the spaces above the King's Chamber still represents the spiritual presence of our Lord in the Harvest of this Age, beginning with 1874.' Of the volume as a whole he writes that 'scarcely a word of the Volume would need to be changed if it were written today — 26 years later'.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (1,595,500 Edition), The Author's Foreword
Confidence note. The foreword was opened and read in full in this session. Its pages are numbered in roman numerals; page-level extraction shows the pyramid passage beginning on p. ii (which ends ‘… beginning with 1874. ii’) and continuing on p. iii. The signature and date are on p. iv.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
Notes. This is Russell's last recorded statement on the subject, in his own words rather than a later summary. Two things should be held together when reading 'its lessons have not altered or changed'. The lessons he lists in the preceding paragraph are the chapter's symbolic readings, and those had not been changed. A measurement in the same chapter, and the date it was said to establish, had been changed between printings. The foreword does not say which of the two he had in mind, and nothing in the printings shows who made the change.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-ss3-1916-foreword
15 August 1922 · pp.253-254 · Morton Edgar · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Needless to say, the testimony of the Great Pyramid, the Lord’s “stone witness” in which Brother Russell still declared his implicit faith in his last notice of this monument, in his new preface to Volume III just about a month before his death—is quite against the new (?) chronological views of the Herald. But of course the Herald writers have no use for the Pyramid’s testimony now. They have thrown that aside … The Great Pyramid substantiates the views held by Brother Russell beyond all doubt. … The Herald writers are quite wrong in very many of their interpretations. They are certainly not safe guides to the Lord’s people.”
This is not the magazine speaking in its own voice. It is a private letter from Morton Edgar, a Bible Student writer on the Great Pyramid, which the magazine chose to print under its standing heading 'INTERESTING LETTERS' with the sub-heading 'MISTAKES OF PTOLEMY, THE PAGAN HISTORIAN'. The magazine introduces it on p. 253 in square brackets: 'A private letter from Brother Morton Edgar addressed to a sister in Christ has been handed to us with request to publish; and since it deals with subject-matter of particular interest to the church at this time, we take pleasure in publishing it, as follows'. The letter argues against the rival journal The Herald of Christ's Kingdom on chronology. The last sentence quoted here stands a few lines earlier in the letter than the pyramid passage and is about the Herald writers' interpretations generally, not about the pyramid alone. The issue header reads 'Vol. XLIII AUGUST 15, 1922 No. 16'.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Interesting Letters — 'Mistakes of Ptolemy, the Pagan Historian' (a reader's letter)
Confidence note. The bound volume was opened and the letter read in this session on pp. 253-254; wording, issue, pages, heading and signature confirmed, and the printed page numbers read from the leaves' own numerals. The OCR renders a few words imperfectly ('Jcre-miah', 'wiiters', 'chro-nological'); these are obvious and have been corrected without supplying any word absent from the scan. This source carries the weight of a correspondent whose letter the Society printed with approval, not of a Watch Tower article.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'magazines-the-watchtower-and-herald-christ-presence-1922' (bound volume). Public domain. The item's page_numbers.json maps leaf 254 to printed page 254.
Notes. Two things this establishes. First, it confirms from outside the book itself that Russell's 1916 foreword existed and was written about a month before his death. Second, it shows the Society in 1922 printing, with a commendatory introduction, a correspondent who treated abandonment of the pyramid's testimony as a mark of unsoundness — six years before the Society did the same thing itself. The opinion is the correspondent's; the decision to print it is the magazine's.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-w-1922-0815-implicit-faith
1 October 1916 · pp.ii-iii · C. T. Russell · International Bible Students Association
“The Great Pyramid of Egypt discussed in this Volume has not lost any of its interest to the author. … 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 … We do, however, still believe that the structure of this Pyramid, so different from that of all other pyramids, was designed of the Lord and intended to be a Pyramid and a witness in the midst and on the border of the land of Egypt. (Isaiah 19:19.) … It should be read with just as fresh interest as in the first edition, because its lessons have not altered or changed.”
The foreword is signed 'Charles T. Russell. Brooklyn, N. Y., October 1, 1916', about a month before his death on 31 October 1916. In the paragraph immediately before the words quoted here, Russell restates the chapter's symbolic readings one by one — the Descending Passage, the First Ascending Passage, the Grand Gallery, the Step — and says that 'The connection between the top of the Grand Gallery and the spaces above the King's Chamber still represents the spiritual presence of our Lord in the Harvest of this Age, beginning with 1874.' Of the volume as a whole he writes that 'scarcely a word of the Volume would need to be changed if it were written today — 26 years later'.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (1,595,500 Edition), The Author's Foreword
Confidence note. The foreword was opened and read in full in this session. Its pages are numbered in roman numerals; page-level extraction shows the pyramid passage beginning on p. ii (which ends ‘… beginning with 1874. ii’) and continuing on p. iii. The signature and date are on p. iv.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
Notes. This is Russell's last recorded statement on the subject, in his own words rather than a later summary. Two things should be held together when reading 'its lessons have not altered or changed'. The lessons he lists in the preceding paragraph are the chapter's symbolic readings, and those had not been changed. A measurement in the same chapter, and the date it was said to establish, had been changed between printings. The foreword does not say which of the two he had in mind, and nothing in the printings shows who made the change.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-ss3-1916-foreword
1891 · p.336 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“Then measuring down the “Entrance Passage” from that point, to find the distance to the entrance of the “Pit,” representing the great trouble and destruction with which this age is to close, when evil will be overthrown from power, we find it to be 3416 inches, symbolizing 3416 years from the above date, B. C. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1874 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 B. C. plus 1874 A. D. equals 3416 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble”
The method is set out on the preceding page: one inch of passage is read as one year. The junction of the First Ascending Passage with the Grand Gallery is taken as the birth of Christ; the measure back down to the Entrance Passage, 1542 inches, gives 1542 BCE; the descending passage is then measured from that point to the mouth of the Pit.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 336 opened and read in this session; the figure 3416 and the date 1874 confirmed. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t' (for example 'destru6lion', 'fa6l', 'jun6tion'). These have been expanded to 'destruction', 'fact' and 'junction' in the quotation; no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
1910 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we find it to be 3457 inches, symbolizing 3457 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1915 years A. D. equals 3457 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble”
The same sentence as in 1891 and 1898, with the measurement of the descending passage given as 41 inches longer and the resulting date moved from 1874 to 1915. The tense also changes: the close of 1874 ‘was’ the beginning becomes the close of 1914 ‘will be’ the beginning.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (839,000 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 342 of the 839,000 Edition opened and read in this session; the figure 3457 and the dates 1915 and 1914 confirmed. The title page reads 'SERIES III / Thy Kingdom Come / 839,000 Edition' and '1910'. The Internet Archive catalogue record gives the year as 1906, which the title page does not support; the title page has been followed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
Notes. The revised figure was therefore already in print in 1910, four years before 1914 passed. The change cannot be explained as a response to the disappointment of 1914.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-ss3-1910-descending-3457-1915
The teaching was defended into the 1920s, memorialised in stone at Russell’s grave, and then dropped. The wording of the article that dropped it is worth reading in full.
The Society’s own annual report for 1921 records that at the memorial gathering at Russell’s grave on 31 October 1921 ‘a little souvenir of the plot of ground and the pyramid stone marker had been provided, which was distributed amongst those in attendance’. Source: The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, 15 December 1921
15 December 1921 · p.371 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Monday the thirty-first being the anniversary of Brother Russell's change to glory, the friends assembled in the afternoon at the cemetery, where memorial services were held … A little souvenir of the plot of ground and the pyramid stone marker had been provided, which was distributed amongst those in attendance.”
The Society's own annual report for 1921 describes the convention at Pittsburgh and the memorial gathering at the cemetery on 31 October 1921, the fifth anniversary of Russell's death. The issue header reads 'Vol. XLII DECEMBER 15, 1921 No. 24'.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Annual Report 1921
Confidence note. The bound volume was opened and the passage read in this session; wording, issue and page confirmed. This is a primary Watch Tower source for the existence of a pyramid-shaped marker at the burial plot, and is better evidence than the photographs usually cited for the point.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'magazines-the-watchtower-and-herald-christ-presence-1921' (bound volume). Public domain. Page-level text extracted from the item's djvu.xml; the leaf carrying this passage ends with the printed page number 371, and the item's page_numbers.json maps the same leaf to p. 371.
Notes. The report does not give the monument's dimensions, its date of erection, its cost or the wording of any inscription, and it does not name the cemetery. None of those details is established by this source.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-w-1921-1215-monument
Through 1921 the magazine carried a standing inside-cover advertisement describing Volume III as containing 'a chapter on the Great Pyramid of Egypt, showing its corroboration of certain Bible teachings', including on the cover of the very issue that reported the memorial gathering at Russell's grave. Source: The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, 1921
“Series III, “Thy Kingdom Come,” considers prophecies which mark events connected with “the time of the end”, the glorification of the church and the establishment of the Millennial kingdom; it also contains a chapter on the Great Pyramid of Egypt, showing its corroboration of certain Bible teachings”
This advertisement ran on the inside cover of the magazine through 1921, including the cover of the issue of 15 December 1921 that reported the memorial gathering at the grave. The cover pages carry no printed numeral, so no page can be cited; in the bound volume the leaf sits immediately before p. 371.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Standing advertisement for Studies in the Scriptures (inside cover)
Confidence note. Opened and read in this session on the inside-cover leaf facing p. 371 of the 1921 bound volume, and the same wording found on seven further cover leaves spread across the year (those falling at pp. 66, 98, 130, 158, 162, 335 and 354 in the volume's sequence). The OCR of the remaining cover leaves is too poor for an exact match, so the advertisement may well have run in every issue. The cover pages carry no printed numeral, although they fall within the volume's continuous pagination.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'magazines-the-watchtower-and-herald-christ-presence-1921' (bound volume). Public domain.
As late as August 1922 the magazine was still defending the teaching. Answering a convention question about the Leipzig battle monument, it argued that God had 'a good reason' to have 'a monument erected in Egypt, the Great Pyramid'. In the same issue it printed, with a commendatory introduction, a reader's letter from Morton Edgar treating a rival journal's abandonment of the pyramid's testimony as a reason its writers were 'not safe guides to the Lord’s people'. Source: The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, 15 August 1922Source: The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, 15 August 1922
15 August 1922 · p.244 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“There would be no reason why Jehovah should have a monument erected in the earth at the end of the gospel age. There is a good reason why he would have a monument erected in Egypt, the Great Pyramid, long before the beginning of the Christian era, and when the time would come that the secrets of this monument should be revealed to students of the divine prophecy, it would be found to corroborate the prophetic utterances and the divine plan”
Part of the Society's own report of its European tour. On p. 243 the report describes a question meeting at the Leipzig convention 'conducted by Brother Rutherford' at which a question was handed in asking whether the Leipzig battle monument, dedicated in 1913, is the monument 'referred to in Isaiah 19:19 and in Revelation 22:1, 2'. The words quoted here are printed on p. 244 under the sub-heading 'NOT OF THE LORD' and introduced as 'Abbreviated, the answer to the question was this'. The report attributes the meeting to Rutherford but does not name the speaker of the answer in so many words. The issue header reads 'Vol. XLIII AUGUST 15, 1922 No. 16'.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, European Tour — Part IV
Confidence note. The bound volume was opened and the passage read in this session; wording, issue and page confirmed. The OCR of this leaf is poor in places (for example 'ha' for 'be', 'm' for 'in', 'Gicat' for 'Great'); obvious misreadings of that kind have been corrected and no word has been supplied that is not present in the scan.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'magazines-the-watchtower-and-herald-christ-presence-1922' (bound volume). Public domain. The item's page_numbers.json maps leaf 244 to printed page 244, and the leaf's own text carries the numeral.
Notes. Six years before the reversal, the Isaiah 19:19 argument that the 1928 articles set aside was being used to rule out a rival monument: the reason given for rejecting the Leipzig monument is that Jehovah already had one, in Egypt.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-w-1922-0815-leipzig
15 August 1922 · pp.253-254 · Morton Edgar · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Needless to say, the testimony of the Great Pyramid, the Lord’s “stone witness” in which Brother Russell still declared his implicit faith in his last notice of this monument, in his new preface to Volume III just about a month before his death—is quite against the new (?) chronological views of the Herald. But of course the Herald writers have no use for the Pyramid’s testimony now. They have thrown that aside … The Great Pyramid substantiates the views held by Brother Russell beyond all doubt. … The Herald writers are quite wrong in very many of their interpretations. They are certainly not safe guides to the Lord’s people.”
This is not the magazine speaking in its own voice. It is a private letter from Morton Edgar, a Bible Student writer on the Great Pyramid, which the magazine chose to print under its standing heading 'INTERESTING LETTERS' with the sub-heading 'MISTAKES OF PTOLEMY, THE PAGAN HISTORIAN'. The magazine introduces it on p. 253 in square brackets: 'A private letter from Brother Morton Edgar addressed to a sister in Christ has been handed to us with request to publish; and since it deals with subject-matter of particular interest to the church at this time, we take pleasure in publishing it, as follows'. The letter argues against the rival journal The Herald of Christ's Kingdom on chronology. The last sentence quoted here stands a few lines earlier in the letter than the pyramid passage and is about the Herald writers' interpretations generally, not about the pyramid alone. The issue header reads 'Vol. XLIII AUGUST 15, 1922 No. 16'.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Interesting Letters — 'Mistakes of Ptolemy, the Pagan Historian' (a reader's letter)
Confidence note. The bound volume was opened and the letter read in this session on pp. 253-254; wording, issue, pages, heading and signature confirmed, and the printed page numbers read from the leaves' own numerals. The OCR renders a few words imperfectly ('Jcre-miah', 'wiiters', 'chro-nological'); these are obvious and have been corrected without supplying any word absent from the scan. This source carries the weight of a correspondent whose letter the Society printed with approval, not of a Watch Tower article.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'magazines-the-watchtower-and-herald-christ-presence-1922' (bound volume). Public domain. The item's page_numbers.json maps leaf 254 to printed page 254.
Notes. Two things this establishes. First, it confirms from outside the book itself that Russell's 1916 foreword existed and was written about a month before his death. Second, it shows the Society in 1922 printing, with a commendatory introduction, a correspondent who treated abandonment of the pyramid's testimony as a mark of unsoundness — six years before the Society did the same thing itself. The opinion is the correspondent's; the decision to print it is the magazine's.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-w-1922-0815-implicit-faith
The organisation’s position or later explanation: Proclaimers (1993), p. 201, cites the Watchtower issues of 15 November and 1 December 1928 as the point at which ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses have abandoned the idea that an Egyptian pyramid has anything to do with true worship’.
1 December 1928 · p.356 · par. 6 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Since all these scriptures referring to the stone are used symbolically to represent Christ, we may know that no natural stone or pile of stone is referred to and that it would be entirely inappropriate to apply these scriptures to the great pyramid. There is therefore no justification for applying any of these texts to the pyramid of Gizeh.”
'The Altar in Egypt' (part 2), The Watch Tower, Vol. XLIX, 1 December 1928, No. 23. The article begins on p. 355 and reads Isaiah 19:19, 20 as applying to the anointed remnant rather than to any building. The words quoted here close paragraph 6, which begins on p. 355 and runs over on to p. 356; the article's own study questions group paragraphs 6 and 7 as the passage dealing with the pyramid.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, The Altar in Egypt (part 2)
Confidence note. Wording, issue, page and paragraph confirmed in this session by reading the article through from its opening page (p. 355) to its closing paragraph and study questions.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'w_E_19281201' (single-issue scan). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf. The scan's OCR reads the leading '3' of every page number in this issue as an '8' (the page printed 356 is read as '856'), and the item's page_numbers.json simply repeats those OCR numerals, so neither can be used directly. The printed numbers here come from the leaf sequence: the article opens on the leaf whose own text ends '355', and each following leaf is one page later. Paragraph numbers are the article's own and are cross-checked against the 'Questions for Berean Study' printed at the end of the article on pp. 361-362, which group the paragraphs in the same way.
Notes. The article states the conclusion twice: first that it would be 'entirely inappropriate' to apply the stone texts to the pyramid, then that there is 'no justification' for doing so.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-w-1928-1201-no-justification
1 December 1928 · p.358 · par. 26-27 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“It is impossible to fit the literal pyramid of Gizeh to the prophet's description; but the position and condition of the remnant of God exactly fit the prophetic description … The pyramid of Gizeh is neither a sign nor a witness unto the Lord of hosts.”
The replacement reading: the 'altar' and the 'pillar' of Isaiah 19:19, 20 are the anointed remnant, offering sacrifice and bearing witness. Paragraphs 26 and 27, both on p. 358. In the original the first sentence continues '… which is therefore right'. 'The Altar in Egypt' (part 2), The Watch Tower, Vol. XLIX, 1 December 1928, No. 23.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, The Altar in Egypt (part 2)
Confidence note. Wording, issue, page and paragraph confirmed in this session by reading the article through from its opening page (p. 355) to its closing paragraph and study questions.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'w_E_19281201' (single-issue scan). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf. The scan's OCR reads the leading '3' of every page number in this issue as an '8' (the page printed 356 is read as '856'), and the item's page_numbers.json simply repeats those OCR numerals, so neither can be used directly. The printed numbers here come from the leaf sequence: the article opens on the leaf whose own text ends '355', and each following leaf is one page later. Paragraph numbers are the article's own and are cross-checked against the 'Questions for Berean Study' printed at the end of the article on pp. 361-362, which group the paragraphs in the same way.
1 December 1928 · p.356 · par. 7 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“There are two potent reasons why these conclusions can not be correct and information of value to the Christian: (1) At that time the Lord had not come to his temple and the prophecy had not been fulfilled nor even in course of fulfilment. (2) It is not claimed that any of these men were of the Lord's anointed or devoted to the Lord. They were giving expression to their own wisdom.”
Paragraph 7, the paragraph immediately following, also on p. 356. The reasoning is directed at 'John Taylor, an Englishman', 'Piazzi Smyth' and 'a young Scotchman named Robert Menzies', the three men the article names as the originators of the theory. 'The Altar in Egypt' (part 2), The Watch Tower, Vol. XLIX, 1 December 1928, No. 23.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, The Altar in Egypt (part 2)
Confidence note. Wording, issue, page and paragraph confirmed in this session by reading the article through from its opening page (p. 355) to its closing paragraph and study questions.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'w_E_19281201' (single-issue scan). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf. The scan's OCR reads the leading '3' of every page number in this issue as an '8' (the page printed 356 is read as '856'), and the item's page_numbers.json simply repeats those OCR numerals, so neither can be used directly. The printed numbers here come from the leaf sequence: the article opens on the leaf whose own text ends '355', and each following leaf is one page later. Paragraph numbers are the article's own and are cross-checked against the 'Questions for Berean Study' printed at the end of the article on pp. 361-362, which group the paragraphs in the same way.
Notes. These are the same three men the 1891 chapter had relied on. On p. 314 that chapter says of Piazzi Smyth's Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, 'we are mainly indebted for the data made use of in this chapter', and credits 'a young Scotchman, Robert Menzies' with the suggestion that the pyramid is Jehovah's witness.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-w-1928-1201-two-reasons
1891 · p.314 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“To his scholarly and scientific work, “Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid,” we are mainly indebted for the data made use of in this chapter. Our illustrations are copies of a few of the seventeen plates with which that work is embellished. A few years after Prof. Smyth’s return came the suggestion that the Pyramid is Jehovah’s “Witness,” and that it is as important a witness to divine truth as to natural science. … The suggestion came from a young Scotchman, Robert Menzies, who, when studying the scientific teachings of the Great Pyramid, discovered that prophetic and chronological teachings co-exist in it.”
The chapter's own statement of where its material came from. 'Prof. Smyth' is Charles Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer-Royal for Scotland, named on the preceding page; John Taylor is named on p. 313 as the author of the first work of importance on the subject. The ellipsis covers one sentence: 'This was a new thought to Prof. Smyth, as well as to others.' The same page goes on to say that these men, 'not having discerned the scope and completeness of the plan of salvation revealed in the Scriptures, … have thus far failed to note the most wonderful and beautiful features of the Great Pyramid's testimony'.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 314 opened and read in this session; the printed number read from the page's own running head. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t'; the words affected on this page have been expanded to their ordinary spellings and no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
Notes. The 1928 articles rejected the theory partly on the ground that Taylor, Smyth and Menzies 'were giving expression to their own wisdom' and that 'It is not claimed that any of these men were of the Lord's anointed'. This page is where the 1891 chapter names the same three men as the source of its data and of its central idea. The back matter of the same 1891 volume advertises Smyth's book, and Joseph Seiss's A Miracle in Stone, for sale by the Tower Bible & Tract Society.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1891-smyth-menzies-credit
1891 · p.316 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“a divine wisdom which must have been worked out under the supervision of some inspired servant of God”
The chapter argues that the design shows knowledge the Egyptians could not have had, and reports the resulting conjecture that Melchizedek was the builder, while adding ‘Of this we can know little’.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 316 opened and read in this session; wording confirmed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
1 December 1928 · p.359 · par. 34 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“To be sure, if Satan can induce the consecrated to turn their attention to a pile of stone in Egypt and study its measurements in order to determine just when the church will be glorified he would accomplish his purposes. … One of the most subtle schemes Satan has yet adopted to accomplish that purpose has been and is the use of the pyramid of Gizeh.”
Paragraph 34, on p. 359. The article attributes the use of the pyramid itself, and not merely an error in applying it, to Satan. 'The Altar in Egypt' (part 2), The Watch Tower, Vol. XLIX, 1 December 1928, No. 23.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, The Altar in Egypt (part 2)
Confidence note. Wording, issue, page and paragraph confirmed in this session by reading the article through from its opening page (p. 355) to its closing paragraph and study questions.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'w_E_19281201' (single-issue scan). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf. The scan's OCR reads the leading '3' of every page number in this issue as an '8' (the page printed 356 is read as '856'), and the item's page_numbers.json simply repeats those OCR numerals, so neither can be used directly. The printed numbers here come from the leaf sequence: the article opens on the leaf whose own text ends '355', and each following leaf is one page later. Paragraph numbers are the article's own and are cross-checked against the 'Questions for Berean Study' printed at the end of the article on pp. 361-362, which group the paragraphs in the same way.
Notes. The phrase “Satan's Bible”, which is very widely quoted on this subject, does not appear anywhere in this issue; the whole issue was searched. It is attributed to the issue of 15 November 1928, of which no scan was found.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-w-1928-1201-satan-scheme
1 December 1928 · p.360 · par. 37-38 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Such will avoid the pyramid of Gizeh and its measurements and adhere strictly to the Word of God. … They learned absolutely nothing from the pyramid that enables them to know and understand and obey the commandments of the Lord.”
Paragraph 37, the instruction to readers, and paragraph 38, the judgement on what the teaching had yielded; both on p. 360. 'The Altar in Egypt' (part 2), The Watch Tower, Vol. XLIX, 1 December 1928, No. 23.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, The Altar in Egypt (part 2)
Confidence note. Wording, issue, page and paragraph confirmed in this session by reading the article through from its opening page (p. 355) to its closing paragraph and study questions.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'w_E_19281201' (single-issue scan). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf. The scan's OCR reads the leading '3' of every page number in this issue as an '8' (the page printed 356 is read as '856'), and the item's page_numbers.json simply repeats those OCR numerals, so neither can be used directly. The printed numbers here come from the leaf sequence: the article opens on the leaf whose own text ends '355', and each following leaf is one page later. Paragraph numbers are the article's own and are cross-checked against the 'Questions for Berean Study' printed at the end of the article on pp. 361-362, which group the paragraphs in the same way.
The article closed: ‘We now wonder why we ever believed in or devoted any time to the study of the pyramid of Gizeh. Not only will we abandon such a study now, but we will ask God to forgive us for wasting the time that we have put in on it’. Source: The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, 1 December 1928
1 December 1928 · p.361 · par. 47 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“We now wonder why we ever believed in or devoted any time to the study of the pyramid of Gizeh. Not only will we abandon such a study now, but we will ask God to forgive us for wasting the time that we have put in on it and redeem the time by hurrying on to obey his commandments.”
Paragraph 47, on p. 361: the last numbered paragraph of the article, followed only by the study questions. 'The Altar in Egypt' (part 2), The Watch Tower, Vol. XLIX, 1 December 1928, No. 23.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, The Altar in Egypt (part 2)
Confidence note. Wording, issue, page and paragraph confirmed in this session by reading the article through from its opening page (p. 355) to its closing paragraph and study questions.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'w_E_19281201' (single-issue scan). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf. The scan's OCR reads the leading '3' of every page number in this issue as an '8' (the page printed 356 is read as '856'), and the item's page_numbers.json simply repeats those OCR numerals, so neither can be used directly. The printed numbers here come from the leaf sequence: the article opens on the leaf whose own text ends '355', and each following leaf is one page later. Paragraph numbers are the article's own and are cross-checked against the 'Questions for Berean Study' printed at the end of the article on pp. 361-362, which group the paragraphs in the same way.
1910 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we find it to be 3457 inches, symbolizing 3457 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1915 years A. D. equals 3457 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble”
The same sentence as in 1891 and 1898, with the measurement of the descending passage given as 41 inches longer and the resulting date moved from 1874 to 1915. The tense also changes: the close of 1874 ‘was’ the beginning becomes the close of 1914 ‘will be’ the beginning.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series III — Thy Kingdom Come (839,000 Edition), Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Page 342 of the 839,000 Edition opened and read in this session; the figure 3457 and the dates 1915 and 1914 confirmed. The title page reads 'SERIES III / Thy Kingdom Come / 839,000 Edition' and '1910'. The Internet Archive catalogue record gives the year as 1906, which the title page does not support; the title page has been followed.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive scan. Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number read from each page's own running head.
Notes. The revised figure was therefore already in print in 1910, four years before 1914 passed. The change cannot be explained as a response to the disappointment of 1914.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-ss3-1910-descending-3457-1915
1891 · pp.358-359 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“Prof. Smyth found the first of these measures (a) to be 1874 Pyr. inches; the second (b) to be 1881 Pyr. inches, and the third (c) to be 1910 Pyr. inches … and give the dates (a) October, 1874, (b) October, 1881 and (c) October, 1910, A. D. This threefold ending is in full accord with what we have found taught in the Scriptures”
Three sets of measurements of the floor of the Grand Gallery are described on p. 358: (a) to the Step and then along its upper surface, omitting the riser; (b) through the Step, as though it were not there; and (c) over the whole floor and up the riser of the Step. The ellipsis in the quotation covers an intermediate step the reader should know about: Flinders Petrie's measures are noted as eight-tenths of an inch longer, the figures are rounded up to 1875, 1882 and 1911, and one and a quarter inches are then deducted from each to correct for the era, giving 1873¾, 1880¾ and 1909¾, from which the three October dates are read.
Provenance and verification note for Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, Chapter X — The Testimony of God's Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt
Confidence note. Pages 358 and 359 opened and read in this session; the three figures and the three dates confirmed. The 1891 typesetting uses a 'ct' ligature that the scan's OCR renders as '6l' or '6t' (for example 'destru6lion', 'fa6l', 'jun6tion'). These have been expanded to 'destruction', 'fact' and 'junction' in the quotation; no other word has been altered.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'millennialdawn03inruss', the 1891 Tower Publishing Co. printing (University of Pittsburgh copy). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf, and the printed page number was read from each page's own running head. Note for anyone re-checking this item: the item's page_numbers.json is one lower than the printed page throughout — it maps the leaf whose running head reads 336 to page 335 — so the running heads, not that file, are authoritative here.
Notes. These three figures and the three dates they were said to give were not altered in later printings: they stand in the same terms on pp. 362-363 of the 1910 printing, where the wording has been lightly reset but no figure and no date has changed.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-md3-1891-gallery-triple
1 December 1928 · p.356 · par. 6 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Since all these scriptures referring to the stone are used symbolically to represent Christ, we may know that no natural stone or pile of stone is referred to and that it would be entirely inappropriate to apply these scriptures to the great pyramid. There is therefore no justification for applying any of these texts to the pyramid of Gizeh.”
'The Altar in Egypt' (part 2), The Watch Tower, Vol. XLIX, 1 December 1928, No. 23. The article begins on p. 355 and reads Isaiah 19:19, 20 as applying to the anointed remnant rather than to any building. The words quoted here close paragraph 6, which begins on p. 355 and runs over on to p. 356; the article's own study questions group paragraphs 6 and 7 as the passage dealing with the pyramid.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, The Altar in Egypt (part 2)
Confidence note. Wording, issue, page and paragraph confirmed in this session by reading the article through from its opening page (p. 355) to its closing paragraph and study questions.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive item 'w_E_19281201' (single-issue scan). Public domain. Page-level text was extracted from the item's djvu.xml, one block per leaf. The scan's OCR reads the leading '3' of every page number in this issue as an '8' (the page printed 356 is read as '856'), and the item's page_numbers.json simply repeats those OCR numerals, so neither can be used directly. The printed numbers here come from the leaf sequence: the article opens on the leaf whose own text ends '355', and each following leaf is one page later. Paragraph numbers are the article's own and are cross-checked against the 'Questions for Berean Study' printed at the end of the article on pp. 361-362, which group the paragraphs in the same way.
Notes. The article states the conclusion twice: first that it would be 'entirely inappropriate' to apply the stone texts to the pyramid, then that there is 'no justification' for doing so.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-w-1928-1201-no-justification
31 December 2024 · p.128 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“The “seven times” represent a period of 2,520 years. That time period began in 607 B.C.E. when the Babylonians removed the last king from Jehovah's throne in Jerusalem. It ended in 1914 C.E. when Jehovah enthroned Jesus”
A current daily-text comment setting out the calculation by which the organisation still arrives at 1914: the ‘seven times’ of Daniel 4, read as 2,520 years from 607 BCE.
Notes. 1914 is the one date formerly supported by the pyramid measurements that remains in the organisation’s teaching, now derived from Daniel 4 alone.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-es-2024-1231-1914
· Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“Among that group of sincere Bible students was a man named Charles Taze Russell. While Russell took the lead in the Bible education work at that time and was the first editor of The Watchtower, he was not the founder of a new religion. ... Since Jesus is the Founder of Christianity, we view him as the founder of our organization.”
The organisation's current public answer to the question of who founded Jehovah's Witnesses. The wording “not the founder of a new religion” repeats the phrase first printed in Russell's own obituary in 1916.
Provenance and verification note for Frequently Asked Questions About Jehovah’s Witnesses (jw.org), Who Was the Founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Confidence note. Read on jw.org and on the Watchtower Online Library; the two agree. Both give the citation code “ijwfq article 10” — this is article 10 of the organisation’s online Frequently Asked Questions series, not page 10 of a printed publication, and neither copy carries a publication date. The wording “not the founder of a new religion” is the phrase first printed in Russell’s obituary in 1916.
Notes. Previously recorded in this ledger as page 10 of the 2012 brochure Jehovah’s Witnesses—Who Are They? What Do They Believe? That attribution was wrong: a full-text search of the library returns this sentence only in the FAQ series and in Proclaimers’ quotation of the 1916 obituary.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-jwfaq-founder
1 December 1916 · pp.354-356 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Charles Taze Russell, known the world over as Pastor Russell, author, lecturer and minister of the Gospel, was born at Pittsburgh, Pa., February 16, 1852; died October 31, 1916. ... He was educated in the common schools and under private tutors. ... He was married in 1879 to Maria Frances Ackley. No children blessed this union. Seventeen years later they disagreed about the management of his journal and a separation followed. ... He was the greatest religious teacher since St. Paul ... He was not the founder of a new religion, and never made such claim.”
The official obituary biography published in the first issue after Russell's death, printed above his will. It is the source of the sentence about his education, of the Society's one-clause account of the separation, and of the “not the founder of a new religion” formula that the organisation still uses.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Biography
Confidence note. Read in the Reprints volume for 1916. The Biography opens immediately after the masthead “VOL. XXXVII … BROOKLYN, N. Y., DECEMBER 1, 1916”, on the Reprints page following the marker [5995], and runs past the marker [5997]; the running head printed over it reads “(354-356)” (the second running head in this run is damaged in the OCR). Proclaimers (1993) independently cites the “not the founder” sentence as page 356 of this issue, which agrees.
Scan provenance. The Internet Archive item titled “The watch tower and herald of Christ’s presence, 1916” is the Watch Tower Reprints volume for 1916: it reproduces each issue with its masthead, and every page carries a continuous Reprints page number in square brackets together with the original magazine pages in parentheses in the running head. Read in the item’s OCR text file.
1993 · p.707 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“A biography of Russell, published shortly after his death, explained: “He was not the founder of a new religion, and never made such claim. He revived the great truths taught by Jesus and the Apostles, and turned the light of the twentieth century upon these. He made no claim of a special revelation from God, but held that it was God's due time for the Bible to be understood…”—The Watch Tower, December 1, 1916, p. 356.”
The chapter argues that the Bible Students, rather than any church of Christendom, met the Scriptural marks of the true congregation when the last days began in 1914.
Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Chapter 31: How Chosen and Led by God
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library (jv chap. 31 p. 704 – p. 709); page marker 707 precedes the passage, and Proclaimers itself cites the 1916 original as “The Watch Tower, December 1, 1916, p. 356”. The 1916 printing was also read in the Reprints scan; the wording agrees, apart from capitalisation (“the apostles” and “his service” in 1916, “the Apostles” and “His service” as re-set in 1993).
February 2018 · pp.31-32 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“It was May 1910. For one man in their midst, Charles T. Russell, this was the fifth trip to Ireland. ... Beyond the shipyard, a dozen Bible Students stood on the quay, awaiting his arrival.”
A regular “From Our Archives” feature. Russell is named warmly and called “Brother Russell” throughout; the article is part of the current magazine and remains on jw.org.
Provenance and verification note for The Watchtower (Study Edition), From Our Archives: Public Talks Spread the Good News in Ireland
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library; the document’s citation code is “w18 February pp. 31-32”, the page markers 31 and 32 appear in the text, and the matching article is live on jw.org at the address recorded above.
Notes. The article names Russell throughout as “Brother Russell” and recounts his seven visits to Ireland between 1891 and 1911.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-w-2018-02-p31-ireland
1993 · pp.42-60 (quoted passage: 47-48) · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“C. T. Russell, though, felt that to withdraw from the Herald was not enough; the ransom doctrine must be defended and Christ's presence must be proclaimed. Hence, in July 1879, Russell began publishing Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence. Russell was the editor and publisher, with five others originally listed as contributors to its columns. The first issue had a printing of 6,000 copies.”
The chapter is the organisation's standard modern life of Russell: born at Allegheny 16 February 1852; a partner in his father's clothing business at eleven; repelled by eternal torment; steadied in 1869 by hearing the Adventist preacher Jonas Wendell; indebted to George Storrs and George W. Stetson; persuaded by N. H. Barbour in 1876 that Christ's invisible presence had begun in 1874; separated from Barbour in 1879 over the ransom.
Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Chapter 5: Proclaiming the Lord's Return (1870-1914)
Confidence note. Whole chapter read on the Watchtower Online Library; the document’s own citation code is “jv chap. 5 p. 42 – p. 60” and the quoted sentences straddle the page marker for 48. The chapter contains no mention of the Ross prosecution, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle litigation, Miracle Wheat, or the marriage and its court proceedings.
Notes. The chapter quotes Russell's own disclaimer: “Our work … has been to bring together these long scattered fragments of truth and present them to the Lord's people—not as new, not as our own, but as the Lord's.”
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-jv-1993-ch5-life
1993 · p.143 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Over a decade later, however, Brother Russell's wife publicly expressed the idea that Russell himself was the faithful and wise servant. The view that she voiced concerning the identity of the ‘faithful servant’ came to be generally held by the Bible Students for some 30 years. Brother Russell did not reject their view, but he personally avoided making such an application of the text.”
The chapter contrasts the 1881 Watch Tower statement that the ‘faithful and wise servant’ was the whole body of Christ with the later identification of Russell himself, and notes that the collective understanding was reaffirmed in 1927. It also quotes Russell in 1906: “The truths I present, as God's mouthpiece, were not revealed in visions or dreams …”
Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Chapter 10: Growing in Accurate Knowledge of the Truth
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library (jv chap. 10 p. 120 – p. 148); page marker 143 sits immediately before the passage. A full-text search of the library returns exactly one occurrence of the phrase “Russell’s wife” in the whole of Proclaimers — this one. The book does not name her.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-jv-1993-p143-faithful-servant
1975 · pp.67-68 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Without notice, she separated from him in 1897, after nearly eighteen years of marriage. ... In June 1903 Mrs. Russell filed in the Court of Common Pleas at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a suit for legal separation. During April 1906 the case came up for trial before Justice Collier and a jury. Nearly two years later, on March 4, 1908, a decree was issued that was styled “In Divorce.” The language of the decree is: “It is now ordered, adjudged and decreed that Maria F. Russell, the Libellant; and Charles T. Russell, the Respondent, be separated from bed and board.” ... This was a legalized separation and there never was an absolute divorce, as some erroneously have held.”
The Society's fullest published account of the marriage. It also quotes Russell's own answer given at Dublin in 1911: “I am not divorced from my wife. The decree of the court was not divorce, but separation, granted by a sympathetic jury, which declared that we would both be happier separated. My wife's charge was cruelty, but the only cruelty put in evidence was my refusal on one occasion to give her a kiss when she had requested it.”
Provenance and verification note for 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, Part 1—United States of America
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library; the page markers 67 and 68 bracket the passage and the document’s citation code is yb75 pp. 34-109. The Yearbook is correct that no absolute divorce was granted, and it is the source of the decree’s own wording. Its characterisation of the evidence differs materially from the Superior Court’s description of that evidence.
1975 · pp.70-71 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“his enemies have charged that he sold a great quantity of ordinary wheat seed under the name of “Miracle Wheat” at one dollar per pound, or sixty dollars per bushel. They have held that from this Russell realized an enormous personal profit. However, these charges are absolutely false. ... The wheat was received and sent out by the Society and the gross receipts from it amounted to about $1,800. Russell himself did not get a penny of this money. ... When others criticized this sale, all who had contributed were informed that if they were dissatisfied their money would be returned. In fact, the identical money received for the wheat was held for a year for that purpose. But not one person asked for a refund.”
The Yearbook's account names K. B. Stoner of Fincastle, Virginia as the grower, records the 1907 United States Department of Agriculture report that first drew Russell's attention, and says two Watch Tower readers, J. A. Bohnet and S. J. Fleming, donated about thirty bushels in 1911 on condition it be sold at a dollar a pound for the Society's benefit.
Provenance and verification note for 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, Part 1—United States of America (“Miracle Wheat”)
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library; page markers 70 and 71 bracket the passage, and the organisation’s own Index 1930-1985 cites this treatment as “yb75 70-71”. The account does not mention the Brooklyn Daily Eagle trial, the jury’s verdict against Russell, the 1915 appeal, or the government seed tests put in evidence at that trial; a full-text search of the Watchtower Online Library returns no occurrence of “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” anywhere in this Yearbook.
Notes. The Yearbook says the donors gave “about thirty bushels”; Russell’s own account in The Watch Tower of 15 February 1913 says “the total amount being twenty bushels”. The discrepancy is on the record and neither figure should be published as settled.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-yb-1975-p70-miracle-wheat
Organisation's explanation · 1 January 2000Verified
In current literature the episode is covered in two places: a pair of paragraphs in The Watchtower of 1 January 2000, which calls it 'a false idea' held 'for some decades', and one sentence on p. 201 of the 1993 history Proclaimers, in a box headed 'Practices That Have Been Abandoned'. Those are the only two references the organisation's own index gives for the Great Pyramid. Source: The Watchtower, 1 January 2000Source: Watch Tower Publications Index, 19 September 2026
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The Watchtower of 1 January 2000 explains that ‘Jehovah needed no stone monument built by pagan pharaohs and containing demonic signs of astrology to confirm the witness given in the Bible’.
1 January 2000 · pp.9-10 · par. 16-17 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“the length of certain passages in the Great Pyramid was said to indicate the time for the beginning of the “great tribulation” of Matthew 24:21, as it was then understood. Some Bible Students became engrossed with measuring different features of the pyramid to determine such matters as the day they would be going to heaven! This so-called Bible in Stone was held in esteem for some decades, until the Watchtower issues of November 15 and December 1, 1928, made clear that Jehovah needed no stone monument built by pagan pharaohs and containing demonic signs of astrology to confirm the witness given in the Bible.”
Paragraph 16 opens the account by noting that Russell's 1886 volume, later called The Divine Plan of the Ages, 'contained a chart linking the ages of mankind with the Great Pyramid of Egypt'. The study question for these two paragraphs asks '(a) What false idea did the watchman class hold for some decades? (b) What is the correct explanation of the “altar” and the “pillar” in “Egypt”?'. This is the fullest account of the episode in current literature.
Provenance and verification note for The Watchtower, Serving With the Watchman
Confidence note. Opened on wol.jw.org in this session and read against the page markers in the page source. Paragraph 16 stands wholly on p. 9 (the marker for p. 9 falls inside paragraph 14). The marker for p. 10 falls inside paragraph 17, between 'December 1,' and '1928, made clear', so paragraph 17 runs across pp. 9-10 and the citation w00 1/1 9-10 is right.
Notes. The organisation itself uses the phrase ‘Bible in Stone’ here, and Russell used it in his 1916 foreword (‘sometimes called the Bible in Stone’). It is not the 1891 chapter title, which is ‘God's Stone Witness’.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-w-2000-0101-bible-in-stone
19 September 2026 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Great Pyramid of Gizeh (Giza): w00 1/1 9-10; jv 201”
The organisation's own index entry, under the heading 'Bible Students' and the sub-heading 'views on—'. The neighbouring entries under the same sub-heading show that it is maintained against current publications: '1874: jv 133, 631-632' and '1914: w19.08 4-5; kr 15, 50; … jv 60-63, 134-141, 634-637; w90 10/15 15-16, 19-20'.
Provenance and verification note for Watch Tower Publications Index, Bible Students (index entry)
Confidence note. Opened on wol.jw.org in this session and the line read verbatim. A separate search of the library for the phrase 'pyramid of Gizeh' returned six results: this index entry, the same two references under the headings 'Jehovah's Witnesses' and 'Russell, Charles T.', the Proclaimers chapter and the Proclaimers index, and one unrelated reference article ('Ring', in Aid to Bible Understanding, on a signet ring of Cheops). That is a search on one phrase in a library whose holdings begin at 1950; it is not a demonstration that no other wording appears anywhere.
Notes. Shows, from the organisation's own finding aid, how small a footprint the subject now has in the literature the index points to: two paragraphs in a 2000 Watchtower and one sentence in a 1993 history.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-index-bible-students
The organisation’s position or later explanation: Proclaimers (1993) records the arrangement and notes that two of the five named men resigned almost at once and were replaced by J. F. Rutherford and Robert Hirsh, who had been named only as possible reserves.
1 December 1916 · pp.358-360 · Charles Taze Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“I direct that the entire editorial charge of Zion's Watch Tower shall be in the hands of a committee of five brethren ... it shall not in any manner be indicated by whom the various articles appearing in the journal are written. ... As for compensation, I think it wise to maintain the Society's course of the past in respect to salaries—that none be paid ... not more than a provision for their food and shelter and ten dollars per month ... I have already donated to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society all my voting shares therein, putting the same in the hands of five Trustees, as follows: Sr. E. Louise Hamilton, Sr. Almeta M. Nation Robison, Sr. J. G. Herr, Sr. C. Tomlins, Sr. Alice G. James. These Trustees shall serve for life.”
The will, signed at Allegheny on 29 June 1907 and published as Russell directed in the first issue after his death. It names an Editorial Committee of five (W. E. Page, W. E. Van Amburgh, H. C. Rockwell, E. W. Brenneisen, F. H. Robison) and five reserves (A. E. Burgess, Robert Hirsh, Isaac Hoskins, Geo. H. Fisher, J. F. Rutherford, Dr. John Edgar), and asks that no author's name appear on any article.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Will and Testament of Charles Taze Russell
Confidence note. Read in the Reprints volume for 1916. The Will opens at the marker [5998] and runs through [5999]; the magazine page markers “(358)” and “(359-360)” are printed within the text, immediately before “DIRECTIONS FOR FUNERAL”, and the next running head after the Will reads “(360-361)”. The reserve list as printed contains six names although the will describes it as five — Proclaimers (1993) reproduces the same six.
Scan provenance. The Internet Archive item titled “The watch tower and herald of Christ’s presence, 1916” is the Watch Tower Reprints volume for 1916: it reproduces each issue with its masthead, and every page carries a continuous Reprints page number in square brackets together with the original magazine pages in parentheses in the running head. Read in the item’s OCR text file.
Notes. Russell also directed that the Old Theology Quarterly continue, that the Editorial Committee write for no other publication, and that a two-thirds-plus vote of a sixteen-member body be required to remove a committee member.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-wt-1916-1201-will
“In his will Brother Russell outlined an arrangement for an Editorial Committee of five to determine the contents of The Watch Tower. ... Page and Brenneisen, however, promptly resigned—Page because he could not take up residence in Brooklyn, and Brenneisen (later the spelling was changed to Brenisen) because he had to take up secular work to support his family. Rutherford and Hirsh, whose names were listed in the December 1, 1916, Watch Tower, replaced them as members of the Editorial Committee.”
The chapter records Russell's death on a train at Pampa, Texas on 31 October 1916; the publication of a brief biography and the will in The Watch Tower of 1 December 1916; the board's creation of an Executive Committee of three; and Rutherford's election as president on 6 January 1917. It also quotes A. H. Macmillan: “Throughout his life Russell had been ‘the Society.’”
Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Chapter 6: A Time of Testing (1914-1918)
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library (jv chap. 6 p. 61 – p. 71). The quoted sentence stands between the page markers for 64 and 65, and the rest of the quotation is footnote b, whose reference mark is in that same sentence on page 64 — the library prints the footnotes after the last page marker of the chapter, so the footnote’s page is taken from its reference mark and not from where it appears in the document. Footnote b itself lists six reserve names, matching the six printed in the will.
The organisation’s position or later explanation: Proclaimers quotes A. H. Macmillan's recollection that “throughout his life Russell had been ‘the Society’”, and says most Bible Students simply wanted the work to continue, while some “seemed more concerned with trying to copy his qualities and develop a sort of cult around him”.
“In his will Brother Russell outlined an arrangement for an Editorial Committee of five to determine the contents of The Watch Tower. ... Page and Brenneisen, however, promptly resigned—Page because he could not take up residence in Brooklyn, and Brenneisen (later the spelling was changed to Brenisen) because he had to take up secular work to support his family. Rutherford and Hirsh, whose names were listed in the December 1, 1916, Watch Tower, replaced them as members of the Editorial Committee.”
The chapter records Russell's death on a train at Pampa, Texas on 31 October 1916; the publication of a brief biography and the will in The Watch Tower of 1 December 1916; the board's creation of an Executive Committee of three; and Rutherford's election as president on 6 January 1917. It also quotes A. H. Macmillan: “Throughout his life Russell had been ‘the Society.’”
Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Chapter 6: A Time of Testing (1914-1918)
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library (jv chap. 6 p. 61 – p. 71). The quoted sentence stands between the page markers for 64 and 65, and the rest of the quotation is footnote b, whose reference mark is in that same sentence on page 64 — the library prints the footnotes after the last page marker of the chapter, so the footnote’s page is taken from its reference mark and not from where it appears in the document. Footnote b itself lists six reserve names, matching the six printed in the will.
1 December 1916 · pp.358-360 · Charles Taze Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“I direct that the entire editorial charge of Zion's Watch Tower shall be in the hands of a committee of five brethren ... it shall not in any manner be indicated by whom the various articles appearing in the journal are written. ... As for compensation, I think it wise to maintain the Society's course of the past in respect to salaries—that none be paid ... not more than a provision for their food and shelter and ten dollars per month ... I have already donated to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society all my voting shares therein, putting the same in the hands of five Trustees, as follows: Sr. E. Louise Hamilton, Sr. Almeta M. Nation Robison, Sr. J. G. Herr, Sr. C. Tomlins, Sr. Alice G. James. These Trustees shall serve for life.”
The will, signed at Allegheny on 29 June 1907 and published as Russell directed in the first issue after his death. It names an Editorial Committee of five (W. E. Page, W. E. Van Amburgh, H. C. Rockwell, E. W. Brenneisen, F. H. Robison) and five reserves (A. E. Burgess, Robert Hirsh, Isaac Hoskins, Geo. H. Fisher, J. F. Rutherford, Dr. John Edgar), and asks that no author's name appear on any article.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Will and Testament of Charles Taze Russell
Confidence note. Read in the Reprints volume for 1916. The Will opens at the marker [5998] and runs through [5999]; the magazine page markers “(358)” and “(359-360)” are printed within the text, immediately before “DIRECTIONS FOR FUNERAL”, and the next running head after the Will reads “(360-361)”. The reserve list as printed contains six names although the will describes it as five — Proclaimers (1993) reproduces the same six.
Scan provenance. The Internet Archive item titled “The watch tower and herald of Christ’s presence, 1916” is the Watch Tower Reprints volume for 1916: it reproduces each issue with its masthead, and every page carries a continuous Reprints page number in square brackets together with the original magazine pages in parentheses in the running head. Read in the item’s OCR text file.
Notes. Russell also directed that the Old Theology Quarterly continue, that the Editorial Committee write for no other publication, and that a two-thirds-plus vote of a sixteen-member body be required to remove a committee member.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-ctr-wt-1916-1201-will
1 October 1916 · pp.i-iv (foreword) · C. T. Russell · International Bible Students Association
“The author acknowledges that in this book he presents the thought that the Lord's saints might expect to be with Him in glory at the ending of the Gentile Times. This was a natural mistake to fall into ... Our mistake was evidently not in respect to the ending of the Times of the Gentiles; we drew a false conclusion, however, not authorized by the Word of the Lord.”
Russell's own 1916 acknowledgement that the expectation of the Church's glorification by October 1914 was mistaken, while maintaining that the Gentile Times ended in 1914.
Provenance and verification note for Studies in the Scriptures, Series II: The Time Is at Hand, later printing with Author's Foreword dated 1 October 1916, Author's Foreword
Confidence note. Foreword text opened in the DLI scan OCR; signature block 'Charles T. Russell, Brooklyn, N.Y., October 1, 1916' present.
Scan provenance. Internet Archive / Digital Library of India (State Central Library, Hyderabad copy; DLI catalogue date 1927). Public domain.
Two of the most repeated stories about Russell are labelled disputed above rather than asserted, because the only sources for them are an opponent’s pamphlet and one side’s sworn account. The first part of the pair of 1928 articles that dropped the pyramid teaching could not be consulted at all, and is recorded as unverified.
15 November 1928 · pp.339-345 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
Part 1 of the two-part repudiation. Its existence and date are confirmed by the study schedule printed in the 1 December 1928 issue and by the organisation's own later references to ‘Watchtower issues of November 15 and December 1, 1928’.
No online copy located.
Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, The Altar in Egypt (part 1)
Confidence note. Not opened. A fresh search of the Internet Archive in this session found single-issue scans of The Watch Tower for 1 January, 1 February, 15 March, 1 June, 1 September, 15 October, 1 November, 1 December and 15 December 1928, but no scan of the 15 November 1928 issue and no bound volume for 1928. The item 'Watchtower19281929' was checked and is a Wesleyan College student newspaper, not Watch Tower Society material.
Notes. No text from this issue is quoted anywhere in this ledger and its quote field is deliberately empty. The phrase “Satan's Bible” is commonly attributed to this issue and remains unverified; it is not present in the issue of 1 December 1928, which was searched in full.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-pyr-w-1928-1115-part1
This matters more here than almost anywhere else on the site. The documented record is damaging enough on its own: a man who told readers his books were necessary to understand the Bible, whose chronology rested on a measurement that was quietly revised, and whose movement later blamed the resulting teaching on Satan. Repeating the embellished versions would put all of that at risk.
Sources cited on this page
Show all 57 sources, in date order
Each opens a full record with links, provenance and a confidence note.
· Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“Among that group of sincere Bible students was a man named Charles Taze Russell. While Russell took the lead in the Bible education work at that time and was the first editor of The Watchtower, he was not the founder of a new religion. ... Since Jesus is the Founder of Christianity, we view him as the founder of our organization.”
1891 · p.342 · Charles Taze Russell · Tower Bible and Tract Society / Watch Tower
“we find it to be 3416 inches, symbolizing 3416 years from the above date, B. C. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1874 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years B. C. plus 1874 years A. D. equals 3416 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation—no, nor ever shall be afterward.”
1891 · p.307 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
““In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt.” — Isa. 19: 19, 20.”
1891 · p.313 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“We thus introduce this “Witness” because the inspiration of its testimony will doubtless be as much disputed as that of the Scriptures, by the prince of darkness, the god of this world, and those whom he blinds to the truth.”
1891 · p.314 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“To his scholarly and scientific work, “Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid,” we are mainly indebted for the data made use of in this chapter. Our illustrations are copies of a few of the seventeen plates with which that work is embellished. A few years after Prof. Smyth’s return came the suggestion that the Pyramid is Jehovah’s “Witness,” and that it is as important a witness to divine truth as to natural science. … The suggestion came from a young Scotchman, Robert Menzies, who, when studying the scientific teachings of the Great Pyramid, discovered that prophetic and chronological teachings co-exist in it.”
1891 · p.318 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar [pyramid] at the border thereof, to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt.”
1891 · p.336 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“Then measuring down the “Entrance Passage” from that point, to find the distance to the entrance of the “Pit,” representing the great trouble and destruction with which this age is to close, when evil will be overthrown from power, we find it to be 3416 inches, symbolizing 3416 years from the above date, B. C. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1874 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 B. C. plus 1874 A. D. equals 3416 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble”
1891 · pp.358-359 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“Prof. Smyth found the first of these measures (a) to be 1874 Pyr. inches; the second (b) to be 1881 Pyr. inches, and the third (c) to be 1910 Pyr. inches … and give the dates (a) October, 1874, (b) October, 1881 and (c) October, 1910, A. D. This threefold ending is in full accord with what we have found taught in the Scriptures”
1891 · pp.359-360 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“we may well accept as correct the testimony of the Great Pyramid that the last members of the “body” or “bride” of Christ will have been tested and accepted and will have passed beyond the vail before the close of A. D. 1910. Is not this a most remarkable agreement between this stone “Witness” and the Bible? The dates, October, 1874, and October, 1881, are exact, while the date 1910, though not furnished in the Scriptures, seems more than a reasonable one.”
1891 · p.360 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“this date limit — A. D. 1914 — must not only witness the completion of the selection and trial and glorification of the entire body of Christ, but it must also witness the purifying of that larger company of consecrated believers … The four years from 1910 to the end of 1914 indicated thus in the Great Pyramid, will be quite sufficient for the extreme of all that trouble”
1891 · pp.371-372 · C. T. Russell · Tower Publishing Co.
“Some may scoff at the testimony of this stone “Witness,” as they also scoff at God's written Word, but to their scoffs we answer: Account for this peculiar fitness of things, or else venture to prophesy of the future … Prove to us that it requires no inspiration to foretell future events.”
1898 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we find it to be 3416 inches, symbolizing 3416 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows a. d. 1874 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1874 years A. d. equals 3416 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble”
19 October 1908 · pp.348-354 · Orlady, J. · Superior Court of Pennsylvania
“His course of conduct toward his wife evidenced such insistent egotism and extravagant self-praise that it would be manifest to the jury that his conduct towards her was one of continual arrogant domination, that would necessarily render the life of any sensitive Christian woman a burden and make her condition intolerable. The indignities offered to her in treating her as a menial in the presence of servants, intimating that she was of unsound mind, and that she was under the influence of designing and wicked persons fully warranted her withdrawal from his house, and justified her fear that he intended to further humiliate her by a threat to resort to legal proceedings to test her sanity.”
1910 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we find it to be 3457 inches, symbolizing 3457 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1915 years A. D. equals 3457 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble”
1910 · pp.362-363 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Prof. Smyth found the first of these measures (a) to be 1874 Pyramid inches, the second (b), 1881 Pyramid inches, and the third (c), 1910 Pyramid inches … and give the dates (a) October, 1874, (b) October, 1881 and (c) October, 1910, a. d.”
1910 · p.364 · C. T. Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“we may understand the reference to be to the anarchous trouble which will follow October, 1914; but a trouble chiefly upon the Church may be expected about 1910 A. D. … the date 1910, though not furnished in the Scriptures, seems more than a reasonable one for some important event in the Church's experience and final testing … The four years from 1910 to the end of 1914, indicated thus in the Great Pyramid, will doubtless be a time of “fiery trial” upon the Church”
15 September 1910 · pp.298-299 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“if anyone lays the Scripture Studies aside, even after he has used them, after he has become familiar with them, after he has read them for ten years—if he then lays them aside and ignores them and goes to the Bible alone, though he has understood his Bible for ten years, our experience shows that within two years he goes into darkness. On the other hand, if he had merely read the Scripture Studies with their references, and had not read a page of the Bible, as such, he would be in the light at the end of the two years, because he would have the light of the Scriptures.”
15 June 1911 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Brother Bohnet writes us that he has gradually accumulated a crop of miracle wheat from the few grains he obtained as a start. He prefers that the first opportunity for obtaining this wheat shall go to The Watch Tower readers. He will sell it for $1 per pound, including postage, and give the entire proceeds to our Society.”
1 August 1911 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“The notice in The Watch Tower of June 15 that Brother Bohnet has “miracle wheat” in abundance now, and that he will sell it at $1 per pound and donate the entire proceeds to our Tract Fund, has brought in many orders. These will be filled between August 15 and September 1. No limit as to supply has been noted. Sent by Express, prepaid, the price will be twenty-two pounds for $20; fifty-five pounds for $50; larger quantities at the latter rate. The merits of this wheat over the common variety have been mentioned in previous issues of The Watch Tower.”
1913 · pp.18-19 · Rev. J. J. Ross · Book Department, Philadelphia School of the Bible
““Do you know the Greek”? Asked the Attorney. “Oh, yes,” was Russell’s reply. Here he was handed a copy of the New Testament in Greek, by Westcott & Hort, and asked to read the letters of the alphabet as they appear on the top of page 447. He did not know the alphabet. “Now,” asked Mr. Staunton, “Are you familiar with the Greek language?” “No,” said Mr. Russell, without a blush.”
15 February 1913 · pp.62-63 · Charles Taze Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“My suit against The Eagle for slanderous defamation of reputation has been decided in its favor. A jury of twelve men have decided that The Eagle was justified in making its vicious onslaughts upon me, notwithstanding the Judge's charge that, according to the law, the cartoon, at least, was a slanderous, vicious libel in fact. ... I have no complaint, nor murmuring against the divine providences which permitted what I consider to be a very unjust verdict.”
1914 · p.342 · Charles Taze Russell · International Bible Students Association
“we find it to be 3457 inches, symbolizing 3457 years from the above date, B. C. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years B. C. plus 1915 years A. D. equals 3457 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation—no, nor ever shall be afterward.”
1914 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · International Bible Students Association
“we find it to be 3457 inches … This calculation shows A. d. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble … Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble”
1915 · p.342 · C. T. Russell · International Bible Students Association
“we find it to be 3457 inches, symbolizing 3457 years from the above date, b. c. 1542. This calculation shows A. D. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years b. c. plus 1915 years A. D. equals 3457 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble”
7 May 1915 · pp.121-124 · Appellate Division Reports
“The plaintiff was the editor of a publication purporting to be devoted to a religious propaganda. In it he informed his sympathetic readers that one of his associates had accumulated Miracle wheat, which the associate was disposed to sell to the readers of that publication for one dollar a pound. The associate promised to give the entire proceeds to a corporation organized and controlled by the plaintiff. In the article it was represented that the yield of Miracle wheat was ten or fifteen times as great as the yield of common wheat. The record offered in evidence tended to show, as the result of governmental experiment, that Miracle wheat was no more prolific than brands of wheat in general use and of ordinary quality. There was independent evidence that other wheats could be purchased at prices so low in comparison as to make the advertised price of Miracle wheat exorbitant.”
1 October 1916 · pp.ii-iii · C. T. Russell · International Bible Students Association
“The Great Pyramid of Egypt discussed in this Volume has not lost any of its interest to the author. … 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 … We do, however, still believe that the structure of this Pyramid, so different from that of all other pyramids, was designed of the Lord and intended to be a Pyramid and a witness in the midst and on the border of the land of Egypt. (Isaiah 19:19.) … It should be read with just as fresh interest as in the first edition, because its lessons have not altered or changed.”
1 December 1916 · pp.354-356 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Charles Taze Russell, known the world over as Pastor Russell, author, lecturer and minister of the Gospel, was born at Pittsburgh, Pa., February 16, 1852; died October 31, 1916. ... He was educated in the common schools and under private tutors. ... He was married in 1879 to Maria Frances Ackley. No children blessed this union. Seventeen years later they disagreed about the management of his journal and a separation followed. ... He was the greatest religious teacher since St. Paul ... He was not the founder of a new religion, and never made such claim.”
1 December 1916 · pp.358-360 · Charles Taze Russell · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“I direct that the entire editorial charge of Zion's Watch Tower shall be in the hands of a committee of five brethren ... it shall not in any manner be indicated by whom the various articles appearing in the journal are written. ... As for compensation, I think it wise to maintain the Society's course of the past in respect to salaries—that none be paid ... not more than a provision for their food and shelter and ten dollars per month ... I have already donated to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society all my voting shares therein, putting the same in the hands of five Trustees, as follows: Sr. E. Louise Hamilton, Sr. Almeta M. Nation Robison, Sr. J. G. Herr, Sr. C. Tomlins, Sr. Alice G. James. These Trustees shall serve for life.”
“Series III, “Thy Kingdom Come,” considers prophecies which mark events connected with “the time of the end”, the glorification of the church and the establishment of the Millennial kingdom; it also contains a chapter on the Great Pyramid of Egypt, showing its corroboration of certain Bible teachings”
15 December 1921 · p.371 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Monday the thirty-first being the anniversary of Brother Russell's change to glory, the friends assembled in the afternoon at the cemetery, where memorial services were held … A little souvenir of the plot of ground and the pyramid stone marker had been provided, which was distributed amongst those in attendance.”
15 August 1922 · p.244 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“There would be no reason why Jehovah should have a monument erected in the earth at the end of the gospel age. There is a good reason why he would have a monument erected in Egypt, the Great Pyramid, long before the beginning of the Christian era, and when the time would come that the secrets of this monument should be revealed to students of the divine prophecy, it would be found to corroborate the prophetic utterances and the divine plan”
15 August 1922 · pp.253-254 · Morton Edgar · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Needless to say, the testimony of the Great Pyramid, the Lord’s “stone witness” in which Brother Russell still declared his implicit faith in his last notice of this monument, in his new preface to Volume III just about a month before his death—is quite against the new (?) chronological views of the Herald. But of course the Herald writers have no use for the Pyramid’s testimony now. They have thrown that aside … The Great Pyramid substantiates the views held by Brother Russell beyond all doubt. … The Herald writers are quite wrong in very many of their interpretations. They are certainly not safe guides to the Lord’s people.”
1 December 1928 · p.356 · par. 6 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Since all these scriptures referring to the stone are used symbolically to represent Christ, we may know that no natural stone or pile of stone is referred to and that it would be entirely inappropriate to apply these scriptures to the great pyramid. There is therefore no justification for applying any of these texts to the pyramid of Gizeh.”
1 December 1928 · p.356 · par. 7 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“There are two potent reasons why these conclusions can not be correct and information of value to the Christian: (1) At that time the Lord had not come to his temple and the prophecy had not been fulfilled nor even in course of fulfilment. (2) It is not claimed that any of these men were of the Lord's anointed or devoted to the Lord. They were giving expression to their own wisdom.”
1 December 1928 · p.358 · par. 26-27 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“It is impossible to fit the literal pyramid of Gizeh to the prophet's description; but the position and condition of the remnant of God exactly fit the prophetic description … The pyramid of Gizeh is neither a sign nor a witness unto the Lord of hosts.”
1 December 1928 · p.359 · par. 34 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“To be sure, if Satan can induce the consecrated to turn their attention to a pile of stone in Egypt and study its measurements in order to determine just when the church will be glorified he would accomplish his purposes. … One of the most subtle schemes Satan has yet adopted to accomplish that purpose has been and is the use of the pyramid of Gizeh.”
1 December 1928 · p.360 · par. 37-38 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Such will avoid the pyramid of Gizeh and its measurements and adhere strictly to the Word of God. … They learned absolutely nothing from the pyramid that enables them to know and understand and obey the commandments of the Lord.”
1 December 1928 · p.361 · par. 47 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“We now wonder why we ever believed in or devoted any time to the study of the pyramid of Gizeh. Not only will we abandon such a study now, but we will ask God to forgive us for wasting the time that we have put in on it and redeem the time by hurrying on to obey his commandments.”
15 May 1953 · p.319 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“The “perjury” charge was not made in court, but in a tract written later by an irresponsible slanderer against whom Brother Russell had brought a libel case. The official record of the case in question (Police Court of the City of Hamilton, Ontario, March 17, 1913) says: “Q. You don't profess, then, to be schooled in the Latin language? A. No, sir. Q. Or in Greek? A. No, sir.” After this he was asked if he knew individual Greek letters, and it was over this that the question of his knowledge of Greek arose. ... Not only has the question they “quote” been reworded, but Brother Russell had specifically said that he did not know Greek.”
1975 · pp.67-68 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Without notice, she separated from him in 1897, after nearly eighteen years of marriage. ... In June 1903 Mrs. Russell filed in the Court of Common Pleas at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a suit for legal separation. During April 1906 the case came up for trial before Justice Collier and a jury. Nearly two years later, on March 4, 1908, a decree was issued that was styled “In Divorce.” The language of the decree is: “It is now ordered, adjudged and decreed that Maria F. Russell, the Libellant; and Charles T. Russell, the Respondent, be separated from bed and board.” ... This was a legalized separation and there never was an absolute divorce, as some erroneously have held.”
1975 · pp.69-70 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“On the witness stand C. T. Russell emphatically denied the “jellyfish” story, and all this matter was stricken from the court record, the judge saying in his charge to the jury: “This little incident about this girl that was in the family, that is beyond the ground of the libel and has nothing to do with the case.” ... In the suit for separate maintenance, Mrs. Russell's attorney had said: “We make no charge of adultery.””
1975 · pp.70-71 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“his enemies have charged that he sold a great quantity of ordinary wheat seed under the name of “Miracle Wheat” at one dollar per pound, or sixty dollars per bushel. They have held that from this Russell realized an enormous personal profit. However, these charges are absolutely false. ... The wheat was received and sent out by the Society and the gross receipts from it amounted to about $1,800. Russell himself did not get a penny of this money. ... When others criticized this sale, all who had contributed were informed that if they were dissatisfied their money would be returned. In fact, the identical money received for the wheat was held for a year for that purpose. But not one person asked for a refund.”
1993 · pp.42-60 (quoted passage: 47-48) · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“C. T. Russell, though, felt that to withdraw from the Herald was not enough; the ransom doctrine must be defended and Christ's presence must be proclaimed. Hence, in July 1879, Russell began publishing Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence. Russell was the editor and publisher, with five others originally listed as contributors to its columns. The first issue had a printing of 6,000 copies.”
“In view of the pastoral work that he was doing under the Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ, certain congregations acknowledged by vote that he was their pastor. It was not a self-assumed title. The first group to vote him their pastor was the congregation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1882. Thereafter, he was voted pastor by some 500 other congregations, in the United States and Britain. ... Today, Christian elders among Jehovah's Witnesses are not elected by local congregations but are appointed by the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses. Care is also exercised not to use expressions such as “pastor” or “elder” as titles.”
1993 · p.576 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society was formed on February 16, 1881, with W. H. Conley as president and C. T. Russell as secretary and treasurer. ... In 1884, Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society was legally incorporated, with C. T. Russell as president, and its charter showed that it was more than a society that would direct publishing. Its real objective was religious; it was chartered for “the dissemination of Bible Truths in various languages.””
1993 · p.143 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“Over a decade later, however, Brother Russell's wife publicly expressed the idea that Russell himself was the faithful and wise servant. The view that she voiced concerning the identity of the ‘faithful servant’ came to be generally held by the Bible Students for some 30 years. Brother Russell did not reject their view, but he personally avoided making such an application of the text.”
“In his will Brother Russell outlined an arrangement for an Editorial Committee of five to determine the contents of The Watch Tower. ... Page and Brenneisen, however, promptly resigned—Page because he could not take up residence in Brooklyn, and Brenneisen (later the spelling was changed to Brenisen) because he had to take up secular work to support his family. Rutherford and Hirsh, whose names were listed in the December 1, 1916, Watch Tower, replaced them as members of the Editorial Committee.”
1993 · p.707 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“A biography of Russell, published shortly after his death, explained: “He was not the founder of a new religion, and never made such claim. He revived the great truths taught by Jesus and the Apostles, and turned the light of the twentieth century upon these. He made no claim of a special revelation from God, but held that it was God's due time for the Bible to be understood…”—The Watch Tower, December 1, 1916, p. 356.”
1 January 2000 · pp.9-10 · par. 16-17 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“the length of certain passages in the Great Pyramid was said to indicate the time for the beginning of the “great tribulation” of Matthew 24:21, as it was then understood. Some Bible Students became engrossed with measuring different features of the pyramid to determine such matters as the day they would be going to heaven! This so-called Bible in Stone was held in esteem for some decades, until the Watchtower issues of November 15 and December 1, 1928, made clear that Jehovah needed no stone monument built by pagan pharaohs and containing demonic signs of astrology to confirm the witness given in the Bible.”
February 2018 · pp.31-32 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“It was May 1910. For one man in their midst, Charles T. Russell, this was the fifth trip to Ireland. ... Beyond the shipyard, a dozen Bible Students stood on the quay, awaiting his arrival.”
31 December 2024 · p.128 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
“The “seven times” represent a period of 2,520 years. That time period began in 607 B.C.E. when the Babylonians removed the last king from Jehovah's throne in Jerusalem. It ended in 1914 C.E. when Jehovah enthroned Jesus”