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Chronology and 607 BCE · Claim record

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.

Claim ID claim-chronology-pyramid-current-treatmentConcerns 1 January 2000Organisation's explanation
Organisation's explanation · 1 January 2000 Verified

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. The Watchtower, 1 January 2000Watch 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’.

Show the evidence (2 sources)
Primary JW publication Verified

The Watchtower, “Serving With the Watchman”

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.

Official source

Provenance and verification note

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.

Corroborated by. src-pyr-w-1928-1201-no-justification, src-pyr-index-bible-students

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

Primary JW publication Verified

Watch Tower Publications Index, “Bible Students (index entry)”

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'.

Official source

Provenance and verification note

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.

Corroborated by. src-pyr-w-2000-0101-bible-in-stone

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

Claim page

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