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Chronology and 607 BCE · Claim record

The 1891 edition stated that the descending passage measured 3416 inches from a fixed point to the mouth of the ‘Pit’, and that, read at an inch to a year from 1542 BCE, this showed ‘the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble’.

Claim ID claim-chronology-pyramid-descending-3416-1874Concerns 1891Explicit statement
Explicit statement · 1891 Verified

The 1891 edition stated that the descending passage measured 3416 inches from a fixed point to the mouth of the ‘Pit’, and that, read at an inch to a year from 1542 BCE, this showed ‘the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble’. Millennial Dawn / Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come, 1891Millennial Dawn, vol. 3 — Thy Kingdom Come (1898 printing), 1898

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”’.

Show the evidence (2 sources)
Primary JW publication Verified

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”

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.

Scan of original

Provenance and verification note

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.

Corroborated by. src-pyr-md3-1898-descending-3416-1874, src-pyr-ss3-1910-descending-3457-1915

Notes. This is the measurement that was later altered. The same sentence in printings from 1910 onward reads 3457 inches and 1915.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-pyr-md3-1891-descending-3416-1874

Primary JW publication Verified

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”

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.

Scan of original

Provenance and verification note

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'.

Corroborated by. src-pyr-md3-1891-descending-3416-1874

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

Claim page

A direct link to this claim is https://jwtruth.org/evidence/claim-chronology-pyramid-descending-3416-1874/. Every source above opens the original document or the best available copy. If you believe the wording, date or context is wrong, report an error.