Accurate, up-to-date information on the beliefs and activities of this worldwide Christian religion and its impact on the news. A date that can be used as a pivotal point is the year 539 B.C.E., which is supported by various historical sources (including Diodorus, Africanus, Eusebius, Ptolemy, and Babylonian tablets) as the year for the overthrow of Babylon by Cyrus (technically known as Cyrus II, the grandson of Cyrus I). “Our brother,” Russell wrote, “so long the editor of ‘The Bible Examiner’ is known to most of our readers; also that he has been obliged by severe illness to discontinue his paper.” In Russell’s estimation, Storrs had “much reason to thank God for being privileged to spend so long a life and one so consecrated to the Master.” Storrs died on December 28, 1879, at the age of 83. PASTOR CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL & THE WATCH TOWER SOCIETY. Among his published works was the Six Sermons, which eventually attained a distribution of 200,000 copies. "I went upstairs to our home [by that time, on the top, fourth floor of the Bible House]. The "evil servant" who says: My Lord delayeth his coming, and forgetting his consecration vows, begins to eat and drink with the drunken (partake of the spirit of the world) shall have no part with the faithful overcomer. Were they puzzled or mystified? In 1879, Charles Taze Russell married Maria Frances Ackley. Many religious groups, including the Jehovah's Witnesses, the International Bible Students Association, the Laymen's Home Missionary Movement, Dawn and other Bible student groups have formed around his teachings. On Sunday, June 18, the Philadelphia Friends were called to order at the close of the evening service and informed that our dear Brother Barton had suffered a complete breakdown. 21:8, 11, 12; Ezek. Rosa was allowed to socialize with Charles and Maria in their private study during evenings and weekends. You may have met them as neighbors and fellow employees or in other daily affairs of life. Storrs traveled extensively, lecturing on the subject of no immortality for the wicked. On Tuesday, October 31, C. T. Russell was on the verge of death. Charles Russell married Maria Frances Ackley on 13th March 1879. When Charles Taze Russell was 61 his wife Maria Ackley, whom he married in 1879 filed for a legal separation in 1903 and then for a divorce The courts granted her a divorce, and he was charged with fraud and perjury (lying). According to some reports, during a stopover in Pinerolo, Italy, Russell met Professor Daniele Rivoire, a former pastor of a religious group called the Waldenses. ', "And he said: 'No. Brother Russell had some 50,000 copies of it printed and distributed. Because they do not believe in the Trinity dogma, it has been said of Jehovah’s Witnesses that they practice “a form of Arianism.” But the fact that they are not Trinitarians does not make them Arians. For years God’s people had pointed forward to 1914 as the year that would mark the end of the Gentile Times. Very reluctantly, therefore, I hereby give you notice that you must not continue this baneful influence; and that to this end you henceforth abstain from all intercourse with my dear wife -- either personal or otherwise -- that you shall not receive her into your home, nor visit her at my home, nor meet her elsewhere, nor correspond with her either directly or by proxy through others. And yet Bible study continued on. I bear you record that you have a zeal for God. Arguments for 587 BCE are scripturally flawed, causing four Bible prophecies to fail. A motion for judgment non obstante verdicto was overruled and a judgment was directed to be entered on the verdict, from which [CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL] appeals. Cuneiform tablets give Cyrus a rule of nine years over Babylon, which would therefore substantiate the year 539 as the date of his conquest of Babylon.—Handbook of Biblical Chronology, by Jack Finegan, 1964, pages 112, 168-170; Babylonian Chronology, 626 B.C.–A.D. This idea as expressed axiomatically would be no less than the assertion of this principlc; that whatever form marital ill-treatment assumes if a continuity of it involves the life or health of the wife, it is legal cruelty. So far from being a "peacemaker," as all who bear the name of Christ should be, you are a mischief maker -- a disturber of the peace. The laws of our State, not to mention the higher laws of God, deprecate all such conduct and pernicious influence as seeks to alienate and separate between husbands and wives. That was about two months ago, and a few days later. . Probably it was none of these. doubt comes close to disbelief. This clearly should not be the case. Thrilling events in connection with God’s Kingdom are associated with that promise. This is God’s.’ Doing God’s will for the past sixty-six years has indeed been my keenest delight. Definition: A price paid to buy back or to bring about release from some obligation or undesirable circumstance. After his death in 1916 many Bible Students did not want to support the new leadership, they wanted to stay frozen in time with only Russell's teachings. From your interviews with the press I judge that you intend to assault Pastor Russell from the platform. Anyone eating it will be cut off." No, he was not! Two years later, Paton, who was then serving as a traveling representative of the Watch Tower, also began to turn away, thereafter publishing a book (his second one entitled Day Dawn) in which he rejected belief in Adam’s fall into sin and consequently the need for a redeemer. 22Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit,"[a]and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud." 21It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Thus, Maria Russell's, As noted above, Charles Taze Russell's 65 year-old father, Joseph Russell, married Maria Russell's, Only three months earlier, back on September 6, 1897, in the midst of some of the most vicious and most public of the fighting between Charles and Maria, Charles Taze Russell, HOWEVER, on November 8, 1897, after the last round of fighting which preceded Maria Russell's departure, Charles Taze Russell once again sent out a, We are going to "assume" that the first set of September, Here is the content of the second November. In Jesus' day, he and his followers were the object of criticism, ridicule and abuse. Born in about 1925 in Oak Park, Illinois, U.S., Adams grew up in a big family, which originally had connections to the Episcopal church. In 1870 Wendell published his views in the booklet entitled The Present Truth, or Meat in Due Season concluding that the Second Advent was sure to occur in 1873. "With a new and deeper earnestness, Miller continued the examination of the prophecies, whole nights as well as days being devoted to the study of what now appeared of such stupendous importance and all-absorbing interest. I have been praying for you each and all, earnestly, that the Lord would open your eyes to the enormity of your course; but I now conclude that it is my duty toward my dear wife to isolate her from your pernicious influence; for such it is, whether you are aware of it or not; and I hope and incline to believe that you are not wilful, but blinded, in the matter; but that there be no chance for misunderstanding, and that this notice shall be in every way a legal notice, I must use great plainness of speech, and tell you that your influence, however intended, is a wicked influence; for it has a wicked effect upon my dear wife. Professor Julio Trebolle Barrera, a member of the international team of editors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, states: “The Isaiah Scroll [from Qumran] provides irrefutable proof that the transmission of the biblical text through a period of more than one thousand years by the hands of Jewish copyists has been extremely faithful and careful.”. Not long after the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ died, heated debates began to center around the nature and relationship of the Father, Son and holy spirit. Unless otherwise indicated, all text and other information contained in this Web site are the intellectual property of Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. Official media Web site of Jehovah's Witnesses. But they would not have discerned these thrilling fulfillments of prophecy if they had wavered in their confidence in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. He remained until his death the editor of the Advent Herald (the continued and renamed publication of Signs of the Times), which remained the organ of the group of Millerites who did not accept the conditional immortality of the soul. These differences between the groups who trace their roots to the Pastor’s ministry continue to our day. (2 Timothy 3:16, 17; 1 John 2:17) It will also enable us properly to identify Jesus Christ and our relationship to him.—Psalm 2:12; Philippians 2:5-11. It was after the death of the twelve Apostles that, without Divine authority, the bishops of the church were proclaimed to be the successors of the Apostles, and to possess Apostolic authority, as teachers in the church, and whose words were to be taken as of plenary inspiration. The Jehovah's Witnesses love Jesus, and yet many Bible Students hate us. God through his Word appeals to our reason. They are not at cross purposes with Jehovah's Witnesses on the issue of two classes, a heavenly class and an earthly class; they differ on who constitute those two classes. (Jn.7:45-49) Likewise today Jehovah's Witnesses are sometimes the object of criticism, ridicule and abuse. Many historians and commentators agree that 1914 was a turning point in human history. Installation of a three-tower directional antenna system solved that problem and this array increased the 5,000-watt power to more than 25,000 watts in the northeasterly direction where the population was the greatest. Q. (`2 Cor. On pages 27, 28 of that issue Russell’s article was published under the title “Gentile Times: When Do They End?” In that article (page 27) Russell said: “The seven times will end in A.D. 1914.”. Russell and Pastor Russell. This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He was an outstanding student of the Bible. This is your home.". Is there one true religion? Storrs became a zealous advocate of what was called conditional immortality—the teaching that the soul is mortal and that immortality is a gift to be attained by faithful Christians. In the 1920’s, under a doctor’s treatment, he went to San Diego, California, and the doctor urged him to spend as much time as possible there. They are moral conservatives who stay out of politics and the Culture War, but they won a record number of court cases expanding freedom for everyone. A piece of polished black basalt with a neatly rounded top, it was 44 inches high, [112 cm] 28 inches [71 cm] wide, and 14 inches [36 cm] thick. It does not mean that the writings in this magazine The Watchtower are inspired and infallible and without mistakes.” (May 15, 1947, page 157) “The Watchtower does not claim to be inspired in its utterances, nor is it dogmatic.” (August 15, 1950, page 263) “The brothers preparing these publications are not infallible.