Appendix Information Chapters 1 to 12

By the end of the first-century the conveyers of theocratic knowledge were all dead. The first 'presence' period of Jesus Christ had come to its end, the specially assisted period of revealing knowledge was over. Manmade theories and doctrines were now systematically stamping out any remaining influence left by these first-century disciples, true spiritual knowledge was dying from the earth with them. A safe deposit of knowledge had been created in the records of the Greek scriptures.

The possibility for humans to continue theocratic conditions beyond the years 36 to 70 with out the powers of the spirit would not be possible, at least, not until the same 'helping spirit' became reactivated. Bible evidence indicates this does not take place until much later, almost 2,000 years later, when God's allocated time of non-intervention with the nations would come to its end. Then, active involvement effecting the earth's affairs would start again; the spirit communication link renewed, promoting once again accurate theocratic knowledge.

Many disagree, claiming that the Christian religion started by the apostles continued on and is still doing so. According to the apostles themselves, this certainly not what they expected to happen after they died. These apostles wrote under spirit direction privileged information on how the situation would develop. Let's examine what they anticipated.

Jesus made a promise to his apostles in the year AD 33 that he would maintain a direct link with them until the then functioning Jewish age came to its end. He said: "Look! I am with you all the days until the conclusion of the system of things (age)" (Matthew 28:20). Even though Jesus transferred back to the spirit realm, he maintained a direct personal link with each individually ransom purchased, by means of a spirit powered communicator.

The Jewish age or system ended in complete destruction under the hands of the Romans, just as Jesus had predicted it would (Luke 21:5-6, 20). The historical records confirm that this occurred in the year AD 70 when the Roman armies under Titus completely destroyed the temple and the capital city of Jerusalem, removing all Jewish inhabitants from the land of Israel.

We can calculate Jesus' promise to maintain special spiritual communication with his apostles continued for a further 37 1/2 years, from 33 to 70. The apostles fully understood they were working within a limited time frame that would last only 37 1/2 years. This is why Paul in the year AD 56 speaking about how his contemporary Christian brothers should conduct themselves, said they should bear in mind that "the appointed time has grown short" (1 Corinthians 7:29). The time left to them was reduced, only 14 years left remaining, so they should arrange their affairs taking this into account.

The direct communication bonding through the spirit power not only strengthened them, but educated them about matters Jesus had previously said they were unable to grasp, but would when they were connected into this power source. To facilitate this it required their own personal spirit 'communicator and receiver'. The apostles received this exclusive piece of equipment when it was presented to them at Pentecost in 33. The scriptures tell us that when they received this spiritual equipment, it was like a tongue (symbol of speech) of fire that sat on each one, (Acts 2:). Immediately it worked on their minds, giving them instantaneously the ability to speak in new languages. It also elevated them mentally, enabling them to receive knowledge and understand on many important issues and developments that previously they had been unable to grasp (John 16:12-15).

This spirit communicator and educating mechanism would only be provided to selected individuals and for a limited time. When they died, the mechanism would die with them. Along with the information they received in connection with the Kingdom came warnings of a situation that would develop following their deaths and the ending of this special power arrangement. The apostle Paul explained that a full-blown apostasy would later take over. When he warned about it in fact, he said the very warning he was giving them, was acting as a restraint, holding back the main apostasy until the generation period ended. Although Paul informed them that it was partly in evidence then, it would not be fully out in the open until the restraining influence of the apostles, and the spirit working through them, were out of the way in death (2 Thessalonians 2:3-12).

The apostle John, right at the end of his life around AD 98, confirmed what Paul had already said about this antichrist, but by then the antichrist was taking over fast, as the restraints were all but died off, proof that they were already then at the end of the Kingdom recruiting period (1 John 2:18-19, 4:1-3). The term 'apostasy' carries the original Greek meaning of separating, deserting or abandoning. The apostasy would desert or abandon the true knowledge in favour of its own perverted teachings. In this way the apostasy would be directly opposing what Christ had taught and revealed; it would be an antichrist organisation.

Once the restraining apostles had been removed through death, the antichrist apostasy, took over completely, it was foretold to last for a set period of time. Paul said: "There will be a period of time when they will not put up with the healthful teaching, but in accord with their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for them-selves to have their ears tickled, and they will turn their ears away from the truth, whereas they will be turned aside to false stories" (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

The apostles fully anticipated the antichrist apostasy taking over after they died, and that it would last for an appointed period of time, during which this apostasy condition and antichrist organisation would rule. According to 2 Thessalonians 2:8, after the permitted time period for the apostasy it would be exposed by Christ himself when he again turns his attentions to the earth and Kingdom affairs, some 1,900 years later at the time of the 'manifestation of his presence', ( 2 Thess 2:1-12).

The apostles warned of the many false teachings or doctrines that the corporate apostasy would bring in and establish through their own appointed teachers.

As soon as the final apostle died, this is precisely what happened! Once the resistance put up against it by the spirit empowered apostles was no longer there, the truth abandoning apostasy rapidly spread and gained ground. The second-century saw much confusion, contradiction and conflict. The prevalent opposition apostate religions were vying for predominance including the Greek and Roman pagan forms of worship.

These religions evolved numerous religious doctrines and ideas that were becoming inter-mixed with the apostles' teachings. When major conflicting differences in doctrines occurred, gradually the weight of the pagan concepts won out. There were no power assisted apostles left to resist it. This progressive mixing and polluting with pagan doctrines diluted out any strength of true Christian knowledge.

The doctrines central to the Greek and Roman religions were multiple God deities, particularly triad deities. Greek philosophers such as Plato had developed beliefs in multiple gods and man's relationship with them. These concepts derived from more ancient civilisations such as Egypt. From these hand-me down ideas the Greeks and thereby the Romans cultivated their ancient religious beliefs, including the immortality of the human soul, an underworld concept of purgatory tormenting with fire, and family deities of Gods; all they they incorporated into their pseudo Christian come pagan religions.

Through mixing such potent pagan ideas the pure truth was dissolved out. One of the major foretold apostasy doctrines to appear was the one that would contradict Christ's position as being the only begotten son of God (1 John 4:3,5,6,9). By tracing the history of the apostasy and how this denial doctrine of error of the origin of Jesus Christ developed, we shall see how the spirit induced truth of the apostles was indeed slowly rubbed out.

With the restraints removed, a melting pot of religious ideologies, and doctrines developed. Various conflicting thoughts and pagan concepts from the Roman, Greek, Hebrew and Christian religions were stirred into a simmering broth. As time passed the friction and confusion often brought the pot to the boil, resulting in many heated clashes. Under various leaders, groups of dissenters gathered, following their own particular teachings. By the year AD 325 about 225 years after the last apostle had died, this whole divisive situation was causing great concern to the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine. He was getting much trouble in his empire from the unrest and conflict caused between these pseudo Christian and pagan groups, so to settle things down he set up a council in the city of Nicaea to sort the mess out and agree a unified state religion that all could live with and he could back.

The position of Christ as always was the focal issue: was he God, angel, or man? As far as Constantine was concerned he didn't much care which was agreed, so long as it was agreed by all, and the wrangling stopped. From the cauldron of this confusion evolved a primitive statement of belief: a simple creed ir written statement, it was hoped all could agree too. Crystallised at this first council, the creed slowly, as conflicts could so easily be re-ignited, but bit by bit, and through various written stages by stealth became fashioned into a full written statement of belief. The final creed as it was laid out stated:

"Following the holy fathers we all together teach men to acknowledge as one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at the same time, complete in Godhead and complete as man, truly God and truly man, ... of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead.... from Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer...."

This written statement of belief that God and Jesus Christ were one person became the cornerstone doctrine of this new creed religion, which had evolved over a period of some 350 years. It was a composite religion forged some 80% from base pagan religious doctrines and 20% from scriptural. It had evolved through the years of wrangling, compromises and just plain bludgeoning; becoming the official Roman state religion, the only approved religion operating hand in glove with the ruling authorities. It was a truly creed-based statement religion, with a basic foundation of pagan doctrines, incorporating a facade of so-called Christian ideas.

With this foundation of pagan doctrines, the new creed religion cherry picked the scriptures for bits it could use that fitted in with the evolved creed-based beliefs, while ignoring all references in the apostles' teachings that repudiated these creed doctrines.

The apostles would not have recognised the creed religion and certainly would have had no part of it. The truth had died off with them; that Jesus was equivalent in nature to pre-rebellion Adam, a perfectly created loyal Son of God, and could therefore re-balance the scales of justice. He could not be equal with the creator God as stated in the creeds, no more than Adam was equal to God, (Romans 5:18). The creed doctrines invalidated the legal balancing arrangement of the ransom and therefore totally devalued the significance of the death of Jesus Christ.

This trinity doctrine, as it became known, with the Father, the Son and the Holy spirit all subdivisions of a single spirit-being Godhead, was never believed or taught by the apostles. They had always taught that Jesus Christ was subordinate to his God and father, regarding him as a created being. This 'phoney' idea was embellished bit by bit into the full-blown trinity doctrine. The apostasy had through its creed development created the established acceptance of the erroneous statement, that Jesus Christ was God in man's form. The inspired expression of error had emerged and established itself as doctrine (1 John 4:6).

The scriptures were now more or less completely under the control of this evolved antichrist creed religion, acting in confederation with the Roman state administration. Now that the trinity doctrine established by creed was becoming inculcated into the masses it was hardly in its interest to publish too much of the information that the apostles had written down. The last thing they wanted was to stir up the old arguments, particularly as to that the evidence in the scriptures proved the Son of God to be. Censorship of the writings of the first-century disciples was tight. Available bible copies were controlled, and only those teachers approved and appointed by the creed religion were allowed to expound the now fully developed apostasy doctrines (2 Pet 2:1-3, 1Tim 4:1-3).

These creed statements were used for the indoctrination of the masses through oral inculcation. The creeds were taught and memorised parrot fashion, by repetitious use. The old adage 'repeat a lie often enough and it will be believed' formed a major part of the indoctrination process of these creeds.

Apart from the trinity doctrine, other erroPlatonisedneous pagan doctrines, were similarly consolidated in this way through creed development. Hellfire and immortality of the soul were both adopted from the pagan religions. Again, these creed doctrines ran directly contrary to the scriptural information, that when a person dies that is the end. The hope generated by the scriptures was for a later resurrection; until then they 'sleep' in the grave. How can a being with an immortal soul also have a resurrection?? There can only be one or the other. The Bible advocates resurrection; the pagan advocates immortal soul. Resurrection is referred to over 40 times in the Greek scriptures, whereas, immortal soul not once, check a concordance.

It is all too apparent that these creed introduced doctrines are still held today as the most important central doctrines by nearly every Christian denomination that exists in the world. What a massive indoctrination has been achieved by these creed religions. Of the world's five billion population, approximately 25% over a billion call themselves Christian; of this approximately 99% belong to organisations that teach the trinity and other originally pagan ideas in one form or another. Of the remaining 1%, approximately half are not sure what they believe, leaving only a handful of religions in Christendom that reject this trinity teaching.

Returning to the firstcentury. The spiritual lights were out; little if any spiritual knowledge about the Kingdom was available. Darkness had truly set in, the so-called Dark Ages had arrived. God's Kingdom plan was on hold, as the apostles had said it would be. The church state religions had managed to bury God's word. This is an all-too-often repeated failing of men, when in a position of controlling knowledge. Jesus had warned the religious clergy of his day of the same fault at Matthew 23:13: "You lock people out of the Kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them" .

Through these Dark Ages, much blood-letting was done in the name of religion, with very little truth from God's word allowed to shine. The first real threat to the censorship control of the Bible by the churches came with a mechanical invention. In 1439 Gutenberg developed the printing press in Germany. By 1455 about 150 copies of the Bible had been printed; quickly, printing presses appeared everywhere. The mechanism was now available to allow lay people access to the Christian Greek scriptures, bypassing the control and censorship of the all dominating Church.

Lay people could now read and study these early printed translations. Although full of scribal errors, through multi-generation copies of the then available manuscripts, they still allowed a partial comparison between scripture and Church doctrine. Once the Church had lost its binding censorship control, it moved to the next best position; it backed and authorised only the roughest and most doctrinally corrupted translations.

This situation continued for over 1,000 years. So inculcated did the central Trinitarian doctrine become within the Church that when the Bible was first printed in the Textus Receptus form, the words were deliberately tampered with and changed to make it read and appear that the scriptures taught this spurious doctrine. To illustrate this point, the King James Bible of 1611 translates 1 John 5:7-8: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."

The words in bold were added to the manuscript to support the trinity teaching. Later, more accurate translations corrected this deliberate act of fraud, leaving out the spuriously added words, although even today many Bibles are still sold with this commonly recognised error included. Nevertheless, back there a dirty translation was better than what was previously available: virtually nothing! As time passed, scholars often working against negative church pressure, researched the ancient manuscripts to rake out the errors that had crept in. The inevitable eventually happened: more and more individuals through Bible study began to protest at the obvious non-biblical doctrines and falsified errors that they had been taught by the Church. Thus the Protestant Reformation started only 50 odd years after the invention of the printing press and the release of the censorship stranglehold. The first man-motivated 'Age of Awakening', as some referred to it, had started.

The censorship hold by the established Church, over available scriptural manuscripts, was not the only barrier to access of the Bible. Even presuming permission could be obtained from the Church; the price for commissioning a scribe written copy made it completely prohibitive for the ordinary person. Depending on the number of accuracy checks made by the scribes; a decent copy could have cost the equivalent of anything from $50,000. These two factors, Church censorship and cost, virtually cut off the scriptures from the ordinary man.

Until after some 1,300 years of censorship, and the coming of the printing process in 1453. In one stroke the censorship stranglehold was released and the cost reduced dramatically. Although the first printed Bibles were extremely 'dirty' copies, full of errors; accidental and deliberate through continual chain copying, as far as lay people were concerned at that time any Bible was better than none. At last, after more than 1,300 years, the opportunity to read, study and verify the word of God had arrived. Inevitably with this study came the thirst of discerning scholars for more accurate translations.

What was available to them then was a very degenerated copy, which had arrived through so many copies of copies of copies. It is possible that the final manuscript material as first printed had passed through as many as one hundred generations of copies. The final copy would be similar to, say a detailed hand written business letter, passed to another to be rewritten by hand; this copy is passed to the next, who again copies it and passes on his copy to the next, who copies it and again passes his copy on, and so on until it has passed through a hundred different copiers' hands. Each copy carries forward the conglomerate rolled-over errors inherited from all the previous copiers. Imagine how the original letter would compare to its hundredth generation copy. This would be similar to the condition of the first multi- generation copy manuscripts printed and circulated.

The Dark Ages had taken their toll on manuscripts throughout this 1,300 year period with great gaps appearing in the copy chain. The newly created appetite to read and understand the Bible more accurately through cleaner translations would have to wait a further 350 years. For now, the printing press could only mechanically copy the inferior translation material available at the time. The first printed Bibles were made from a copy of a manuscript that was in the common Roman language, Latin. This manuscript was of a late generation copy of a text prepared by Jerome, which he translated into the Latin from earlier Greek copies available to him around AD 400. The first Bibles came off the press in 1455, and by 1610 the Catholic Douay Bible was printed; which was also based on Jerome's Latin translation, using a copy dating back to around AD 450, and is still used to this day.

Sixty years after the first edition of the Bible was printed, a Dutch scholar Erasmus in 1516 printed a Greek language version of the New Testament. This translation had now gone through countless copies and had been converted from Greek to Latin and back to Greek. This mishmash brought about a self originating, concocted Greek text producing a unique reading never to be found in any other known Greek manuscript.

Unfortunately this artificially perverted text became the basis for the received text, the Textus Receptus, which was later used as the base text of the King James Bible. The unjustified reverence for this Textus Receptus promoted by the church held back more accurate translations for many years. The text, developed from the Erasmus Text, was commonly received and accepted as the Church 'approved' version. In 1611, King James of England had the Textus Receptus adopted into the King James Bible, including all the errors in the Erasmus Text. This became the basis for most Protestant translations in Europe until the end of the nineteenth century.

To criticise this Church 'approved' text was akin to sacrilege. It was regarded as the Holy Word, direct from God's mouth; to tamper with this translation was regarded as blasphemous. Within some religions, this attitude is still held today, although it has since been proved that it contains over 2,000 errors. It is interesting to note that upholders of the old 'hot potato' doctrine, the Trinity, generally hang on with dear life to this far-from-accurate translation. Could it have anything to do with the errors it contains, deliberate or otherwise, clouding Bible information and understanding on this erroneous doctrine? Just try and get them to use a more accurately translated Bible and watch their reaction.

Once the Bible was out in the open through printed copies, the drive for accuracy was on, and although the ascribed sanctified attitude toward the received text contained in the King James Bible held it back, the pressure was building. Discerning individuals even reading this 'dirty' corrupted text could see how the church doctrines and information in it contradicted.

Although often split in their allegiances between loyalty to the institutionalised churches with their control over the financing of these 'clean-up' projects, "the one who pays the piper calls the tune", and their conscious desire for accuracy above all, some courageous scholars pressed on for as clean and accurate a translation as they could get. This required getting as far back in time and as close to the original writings in the copy chain as possible, to the very earliest available copies. It was an almost impossible task, yet it has more or less been achieved, although taken some 500 years. Thousands of dedicated scholars have devoted millions of man-hours to this task.

As the original writings are all missing, a massive dragnet went out through the world collecting whatever copies could be found. It was truly amazing what came out of the woodwork! Over the years more and more came to light. People like Griesback, Tischendorf, and Tregelles between 1775 and 1875 collected these manuscripts, researched and investigated them using their skills to make corrections to the then-in-use received text Bibles.

It was becoming so great a job this correction work of the King James text, that it eventually became necessary to drop trying to correct such an erroneous translation and restart from scratch. In 1881 a most notable attempt at this was made by Wescott and Hort, with the masses of manuscripts that had been raked out and made available to them.

Once cleaner translations finally become available from the start of the 1800s, the old creed adopted doctrines started to be exposed and took a bashing. Using these cleaner translations, and cross-referencing all scripture statements on any one subject using Bible concordances, a clearer pattern emerged as to the true Bible understanding on these various subjects. When the old creed doctrines were held up to the light of this examination they failed the test. They were shown up for what they were: that these doctrines were not Bible based. The more important exposures included the immortality of the human soul, exposed as scripturally fake. Hellfire after-death torment and punishment by fire in purgatory exposed as scripturally false. The Trinity; God, Christ, and spirit as one person exposed as lies.

Although the information was being recovered from the scriptures by means of these cleaner translations, it made very little difference to the major Church religions. These religions were firmly entrenched in the world's systems; their creed doctrines had been established for over 1,000 years and the leopard was not about to change his spots. It would take new individuals in new organisations to promote this retrieval of knowledge. New wine needed to ferment in new wine skins (Matthew 9:17).

Following the 1880s, numerous examples of even earlier manuscript evidence closer to the originals have come to light. With these earlier reference manuscripts available, the whole critical process needed to be redone taking this more recently recovered evidence into account.

It is the authors opinion that since the Westcott and Hort text, the following steps have been more a case of one step forwards, two steps back. In 1900 Bernhard Weiss translated the Greek text by applying his own theological views to it. He selected the variant texts according to what he believed to be the most appropriate according to his theological understanding. Then in 1901 Eberhard Nestle produced a version of the Greek text based on the comparison of three earlier texts, Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort and the Weiss text. He simply took the consensus of these three and made this his text. This resulted in the cleanest of the texts until then the Westcott and Hort text being diluted again by the inferior earlier Tischendorf text and the personally theological weighted text of Weiss. Further developments have been done using this hybrid Nestle text, introducing additional evaluation with numerous newly discovered papyri manuscripts dating back to about AD 200.

For discerning individuals the window into Bible information has undergone a rigorous cleaning; it is now possible to seek out these 'cleaner' translations. Bearing in mind that all Bibles are only individual versions of the original. Each version is affected by the source of the material translated; each translator is affected by his or her own personal views in the selection of words to translate what they consider to be the original meaning in the modern language. This makes selective multiple Bible translation comparisons essential in perceptive study.

Since 1455 the printing press had weakened the Churches' censorship control of the scriptures, making mass copies available to people at a vastly cheaper price than that charged by a scribe for a hand- written copy. Although the copied material was poor and full of errors, these early printed Bibles were clean enough to see the glaringly obvious discrepancies in Church teachings.

This inevitably brought protests against the all powerful established Church system, giving birth to the Protestant Reformation. It was the so-called 'first awakening', or more accurately the first stage in a retrieval process of lost scriptural knowledge. Unfortunately, due to the almost exclusive use of the erroneous Textus Receptus translation, held all authoritative through the next 350 years, the protests produced using these early Bible translations were of a surface nature only, mainly against the patently obvious contradictory practices of the Church.

Until the appearance of these first printed Bibles; for a period of over 1,000 years the old church system held complete control through its power and authority, its corruption had mounted up. The expression 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely', proved accurate in this case. The old church system had held absolute power, and inevitably became absolutely corrupt. It had buried the Bible and thereby any restraints that could have been brought to bear on its practices by referral to the scriptural directives.

So powerful and corrupt had the old church system become, that even protests exposing obvious malpractice's, brought instant reprisals. Some individuals, although armed only with their blurred copies of the Bible, became so affronted by these obvious wrongs practised by the church they separated themselves. Forming their own church religions. Among these were Moravians, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Mennonites, Pilgrims, Puritans, Baptists, Methodists and Quakers. I leave out the Church of England's protest and separation, as Anglicanism had little to do with Bible protests and all to do with a king's desire to pick and choose wives, and grab back wealth held by the Roman Catholic Church.

Just how great a change did these Protestant reformers make in understanding and applying Bible information? Not as much as some would have us think! Major changes to the old creed doctrines would have to wait for a future generation.

While the Church ruled supreme through its appointed vassal kings, the clergy had become corrupt in nearly every way imaginable. They 'conned' their congregations into believing that nobody could get even near God and salvation without buying it through the Church in one form or another. To this end they readily sold indulgences to their congregational prey. Failure to do it their way, according to them, meant damnation, torture in the 'after-life' and sometimes a quick exit from this one.

Although the doctrinal changes made by these Protestants were small, it still took great courage for the average man then to discard the old Church system and its imposed machinery for salvation. Standing up against its power to administer life and death, often by the human hand, needed a courageous heart. Any act or belief contrary to the authorised teachings of the Church was labelled heretic, and as often as not carried the death penalty.

This Textus Receptus Bible translation (King James Bible) was blurred and ambiguous and hence of limited help at this time to these individuals. They were endeavouring to look for accuracy in the Scriptures through a dirty window; although a dirty window was better than no window. Nevertheless, from 1500 on they were able to discern from their printed Bible copies some of the more obvious truths, and predictably protested for changes.

To an intelligent student of the Bible today, these are all seemingly elementary and obvious points, but they were new and revolutionary to them. Many ideas were advocated; changes were made, only to be changed back again under pressure from the church. Often the persecuted became the persecutors. The melting pot of protest was bubbling vigorously, although with limited ingredients.

Was an associate lecturer in mathematics and astronomy at Cambridge University and fearless in speaking out against the established Church and in particular the doctrine of the Trinity. In 1710 Whiston was charged with promoting doctrines opposing the Church of England, found guilty and stripped of his Cambridge professorship.

Whiston translated from Greek into English the Historical writings of Flavous Josephus an eye witness historian of the events at Jerusalem between AD 66 and 73. Whiston also wrote four volumes on 'Primitive Christianity Revived' and worked at developing the maritime chronometer.

Another remarkable individual of this time was John Napier, the mathematical genius and inventor of logarithms, advancing the sciences of cosmology and physics. He also wrote a book on the prophecies in the Bible book of Revelation. These great thinking minds had their studies in the science fields greatly amplified but their studies on Bible information and prophecies were more or less completely muffled.

In 1820 John Darby formed a Bible study group in England. Examining the contemporary variety of thought that had emerged throughout the previous 350 year period, he formulated the conclusion that as the apostles of the Scriptures practised true worship, they should try to get back to that. He appreciated that the first-century apostles were united in knowledge and understanding of God's plan through the controlling effect of the spirit power.

Led by these thoughts his group endeavoured to re-energise this spirit power, they separated from all formalised religious activities and civil involvement, endeavouring to return to this primitive Christianity as practised by the apostles. It was a rare flash of understanding. Unfortunately for them the 'spirit' was missing; this was dependent on God and his time schedule, not theirs, and so could only be revived when God provided this spirit power and backing. It was not to be re-energised again until some 175 years later. So with the best will in the world they went it alone.

The inevitable happened; their efforts collapsed, doctrinal differences broke out. Many of Darby's followers could not cope and returned to the formal Church system with its old creed doctrines and rituals. Others went to the other extreme isolated themselves in exclusive brotherhoods. Darby, following knowledge dopassedwn from his predecessors, developed a phased creative time plan of God. A concept that God was in the process of developing his creative plan and purpose. Darby sectioned this plan into seven time divisions, he believed he was living within the division when God would separate a small group of faithful ones from the large established Christian religions for the Kingdom. He of course considered he was among them.

Other concepts were derived from the book of Revelation. Among these, that Christ would return at his second presence and gather all his selected saints by resurrecting those already dead; those living at the time he would call in termed 'The Rapture' (an expression still used by Evangelists today). Following this, God would reject all token Christians. Instead he would convert the Jews to preach Christianity to the world for seven years (whether they liked it or not).

Once this had been accomplished, the tribulations referred to in the book of Revelation would be unleashed on the world, with Satan at its centre. Jesus with his army would then battle with the opposing earth's inhabitants, defeating them and Satan. This would mark the start of the 1,000 year reign of Christ over the Earth. At the end of this reign, Satan would be released from his prison abyss, the unjustified dead would be resurrected and judged along with Satan and destroyed in the lake of fire. Interestingly, for all Darby's perception he still swallowed the doctrines of the trinity and the immortality of the soul!

Most of these received ideas were collected from others; he merely examined, refined and developed them further. Some ideas being put forward in England around this time included the thought that the first part of Christ's return would be unseen for seven years in a 'parousia' following this Israel was to be restored to the Holy Land and the Millennium start from Jerusalem. Once Darby's group had crystallised their ideas they stopped progressing. Presuming they possessed complete truth, they 'time capsulated' themselves into the Plymouth Brethren organisation. Many ideas, particularly Darby's dispensation theories, were later picked up by various divisions of the Fundamentalist movement in America, and formed the basis for the Evangelical Grace Movement in England.

Appendix 6.

About 1829 William Miller, like Darby, studied various ideas that were being bandied around and from these consolidated his beliefs. One, that Man had lost immortality through Adam's crime. The correction for the condition of inherited death on mankind induced by Adam's crime was the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. Miller's research led him to believe that he was living near the end of the world system and that soon the 1,000 year reign of Christ would start. He believed that Christ would return in the flesh to the earth, when he would judge the world's population, and then burn it along with all the wicked (all except them that is). The saints would be saved (them), who would then begin ruling for 1,000 years.

Miller also adopted some earlier Bible scholars' time calculations, and on the basis of these he predicted that Jesus Christ would return to earth in 1843/44. This would trigger the second advent or presence of Christ, which would then be followed by the 1,000 year millennial reign. This date had been calculated using a scripture time prophecy in Daniel 8:14 "Until two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings have gone by: then the sanctuary will have its rights restored".

Miller arrived at his time calculation by applying a common Bible time rule conversion of Numbers 14:34, "a day for a year"; so 2,300 days became a length of 2,300 years. He started this 2,300 years from the year 457 BC, the then assumed date of the twentieth year of Artaxerxes when he gave a decree to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2:1-8). Thus according to his calculation 2,300 years would end in AD 1843/44. Miller's chronological plan concluded that 6,000 years of human history would end in 1843 the rest of his calculation were all pegged around this main Daniel time prophecy.

On the expectation of this calculation, Miller built up a following of some 50,000. They watched and waited; the year came and went, with no second advent, no return of Christ and no start of the 1,000 year reign. This miscalculation splintered his movement into smaller groups developing versions of his ideas. This non-appearance was later referred to as "The Great Disappointment". Many continued to accept Miller's date as correct, but that the event of Christ's return occurred in heaven, and that at a later date he would visibly return to the earth.

One of these fragmented groups developed a belief that the 1843 date was wrong and that Christ would return in 1853. When the 1853 date passed with no evidence of the return of Jesus Christ, another group split from it. Later some formed Evangelical Adventist groups; later some took the name 'Seventh Day Adventists'.

With all this resurgence in the study of Bible chronology and prophecy there emerged individuals who took up an earlier chronological calculation worked out by an English Bible scholar Bowen. He had calculated that human history started with Adam's creation in 4127 BC. From this they worked out that 6,000 years of human history would end in 1874. In fact there were many other versions of Bible dating chronology in circulation at this time. Probably the best known of these was Archbishop Ussher's. He dated back the creation of Adam to 4004 BC with 6,000 years running out in 1997.

These applied this chronology of Bowen in calculating the second coming of Christ in the flesh to be concurrent with the 6,000 year date, 1874. They based this reasoning that God's seventh rest day, following the end of the sixth last working creative day, was 7,000 years long, as were the previous six. They then reckoned that the scriptural evidence supported the conclusion that the last 1,000 years of this 7,000 year day would be the Bible 1,000 year reign of Christ. Subtracting 1,000 years from 7,000 would mean that the 1,000 year reign would start after 6,000 years had lapsed, which according to Bowen's chronology worked out as 1874. On this piece of evidence they expected the date 1874 would see the return of Christ, and focused the rest of their beliefs around this date.

When it came and went with nothing visible happening some fell back to claiming the return was invisible in the heavens. At this point the fragmented Adventist and Millerite groups stopped searching further and so stopped progressing. They had had their hands bitten with the failure of their year date predictions and so rolled themselves into religious time capsules, taking the organisational form of Adventism and its various churches, and licked their wounds. They have remained more or less at the same position down to today, having become wary of prophetic time calculations.

Appendix 7.

The next person to build on his predecessors' accumulated retrieved knowledge was Charles Russell. Brought up a Presbyterian he become fascinated with, and later influenced by, the Millerites' teachings and understanding of Bible time prophecies, particularly relating to the second coming of Christ. In 1870 he joined one of these numerous groups. Russell applied a rational mind to Bible examination, developing the received information available to him, and made further independent Bible research. He formed a separate study group in Pennsylvania, who became known as Millennial Dawners or Russellites.

As Russell formulated his understandings he openly opposed the following creed based church doctrines. The trinity doctrine, (at last!) he rejected in favour of the Bible evidence that God was the Creator, Jesus Christ was his first spiritkind created son, and that the 'holy spirit' was God's activating energy. He advocated that the doctrine of eternal hell fire punishment was adopted from pagan sources, and scripturally unsound. He rejected the immortality of the soul doctrine, in favour of the scripturally supported 'soul sleep', the condition of all the dead awaiting resurrection. Russell promoted the retrieved scriptural information that Sir Isaac Newton some 180 years earlier had advocated and later by certain fundamentalist groups that the second coming of Christ would not be in a visible material state.

Russell expanded this understanding verifying that Christ's 'presence' from the Greek word 'parousia' could be used, not only in a physical presence sense, but also in an implied sense, in that Christ's second presence would be invisible and not physical. Christ's second coming had generally been thought up until that time in America to be a visible one in the flesh. Renewed study on the subject using cleaner Bibles showed that the earlier understanding; that it would be an invisible 'parousia' or presence period was correct. This, Russell maintained, would be in a similar fashion to Jesus Christ when he continued his invisible 'parousia' with his first-century disciples from 33 up until the end of the Jewish system in AD 70, (Matthew 28:20). Russell argued, that Jesus had indicated that this same type of presence would be renewed in his second 'parousia' period: in Matthew 24:37 "As even for the days of Noah, thus will be the presence (parousia) of the Son of the man" .

This 'second presence', Russell claimed, would be similar to Yahweh's 'presence' with Israel, indicated by the shechinah light and cloud over the ark in the most holy of the tabernacle: "There I shall come to meet you (come into presence [parousia] with you) from above the mercy seat..I shall give you all my orders" (Exodus 25:22). Russell came to appreciate that the scriptural evidence supported the understanding that the 'parousia' presence was a specific period of time when Christ would once again reactivate his attentive association with his selected appointed representatives on earth as he had done with his disciples between AD 33 and 70.

This retrieved understanding had been made possible by making use of cleaner translations of the Christian Greek scriptures, particularly as in this case, for establishing the meaning of the word 'parousia'. Russell also made a concerted effort to reintroduce the proper name of God, which had superstitiously been neglected. He favoured using the popular medieval rendering of the 'Tetragrammaton' YHWH as Jehovah. Like Miller, Russell accepted that Adam had received a just punishment of death for his crime, but his human race offspring had unjustifiably inherited his death sentence also. To address this problem Jesus Christ sacrificed himself as a counter-balancing ransom, to counteract this inherited death penalty on mankind. Russell concluded that on the basis of this legal provision of the ransom sacrifice, the Bible advocated that humans, worthy or not, would be granted a second chance of life by the mechanism of resurrection, which he understood would take place during the 1,000 year reign of Christ.

Russell took on board the earlier mistaken Darby teaching that during the presence period the Jews would be converted to Christians and used by Christ as the focal nation in ruling the Earth from Jerusalem (See Research Paper 21 Examining Charles Russell's teaching of the Jewish Restoration ).

He also adopted a idea poached from others that the Great Pyramid of Gizeh in Egypt was a statement from God sculptured in stone, possibly built by Melchizedek, with the measurements of its passages providing time calculations in God's plans. The descending passage from the point were it entered the Grand Gallery was pegged to signify the birth date of Christ. From there was measured as it sloped downward to the junction of its intersection with the entrance passage . At this junction one passage went up to the entrance; the other continued down to the pit. The first part down to the junction was measured as 1,542 inches, although the builders never used this unit of measurement.

This process was believed to set the date 1542 BC, which they considered to be the date of the Abrahamic covenant. The next part leading down the passage to the 'pit' measured 3,416 inches *. When 3,416 years were added to 1542 BC they arrived at the year AD 1874, which they considered set the date for the start of Christ's returned presence. When the 1874 date passed, it was reworked by adding a further 41 inches (37 1/2+31/2) to the 3416 measurement making it 3457 years *, bringing it to 1914.
Millennial Dawn Vol 3; Thy Kingdom Come, page 342, by Charles Russell: published 1890 with the 3416 calculation. Later entitled Studies in the Scriptures with subsequent editions carrying the reworked 3457 calculation.

This was a none too clever set of thinking by Russell, and no further comment on this piece of nonsense needs to be made, save to say again that one must take care not to throw out the baby with the bath water.

He did adopt the 7,000 year seventh day calculation, with its last 1,000 years running concurrently with the 1,000 year reign of Christ. Like earlier Millerites he accepted the Bowen calculation of 4127 BC for the start of human history (for refuting evidence see chapter 11). This as already stated gave the end of 6,000 years of human history as 1873, later revised to 1874 (when it was realised that there was no year zero, so an extra year needed to be added). This calculation was used to fix the start date for the invisible spiritual presence of Jesus Christ (MillennialDawn Vol 2, The Time is at Hand, page 39, published 1889).

A further calculation Russell made in his book 'Millennial Dawn Vol 3, Thy Kingdom Come, pages 23-94, was the application of the three 'day periods' of Daniel Chapter 12, the 1,260 days, the 1,290 days and the 1,335 days. These periods were converted to years and applied as follows:

The 1,260 years.
Starts, AD 539 with the setting up of Papal power?
Ends, AD 1799 when Napolean breaks the power of Rome?

The 1,290 years.
Starts, AD 539 with the setting up of Papal power?
Ends, AD 1829 when Millers work starts?

The 1,335 years.
Starts, AD 539 with the setting up of Papal power?
Ends, AD 1874 with the start of Jesus Presence?

Russell developed this 1874 date further by the application of a discerning time parallel. He took the period from AD 29 when Jesus' activity started with his baptism, until AD 33 when he presented himself at Jerusalem as king, a period of 3 1/2 years. This 3 1/2 years Russell applied as a parallel time pattern from the considered arrival date in 1874 for Christ's second presence, 3 1/2 years later brought it to 1877 when he calculated Jesus was to be crowned king in heaven.

APPENDIX INFORMATION

CHAPTERS 1 to 12

Click to return to Main Title Index

IDENTIFICATION MARKS OF THE GREAT APOSTASY.

Appendix 6.

Appendix 7.