Endnotes

1. A photograph of this letter appears in both the 1967 and 1973 editions of Mr. Armstrong's Autobiography. It is not in the 1986 two-volume edition. Nor does the HWA Personal Papers Catalog by Date list it.

2. J. Gordon Melton, Encyclopedia of American Religions (Wilmington, North Carolina: McGrath Publishing Co., 1978), 447.

3. A.B. Grimaldi, "History of the Rediscovery of Israel,'' The Watchman of Israel, July 1919 (vol. 1, no. 9), 195.

4. Cecil Roth, The Nephew of the Almighty (London: Edward Goldston Ltd., 1933).

5. A.B. Grimaldi claimed that Ralph Wedgwood wrote in 1814 the first truly Anglo-Israelite book, The Book of Remembrance. It was a two-volume work, the only copy of which was said to be in the British Library.

Another alleged early Anglo-Israelite advocate was I.H. Frere, whose book The Prophecies of David, Esdras, and John was published in 1815.

Reverend B. Murphy in 1816 is said to have authored Proofs That Israelites Came From Egypt Into Ireland, and in 1817 Advocate of Israel and the Isle of Erin (Grimaldi, "History of the Rediscovery of Israel," The Watchman of Israel, July 1919 [vol. 1, no. 9], 193-6).

How much weight should we give to this evidence? The problem with using Grimaldi as our source is that he is an uncritical advocate of the Anglo-Israelite position trying hard to give his beliefs a degree of acceptability by showing their antiquity.

In so doing he uncritically lumps Brothers and Wilson together. He makes no mention of Brothers' insanity, nor the extremes to which Brothers' insanity took him. He leaves unanswered the questions: Were the above authors influenced by Brothers? Did they in turn influence Wilson or did Wilson develop his ideas independently? Further research is needed for us to know.

6. John Wilson, Our Israelitish Origins, 1st American ed., 1850, Millerites and Early Adventists (University Microfilms), Section 3, Reel 15, part 24.

7. Louis Billington, "The Millerite Adventists in Great Britain, 1840-1850," The Disappointed: Millerism and Millenarianism in the Nineteenth Century, Ronald L. Numbers and Jonathan M. Butler eds., 2nd ed. (Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press, 1993), 59, 66.

8. The Jehovah's Witnesses are considered an Adventist sect because their founder, Charles Taze Russell, was a disciple of the Adventists Jonas Wendell and Nelson H. Barbour, from whom he learned the conditional state of the dead.

9. A.N. Dugger and C.O. Dodd, A History of the True Religion (Jerusalem, Israel: 1968), 296. Prior to 1923, the Church of God (Seventh Day) was called the Church of God (Adventist). Despite the name change, the 1926 U.S. census continued to call the church by its older name. The older name clearly identifies its origin among the Adventist movement.

For the sake of clarity I have used the current name, Church of God (Seventh Day) throughout the article. However, those doing historic research on this sect should be aware of the variety of names the local congregations of this sect have been known by throughout its formative period from 1863-1923. See endnote 13.

10. Restorationism should not be confused with the modern Christian Reconstructionist movement, which seeks to order America's government along the lines of the old covenant. Christian Reconstructionism is post-millennial, while restorationism is pre-millennial.

11. R.V. Lyon, The Scattering and Restoration of Israel, Thomas G. Newman publisher (Seneca Falls, New York: 1861), 31, 33, 34. This tract explains Lyon's basic teachings on prophetic Israel. Many of his tracts can be found in the Jenks Memorial Collection in the library of Aurora College in Aurora, Illinois.

12. Richard C. Nickels, A History of the Seventh Day Church of God (Portland: Giving and Sharing, 1973), 252-4, 248-9.

13. Up until the 1880s, congregations that later became the Church of God (Seventh Day) called themselves by several names. The Church of Christ probably was the most common name used, while the names The Church of God and the Church of the Firstborn can also be found.

14. The Hope of Israel, 28 January and 5 May 1868.

15. The Advent and Sabbath Advocate, 9 December 1884.

16. The Advent and Sabbath Advocate, 5 May 1885.

17. Perhaps The Bible Banner of 1884 was another independent Church of God (Seventh Day) periodical. A newspaper with that same name was later published by a 1905 offshoot of the church, perhaps harkening back to the earlier paper.

18. The Advent and Sabbath Advocate, 19 May 1885.

19. Nickels, 251.

20. During A.F. Dugger's association with the church paper, it underwent several name changes. Originally called The Hope of Israel, it later became the Advent and Sabbath Advocate, then the Sabbath Advocate and Herald of the Advent. Not until late 1900 was it decided to call the paper The Bible Advocate and Herald of the Coming Kingdom. That has since been shortened to the simpler Bible Advocate.

21. Nickels, 153-4. Nickels' sources are tracts published by A.N. Dugger from Jerusalem sometime between Dugger's move there in the early 1950s and 1975. See also "The Chastisement of the Jewish People," The Bible Home Instructor. My copy is a 1982 reprint with a few additions to bring it up to date and the deletion of most of the illustrations. Reprinted by George L. Johnson, Decatur, Michigan.

22. Nebuchadnezzar's siege began in 605 B.C., not 606 (Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1983], 183-5). 2,520 years later is not A.D. 1914, but 1916. (One must add 1 to the sum when crossing from B.C. to A.D. dates.) Dugger was off by two years.

23. Richard Nickels has incorrectly identified Guinness as Australian (Nickels, 153).

24. H. Grattan Guinness, The Approaching End of the Age, E.H. Horne editor and reviser (London: Morgan and Scott Ltd, 1918), 257-258.

25. Dr. and Mrs. H. Grattan Guinness, Light for the Last Days, edited and revised by E.P. Cachemaille (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott Ltd., 1934). This is a revision of his book, a book that underwent seven editions before 1893.

26. Ibid., 244.

27. Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1978), 147.

28. Nickels, 153.

29. J. Gordon Melton, Encyclopedia of American Religions, 4th ed. (Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1993), 119.

30. Edmond Charles Gruss, Apostles of Denial (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1978), 173.

31. Directory of Sabbath-Observing Groups, 6th ed. (Fairview, Oklahoma: The Bible Sabbath Association, 1986), 138.

32. Nickels, 250.

33. The Bible Advocate, 1 March and 3 May 1927.

34. When I visited the main Portland library in the 1980s, it had three separate catalogs. The newest was its computerized catalog, another was the card catalog that the computerized system had replaced, and the third was an even older card catalog that apparently dated from the time of Mr. Armstrong's studies. That older catalog was stored on the second floor. It had several Anglo-Israelite titles not found in the newer catalog, including the 1917 edition of Allen's work.

35. As far as we know, only one copy of one volume of Beauchamp's magazine has survived. Volume I (November 1918 through October 1919) of The Watchman of Israel is preserved in the library of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. The Watchman took as its theme the poem `The Call of Judah,'' which drew its imagery from Isaiah 21:11 ("Watchman, what of the night?'') and the star of Bethlehem. The poem interpreted the star as the sign of the promised "day of Israel.'' The watchman was the one who proclaimed the meaning of the stars to a darkened world.

J.H. Allen wrote the lead article of the first issue. Another article, presumably by Beauchamp, began a series on the Great Pyramid. Among the books advertised were the two works by Guinness mentioned earlier in this paper.

36. J. Gordon Melton, Encyclopedia of American Religions, 4th ed. (Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1993), 669.

37. Armstrong to Mr. and Mrs. Runcorn, 28 February 1928, HWAP, No. 807, 3, 5.

38. Beauchamp published another edition of Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright in 1930.

39. Armstrong to S.S. Davison, 26 September 1928, HWAP, No. 808.

40. Armstrong to Dugger, 1 January 1929, HWAP, No. 828. Dugger to Armstrong, 22 January 1929, HWAP, No. 849.

41. P. Gerhard Damsteegt, Foundations of the Seventh-day Adventist Message and Mission (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1977), 135-46.

42. The surviving manuscript shows evidence that it has been edited. Pages 1-19[a] have been typed on a newer typewriter than the rest of the manuscript. The book title for these pages is The Real Truth About Israel. Based on a comparison of the manuscript with other writings of Mr. Armstrong from the late 1920s, it is my judgment that the surviving first 19 pages represent a rewriting of the original text. Pages 19[b] onward have been typed on a typewriter of much poorer quality.

The themes of these pages are those with which Mr. Armstrong concerned himself in the late '20s. The title of the book for this older section is What Is the Third Angel's Message? The entire manuscript, as it now exists in its rewritten form, is document 8850 of the Herbert W. Armstrong Papers [HWAP] collection of the Worldwide Church of God. Correspondence that shed light on the development of the manuscript include documents 828, 829, 849, 850, 884, 931, 2559. Many additional letters of Herbert Armstrong's from 1929 deal with Anglo-Israelism and its relationship to the Third Angel's message.

43. The Autobiography of Herbert W. Armstrong (Pasadena, California: Ambassador College, 1973 ed.), 330.

44. Does he mean "I have spent all my available time writing'' or "What time I had available, I have used for writing''? Either understanding is grammatically possible. But note the context of his comments.

45. Within the Worldwide Church of God, some came to believe that this woman must have been an angel, yet Herbert Armstrong never made such a claim. A careful reading of the context shows her to have been mysterious only because they did not know who she was or how she came to know their need. The wood he stacked was at the "mysterious'' woman's house, and it was she who paid Mr. Armstrong. Despite this, the Armstrongs never learned her name.

46. Armstrong to Dugger, 19 April 1929, HWAP, No. 842.

47. Dugger to Armstrong, 28 July 1929. For additional bibliographic information see note 1.

48. That Herbert Armstrong was influenced by a dispensationalist hermeneutic is evident from his approach to Daniel and Revelation, as well as his respect for the Scofield Reference Bible, the dispensationalist commentary. Using classic dispensationalist language, he wrote in What Is the Third Angel's Message?, page 147, "this present age, or dispensation" is called "the Church, or Gospel Dispensation." His Adventist influences have already been addressed.

49. Armstrong to Mr. and Mrs. Gross, 18 January 1930, HWAP, No. 806. Armstrong to Ballenger, 9 August 1930, HWAP, No. 931. The Grosses apparently were the Pentecostal family through whom he learned to trust God for healing.

50. See note 42 for comments on the surviving text of What Is the Third Angel's Message?

51. Mr. Armstrong's first direct quote of Allen comes from page 227 of Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright: "It is a well-known fact that the history of no country on the face of the earth has so puzzled historians as that of Ireland." The second quotation, "It is unmistakably recorded in British history that the earliest settlers in Wales and southern England were called Simonii," can be found in Allen, page 275. Allen frequently used phrases such as "It is a well-known fact'' and "It is unmistakably recorded'' to lend an air of authority to his work.

Mr. Armstrong uncritically points to Allen as the authority who tells us that Simonii is the plural of Simeon. Herbert Armstrong's lack of any training in lexicography, etymology, linguistics and historiography made him vulnerable to unfounded conclusions that appeared to support Anglo-Israelism. Training in sound linguistic and hermeneutical principles would have made him a bit more cautious.

52. To arrive at 1917, Mr. Armstrong incorrectly dated the fall of Jerusalem to 585 B.C., though he was aware that 587 was the more widely accepted date. See Thiele, Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, rev. ed. [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1983] for a scholarly discussion of how Jerusalem's fall can accurately be dated.

53. What Is the Third Angel's Message?, 120.

54. Ibid.

55. For an excellent survey of this phenomenon in American evangelicalism, read Paul Boyer's When Time Shall Be No More (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap/Harvard, 1992). It helps one see how Herbert Armstrong's prophetic views were in line with their social-historical context.

56. Ibid., 165.

57. Herbert W. Armstrong, "What Is Going to Happen," PT, June-July 1934, 4.

58. Herbert W. Armstrong, PT, July 1935, 5.

59. PT, August-September 1940, 2.

60. Mystery of the Ages (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1985), xi.

61. Ibid., 9.

62. Ibid., 10.

63. Ibid., 161. He thus places the date for the first writing of The United States and Britain in Prophecy as pre-1935. Actually, it was written later. As we have shown, The United States and Britain in Prophecy was built upon his original manuscript, What Is the Third Angel's Message? It must be to this earlier manuscript that he refers.

64. Ibid., 195.

Copyright © Worldwide Church of God,1996