The following material submitted by Miss Dunn while attending the Theological Seminary grew out of her special interest in pyramid teaching and British Israelism. Those who believe in pyramid teaching really try to make the Great Pyramid of Gizeh a substitute for the Bible as the foundation of faith. Having had to meet these fallacies in the past, the writer desired to become better acquainted with the points involved in order to know how to meet error with truth.
The modern theory of attributing prophetic significance to the measurements and arrangements of the inner passages of the Great Pyramid is, according to an Egyptian scholar by the name of Budge, "quite fantastic, and does not reeeive the support of Egyptologists." Another writer says: "It need hardly be said to our readers that the extraordinary fallacies and misstatements about the Great Pyramid are lamentable nonsense. The prophetic theories which the writers elaborate are the substitutes for others of the past sixty years, always foretelling a few years ahead, and when disproved by events, then shifted to new dates."
We are not advocating that our workers spend a great deal of time on these elaborate fantasies, but knowing that others are constantly meeting these teachings in their work, we share this material with the field.
L. C. K.
I. Facts Concerning the Pyramid
About ten miles southwest of the modern city of Cairo, Egypt, where the rocky plateau skirts the Libyan Desert, rising about a hundred feet above the cultivated plain, stands the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, so called because it is built upon the great protruding stone ledge known as the Rock of Gizeh. This unique monument holds its place of pre-eminence as the greatest of the seven wonders of the world.
"The pyramid was built more than twenty centuries before the Christian Era. It covers thirteen acres of ground, or four ordinary city blocks, rises to a height of 45' feet, with 30 feet missing at the summit, making it in all 481 feet high." It "contains 2,500,000 blocks of stone, many ten, twenty, yes, thirty feet long, some of the stones weighing eight hundred tons. It was built mostly of limestone taken from the quarries nearby, although its large gallery and two chambers are made of granite brought a distance of seven hundred miles from upper Egypt."—ANTON DARNS, "The Pyramid Delusion," Moody Monthly, June, 1945.
For many centuries the Great Pyramid was shrouded in mystery. No one knew anything definite regarding its inward 'construction until A.D. 820, when Al Mamoun solved its mystery by employing men to drill an opening in the north side, and found the opening passage. This passage descends and leads steadily down through the lower courses of the pyramid and on into the rock foundation to a depth of about too feet below the ground level, terminating under the middle of the pyramid in a grotto that is unfinished. About one fourth of the way down this descending passage, an ascending passage leads off from it up toward the center of the pyramid. This low passage continues up about 120 feet, then passes into the Grand Gallery. This is the greatest single space within the pyramid, being approximately Iso feet long and about 28 feet from floor to ceiling.
II. Speculations Concerning the Pyramid
"The idea that the pyramid was designed by God as the tabernacle in the wilderness, and is 'the Bible in stone,' setting forth the divine plan of the ages, is the outgrowth and propaganda of another latter-day . . delusion. Known as British Israelism, this belief has captured millions of adherents."—Ihid.
"There have been three stages of emphasis in the speculations of modern pyramidologists. These might be termed the metrological, the astronomical, and the allegorical."—The Great Pyramid, term paper by ERNEST W. MARTER, p. 3.
In 1859, when the controversy over the standards of weights and measures was at its height, John Taylor published a book in which he maintained that the weights and measures used by the Anglo-Saxons were based on the standards which had been conveyed to us through Noah and the sons of Shem, whom he believed to be the builders of the pyramid with its lineal and cubic measurements and interior structure. In this original work there were the seeds of later speculations. He also connected the pyramid and astronomy by suggesting that its unit measurement was a fraction of the earth's diameter. And he connected the pyramid with Scripture by claiming that Job, Psalms, Zechariah, and the New Testament alluded to the pyramid.
Charles Piazzi Smyth added new prominence to the subject when in 1867 he published a three-volume account of his survey of the Great Pyramid, undertaken during 1864-65. He claimed that the base measurements of the pyramid represented the number of days in the year. He defined the pyramid inch as 1.0011 British inches, and claimed that the distance around the base of the pyramid could be equally divided into 3657 units, of one hundred pyramid inches each. Smyth also adopted Menzies' prophecy theory, and thereby his invention of the pyramid inch became the basis of all succeeding literature on the subject.
"In 1865 Robert Menzies taught that the pyramid represented prophetic chronology based on inch measurements. This developed the misconception that the first juncture of the pyramid passage represented the antediluvian era, while the upward passage to the Grand Gallery represented the period from Noah to Christ, the Grand Gallery represented the period of the Christian church, the two small antechambers represented the latter-day tribulation, and the King's Chamber represented the final climax of millennial bliss and happiness for the human race."—ANTON DARMS, "The Pyramid Delusion," Moody Monthly, June, 1945.
III. Date Setting in Pyramid Prophecy
As a result of pyramid speculation; since the beginning of the nineteenth century, there has been a wide preaching of prophecy, and many dates have been set for the end of the age.
T. Edgar Morton, in his volume Time Features of the Pyramid, says that the floor length of the upper terminal of the Grand Gallery, 1,915 pyramid inches, corresponds with the period of 1,915 solar years from the birth of Christ to the eventful year A.D. 1914, when He began His glorious reign of righteousness, the invisible King of the earth.
1. C. T. Russell, in his Scripture- Studies, says that the measurements of the pyramid declare that the Lord's second advent and reign of righteousness came in 1874.
2. Smyth wrote of a crisis he expected in 1882- 83 ; but later he readjusted his starting point of the chronological system. There was a great expectancy among many for the years 1913-14 and again for 1925.
3. David Davidson, the most important interpreter, in his remarkable work The Great Pyramid: Its Divine Message (1932 edition), boldly states : "According to the Scriptural prophecies and the chronological symbolism of the pyramid, September 16, 1936, will witness the coming of Christ with power and great glory."
4. Still another, Frederick Haberman, in his Kingdom Pamphlet deduced from pyramid chronology that President Hoover would be the last president of the United States, that he would hold office until January of 1937. This would take President Hoover past the date of September 18, 1936 when pyramid teaching had scheduled the second coming of Christ and the ushering in of the millennial kingdom.
IV. Examples of Mere Speculations
1. The spacious Grand Gallery was thought by Menzies to be a fitting representation of the Christian Era, and the pyramid was used as the basis, counting one inch to a solar year. This measurement was used until the Great Step was reached.
From that point onward each inch of the distance is thereafter reckoned by Davidson and others as one thirty-day month instead of a solar year. The reason they give for the change is that in this new scale the first low passage ends at a point where the Pyramid-inch thirty-day month reckoning would give the date November 10, 1918. Hence, the great low passage would represent the Great War.
2. The sole entrance into the Great Pyramid is on the northern face, about 50 feet up the slope from the base, and off center exactly 286.1022 inches to the east. David Davidson, a British Israelite, terms this numerical value the "Displacement Factor" and considers it the key to the revelation of the Great Pyramid. (Worth Smith, Miracle of the Ages, pp. 69, 70)
By applying his own invention of the Displacement Factor, he counts this number of years (286.1022) back from the date defined by the Great Step, to find a suitable starting point for Britain's greatness, although there was no particular event to mark the date.
3. On the other hand, Francis M. Darter, a Latter-day Saint (Mormon), calls special attention to the Great Step as the marker of the organization of the Mormon Church in 1843-44. He arrives at. this conclusion by showing that exactly 286.1022 months before David Davidson's Great Step date, the Mormon prophet received his first vision and call, brought his work to a close and sealed it with his lifeblood in 1844. Thus, Darter steals David-son's argument entirely, and makes a better point than Davidson himself.
And so, we say with E. W. Marter: "And why should not everyone who cares to, make his own scale, choose his own dates, and prove his own theories?"
