Volume 34, No.4, Dec. 2023
How 535-542 AD Changed the World
Introduction to the Dark Ages Occasionally, a natural event has a dramatic effect on the world. Recent discovery shows how it shifted power from Constantinople back to Rome. A catastrophic volcanic eruption in 535-536 AD made 536 and 541 the worst years for trees in the past two millennia. [1] The effects were worldwide, as told by writers in Italy, Constantinople, and China. Sulfate spikes [...]
True Christians in the Middle Ages
The Beliefs and History of the Albigenses Editor’s Note — The following contribution significantly updates the scholarship on the Albigenses found in the “Man of Sin” chapter of The Time is at Hand, Studies in the Scriptures, Volume 2. Departing from our usual literary style, the investigation of current scholarship by Bro. Timothy Krupa is based on visiting the Cathar Museum in Mazamet, France, [...]
Gnostic Belief
A background to Gnosticism, as an editorial adjunct to the previous article Shortly before our Lord’s birth, Gnostic belief emerged. It was a mixture of Judaism that was awed by Platonic Greek Philosophy but departed from both sacred Biblical text and Platonism. Gnosticism set forth a basic tenet of error — that all creation excepting the inaccessible divine creator was an amalgam of spirit [...]
Joel 2:28,29
The Prophet Joel The interpretation of these two verses is, at the very least, difficult! As we will discern, Bro. Russell is likely the only interpreter to grasp the layout and prophetic sequencing within these verses. Jewish translations (and a very few gentile ones) begin Joel Chapter 3 with the verse we have as 2:28. This includes: Soncino Tanach (Stone), Tanach (JPS), Leeser, New [...]