Can YOU identify this photo (1914 Rapture?)

AlphaOmega

I need help identifying the source of this photo, which purports to show the Watchtower Crowd going up to the top of the Mount of Olives in 1914 awaiting the rapture.

alt

I would like to show this photo to several JWs along with the article in the October 8 1968 AWAKE, which says...

True, there have been those in times past who predicted an ‘end to the world’, even announcing a specific date. Some have gathered groups of people with them and fled to the hills or withdrawn into their houses waiting for the end.Yet nothing happened. The ‘end’ did not come. They were guilty of false prophesying. Why? What was missing?.. Missing from such people were God’s truths and evidence that he was using and guiding them.

However, I won't show them the photo if I can't verify its source, as it will likely be dismissed as a trick.

Does anyone know where it comes from? I mailed the owner/admin of the UK Quotes site where this photo is hosted but haven't had a response.

THANKYOU

poppers

They sure look like the "happiest people in the world."

AlphaOmega

They sure look like the "happiest people in the world."

That might have something to do with the fact that in 1914 people had to stay still for 9 hours in order to get a photo that was in focus.

("slight" exageration)

journey-on

I wish women's hats were still fashionable.....I love them.

(Sorry....just talking. Don't know where the photo came from. Too bad the generation that saw 1914 is dying off! Maybe one of them would know.)

juni

Sorry Alpha. Do not know its source.

It would be interesting to know wouldn't it?

Juni

Looks like a real geniune photo, but no way was this taken in 1914, and neither did Russell await the rapture on the Mount of Olives. I think instead there is an anecdote from one of the Bethel longtimers on his attitude on the day in which he thought the Gentile Times would end, and the story puts him at Bethel. There is a story that Russell waited for the rapture in 1874 on a prominent bridge in Philadelphia, but I don't know if it is true (since this was a common thing reported about Second Aventists in the 1870s, it may be an urban legend). The story that claims that Russell waited for the end at the Brooklyn Bridge in 1914 is plainly derivative of this story. FYI, Russell ceased all international trips when the war began in 1914, and his visits to the Holy Land occurred in 1891 and 1910 (he also visited Egypt in 1912). Looks like the photo was probably taken on the 1910 trip.

Leolaia

If that is really Malcolm Rutherford, then the woman he is turned towards is probably Mary Rutherford....if so, this would be the first photo I've seen of her. However, I have some doubts that it is Malcolm...he would not have been born by the time of the 1891 trip and he was about 16 years old by the time of the 1910 trip, and we have another picture of him from around this time, and he was considerably older than the boy here.

ozziepost

Or a picture taken on a hill with a large backdrop?

Just what is that at the top of the picture? I s'pose it's a tear?

jwfacts

Does anyone have a scan of the 1968 Awake article, I have seen the quote written in a couple of different ways and I would like to be able to confirm exactly what it says.

Leo, this is from Faith on the March in regards to the Bridge experience.

“Expecting the Lord Jesus to come in 1878 to catch them up miraculously to be with him in heaven, some who had been Second Adventists (including Barbour) were disappointed when that miracle did not occur. Russell, though, "did not for a moment feel cast down," but "realized that what God had so plainly declared must some time have a fulfillment"; and he "wanted to have it just in God's time and way."

On one occasion while talking with Russell about the events of 1878, I told him that Pittsburgh papers had reported he was on the Sixth Street bridge dressed in a white robe on the night of the Memorial of Christ's death, expecting to be taken to heaven together with many others. I asked him, "Is that correct?"

Russell laughed heartily and said: "I was in bed that night between 10:30 and 11:00 P.M. However, some of the more radical ones might have been there, but I was not. Neither did I expect to be taken to heaven at that time, for I felt there was much work to be done preaching the Kingdom message to the peoples of the earth before the church would be taken away."

ozziepost

BTW there's great depth of field in the photograph but I'm not sure they were 'up to that' in the period in question.

(Notice the background is out of focus.)

Can YOU identify this photo (1914 Rapture?)

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