Charles Taze Russell - how did the movement arise from which Jehovah’s Witnesses emerged?

Recognizable questions

- Have you ever experienced that a belief that once seemed very important later started to feel different, or even got let go of?

- Do you recognize the feeling of starting a search for truth with questions about doctrine, but along the way also beginning to see the influence of people and an organization?

- Have you ever noticed that a group you belonged to started thinking or acting differently over time than when you first joined it?

- Do you sometimes feel tension between what you would see as a loving God and teachings that feel harsh or hard to reconcile?

- Have you ever thought about how to tell whether something is really spiritual guidance, or mainly a human interpretation that later changes again?

Anyone who wants to understand the history of Jehovah's Witnesses has to go back to the United States of the nineteenth century.
Long before Kingdom Halls, the Governing Body, JW.org, and even before the name Jehovah's Witnesses existed, a small group of people in Pennsylvania came together to study the Bible.
One of them would play a decisive role:

Charles Taze Russell.

Jehovah's Witnesses do not now call Russell the founder of their religion. According to their own explanation, Jesus is the founder. At the same time, JW.org acknowledges that Russell took the lead among the early Bible Students in the Bible teaching work and was the first editor of The Watchtower.

Who was this man?
Where did his ideas come from?
And how much of what Russell believed at the time would a Jehovah's Witness still recognize today?

A young man who began to doubt

Charles Taze Russell was born in 1852 in Pennsylvania. As a young man, he was religious, but he struggled with several traditional Christian teachings. In particular, the teaching of eternal torment in a fiery hell was hard for him to reconcile with the idea of a loving God.
The official history of Jehovah's Witnesses also describes how Russell began to question his former religious beliefs and to reexamine the Bible.
His search brought him into contact with other Christians who were likewise engaged in Bible study, prophecy, and the second coming of Christ.
That is important for this history.

Russell did not develop his ideas in a vacuum

He lived in a period when various Protestant and Adventist movements were intensely focused on the question of when Jesus would return and how Bible prophecies should be interpreted.
For example, Russell came into contact with Adventist Nelson H. Barbour. According to Jehovah's Witnesses' own historical account, Russell read Barbour's magazine Herald of the Morning around 1876. Among other things, Barbour was concerned with Biblical time prophecies and the idea that Christ was present invisibly. Russell's Bible study group cooperated with Barbour's group for a time.
Later, Russell and Barbour developed a fundamental difference of opinion about Jesus' ransom sacrifice. Russell ended the cooperation.

A small group of Bible Students

Around 1870, a Bible study group formed in the Pittsburgh area in which Russell took on an important role.
The participants wanted to compare church teachings with what they themselves read in the Bible.
The current organization of Jehovah's Witnesses also describes its modern origin as a small group of Bible Students in the Pittsburgh area that began systematically studying the Bible. Another of its own publications even calls Russell “the driving force” behind that group.
The name Jehovah's Witnesses did not yet exist at the time.
The movement would become known as the Bible Students.
In English, Bible Students.
It is therefore not entirely historically accurate to simply call Russell the first Jehovah's Witness.
The movement from which Jehovah's Witnesses later emerged looked in important respects different under Russell than the organization does today.

1879 - Zion's Watch Tower

In July 1879, Russell took an important step. He started his own religious magazine:

Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence

About 6,000 copies of the first issue were distributed. Russell was editor and publisher. This is confirmed in Jehovah's Witnesses’ own historical publications.
The magazine would eventually grow into what we know today as The Watchtower.
Russell traveled around, gave lectures, and wrote extensively about his Bible-based insights. The movement grew.
An organization also emerged around publishing and distributing religious literature. In 1881, the Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society was formed, and in 1884 it was incorporated, with Russell as president. The name was later changed to Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.
Slowly, this laid the organizational foundation for a religious movement that would later grow worldwide.

The organization looked different back then

It is important not to project the current organization of Jehovah's Witnesses back onto Russell's time automatically.
The current Governing Body, for example, did not exist in the same form. The way congregations were organized and overseen also changed significantly later on.
That raises an interesting historical question:

How did a movement of Bible study groups eventually become a highly organized international faith community?

We'll come back to that in a future history article.

End times played an important role from the beginning

Russell was deeply involved with Bible chronology.
Even before 1914, that year was given great significance within the movement. So 1914 did not only become important in hindsight.
But it is important to be precise about what was actually expected.
As 1914 approached, there were expectations within the movement about major changes in God's timetable and the end of the so-called times of the Gentiles. Russell himself wrote in early 1914 that he did not know for certain what exactly would happen. Among other things, he expected manifestations of God's judgment and the disappearance of many, possibly all, existing institutions.
Not all expectations surrounding 1914 were realized as imagined. Jehovah's Witnesses’ later official history also acknowledges that expectations had to be adjusted.
Even so, 1914 remained a central year.
Within current Jehovah's Witness doctrine, 1914 is the year in which Christ began ruling as King in heaven.
We cover that topic in more detail in our article on end-time expectations.
But Russell used something else in his search for God's timetable as well.
Something that will probably be surprising to many current Jehovah's Witnesses.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

For many years, Russell believed that the Great Pyramid of Giza held significance for understanding God's purpose.
This does not come only from critics' publications or from former Jehovah's Witnesses.
Jehovah's Witnesses’ own history says that Russell believed for about 35 years that the Great Pyramid was God's “stone witness” and that the pyramid confirmed Bible time periods.
That makes this a particularly notable part of the history.
For in his search for prophetic chronology, Russell did not look solely at written Bible texts.
The dimensions and passages of an Egyptian pyramid were also given religious significance.

A 'stone witness'

Russell worked out these ideas in detail. The passages and dimensions of the Great Pyramid were linked to events and periods within Bible chronology.
For Russell, the structure was therefore more than an impressive remnant of ancient Egypt. In his view, it could serve as additional confirmation of God's timetable.
Today, Jehovah's Witnesses no longer teach this. Their own historical account explicitly states that this idea was abandoned.
And that is precisely what makes this historically interesting.

If a Jehovah's Witness today were to use the dimensions of the Great Pyramid to confirm Bible prophecy, would that still be seen as a reliable method?

Probably not.
Yet for about 35 years, such a thought played a role in the religious thinking of the man who led the early Bible Students.

Later, the pyramid doctrine was abandoned

After Russell's death, the movement changed further.
Under his successor Joseph Rutherford, the religious significance assigned to the Great Pyramid was eventually set aside.
Jehovah's Witnesses’ own historical account refers to The Watch Tower of November 15 and December 1, 1928 for the abandonment of this view.
That makes the pyramid more than just an interesting detail from the past.
It shows something we also encounter with other changes in religious beliefs:

A belief can be regarded for a long time as valuable spiritual insight and later be completely abandoned.

That gives rise to an interesting question:

How can you tell in the moment what is divine guidance and what later turns out to be a human interpretation?

A pyramid monument at his grave

There is another striking historical detail.
After Russell’s death, a large stone pyramid monument was placed in the cemetery where he was buried, in the section connected with the Watch Tower Society.
The pyramid monument was not Russell’s gravestone. His grave was nearby and had a separate headstone.
The monument was removed in 2021.
For the history of Russell’s own views on the pyramid, the monument is not proof in itself. Those views do not need to be proven through the monument: Jehovah’s Witnesses’ own historical publications directly confirm Russell’s long-standing belief in the Great Pyramid.

Was Russell the founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

The answer depends on what exactly is meant by founder.
Historically, Russell played a central role in the emergence and development of the movement from which Jehovah’s Witnesses later emerged.
The current organization frames this differently from its own faith perspective.
JW.org says that Russell took the lead in the early Bible educational work and was the first editor of The Watchtower, but that Jehovah’s Witnesses consider Jesus the founder of their organization.
Both points can stand side by side.

Historically:
Russell played a central role in the emergence and development of the Bible Student movement.

From Jehovah’s Witnesses’ current faith perspective:
Jesus Christ is considered the founder.

That distinction makes the history more accurate.

Russell was not a Jehovah’s Witness in the way we know them today

We cannot project all current doctrines, practices, and organizational structures back onto Russell.
The movement changed significantly after his death.
The organizational structure changed.
Doctrines changed.
Practices changed.
Some of Russell’s ideas disappeared.
Other ideas remained, but were given a different explanation.
And even the name Jehovah’s Witnesses did not yet exist during Russell’s lifetime.

That is why it is historically more accurate to say:

Charles Taze Russell was at the beginning of the Bible Student movement from which Jehovah’s Witnesses later emerged.

1916 - Russell dies

Charles Taze Russell died on October 31, 1916. He was 64 years old.
That brought the movement to an important crossroads.
Because what happens to a religious movement when the man who had played a central role for years suddenly disappears?
In January 1917, Joseph Franklin Rutherford was elected president of the Watch Tower Society.
Under Rutherford, the movement would change dramatically.
Not only organizationally.
Its identity, certain doctrines, the way of preaching, and eventually even the name changed.

1931 - the name Jehovah’s Witnesses

So Russell never called himself a Jehovah’s Witness in the sense of the later official group name.
He had been dead for nearly fifteen years when that name was adopted.
On July 26, 1931, during a convention in Columbus, Ohio, Rutherford presented the resolution A New Name. It decided that the group would henceforth be known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. JW.org itself describes this extensively in its history.
That is an important distinction when looking at the history:
Russell led the early Bible Students. The name Jehovah’s Witnesses was not adopted until 1931, under Rutherford.

From Bible Students to Jehovah’s Witnesses

Jehovah’s Witnesses did not arise in a single day.
There was no moment when Russell said:

‘Today I found Jehovah’s Witnesses.’

There was a development.
A young man began questioning existing church teachings.
He studied the Bible with others.
Bible study groups emerged.
A magazine was launched.
A publishing organization was formed.
An international movement emerged.
Biblical chronology and expectations about the end times played an important role.
The Great Pyramid found a place in Russell’s religious thinking.
Russell died.
Rutherford became president.
Certain ideas were abandoned.
Other doctrines continued to develop.
The organization changed.
And in 1931, the name Jehovah’s Witnesses was adopted.

A history of development

Perhaps that is the most interesting thing about Russell’s story.
He did not begin with the organization as Jehovah’s Witnesses know it today.
The movement and his interpretations developed.
And after his death, the movement continued to develop.
Some ideas remained. Others disappeared.
One of the most striking examples of this is the Great Pyramid. For about 35 years, Russell saw it as confirmation of Bible time periods. Later, the organization abandoned that explanation.

That is why two questions remain interesting:

How did the beliefs of a small group of Bible Students grow into a faith community of millions?

And:

How much of what Russell then saw as biblical truth would a Jehovah's Witness today still recognize as truth?

Sources and your own research

For EXJW.World, we think it is important that historical claims can be verified.
That is why, in this topic, we deliberately also use Jehovah's Witnesses’ own publications and history.

Russell and the rise of the movement

Jehovah's Witnesses explain on their own website what role Russell played according to them. They do not call him their founder, but they do acknowledge his leading role among the early Bible Students and his role as the first editor of The Watchtower.
JW.org - Who was the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses?

The origin of the Bible Students

Another publication by Jehovah's Witnesses calls Russell “the driving force” behind the early Bible study group and describes the founding of the Watch Tower organization.
Watchtower Online Library - Development and Growth in This Time

Zion's Watch Tower

Their own history states that in July 1879 the first issue of Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence appeared and that about 6,000 copies were distributed.
Watchtower Online Library - Small Beginnings 1879–1889

1914

The official history of Jehovah's Witnesses also discusses what Russell expected before and during 1914 and shows that he himself expressed some uncertainty about exactly what would happen.
JW.org - Testing and sifting from within

Russell and the Great Pyramid

Their own history explicitly says that Russell believed for about 35 years that the Great Pyramid was God's ‘stone witness’ and confirmed Bible time periods. It also says that Jehovah's Witnesses later abandoned this idea.
JW.org - Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom

The name Jehovah's Witnesses

JW.org describes how, under Rutherford at the convention in Columbus on July 26, 1931, the name Jehovah's Witnesses was adopted.
JW.org - We have proudly borne the name Jehovah's Witnesses for 90 years

Why we show sources

The history of a faith community can be sensitive.
That is why we want to make the distinction as clear as possible between what can be historically demonstrated, what Jehovah's Witnesses themselves write about their history, and what conclusion a reader then draws from it.
We do not want you to believe something because we say it.
Look at the sources. Read what was actually written. Compare different periods. And then draw your own conclusion.