The Timing of Cloud Events
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For years, followers of William Branham believed that he was hunting on February 28, 1963, the day the cloud appeared over Flagstaff. The timing of the Hunt and the CloudBased on the following testimonies of William Branham and his daughter, he met angels while hunting with Gene Norman and Fred Sothman after March 4th, 1963.
In the sermon “Shalom” (January 19, 1964), William Branham said that the picture of a large, mysterious cloud in the May 1963 issue of Life magazine caught the Angels’ flight (or evidence of the angel’s flight) on camera. This statement does not seem to agree with the facts as:
Another interesting fact is that there was not just one cloud, but two. The second cloud is noted in the Life Magazine, and appears in a smaller photograph off to the north-west. Comments by Peter DuyzerPeter Duyzer is the author of the book, Legend of the Fall. This is required reading for any true student of William Branham's life and ministry. The following are excerpts from Peter Duyzer's book relating to the timing of the Cloud and are used by permission of the author: The next event used by WMB, and continuing to be used by his followers, is the much publicized story surrounding WMB’s messages series called The Revelation of the Seven Seals. On Feb. 28, 1963, a cloud was seen high in the skies over Arizona. At first no one knew what caused the cloud, though science later established it was caused by debris of a detonated rocket. ...In essence, WMB claimed that, on Feb. 28, 1963, he was picked up by a constellation of seven angels, while hunting Javelinas. He was thereby commissioned to reveal the mysteries of the Seven Seals. This claim cannot be substantiated. WMB was in Houston, TX, and he had no idea about any “mystery” cloud until after he preached his series. Here is how that looks:
Already in 1978, this author published a series of pamphlets. One of which, A Cloud Of Mystery?, challenged the dates of WMB hunting trip and the seven angels picking WMB up. There has since been a “spiritualization” of the events. WMB’s daughter Rebekah Branham Smith, now deceased, in Only Believe, states that her father experienced this in the spirit before it happened on earth.
Next to examine is this date of Feb. 28, 1963. Was WMB hunting and being picked up in this constellation of angels on Thursday, Feb. 28, 1963? Here is what is known: WMB was in Houston, TX, on Monday night, March 4, 1963. This is his testimony:
What were those other arrangements? By Branham's own admission it was the Javelina hunt. On July, 25, 1965 he said,
back. I went up the mountain to hunt. WMB was hunting Javelina hogs. ...This author testifies here that he, upon hearing what WMB said, was in shock. He realized that what he had heard had serious consequences for WMB and for himself as a follower. He phoned the [Arizona Game and Fish Department] and personally spoke to a Ms. Maria Rodriguez. This was done to see if there were exceptions made to the regulations, or if perhaps someone could have had a special Javelina permit. According to Ms. Rodriguez, that year no special permits were granted. The Javelina season was from March 1 through March 10, 1963, inclusive. This was a life changing discovery for this author. WMB drove back from Houston to Tucson right after he preached, which brought him back to Tucson, in the afternoon of Wednesday, March 6, 1963. After all, it is about 1,100 miles (1,760 KMs). On the second day of his hunt, Thursday, March 7, 1963, WMB shot his hog, and on the third day, Friday, March 8, 1963, he claimed the angels appeared. This has now been confirmed by an article in Only Believe, Vol. 5, No. 1. As stated earlier, On March 17, he mentioned another "vision" he had in Sabino Canyon. He said the "vision" occurred a "week, or ten days ago..." or around March 7, to March 10, which would fit the hunting dates. Again, as shown earlier, on March 24, 1963 the vision is once again mentioned: Notice, there's witnesses of three sitting here, that a week ago,(a little over a week ago) I was up way back into the mountains, nearly to Mexico... When the date of Feb. 28, 1963, is used, there are a number of serious problems. One, of course, is that WMB would've been hunting one day out of season, which is a serious offence. This author judges that WMB, as an ex-game warden and an avid outdoorsman, would not have poached. This is what WMB said on March 23, 1963, about poachers, There's some genuine men, but there's just one of a thousand that you can find. Shoot anything that they can see, anyway they want to, that's right-that's a murderer. That's right. He's heartless. He'll shoot out of season. WMB said the blast took place in the morning. Yet the actual cloud appeared in theevening. On June 23, 1963, WMB preached a message, in which he said, I had to go to Houston about getting that little boy saved from the electric chair. And then I wentback and I went hunting up there with the brethren. And that morning, I was standing there picking ...burrs off of my trouser leg. And the blast did just exactly the way it is said ...and just above me was the Angels of the Lord that sent Message back, for me to come here to break theSeals...I didn't know at the time, that they were taking pictures of that...I didn't know they were taking a picture of It, 'cause immediately I hurried east. WMB left Tucson on March 13, to return to Jeffersonville. This date fits with the more realistic hunting date of March 8. The cloud appeared over Flagstaff, which is about 260 miles NNW of Tucson. From where WMB was hunting, 40 miles NE of Tucson, which is 200+ miles away, the cloud appears quite flat. A photo of the cloud taken from about 160 SE from Flagstaff does not at all look like the picture in Life Magazine. What is known, so far?
Christ'. This author first challenged the hunting dates back in 1978. ...Subsequent to publishing of the pamphlets, some of WMB’s followers have changed the story. It is now agreed that WMB, on Feb. 28, 1963, was not near the site where the constellation appeared. Now it is stated that WMB had his ' angelic' experience on March 8, 1963, which flies in the face of what WMB himself always said. WMB tied his experience to the cloud of Feb. 28, 1963. Only Believe now has WMB saying that the cloud appeared before the actual event. God always shows His major events first in the heavens. That means the ‘angels’ did not, on Feb. 28, 1963, pick him up into the constellation. Thus, they did not then give him the revelation of the Seven Seals. Some of those present during these alleged events were phoned by this author and a friend. When asked if they had seen anything, they replied in the negative. They were truthful. WMB had his alleged Sabino Canyon experience subsequent to the hunt. In this vision he cried out, unsuccessfully, to know the meaning of the vision of the angels. Shortly thereafter, on March 13, 1963, he left to preach the Seven Seals in Jeffersonville, IN. WMB, already in late January, had told his son Billy Paul to start mailing out notices for a series of services on 'The Revelation Of The Seven Seals' to be held at the Branham Tabernacle during the week of Mar. 17 – Mar. 24, 1963. The general attitude of WMB was that these revelations were "THUS SAITH THE LORD", and thus vindicated his ministry. That makes it difficult for some to judge those revelations objectively, by the Bible. However, believers like the Bereans, ought to check if these things line up with Scripture. The above discussions regarding the cloud raise some real difficulties with this being the vindication to WMB's ministry. They neither establish him, nor his claims, as true. Followers of WMB have a host of ‘supernatural’ pictures of the ‘pillar of fire’ or ‘the angel’. Some of them appear to simply be reflections of camera flashes in windows. Others appear to be caused by ‘leakage’ in the cameras taking the pictures. None of them would suggest anything supernatural. The ninth alleged angelic commissions, occurring as a “halo” in 1950, and his tenth of being taken up in a constellation of seven angels in 1963, cannot be substantiated by his own messages. That, in turn, means that not a single one of his ten commissions can be substantiated. WMB based his ministry claims on these and that is a serious problem. If there is no messenger there is no message. WMB’s ministry is without foundation. [In his book, Peter Duyzer reproduces a copy of the Arizona Game and Fish Department's Javelina hunt regulations for March 1 through March 10, 1963.] As stated prior, this author has personally spoken to Ms. Maria Rodriguez at the Arizona Game and Fish Department, and Ms. Rodriguez stated that, “No exceptions were made to the regulations and no special permits were granted and the regular Javalina season was from March 1 through March 10, 1963. That this is, in fact, a scanned document and can be verified by the spelling mistake of the word “license,”* which has been left as is. The original is in the author’s possession.
John Kennah's comments on timingThe following are comments on the timing of the Cloud by John Kennah (used by permission): Followers of the Message who acknowledge that the Cloud of February 28, 1963 could not have been photographed at the time of Wm. Branham’s hunting trip refer to this single quote as proof that he never said the Cloud in LIFE was the same Cloud he saw while hunting at Sunset Peak. In spite of the fact that he has stated in approximately 25 different occasions that the Cloud in LIFE was indeed formed by the seven angels at the time they commissioned him during his hunting trip, Message believers hang their revised interpretations of events on a single ambiguous quote which appears in this week’s “Quote of the Week.” The sentence that is used to negate the long established belief (27+ years) that the February 28th Cloud coincided with Wm. Branham’s hunting trip is the following:
To many Message believers today, this quote is used to reinterpret over two dozen statements Wm. Branham made between June 23, 1963 and December 4, 1965 where he unambiguously stated that the Cloud that appeared in LIFE magazine was nothing less than a photographic depiction of the angels as they appeared to him while hunting. One seemingly ambiguous statement vs. over two dozen clear statements. What did Wm. Branham mean when he made this single statement that would rewrite Message history?
Message believers say that this statement proves that Wm. Branham said that the Cloud was not formed while he was hunting. They claim he was saying that the Cloud in LIFE appeared either a day or two before, or a day or two after he was hunting at Sunset Peak when the angels appeared to him, but nowhere in between. In other words, they believe he said the Cloud really appeared either before or after he was hunting, but definitely not on the same day. That makes little sense. If the Cloud appeared a day or two after he was hunting, that would have meant it didn’t appear until a day or two after he had left Sunset Peak. This would have placed the date at March 10 or 11, according to the dates of the hunting trip that appear in Rebekah Smith’s June 1992 article in Only Believe magazine. I don’t know of a single Message believer who thinks the Cloud was formed after the angels visited him. Besides, there is too much documentation to suggest that the February 28 date of the Cloud’s appearance is wrong. But, if the Cloud was formed a day or two before he was hunting, that would have meant that it really appeared on March 4 or 5. Again, it's not arguable that the Cloud appeared on any date other than February 28. “...'[B]out day or two before or, day or two after...”. The very quote they’ve interpreted to prove that the Cloud in LIFE was not what Wm. Branham saw at Sunset Peak really indicates that Wm. Branham had no idea when the Cloud appeared in relation to his hunting trip. Instead of supporting their case, this quote actually contradicts what they want it to say. So what did he mean by his statement?
If one examines his remarks in context of the entire quote, Wm. Branham isn’t saying that the Cloud was not formed when he was hunting. He is laying the groundwork for the eventual claim that the Cloud in LIFE was indeed photographed at the same time and place he was hunting javelina with his two friends. In this statement, he was saying in effect, “I looked at the date of when the Cloud was photographed and noticed that I was there at about that same time!” The implication being that it was formed at the same time he was hunting at Sunset Peak. The next time he mentioned the Cloud three weeks later, he is not the least ambiguous:
Just five days later, he said,
To those who follow the Message, one seemingly ambiguous statement has negated 25 quotes and nearly 30 years of what this Cloud was said to represent by Wm. Branham’s followers (including a revised edition of the book, The Acts of the Prophet, by Pearry Green, with the only changes being the events surrounding the Cloud). I believe that this statement, when read in context and compared with 25 others, clearly shows Wm. Branham’s intent was that his followers believe that the Cloud was formed by the 7 angels when they commissioned him while he was hunting javelina on February 28, 1963--something which has been proven by Message believers such as Rebekah Smith and accepted by Message believers worldwide to have been an impossibility. Previous Errors in Belief Relating to the Timing of the CloudHere is what Billy Paul said in the original preface to the book, The Revelation of the Seven Seals:
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