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| :''The most plausible theory as to the cause of the accident is thus given by one of the survivors, Louis Crouch, and his story receives not a little credence from the Superintendent of the work. Knox, the foreman, had been seen near the key which controls the air supply, and it is believed that he cut off the air more than he really intended to, causing the caisson to sink into the sand.'' | | :''The most plausible theory as to the cause of the accident is thus given by one of the survivors, Louis Crouch, and his story receives not a little credence from the Superintendent of the work. Knox, the foreman, had been seen near the key which controls the air supply, and it is believed that he cut off the air more than he really intended to, causing the caisson to sink into the sand.'' |
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| ==Problem 4: William Branham's Reference was to the Municipal Bridge==
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| In a phone conversation with Pearry Green, he told us that William Branham stood underneath the Municipal bridge, and pointed out the exact section of the bridge that fell into the river. That is the reason that Pearry specifically points out on the video clip the exact section of the bridge that he said fell into the river and which resulted in the deaths of 16 men.
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| The problem is not in Pearry Green's retelling of the story - he did not grow up in Jeffersonville and had no reason to doubt William Branham. The problem lies with William Branham's prophecy and the story that he used to prove its fulfillment. There is no historic indication that any section or portion of the Municipal Bridge fell into the Ohio river or that anyone died in its construction, other than the two men whose deaths were reported in the newspapers.
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| =never happened).
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| =Excuses for the failed vision=
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| Are you looking for a simple and easy way to ignore the facts above? If so, this is called [[Cognitive Dissonance|cognitive dissonance]]. It is a term that explains why intelligent people will often settle for answers that are not reasonable, in order to ignore the real issue.
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| ==The failed interpretation theory==
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| The followers of Junior Jackson, who are on the fringes of the message in that they reject some of William Branham's plain teaching, have a theory that William Branham simply misinterpreted the municipal bridge vision. However, this theory has several problems:
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| ===A lack of biblical precedence===
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| As proof for this theory, the Jr. Jackson followers quote a portion of Acts 10:17 which reads:
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| :''Now while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean...<ref>The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ac 10:17.</ref>
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| But they fail to address the fact that it quickly became very clear to Peter what the vision meant. In fact, all that one has to do is to read Acts chapters 10 and 11 to understand the meaning of the vision.
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| As a result, we can conclude that the use of Acts 10:17 to justify William Branham's failed vision is in itself an act of deception.
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| ===William Branham lied about the interpretation===
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| As indicated above, William Branham stood underneath the Municipal bridge, and indicated to Pearry Green the exact section of the bridge that fell into the river. But this was a lie!
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| William Branham's prophecy and the story that he used to prove its fulfillment are both false. The was not simply an incorrect interpretation. The story of fulfillment that William Branham told was false.
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| ==The "suicide" theory==
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| This theory holds that William Branham did not have the correct interpretation of the municipal bridge vision:
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| #William Branham was living in Arizona during the construction of the bridge and so was not aware that there were only 2 fatalities in the construction of the bridge.
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| #He was also confused by stories relating to the construction of the Big Four Bridge in which a number of people did die.
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| #Based on these bad facts, he incorrectly interpreted the vision.
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| #The correct interpretation of the vision is found in the fact that many people have died committing suicide by jumping from the bridge.
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| The problem with this "interpretation" of the vision is that it ignores some of the details that William Branham provided with respect to the vision:
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| :''...Sixteen men dropped off in—into the water and perished. And '''I seen a big sign, it said “twenty-two years.”''' I run in and told my mother. Oh, she said, “Son, you’re nervous. You went to sleep and you were dreaming.” I said, “No. No. I saw it.” So they wrote it down on a piece of paper. And twenty-two years from then, the great bridge crossed the river, and twen—sixteen men dropped off of it and—and drowned in the river. Every time, it’s perfect.<ref>55-0626A - My Life Story</ref>
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| William Branham saw a big sign that said "twenty-two years."
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| As a result, we must conclude that this flawed attempt to "correctly" interpret the vision also fails to answer the fundamental problems with any proposed theory for the fulfillment of the vision.
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| ==William Branham was young when he had the vision==
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| If William Branham was young when he had the vision, perhaps he simply forgot it or misremembered it. Kids forget a lot of things and get memories messed up. That would explain why the vision was not fulfilled properly.
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| If this is the case, then it could still be fulfilled in the future, when the bridge is being repaired
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| There are several problems with this explanation:
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| 1. Why would God give a vision to a child but not give him the ability to remember it?
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| 2. William Branham said that the people that heard him give the vision wrote it down.
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| 3. William Branham said, '''as an adult''', that the vision was fulfilled. The problem is that he is attesting to something that was not true. '''Why did he say that 16 men died on the bridge, when they didn't?'''
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| ==The 1937 Flood destroyed all of the historical archives==
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| This was the position of Voice of God Recordings until a blog called [[Searching for Vindication]] destroyed this as a plausible theory. While it is true that some archives were damaged, complete archived copies of the Jeffersonville Newspapers and the Coast Guard log books remain preserved.
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| Also, does anyone actually believe that the wives, children and parents of the families of 16 men who died would allow their memories to be forgotten? Not in America.
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| ==The vision properly relates to the Ohio River Flood of 1937==
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| This excuse basically says that only one small element of the vision was true - that the vision was fulfilled 22 years after he saw it. But this would mean that virtually everything else about the vision was false.
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| ==The vision properly relates to the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia==
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| This explanation is only possible if you go beyond the realms of reasonableness ([[Cognitive Dissonance|cognitive dissonance]] again).
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| The rationale for the Sydney Harbour bridge being the actual object of the prophecy is as follows:
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| #16 people were killed in the construction of the bridge.
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| #The bridge was opened in March 1932 and if you roll back 22 years, that takes you to about the time that William Branham was born.
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| #William Branham never mentioned the Municipal Bridge in the original vision.
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| Proponents of this wild theory don't consider the following:
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| #In the FIRST recorded retelling of the vision in 1948 (48-0302), William Branham specifically refers to the municipal bridge.
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| #While 16 people did die in the construction of the Sydney Harbour bridge, only 2 of these people died from falling off the bridge. William Branham clearly stated that he saw 16 people fall from the bridge.
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| #William Branham stated that he had the vision when he was 5 or 6 years old, so 22 years later would put the Sydney Bridge deaths much too early in time.
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| #William Branham clearly stated that he saw the bridge spanning the river but the Sydney Harbour bridge goes across a narrow part of an inlet (i.e. its over the ocean, not a river).
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| ==The men drowned in concrete==
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| John "Jack" Vissing, the son of the late Richard Vissing, a former mayor of Jeffersonville, stated that:
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| :''My father was 14 when the bridge opened in 1929, and had sat in the car with his cousin for 12 hours waiting for the ribbon to be cut so they could be the first to drive across the bridge that linked Jeffersonville to Louisville, Kentucky. My father was given a bronze medallion that day at the ceremony to commemorate the bridge opening. I still have that medallion.
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| :''The story of the bridge collapse was not given to me by my Dad or by Brother Billy, but by my grandmother, Maud, and by a lady named Dorothy Phillips. She was about my dad’s age and went to church with us at St. Luke’s United Church of Christ. She was telling me about being a little girl watching the construction from the river bank. Remember, that although the depression had not “officially” begun, things were not very good economically in Jeffersonville at that time. Many people had no diversions, and spent time watching the construction of this bridge, as I am sure Brother Billy and my dad did as well. Dorothy recalled seeing scaffolding up around the piling in the first water pile, and she recalled it collapsing while there was a major cement pour and she saw men falling into the cement who were never removed. It was a tragedy at the time, and many people were appalled.
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| ===Problem #1 - The age of Jack's grandmother===
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| I called Jack Vissing regarding questions that I after reviewing his story about his grandmother. In my conversation with Jack Vissing, he stated that it was his grandmother who had witnessed this as a young girl.
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| If so, this is a clear case of Jack Vissing getting the Big Four bridge confused with the Municipal Bridge.''' If Jack's father was 14 in 1929, then it is obvious that his grandmother could not have been a young girl at the same time. However, she would have been a young girl in 1895, when the Big Four bridge had 3 different fatal accidents as noted above. Also, the 16 men that died in the construction of the caissons (on two separate occasions) would appear to be very close the description of the accident that she saw.
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| ===Problem #2 - Nothing reported in the newspapers===
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| Jack states that "t was a tragedy at the time, and many people were appalled."
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| If this was widespread knowledge at the time it happened, '''why was it not reported in the local papers when two other deaths made the front page?'''
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| If sixteen men died, how could this be kept secret given the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and wives of the people that supposedly died. How would you keep all of them quiet?
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| There were two men who did die in the construction of the municipal bridge and whose deaths made the front page of the Jeffersonville newspaper. The fact that there was no reporting of these deaths argues for it never having happened. Again, we think Jack's grandmother confused this with the death of the men on the Big Four bridge.
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| ===Problem #3 - The myth of men drowning in concrete===
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| From an engineering perspective, this story is so implausible it is funny. But that is the lengths that people will go to because of [[Cognitive Dissonance|cognitive dissonance]].
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| This story is also told with respect to the construction of the Hoover Dam. The story goes that a number of workers were entombed in concrete as the pour couldn't be stopped and they were left dead in the concrete. However, this has been proved to have been not possible. There is an article on this subject on the [https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/bodies-hoover-dam/ Ripley's Believe It or Not] website.
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| The reasons that clearly indicate that it COULD NEVER happen are as follows:
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| #The structural integrity of the concrete would fail with even one body in it, let alone sixteen. The concrete pier would have crumbled and collapsed a long time ago. The reason for this is that the human body decomposes in concrete and leaves a massive air pocket. Imagine that there are sixteen such large air pockets. The bridge pilon would have collapsed after a few years.
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| #Rebar is used extensively in concrete to provide strength. This means there is no room for a single body to be submerged in the concrete. Could sixteen bodies have been submerged? It is impossible.
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| #This would have been reported in the engineers' report.
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| ===Problem #3 - Jack's client is Voice of God Recordings===
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| We talked on the phone with Jack Vissing and he confirmed that that Voice of God Recordings was a client of his law firm. Would you trust the testimony of a man who was getting paid by the people he was testifying for? This is clearly a conflict of interest.
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| If you are interested in further detailed research on this vision, you should go to the [[Searching for Vindication]] website.
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| =Video Script= | | =Video Script= |