Summary of the discussion
This is an essay analyzing William Branham's Seven Visions of 1933. It was written by a former message follower.
Click on the links below to go to a specific section within the essay. You are currently on the topic below that is in bold:
An Introduction to the Analysis of the Seven Visions of 1933
What were the Seven Visions?
How many Visions?
Why were the Visions given?
Why did the Visions fail to change men’s religious ideas?
A Comparison of the 1960 Sermon and the Church Age Book
A Critique of each Vision
- Mussolini
- Hitler
- Three ISMs
- Scientific progress
- Women and morals
- Powerful Woman in America
- America destroyed
The Prediction
The sequence of the visions
Two views of the Seven Visions
Summary of the discussion
Summary of the discussion
It is almost universally accepted that the Church Age book version of the visions is definitive. There are good reasons for this view and these have been itemised. The question then is how can the variations which suffuse the sermons be explained? The standard view is that they aren’t variations at all because everything that was said over time constitutes the original visions. But this ‘all inclusive’ view means that an explanation has to be given for, what is then, the truncated version in the Church Age Book. An explanation is also required for the failure on many occasions to fully quote the vision. Sensible explanations have not been proposed.
It is not possible to have two versions of one vision. This means that the variations have to be seen as ad hoc additions and modifications. A sensible explanation for how they arose has not been proposed.
The visions were not recorded in 1933, at least not in a form that was accessible to the general public. It was mandatory that they be recorded and published for them to have the intended effect – that people would be convinced of the truth of the approaching end times. A sensible explanation for this failure to publish has not been proposed.
William Branham said that he did record the visions and that they were circulated ‘around the world’. There is no evidence that this is true. A sensible explanation for his statements has not been proposed.
The first three visions were revealed post fact which means that they cannot be regarded as prophecies. This situation arises from the failure to publish. There are factual errors in the visions. True visions cannot, by definition, contain errors. A sensible explanation for these errors has not been proposed.
William Branham claimed as early as 1960 and as late as 1964 that the first 5 visions had been fulfilled. The third vision, ‘Three ISMs’ was never fulfilled and the fourth, announcing driverless cars, has still not been fulfilled even though he claimed at least 5 times during the 60s that ‘they’ve got the car’. A sensible explanation for these claims has not been proposed.
The visions that haven’t been ‘fulfilled’ are unlikely ever to be fulfilled.
The timing statement indicated that the visions were given to demonstrate that the coming of the Lord was ‘drawing nigh’. The’ Mussolini’ and ‘Hitler’ visions would have been fulfilled by 1945 and the ‘Three ISMs’ a year or so later as the political landscape in Europe settled. ‘Driverless cars’ were slated for the years after World War II, say 1955. The lapse of morals and the rise of the Catholic Church could have been observed shortly after and Russia since the mid-1950s has had the capacity to destroy America. In hind sight, all of these visions could have been fulfilled by 1965 and this could modestly have been said to equate to ‘drawing nigh’ from the perspective of 1933 (32 years).
However, ‘drawing nigh’ cannot be interpreted as equating to 86 years (2019) and certainly cannot be equated to whatever future date would see all of the visions being actually fulfilled (remembering that some of them almost certainly cannot be fulfilled).
In short, there are insurmountable problems in claiming that these visions were given by God. They have been mismanaged, misquoted, have not been fulfilled and have been shown to be in error.
The reader now needs to consider the implications of this situation as regards trust in the Message that was brought and in the Messenger.