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William Branham: Difference between revisions
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'''William Marrion Branham''' (April 8, 1908<ref>William Branham listed April 8, 1908 as his birthday on his marriage license to Hope Brumbach.</ref> – December 24, 1965) was a Christian evangelist who has been called the ''"pacesetter of the healing revival"'' <ref>The Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements: (Zondervan, 1988, p. 372) ~ ''Branham filled the largest stadiums and meeting halls in the world.’ ... As the pacesetter of the healing revival, Branham was the primary source of inspiration in the development of other healing ministries.''</ref> and a ''"prophet"''<ref>The Full Gospel Men's Voice Magazine (February, 1961) ~ ''"In Bible Days, there were men of God who were Prophets and Seers. But in all the Sacred Records, none of these had a greater record than that of William Branham."''</ref>. He was born in rural Kentucky, raised in Indiana, and in the 1940’s his healing ministry skyrocketed him from a rural pastor to an international evangelist. | |||
Some people take every word he spoke as having Divine Authority. Others consider him a compulsive liar. This account is based on both his recorded sermons, and as many historical documents as we could find. Any statements that can be substantiated by written historical documents are highlighted in bold. Hopefully this will let you decide for yourself whether he was a major prophet as he claimed to be. | |||
='''Early Life'''= | |||
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|'''Birthday Controversy''' <br> Learn more about William Branham's three birthdays. | |||
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'''Charles Branham and Ella Harvey were both born in 1887.'' They were 20 years old when William Branham was born on March 10, '''1907''' in Cumberland County, '''Kentucky'''. They were 21 years old when William Branham was born on '''April 8, 1908. William Branham’s younger brother Edward was born in 1909 (the 2010 Census document show Edward as being one year old)'''. William Branham also said that his mother Ella was fifteen on '''April 9, 1909''' when he was born under an alignment of stars, and that a pillar of light entered the shack and scared the midwife. | |||
'''The Branham family moved from Kentucky to Indiana when William Branham was a young boy.''' William Branham claimed this was his first fulfilled prophecy. Charles Branham was in trouble with the law at the time, which may explain why '''he used the name as “Brainon” on the 1910 Kentucky census records.''' | |||
William Branham’s father brewed his own moonshine and established a speakeasy in Indiana. While William Branham’s hatred for alcohol and women stemmed from this time of his life, he never stopped admiring the man who provided the booze and drew the crowd. | |||
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|''Evil Women Controversy''' <br> Learn more about William Branham's hatred for women. | |||
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:''My, I seen how they come when my daddy run that bootleg place. And I'd see women come there, young women, with somebody else's husband. And the way they would carry on…The only respect I had for any woman was my mother. And that's right. And I knowed she was a lady. I seen her set on the doorstep with the babies in her arms, and cry, and cry, and cry because she was locked out of the house. When my dad, which was a real man when he was sober.'' (William Branham, July 20, 1952) | |||
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|''Nazarite Controversy''' <br> What is a Nazarite vow? | |||
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William Branham said that he received two visions as a young boy in Indiana. The first was when his father asked him to haul water for the moonshine operations. William Branham said that a voice spoke to him out of a whirlwind in a tree and said, ''"Never drink, smoke, or defile your body in any way, for I have a work for you to do when you get older."'' By his own testimony, William Branham never drank alcohol in his life – other than in Church as part of communion. | |||
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|''The Bridge Controversy''' <br> Was this William Branham's first false prophecy? | |||
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William Branham also told of a second vision that happened a few weeks later when he was playing marbles with his brother. He said that he saw the construction of the Louisville Municipal Bridge being built across the Ohio River, and 16 men falling off to their death during its construction. He said the vision told him that this would take place 22 years from the time of the vision. The Louisville Municipal Bridge opened on October 31, 1929 which means that this vision took place either before William Branham was born or while he was an infant. | |||
When William Branham was 14 years old, he was shot in a hunting accident, and spent several months in the hospital. His hospital bills were paid for by the Ku Klux Klan. | |||
Charles Branham broke horses for Otto Wathen, and later became his private chauffer. Otto Wathen owned the R.E. Wathen Distillery as well as the Louisville Colonels baseball club. William Branham said that their family lived on Wathen’s residence for a time. | |||
William Branham recalls that compared to other families, the Branham's were poor. At school his shoes were often torn, and he would sometimes wear a closed jacket when he had no shirt to wear. William Branham also said that his father died when he was a young man, forcing him to drop out of school and become the bread-winner for the family. He did this successfully by hunting and trapping, where he learned to shoot straight in order to preserve costly ammunition. | |||
By 1926, William Branham had enough money to buy a brand new 1926 Ford. He also claimed to have been initiated as a hunter on a trip to New York’s Adirondack Mountains, where he hunted with the famous naturalist Burt Caul (who he said was mean, and had evil ‘lizard eyes’). | |||
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|''Poor Man Controversy''' <br> Was the Branham family actually poor? | |||
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Through his teenage years William Branham did not want to have anything to do with God, or church. It was during this time that a fortune teller told him that he was born under a rare alignment of stars. In 1928, he told his mother he was going camping in Tunnel Mill, Indiana, and left to work as a ranch-hand in Arizona. This was during the time of the construction of the Louisville Memorial Bridge, so William Branham was absent during its construction. He returned after he received news that his brother Edward had died on June 20, 1929 at the age of 19. Edward's funeral was taken by a close family friend, Rev. McKinney, who made a salvation call that William Branham refused. | |||
William Branham worked as a laborer, and as a collector for the Public Works Company in Jeffersonville in the early 1930’s. | |||
=Becoming a part of the Church= | |||
William Branham said that he was overcome by fumes while checking meters at the Gas Works in New Albany in 1931. When he went to a specialist, however, he was told that he had appendicitis and had to have an operation. Afraid, he requested a minister from the First Baptist Church to stand by him. During the time of the operation, he promised to preach the Gospel if God would restore his health. | |||
William Branham said that after this experience, he went into a field to pray, and saw a vision of a light that formed a cross. | |||
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|''Roy E. Davis & the K.K.K.''' <br> Who was Roy E. Davis? | |||
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One of the churches William Branham visited during his recovery was the First Pentecostal Baptist Church of Jeffersonville at 328 Watt Street, which was pastored by Rev. Roy Davis, a member of the Ku Klux Klan. It was here that William Branham first met Hope Brumbach (born July 16, 1913), who was a youth leader and speaker at the church, and a seamstress at M. Fine & Sons. | |||
Hope’s parents Charles and Hazel Brumbach divorced on November 1, 1931. Charles Brumbach quickly remarried to Grace Creigh February 15, 1932 and moved away from Jeffersonville to Fort Wayne, Indiana (a 3.5 hour drive from Jeffersonville on modern roads). | |||
William Branham went to ask Charles for Hope's hand in marriage after a sermon preached by Roy Davis after a Wednesday night sermon. They walked to her parent’s house from the church. William Branham said he stood on the porch of her parent’s home, and that he asked Charles if he could marry Hope while Hope remained inside and talked with her mother. | |||
Roy Davis preached strongly about the Pentecostal revival, and wrote that William Branham received the Holy Spirit in his front room. Owen Jorgensen records that it is at was in 1932 when William Branham first prayed for the sick: a Mr. Merril and a Mrs. Mary Der Ohanion were both healed that year. | |||
Even though William Branham said that he did not join a church, it was at this time that he became an elder in the First Pentecostal Baptist Church, and was president of the PBYPU (Pentecostal Baptist Young People) in March 1933. | |||
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|''The Ohio River Baptism''' <br> What happened on the river? | |||
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In June 1933, William Branham had his first evangelistic tent meetings, in which 14 people were converted. William Branham received front page news coverage for these meetings. William Branham said the newspapers reported that a light appeared while he was baptizing the 17th person on the Ohio River, while 10,000 people watched from the shore. | |||
William Branham | |||
William Branham said that he | William Branham said that in June 1933, he experienced a series of prophetic visions foretelling major events up until the end of the world. William Branham describes these visions inconsistently, but in summary they are: | ||
#Roosevelt would cause the whole world to go to war | |||
#Hitler would draw the world to war and beat up the Americans on the Siegfried line. | |||
#Mussolini’s last invasion would be into Ethiopia | |||
#One of the three ISMs would rise into power. (Fascism, Nazism or Communism) | |||
#Cars will be shaped like an egg. | |||
#American women will dress immodestly. | |||
#A cruel woman will rule the United States. | |||
#America will be ashes from coast to coast. | |||
#Don’t eat eggs or live in valleys. | |||
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|''A Baptist Minister?''' <br> Or was he a Pentecostal Minister? | |||
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William Branham also claimed to have started construction on the 'Pentecostal Tabernacle’ in Jeffersonville in 1933 (this later became known as the 'Branham Tabernacle'). However, the last advertisement for Roy Davis church in the Jeffersonville Evening News was on February 10, 1934, and William Branham said he was the assistant pastor of Roy Davis’ church at the time it burned down. Roy Davis then moved back to Texas. The first advertisement for William Branham’s church, The Pentecostal Tabernacle, appeared in the Jeffersonville Evening News appeared on August 17, 1935. | |||
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|''Is the Trinity OK?''' <br> A vision from heaven. | |||
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William Branham told of a vision he had on the morning he was laying the cornerstone for his new tablernacle. The vision was of an orchard, with places for new trees on either side of an aisle leading to the cross. Plum trees were on one side, and apple trees were on the other side, and both types of fruit were found in the cross. William Branham was instructed to walk between these trees (which he identified as the Trinitarian and Oneness Pentecostals), and do the work of an evangelist, as both types of fruit were found in the cross. Later in his ministry he began preaching that the Trinity and Oneness doctrines were of the devil – in direct violation of this early vision. | |||
William Branham | William Branham continued to work and preach, and married Hope Brumbach on June 22, 1934 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. | ||
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|''Mishawaka''' <br> Who did William Branham meet? | |||
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Already married, and a pastor of a Pentecostal church, William Branham travelled north to a town called Mishawaka, where he was received warmly by a group of mixed European-American and African-American Pentecostals. William Branham often said that these Mishawaka meetings were his first introduction to the Pentecostal faith. Without Roy Davis around to enforce his KKK agenda, William Branham began accepting a number of invitations to preach at various Oneness and mixed-race Pentecostal churches. | |||
=Early Ministry= | =Early Ministry= | ||
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<ref>Based on tract ''Jesus Christ the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever'' written and published by William Branham.</ref>. | |||
<ref>Edward Branham's death was reported on the front page of the Jeffersonville Evening News on Thursday, June 30, 1929, (http://searchingforvindication.com/assets/Bridge/19290620B.pdf)</ref> | |||
=='''References'''== | =='''References'''== | ||