Archived Posts Regarding Pearry Green's, The Acts of the Prophet Pearry Green was my pastor during the 10 years I followed the Message. He was a prominent figure in the Message from the mid 1960's until his death in 2015. During that time he pastored one of the largest churches in the Message, Tucson Tabernacle. In 1969 he published a book on the life of William Branham titled, The Acts of the Prophet. In the course of the next 45 years he would publish 3 revisions of his book (1993, 2011, 2014). Between 2001 and 2015 I wrote a series of posts discussing many problems I had with his book and its various revisions at our discussion forum, "Examining the Message of William Branham". Below are some of those posts which I thought were important to include in this Website.
May 3, 2001
Excerpts from the first edition of Pearry Green's book, Acts of the Prophet, regarding the Cabin/ Cave controversy:
"Now in the book A Man Sent From God there is mention made (as Brother Branham himself often stated) that he was at the ranger's cabin at Green's Mill. That cabin no longer stands; it has deteriorated and rotted to the ground. Brother Branham, speaking on his tape Life Story did not tell all the little details, as he told his wife and children, and as he told me personally; but where he went that night [May 7, 1946], though at the ranger's cabin, was in a little cave near the cabin." (Page 67)
"I hope that this is not a stumbling block to some who felt that, since Brother Branham said, "at the ranger's cabin," and because he mentions the word "floor," and looking out the "window," that he must have been inside a cabin. Since no one has seen the cave, we don't know what it looks like, except from the description. But he told me that he was in the cave when the angel appeared to him on May 7, 1946." (Page 68. Original text is not in bold print -- JK)
Pearry Green must have forgotten the other little details, such as "wooden boards on the floor," and "little old drum stove sitting in the corner."
July 17, 2001
Letter from John Kennah to Pearry Green re: Cloud chapter in 1993 revision to The Acts of the Prophet:
Pearry Green is pastor of the Message church, Tucson Tabernacle and is the author of a biography of William Branham titled, Acts of the Prophet. In the 1969 version of his book, Pastor Green explains in the chapter titled, "The Cloud," that a supernatural cloud was formed by 7 Angels while Mr. Branham hunted javelina with two friends on February 28, 1963. In the 1993 revision, Pastor Green removes all mention of the Cloud having been formed at the time of Mr. Branham's hunting trip, stating that Mr. Branham's hunting trip actually occurred 7 days after the Cloud's appearance. His revision actually "clouds" the issue of the Cloud's origin from a Message believer's perspective. I wrote a letter to Pastor Green concerning his revised explanation of the Cloud's appearance. It says, in part:
June 15, 2001
Dear Bro. Green,. . . I recently obtained a copy of your 1993 revision and read the chapter titled, “The Cloud.” I noticed that your 1993 edition is virtually identical to the original version. Although it’s almost identical in wording, it’s far from identical in meaning. Having removed every reference to the Cloud being formed by the seven angels when they appeared to Brother Branham, you have left the reader with no explanation for the Cloud at all! Since you do not accept that the Cloud was formed by the angels while Brother Branham was hunting, you are rejecting Brother Branham’s explanation for its existence. He was quite clear in his contention that the Cloud was formed by the angels during his hunting trip to Sunset. This is evident in the first edition of your book where you ended the chapter on the Cloud by saying, “I have been told by a man whom I believe to be a prophet of God for this age, Brother William Branham, that seven angels came to him and revealed the mysteries of the seven seals of the book of Revelation, caught him up into their midst, and leaving him, formed the cloud. I have no reason to doubt this explanation.” It seems you now have found a reason to doubt this explanation just as Dr. McDonald did. It now appears that the only reason you now believe it to be supernatural is that, in yours and Bro. Branham’s opinion, there is no scientific explanation for it.
I believe that your chapter on “The Cloud” should be retracted, or at least needs further revision. Having admitted that the Cloud did not appear in the way Brother Branham said it did, your discussion with Dr. McDonald seems pointless. In your book, your conversation with him went as follows (page 105):
. . . I told [Dr. McDonald] that Brother Branham was a man of God that we believed to be a prophet.
“What about this vision he had?” he questioned.
I told him the vision and related our explanation of the cloud.
At this point your conversation with Dr. McDonald is irrelevant because you no longer believe the explanation you gave him (that the Cloud was formed by the angels while Brother Branham was hunting at Sunset). You continue:
To this he responded, “You know that I can’t accept that explanation!”
“No sir,” I replied. “I didn’t expect you to, but you say that there is no explanation of the cloud. . .”
“`There is absolutely no explanation,” he interrupted.
“Sir,” I continued, “you may not have one - but I do - and I believe mine!”
Now that you do not believe your explanation as originally presented to Dr. McDonald, it seems that the tables have turned and followers of the Message are without a coherent explanation for the Cloud where science has long ago determined where it came from. Your statement that there is no scientific explanation for the Cloud is untrue, yet you and followers of the Message continue insist that there is none. The true explanation for the Cloud can be read in my Website [http://people.delphiforums.com/JohnK63/Attraction.htm]...
Furthermore, the Cloud was not ring shaped at all as it appears in the main photo in LIFE. It was more in the shape of a horseshoe, or letter “C.” The view from Flagstaff is actually a distortion of its true shape. I have photos depicting this, as well as photos that include a second, similarly shaped cloud close to the main cloud (apparently part of the same rocket trail as the main cloud). These photos are very similar to other photos of rocket trails that have appeared through the years.
I believe you should rewrite or extract your chapter on the Cloud for the following reasons:
1. Your explanation as told to Dr. McDonald was in error. Because of that, Dr. McDonald was correct in not accepting your opinion of the Cloud’s origin.
2. You have not explained why you changed your opinion of how the Cloud was formed. You seem to be content with ignoring the previously established Message explanation as if it never even existed.
3. You have not presented an explanation for the existence of the Cloud to replace the account you disregarded in your first book. You simply say that it appeared over Flagstaff 7 days prior to Bro. Branham’s hunting trip at Sunset. With all due respect, so what? Your stating that the Bible says there will be clouds at Jesus’ appearance doesn’t explain the existence of this Cloud more than it would for other clouds.
4. Contrary to what you have said, there is indeed a scientific explanation for the Cloud. You may not accept the explanation, but you are propagating a false representation of the facts by saying that there is none.
I look forward to reading a clarification of these discrepancies in a future edition of your book. Please feel free to contact me by mail or email me at schilke63@hotmail.com.
Sincerely, in Christ,
John KennahI have never received a response from Pastor Green.
May 12, 2003
1993 Revisions to The Acts of the Prophet
In another Message forum, someone asked one of the forum moderators what changes were made in the revised edition of Pearry Green's book, The Acts of the Prophet, (Tucson Tabernacle, 1993). I thought that might be a question others may be interested in knowing the answer to. I searched both editions of the book and noted that the entire revised version remains exactly the same in content except for three sentences in chapter 11. This chapter is titled, “The Cloud.” Pastor Green revised this chapter in order to reflect newly publicized information that indicated that William Branham was not at Sunset Mountain hunting javelina when the Cloud was formed on February 28, 1963. The changes he made in those 3 sentences removed every reference of the Cloud having been formed at the same time Wm. Branham was hunting. Below, I have provided the original sentences as they appear in Pastor Green’s first edition, followed by the same sentence in the revised version. I underlined the change in the 2nd edition so it could be more easily seen:
1st Edition, page 103, paragraph 3: “The date was February 28, 1963.”
2nd Edition, page 103, paragraph 3: “It was the pig season of 1963.”1st Ed., p. 104, par. 3: “It was when these seven angels departed from Brother Branham’s presence that they formed the mysterious, science-baffling cloud in the sky.”
2nd Ed., p. 104, par. 3: “Seven days before these seven angels appeared to Brother Branham, there appeared the mysterious, science-baffling cloud in the sky.”1st Ed., p. 106-107, par. 5: “I have been told by a man whom I believe to be the prophet of God for this age, Brother William Branham, that seven angels came to him and revealed the mysteries of the seven seals of the book of Revelation, caught him up into their midst, and leaving him, formed this cloud.”
2nd Ed., p. 106-107, par. 5: “I have been told by a man whom I believe to be the prophet of God for this age, Brother William Branham, that seven angels came to him and revealed the mysteries of the seven seals of the book of Revelation, caught him up into their midst, and instructed him to go back and preach the seven seals.”Those are the only changes I believe one will find in the entire revised edition of The Acts of the Prophet, by Pearry Green. One might say that books often go through more than one printing. But the 2nd edition of this book states clearly on the back side of the title page, “1993 Revision (#2)”. Three sentences that represent the revision of an entire book; indeed, that represent the revised history of the life of William Branham!
BTW, the moderator told the questioner that his question was one that Pearry Green or a spokesman for Tucson Tabernacle would have to answer. How interesting.
January 11, 2013
This evening I received my copy of William Branham, The Acts of a Prophet (2011), by Pearry Green. It is a "Revised and Updated" edition of his earlier work, The Acts of the Prophet, published in 1969 and revised in 1993. I turned immediately to the chapter on the Cloud which has been virtually rewritten and renamed, "1963: Return East! The Opening of the Seals". I read the chapter and plan to do a review of it at a later time. As I read, I thought I read something familiar, as if I had read it before someplace else. Then it hit me--I was reading my own words! I went to my Website and found that much of a paragraph that I had written on the home page of my Website had made it into Pearry Green's book! I think it's particularly interesting that I would discover this right at the time that “Believe the Sign" is investigating WMB's plagiarism of Clarence Larkin's writings on their Facebook page. Is Pearry Green following in the footsteps of his prophet? I have yet to read the book, but I wonder how much of this "revised and updated" book is original material! Below, please see the paragraph I wrote which appears on my Website, followed by Pearry Green's statement as it appears on page 237 of his book:
Finally, during a sermon in late 1989, Pearry Green criticized a man who indicated that WMB could not have been legally hunting javelina at the time of the February 28, 1963 Cloud that appeared in the May 17, 1963 issue of LIFE magazine. (I would here like to point out that at the time of this discovery, everyone following the Message believed WMB's claims that the Cloud of February 28, 1963 appeared on the day WMB was hunting javelina near Wilcox, AZ. It would have seemed absurd back then for anyone to question that, yet today it's hard to find a Message believer who thinks that the Cloud in LIFE magazine was the same Cloud WMB saw while hunting javelina.) The thought that WMB might have been hunting out of season so disturbed me that I began to research this claim myself. I contacted the Arizona Game and Fish Department to find out when javelina season was in 1963. I learned that javelina hunting season that year ran from March 1 through 10. I also began a study of everything that WMB had to say about the Cloud and this hunting trip. As a result, I discovered that WMB himself indicated that he did not go on this hunting trip until after March 4, 1963 (See or listen to his sermon, Absolute, preached on March 4, 1963. Compare this to his sermon, Trying to do God a Service Without it Being God's Will, vol. 7, book 2, pages 8 and 9, preached November 27, 1965).
--John Kennah, "My Testimony"William Branham would not have been legally hunting javelin at the time of the February 28, 1963 cloud that appeared in the May 17, 1963 issue of LIFE magazine. Several people have contacted the Arizona Game and Fish Department to find out when javelina season was in 1963. We learned that javelina hunting season that year ran from March 1 through 10. We have researched the written materials of Brother Branham to find out what he had to say about the Cloud and this hunting trip. As a result, we have determined that Brother Branham himself indicated that he did not go on this hunting trip until after March 4, 1963 (See or listen to his sermon, Absolute, preached on March 4, 1963. Compare this to his sermon, Trying to do God a Service Without it Being God's Will, preached November 27, 1965).
--Pearry Green, William Branham: The Acts of a Prophet (2011), p. 237I wrote to Pearry Green about this bit of plagiarism but have never received a reply from him.
January 13, 2013
Well, if Rebekah Branham-Smith were still alive she might be as surprised as I was to see her own words being written in a book by Pearry Green as his own. Pages 234-235 of PG's, William Branham: The Acts of a Prophet, contain a few paragraphs from Branham-Smith's article, "On the Road to Sunset," page 6 (Only Believe, June 1992). Here is Branham-Smith's account followed by Pearry Green's:
Rebekah Branham-Smith (1992):
It was already mid-day when they left for Sunset in Brother Sothmann's white pick-up truck. The date was March 6, 1963, which meant they'd only have three full days of hunting left . . .Less than two hours after leaving Tucson, they turned off the paved road at Wilcox and onto the dirt road that led to Bonita and into the canyons scattered along the rimrock of Rattlesnake Mesa. One hour later, Brother Branham, Brother Norman, and Brother Sothmann had shouldered their rifles and gone their separate ways. . .
The next day, March 7, Brother Branham was successful in finding a good-sized javelina. The other two hunters were not so fortunate, but since he now knew the general vicinity of where the herd was located, Brother Branham promised to point them in the right direction the next morning.
Pearry Green (2011):
It was already midday on or about March 6, 1963 when Brother Branham, Brother Fred Sothmann and Brother Gene Norman were preparing to leave on a hunting tip. They left for Sunset Mountain in Brother Sothmann's white pickup truck, with only three days left in the javelina hunting season.It isn't such a big deal to use details found in others' works in telling one's own story. But to do so without giving credit where credit is due is called plagiarism. Plagiarism is comprised of stealing someone else's work and lying about it by presenting it as one's own work. The incidents of plagiarism in PG's book are not necessarily earth shattering examples, but they are plagiarism nonetheless. It doesn't bother me that PG used some of my research and presented it as his own. In fact, I am happy to know that he has read my Website and is now responsible for knowing about the things I have written concerning the errors, false prophecies and Scripture-twisting that are WMB's Message. While knowing these things, he has not attempted to correct what I have written, nor even acknowledged the errors I've exposed. Rather, in a state of denial, he has ignored the evidence and continues to testify of things that everyone except Message believers know to be fabrications and exaggerations in WMB's Message.Less than two hours after leaving Tucson, they turned off the paved road at Willcox and unto the dirt road that led to Bonita and into the canyons scattered along the rimrock of Rattlesnake Mesa. One hour later, each of the brothers had shouldered their rifles an had gone their separate ways. . .
On or about March 7, 1963, Brother Branham successively tracked and shot his javelina. The other two hunters were not so fortunate, but since he now knew the general vicinity of where the herd was located, Brother Branham promised to point them in the right direction the next morning.
January 15, 2013
As we all now know, WMB said several times that he was hunting javelina at "Sunset Mountain" at the time the Cloud of February 28, 1963. We also know that Message believers have been on a 23 year campaign to rewrite Message history by saying WMB never actually said he was there at the same time (see The Cloud: A Day or Two Before/After).
In Pearry Green's 2011 updated edition of his book, now titled, William Branham, The Acts of a Prophet, he puts a new spin on the obvious discrepancies in WMB's statements about the Cloud. On pages 236-237 of his book, PG had this to say:
Detractors may cry, "Revisionist History!" But I think it is simply a matter of being honest. With or without the cloud of February 28, 1963, the vision given to Brother Branham months earlier was still fulfilled to the last detail [actually, there were many details that were very different from his vision, such as his seeing only 5 angels in the vision, then claiming the number was 7 in its fulfillment--JK]. The cloud wasn’t even mentioned in the vision, nor did Brother Branham mention it in the original recounting of the events at Sunset Mountain. It wasn’t even in his mind until months later, after he had already preached the Seals, when he was shown a copy of the May 17, 1963 LIFE magazine, and it was suggested to him that the cloud was the same cloud. He then innocently tied the two events together.PG seems to have abandoned the day-or-two-before-or-after argument and adopted a new one: that WMB was mistaken when he claimed the Cloud in LIFE magazine appeared and was photographed at the time he was hunting in the desert of Arizona. So, is there an official Message explanation of the Cloud? No, there are now apparently 3:Were Brother Branham alive today and he were confronted with true facts, he would set the record straight—he was a man of integrity and humble enough to admit when he was wrong. . . . Like Elijah, William Branham was a man, and as a man was subject to error in his understanding of many things. As a prophet, though, when he uttered, “Thus saith the Lord”—he was never wrong.
William Branham would not have been legally hunting javelina at the time of the February 28, 1963 cloud that appeared in the May 17, 1963 issue of LIFE magazine.
Message believers, take your pick!
- WMB believed and claimed the Cloud appeared to him while he was hunting javelina.
- WMB believed and claimed the Cloud did not appear on the same day he was hunting javelina.
- WMB was mistaken in saying the Cloud appeared while he was hunting javelina.
November 22, 2014
The Controversy Between "You" and "You're Message"
When I was in the Message, I know there was somewhat of a controversy over this statement allegedly made during WMB's 1933 baptism at the Ohio River. My then pastor, Pearry Green, always said that many people would quote the voice as saying, "your Message will forerun the second coming of Christ," but that WMB told him personally that the voice actually said, "you will forerun the second coming of Christ." I decided to look at my copies of the first two editions of Green's book, The Acts of the Prophet, to see what he had to say about it.
First, in the chapter titled, "Voice of the Sign,"on page 29 of both the 1969 and 1993 editions, Pearry Green recounts something WMB personally told him about that voice:
". . . I will not deny what that Voice said on the Ohio River in 1933!" He continued, "Brother Pearry, I don't say anything about it in public. People don't understand what a prophet is. But when that Light came whirling down out of Heaven, and those people sitting on the bank saw it, there was a Voice that spoke from it, just as It did to Paul on the road to Damascus. The Voice said, 'As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, so are you sent to forerun His second coming.'"
Next, in the chapter titled, "1933," on pages 46-47 of both editions, Green again quotes what the voice said to WMB during the baptism:
Just as with Saul, a Voice spoke from the Light. These were the words, "As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of the Lord, so are you sent to forerun His second coming..."
Some have thought the words spoken by the Voice were, "...your message will forerun His second coming." But how can there be a message without a messenger? The message is thoroughly identified with the messenger, as it was with John the Baptist. Brother Branham was asked, "Did the voice say you or your message will forerun the second coming?" The answer was found as he had it carved on the inside of the door of his new home in Tucson, "As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of the Lord, so are you sent to forerun His second coming."
Now, here is something very interesting. In Pearry Green's 2011 revised and updated version of his book, now titled, William Branham: The Acts of a Prophet, he made a few changes. On page 62, you will find a revised and updated quotation of what WMB told him:
"Brother Green, I don't say anything about it publicly, because people don't understand what a prophet is. But, I will not deny what that angel of God said on the Ohio River in 1933," which was his commission, "As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of the Lord, so are you sent with a message to forerun His second coming."
Pearry Green also included a revised and updated account of the passage I quoted above from pages 46-47 of his original book. In the 2011 version, on page 117, he now says this about the voice of the baptism:
From that Pillar of Fire, a voice said, "As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of Christ, you have the message that'll forerun the second coming of Christ."
In the following pages (118-122) Green goes on to explain the reason for the controversy. He said that when the door of WMB's Tucson home was carved, the artist consulted with Roy Borders on what should be inscribed on the door. It seems that Green is placing the blame on Borders for misquoting the voice over the Ohio River. He says nothing of himself having quoted WMB in his first two editions of his book as personally saying to him, "you will forerun His second coming."
Pearry Green says on page 122, "Our conclusion based on this research is simple, the commission stated the message Brother Branham brought would forerun the second coming of Christ. It was not Brother Branham personally, rather it was his ministry and the Message God revealed to him that would forerun the second coming of the Lord."So, it would appear that WMB never really said that he would forerun the second coming. If that is so, then Pearry Green bears at least as much of the blame as Roy Borders for the altered version of the the quote. In my opinion, I think Green deserves probably most of the blame, since it was from his book from where most Message believers would have discovered this altered version.
[Editorial Update: It seems Pearry Green was really right before admitting he was wrong. Will he revert back to his original premise in a future revision of his book? ]
September 12, 2015
In the book of Zechariah is recorded, "And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; . . . like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: . . . And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light." Now, is not this message which Brother Branham brought "light in the evening time"? Does it not come at a time of cold, dead, spiritual darkness? Look at the city of Tucson. It lies spread out twenty-seven hundred feet above sea level, yet it is in a valley surrounded by mountains whose names spell out C-H-R-I-S-T, as taken from the first letters of the names. From what we know now, it was a place anointed of God.
(Pearry Green, The Acts of the Prophet, pp. 129-130, 1st and 2nd editions)I'm not sure how many people have heard this, but just about every Message believer in Tucson recognizes the name of Christ spelled out by the mountains of Tucson as a sign of WMB's vindicated role as prophet. On page 149 of his 2014 revision of The Acts of the Prophet, Pearry Green identifies the names of the "mountain areas" surrounding Tucson which spell out "Christ":
C - Catalina Mountains
H - Hitchcock
R - Rincon Mountains
I - Ingram
S - Santa Rita Mountains
T - Tucson MountainsI would admit that this seems interesting, even to those of us who don't follow the Message. But is it true? Not really. This seems to have been fabricated by someone who wanted to make WMB's adopted hometown of Tucson more spiritually significant than it was. The fact is, the mountains surrounding Tucson do not spell out the name of Christ. First of all, the Catalina Mountains are actually called the Santa Catalina Mountains, which starts with an "S", not "C". Next, there are no "Hitchcock Mountains" near Tucson. There is, however, a highway which goes up to Mt. Lemmon in the Santa Catalinas which is called the Mt. Lemmon-General Hitchcock Highway. This highway passes a campground called the General Hitchcock Campground. But there are no Hitchcock Mountains near Tucson. Also, there are no "Ingram Mountains" near Tucson. I haven't been able to find any geological features near Tucson named Ingram, or even the more common spelling, Ingraham.
So, what are the names of the actual mountains which closely surround Tucson? They are:
S - Santa Catalina Mountains (northeast)
R - Rincon Mountains (east)
E - Empire Mountains (southeast)
S - Santa Rita Mountains (southeast)
S - Sierrita Mountains (southeast)
T - Tucson Mountains (west)
T - Tortolita Mountains (northwest)As you can see, the mountains that surround Tucson spell out SRESSTT, not CHRIST. It would indeed be an interesting fact if they spelled out CHRIST as Pearry Green claimed, even to us non-Message believers. Unfortunately, many false or unverifiable legends like this do little to support the valididy of William Branham.
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