1 Missionary to the World The Adventures of Joseph Wolff Vol.1 (b. 1795-1834) Danutasn Brown Printed by maranathamedia.com March 2019 2 Table of Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 3 In Rome Studying Before Becoming a Missionary .................................................. 11 Wolff leaves Rome, studies in England briefly, then begins his travels ............. 19 Wolff on his way from Egypt to Jerusalem .............................................................. 26 Debate with Jews in Jerusalem ................................................................................... 36 To Mesopotamia ............................................................................................................ 49 Into Iraq, and then Persia/Iran .................................................................................... 53 On to Tehran.................................................................................................................. 65 Back in England and meeting with Edward Irving ................................................... 73 Impasse in Wolff’s 1861 Travels and Adventures .................................................. 89 The Researches of Joseph Wolff, Start in 1831...................................................... 93 Wolff in Persia, 1831 .................................................................................................. 106 Wolff Taken as a Slave (Iran, near the border with Turkmenistan) ............... 118 In Mashhad, Iran .......................................................................................................... 132 At Sarakhs (with Turkomens) .................................................................................. 138 On Route to Bokhara [Bukhara]............................................................................. 145 Entrance in the City of Bokhara, 1832 .................................................................. 150 Wolff Leaves Bokhara to Kabul in Afghanistan ................................................... 166 Through North Pakistan (Sikh Empire and meeting Hindus) ........................... 175 Arrival at Amritsar, Center of Sikh Empire .......................................................... 190 Arrival in Kashmir ....................................................................................................... 202 Wolff leaves Kashmir to British India .................................................................... 209 BENARES (Varanasi). ................................................................................................. 224 Kerala ............................................................................................................................. 235 Final Stops (Yemen and Saudi Arabia) and Conclusion ..................................... 245 3 Introduction Who is Joseph Wolff? Joseph Wolff was a sincere convert from Judaism to Christianity living in the early 1800’s, who is mentioned extensively in the chapter ‘A Great Religious Awakening’ of the book The Great Controversy. Wolff was famous all throughout Europe and America for doing what many thought impossible: reaching out to groups in the Middle East that no western European had attempted to reach in ages, namely Middle Eastern Jews. But his work was not limited to that. He had discussions and travels with missionaries of all denominations, and was willing to talk to anyone of Christ, whether they were members of a royal court, merchants, Bedouin nomads, harlots, or inquisitors- among the Druuz, the Sufis and Sunis of Persia, the Kurds, the Assyrian people, the Armenians, the Afghans, the Turkomens, the Greeks, Russians, Indians and many others. He was known in his time as “the missionary to the world.” Why Joseph Wolff? No other individual missionary is so honoured in the Great Controversy; none other is even mentioned – not Henry Martyn, not Hudson Taylor, not David Livingstone, not Adoniram Judson (forgive my bias to English-speaking missionaries). Because Wolff is not connected to any denomination, his name has been forgotten, and unfairly so. I, living in the so-called “missionary’s graveyard” of Thailand, hope to reclaim his importance to help future workers that feel called to work among peoples with cultures very different to their own. Now is, praise God, a time of renewed missionary work. Yet living in Thailand I see that many modern missionaries are poorly trained, are as “fish out of the water”, having difficulty learning on the job. This Wolff never was. What better way to prepare ourselves for this work than to follow in the footsteps of Ellen White’s archetypal missionary? Remember that Adventist universities were once “missionary colleges”, giving training to reach the world – not the parochial institutions they have become that are too often trapped in the bubble of the surrounding Adventist neighbourhood. They have also been struck with same insular 4 disconnectedness that besets the rest of academia, generating literature that is read mainly only by other academics. And then there is the misplaced zeal of missionaries like John Chau, who was killed by the Sentilese of the Andaman Islands, a people of whom no outsider knows their language nor has been allowed on their island in years. Missionaries come certain they have accurate doctrine; they focus only on methods, when God would first have us recognize our Laodicean state and then truly come to understand the 3rd Angel’s Message. Truth must be the truth for this time for God to be with us. Wolff is also important in this regard in that he unites zeal with constant learning; He was on the cutting edge of light given on prophecy. He preached the 2nd coming in truth, and he knew how to place Muslims in the stream of prophecy. That is why he is in the same chapter as William Miller. Yet he was always listening and learning, and much of what he shares is anthropology from a Christian perspective. Let us heed Hosea 4:6. As we replay the events leading to 1844, where people expected Jesus’s advent as we do today, I believe Wolff’s story becomes more relevant. We Adventists, like the Jews of old, are a self-righteous and rigid people. We are having to go through much soul-searching doctrinally and experientially to overcome the schizophrenia caused by the contradictory beliefs we have been holding as a result of rejecting the 1888 message and entering into a wilderness period. This includes misunderstanding on the relationship between the old and new covenant, the place of the Torah, what law is moral and what is ceremonial (confusing dichotomy between God’s law and Moses’ law), how we are to understand the judgment, how does God destroy, the relationship between God and His Son, our relationship to truth and our relationship to apostasy, dealing with issues of authority and submission, and so many others. But through the grace of God I think we are steadily coming into to a full understanding in Christ on these issues, and our faith is becoming much more stable. Now these truths must work on our hearts and minds, sanctifying us that we may go out and preach it to the world, particularly to the parts of the world more alien to us. In Wolff’s time a missionary had to go to a far-off land to meet the “other”, or those whose worldview was totally different from 5 us. But in our modern world the “other” can live next door to us; no longer are our communities made up of people of likeminded cultural history. Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs are people we meet everyday. How do we share with these people? It is difficult if the would-be evangelist has no preparation, no understanding of where the non- Christian is coming from, what their history is. I believe this is where Wolff’s experiences are so helpful to us. Many of his discussions are those that we would have today, and reading this book prepares us for the work we are told by Christ to do – while also grounding us in history, which is crucial for us to escape falling into mass-media mediated opinions that are based on fear and hate and shallow short-term research. Wolff was part of that original work leading to 1844, which is a rehearsal of the work for the end of time. The angel who unites in the proclamation of the third angel’s message is to lighten the whole earth with his glory. A work of world-wide extent and unwonted power is here foretold. The advent movement of 1840-44 was a glorious manifestation of the power of God; the first angel’s message was carried to every missionary station in the world, and in some countries there was the greatest religious interest which has been witnessed in any land since the Reformation of the sixteenth century; but these are to be exceeded by the mighty movement under the last warning of the third angel. {GC 611.1} Most of Wolff’s adventures happened prior to 1844. I open this book with his time in Rome, when he is 21 years old, which would be around 1816. William Miller has not even started teaching yet. I hope we can enter this unique period of history, after the French Revolution and the Enlightenment; America has just been born, and Britain was beginning its most glorious era of empire. We can learn much from Wolff’s book about tact, as well as how to think creatively and appropriately to every situation so that we may “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear”. 1 Peter 3:15. To