Christian Zionism - New Life Tabernacle of Chattanooga

nevertheless gained increasingly widespread support not only among
Anglicans but also among other evangelicals around the world. 175
3.3 Joseph Wolff: The Pioneer Missiologist (1795-1862)
Joseph Wolff was a German Jew, converted first to Roman Catholicism and
then subsequently to Anglicanism, he became known as the ‘first great
pioneer missionary’ of the LJS. 176 Wolff also played an influential role at the
Albury ‘unfulfilled prophecy’ conference of 1826. Edward Irving describes his
impact. ‘No appeal was allowed but to the Scriptures, of which the originals
lay before us; in the interpretation of which, if any question arose, we had the
most learned Eastern scholar perhaps in the world to appeal to, and a native
Hebrew. I mean Joseph Wolff.’ 177 This disregard for traditional interpretation
or scholastic helps at Albury marks a radical discontinuity with the
presuppositions of mainstream Reformed theology, and prepared the ground
for Irving and Darby’s sectarian futurist premillennial Dispensationalism.
Like Hugh McNeile, another Anglican member of the ‘Albury Circle’, 178
Wolff was preoccupied with the discovery of the lost ‘Ten Tribes’ of Israel, so
indispensable to any future restoration of the Jews. 179 A report about their
possible discovery was received by Mr Sargon at the LJS annual conference
of 1822. Another report given by Henry Drummond at the 1828 Albury
Conference claimed that traders from the lost Jewish tribes had been
discovered in Leipzig. ‘The Tribes have been discovered, twenty millions in
number, inhabiting the region north of Cashmere and towards Bokhara, in the
great central plain of Asia. It would seem that there came men from them to
Leipsic fair ... They were trading in Cashmere shawls.’ 180 Wolff, fluent in
175 Stevens, op.cit., p27.
176 H. P. Palmer, Joseph Wolff, His Romantic Life and Travels, (Heath Cranton, 1935);
Stevens, op.cit., p32.
177 Margaret Oliphant, The Life of Edward Irving, 3 rd edition (London, Hurst & Blackett,
1864), p205. See also Andrew L. Drummond, Edward Irving and his Circle, (London,
James Clarke, 1936), p133.
178 Drummond, op.cit., p133.
179
Hugh McNeile, The Collected Works, Vol. II. The Prophecies Relative to
the Jewish Nation, (London, The Christian Book Society, [1830] 1878), pp431ff.
180 Oliphant, op.cit., p243.
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