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<h2><span class="mw-headline">A Timeline and Reference of the Key Events and Players affecting the theology of the founders of Biola, the history of the Biola Jewish Department and the legacy of the Jewish roots of the Christian faith at Biola today.
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The Key Events and Players of the Founding Era

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<li>October 6, 1841 William Eugene Blackstone born in Adams, New York</li>
<li>1851 – Blackstone converts to Christianity</li>
<li>1862 – Lyman Stewart joins the Pennsylvania 16th Cavalry in the Civil War, serving until August of 1865 when Blackstone was deemed unfit for service due to poor eyesight</li>
<li>After the War – Blackstone goes west and moves to Chicago. Where he actively organized prayer and Bible study meetings among lay business leaders, in addition to working as a real estate and railroad developer and a commodities merchant.</li>
<li>After the War – Stewart returns to PA where he is a self-taught geologist, oil-exploration wildcatter and corporation executive</li>
<li>1875 – Niagara Bible Conference first organized by Presbyterian pastor James H. Brookes who authored the pre-millenialist manifesto Maranatha. This conference continues for the next 22 years. Blackstone attends.</li>
<li>1878 – Blackstone publishes a follow-up book with Brookes’ urging and Horatio Spafford’s encouragement: Jesus Is Coming. it became the publishing sensation of the decade, besting the Autobiography of President Grant, republished by Lyman Stewart in 1909, it has sold over a million copies and is still in print today. (R.A. Torrey testified that this book had a profound impact on him.)</li>
<li>1882 – Lyman Stewart moves to Los Angeles, establishes the Hardison & Stewart Oil Company, later called the Union Oil Company</li>
<li>1886 – Blackstone involved with founding of Moody Bible Institute</li>
<li>1886 – Blackstone organizes a Bible and Prophetic Conference in Chicago</li>
<li>1887 – Blackstone establishes the first independent mission for Jewish evangelism in North America: the Chicago Committee for Hebrew Christian Work</li>
<li>1888 – Blackstone attends the World General Congress on Missions, meets up with Franz Delitzsch, Wilhelm Faber and Joseph Rabinowitz in Europe and then heads to Palestine where he lives for six months among proto-Zionist colonies in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem. Also, Spafford and his family sell their property and move to Palestine to establish early missions in the Holy Land and broader Middle East.</li>
<li>1880-1891 – Blackstone witnesses some fascinating events first-hand, in eastern Europe, Constantinople, and in Palestine: Leo Pinsker, a Jewish a Jewish doctor in Odessa, organizes a refugee organization Hibbat Zion (Love of Zion) and obtained the administrative means and technical skills to establish agricultural communities for Jewish refugee resettlement in Palestine. Pinsker publishes a pamphlet Auto-Emancipation in 1882. Between the years 1880 and 1891 (when Pinsker died) he was able to secure resettlement of 25,000 Jewish farmers to establish the communities of Rishon LeZion and Nahalat Yehudah, with the financial backing of Baron Rothschild. Blackstone is involved with or observer of all these developments.</li>
<li>1889 – Blackstone returns to Chicago and formally incorporates the Chicago Committee for Hebrew Christian Work as the Chicago Hebrew Mission. Upon extreme persecution and threats from Jewish community leaders, Blackstone meets individually with many of the rabbis of Chicago, disarming them with humility and messianic prophesy.</li>
<li>1889 – R.A. Torrey becomes first dean of Moody and serves on the board of Blackstone's Chicago Hebrew Mission (CHM)</li>
<li>1890 – Blackstone hosts an Interdenominational Conference on “The Past, Present and Future of Israel,” inviting Jewish and Christian leaders from the Midwest to Chicago</li>
<li>1898 – Blackstone sends an English/Hebrew Bible (Old and New Testament) to his friend Theodore Herzl (who wrote "The Jewish State" in 1896), highlighting in pen and marginal notes, all the prophetic scriptures concerning the restoration of Israel and their repentance and national acceptance of Jesus Christ as Messiah. This Bible is on exhibit at the Israel Museum on Mt. Herzl outside Jerusalem.</li>
<li>1899 – Blackstone relocates to Southern California in hopes that it will restore his ailing wife’s health</li>
<li>1903 – Blackstone takes an extended speaking tour of the east coast which includes the International Hebrew Christian Alliance at Mountain Lake Park, MD. This conference is viewed by many as the founding of the modern Messianic movement. (It was the vision of a Presbyterian Hebrew Christian evangelist, Rev. Louis Meyer who contacted Hebrew Christian believers all over the world to determine if there was sufficient interest to form themselves into an organized movement for the salvation of their people.)</li>
<li>1903 - Also at the conference, Blackstone meets Maurice Ruben, leader of the New Covenant Mission to the Jews in Pittsburgh, who later arranges for Blackstone to speak at a Conference on “Israel and the Salvation of the Jews”, in Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh. (Maurice Ruben had been a prominent retail merchant in Pittsburgh who following his conversion had been fired by his Jewish uncle, was disowned by his family and friends, and shortly after had been kidnapped, subjected to communal ridicule and attempted brainwashing and ultimately successfully committed to an insane asylum. Miraculously, he was released from the asylum and with the support of a few devoted Christian friends established a small but highly visible work in the Jewish community.)</li>
<li>1903 – Ruben arranges for Blackstone to speak at a Conference on “Israel and the Salvation of the Jews,” in Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh. That night, a Mrs. Meyer (mother of Lillie Meyer, a young believer who came to faith through Ruben) accepts Yeshua haMashiah as her Savior.</li>
<li>1906 – Rev. Louis Meyer serves as the chief organizer and recording secretary of the 7th International Jewish Missionary Conference (held once every five years since the 1860’s) held this year in Amsterdam.</li>
<li>1906 – This July, Blackstone lectured to over 1,500 people at Stewart’s Immanuel Presbyterian Church on “To the Jew First”, in which he stated: “The Bible student must see the Jew, not as he appears to the world, but in the light of the eternal counsels of the God of Israel, before he can rightly divide the Word of Truth. The missionary must include the Jew among the spheres of Christian evangelization and among the potent factors in the filling of the earth with knowledge of the Lord. The Church is slowly awakening to a sense of her obligation and privilege as the custodian of the Jewish oracles and herald of the Jewish Messiah, to include this nation in her missionary enterprise.”</li>
<li>1906 – In December, Lyman Stewart writes to Blackstone, “Enclosed herewith my check for $250 for your Jewish work.” Shortly thereafter Stewart began contributing regularly to the support of Rev. Louis Meyer who had joined Blackstone’s Chicago Hebrew Mission as field secretary and editor of their quarterly journal The Jewish Era.</li>
<li>1906 – A.C. Dixon enlists an editorial committee including R.A. Torrey, Blackstone and Dr. Louis Meyer to oversee the publication of “The Fundamentals”</li>
<li>1907 – Plans are underway to formally establish a Bible Institute of Los Angeles.</li>
<li>1908 – Stewart assists with Blackstone’s efforts for translation and publication of a Yiddish Bible.</li>
<li>1907 - </li>
<li>1908 – The original prospectus circular announces the Bible Institute of Los Angeles with Lyman Stewart as President of the Board of Directors; A.B. Pritchard as Vice President of the Board and Instructor in Bible; T.C. Horton as a Director and Superintendent; and W.E. Blackstone as a Director and Dean.</li>
<li>1908 - Mrs. Lillie (Meyer) Manson comes to the Bible Institute at Blackstone's arrangement to be superintendent of the new Jewish Department, thereby placing Jewish evangelism as one of the top priorities of the charter class. Within the year, 1400 visits, 105 Jewish Bible classes, and 10 decisions are recorded.</li>
Wheel diagram
<li>1908 - W.E. Blackstone’s beloved wife dies and the 68-year-old Biola Dean returns to Chicago to wrap up estate matters and meet with his Chicago Hebrew Mission Board</li>
<li>1908-09 – Milton Stewart, brother to Lyman, serves on the Biola Board. He has a vision to use his wealth for global missions and puts his funds behind Blackstone’s international work.</li>
<li>1909 – The Biola Book House publishes a new edition of Blackstone’s Jesus Is Coming, and Lyman and Milton Stewart agree to split the cost of mailing 9,000 free copies to theological students and missionaries.</li>
<li>1909 – In June, Blackstone departs for China on a five-year mission for Scripture translation, distribution and ministry development.</li>
<li>1909 – Lyman Stewart writes his brother Milton on October 23, regarding Jewish believer Rev. Louis Meyer, and his evangelism of the Jews: “He is a strong man, and is doing a great work....He is now working, as you doubtless remember, under the Home Missionary Board of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Blackstone and you and I are paying his salary for this year, on the basis of $150 per month.”</li>
<li>1910 – Lyman Stewart funds Louis Meyer’s travel to the Edinburgh Conference on World Missions, representing the Protestant Jewish Missions of North America. This historic event will celebrate its Centennial next year in Edinburgh with what many people hope will be the greatest Missions conference of the modern era, focusing on writing, teaching and expanding global Jewish missions ministry.</li>
<li>1910 – Meyer attends the first German Hebrew Christian Conference in Berlin. (Sadly, most of the individuals in this picture, who were part of a great work of Hebrew Christian revival in early 20th century Germany, were to die along with Jewish members of their congregations in the Holocaust to come. GET PHOTO!!!!!!!!!!!) Orthodox Jewish historian, David Eichhorn notes, “(Louis Meyer) was respected by both Jews and Christians, he enjoyed the friendship of a number of Jewish scholars, notably Gotthard Deutsch and George Kohut.”</li>
<li>1911 – Rev. Louis Meyer serves (again) as the chief organizer and recording secretary for the 8th International Jewish Missionary Conference, in Stockholm.</li>
<li>1911 – The Los Angeles Bible Institute is listed as one of the largest Jewish missions in North America, with 38 trained Jewish evangelists, per the <li>1911 Stockholm Yearbook.</li>
<li>1911 – The King’s Business summer publication reports on the Jewish Department work being done by Mrs. Lillie (Meyer) Manson, "our representative among the Jews....who has succeeded admirably in winning her way into the hearts and homes of so many of our Jewish friends." An interesting work among children in Jewish neighborhoods is now being started.</li>
<li>1911 – In April and May, Lyman Stewart brings Louis Meyer to Biola and arranges a series of conferences in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles. Stewart calls Meyer a “Hebrew of the Hebrews,” in a letter to Union Oil executive and Biola trustee Robert Watchorn. “He came the nearest to my ideal of what the Apostle Paul” was like than any man he ever saw.” (During his visit to the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Dr. Meyer comments on the Jewish work as "ideal" however, he notes that “we have no Mission room” or “mission house where interested Jewish people would feel secure to attend Bible studies.” Later this year, a “Jewish Mission Home” is established in the Jewish neighborhood just north of downtown.</li>
<li>1911 – After Meyer's visit to Califorina, Stewart makes it his top priority to have the reverend as the chief editor and executive secretary of “The Fundamentals.” (Previous editor, Rev. A.C. Dixon had left Moody Memorial Church to take the pastorate of Spurgeon’s church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle of London.) Because “The Fundamentals” are a resounding success, the vacant editor position is a tremendous burden. This year, Louis Meyer accepts the call to assume the role as managing editor of “The Fundamentals.” He directly and publicly handles hundreds of unsolicited manuscripts from authors wanting to be included in future volumes, and protects the Stewart brothers from the fray. Flaps frequently arise because Meyer rejects articles from prominent churchmen, noting openly their work as “sensational,” because they do not state “the actual facts of the whole case,” and are neither “strictly logical nor concise...with language which causes even the opponent to stop and read.” Appeals from the many bruised egos go to prominent member of the editorial committee, R.A. Torrey. Torrey backs up Meyer and vocally supports him for instituting higher editorial standards for “The Fundamentals” project.</li>
<li>1912 – Mrs. Lillie (Meyer) Manson is profiled in the catalogue: “The Lord sent a converted Jewess specially qualified to work among her own people and a work was commenced among the Jews.”</li>
<li>1912 – Financial constraints due to Union Oil plummeting stock value instigates discussion as to whether “The Fundamentals” should be discontinued with the 10th volume. Meyer strongly advocates continuing through at least the 12th volume in order to address key topics such as the restoration of Israel, the second coming and dispensational interpretation. Blackstone writes that he will withdraw his support from “The Fundamentals” if these themes dear to his heart could not be included by Dr. Meyer. Lyman Stewart agrees, saying “there are still a number of subjects on which light should be given, such as The Jew in Prophecy Fulfilled and Unfulfilled, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth...etc, as well as some articles that would stir the world up to greater activity in missions and evangelistic work.” Yet Stewart cannot help but wonder about the financial side of this, such as converting holdings to cash or possibly reducing the mailing list. Between August and November, however, the focus shifts from finances to health, as Dr. Meyer suffers from “exhaustion and a serious lung infection.” Stewart sends a telegram to Cincinnati, inviting the Meyer family to come to the warm climate in California for rest and relief. “Tell him not to take the criticisms of Fundamentals seriously. We are well satisfied with his work,” says Stewart to Mrs. Meyer. Once in Los Angeles, Meyer is admitted to the Pottenger Sanitarium in Monrovia. Still he attempts to continue work on The Fundamentals and the Missionary Review of the World from his hospital bed at the Sanitarium. A series of lung hemorrhages incapacitate him and, within months, he is unable to raise his head.</li>
<li>1913 – On July 11th Dr. Meyer goes to be with the Lord. Lyman Stewart sends a telegram announcing the tragic death of Dr. Meyer, with the text of 2 Samuel 3:38 (from David announcing the death of Jonathan), “Know ye not that there is a Prince and great man fallen this day in Israel.” Reeling from loss and devastation, yet with a business mind, Stewart makes provisions for the widow Meyer and her three children. Then, having lost two of the people dearest to him in less than one year (Stewart’s wife died in 1912), Stewart throws himself into building project of the Bible Institute, stoically believing that this will continue to be a significant hope for the salvation of Israel. Blackstone is also shocked and devastated by the death of his friend and co-laborer in Jewish evangelism, and it appears that after Meyer’s death, a cordial (as in no longer intimate but still friendly) but recognizable distance emerges between the him and Stewart. This distance is impossible to interpret, but both men were haunted by the sense that “The Fundamentals” may have played into the death of their “Hebrew of the Hebrews.”</li>
<li>1914 – Blackstone ministers in Baghdad among the Jewish, Chaldean, Christian and Muslim communities. He also evangelizes among the Marsh Arabs outside Basra. GET THIS PICTURE In Palestine, Blackstone establishes a close relationship with Sabati Rohold’s Haifa Mission, which pioneers a gospel work among the new Jewish immigrants, the Arab Christians, and the Bedoin Arabs of the south. Blackstone recognizes the biblical narrative of Arabs as cousins to the Jews, as well as the prophetic blessings concerning the seed of Ishmael and Esau along with God’s restoration and blessing of Israel.</li>
<li>1914 – Blackstone returns to Los Angeles and is heavily involved with the Bible Institute. He serves on the advisory board of Biola’s Jewish Department and is a frequent lecturer at the Institute. He also serves several terms on the Biola Board of Trustees, and even in later years is frequently invited by Stewart as an invited quest to Board meetings.</li>
<li>1916 – On the 25th Anniversary of the 1891 Blackstone Memorial petition to President Harrison, Blackstone secures a new list of high profile civic and religious leaders to endorse a new petition to President Woodrow Wilson calling for a Jewish homeland in Palestine following the end of World War I. The circulation of the petition renews Blackstone’s connection with the fresh generation of leaders of the Zionist Federation of America, most prominently: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, businessman Nathan Strauss, and Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. They – and other notables like department-store owner and father of modern advertising John Wanamaker, diplomat and founder of Cornell University Andrew White and Rabbi Judah Magnes – sign the document.</li>
<li>1917 – The Balfour Declaration of November 2, calling for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the ancient land of Israel, receives support from President Wilson. Blackstone’s Memorial has an effect.</li>
<li>1917 – The Pan-Jewish Zionist Congress meets in Philadelphia following the Balfour Declaration, and greets Blackstone with an enthusiastic ovation, and honors him as the “Father of Zionism.” (This affirms what Strauss writes to Blackstone in a letter from May 8, 1916: "Mr. Brandeis is perfectly infatuated with the work that you have done along the lines of Zionism. It would have done your heart good to have heard him assert what a valuable contribution to the cause your document is. In fact he agrees with me that you are the Father of Zionism, as your work antedates Herzl.“)</li>

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The History of the Jewish Department

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<li>1914 - Lillie Manson lays out a four point program of instruction for Biola in The King’s Business of 1913: First, Instruction in the Divine plan for the nation of Israel; Second, Instruction in the Messianic prophecies and fulfillments in Jesus Christ which has brought salvation to Jew and Gentile; Third, instruction in answering the common Jewish objections to the Gospel message; and Fourth, a knowledge of the Jewish people, customs, traditions, spiritual practices and language. This core content was taught in a single course entitled “Jewish Evangelism.”</li>
<li>1919 - James Vaus and Lillie (Meyer) Manson are married at a ceremony performed by T.C. Horton. Mrs. Vaus starts a family and James becomes head of the Jewish Department.</li>
<li>1920s - The Jewish Department continues its work through the Jewish Evangelism class at the Bible Institute by association with Horton's Pre-Millenial Conferences, neighborhood work through the Jewish Mission House, and street and beach evangelism.</li>
<li>1925 - When James and Lillie Vaus desire to continue Jewish evangelism under their own independent mission, Mrs. Lyman Stewart and a Biola Board majority approved the sale of the Hebrew Mission Home to the couple for a reasonable sum.</li>
<li>1925 - David Cooper comes to Biola to accept the offered position of Superintendent of the Jewish Department. His linguistic proficiency in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Babylonian cuneiform, Latin, German and French contributes much to the value of the Jewish Department. But internal course offerings remain limited, as Dean MacInnis and other faculty members restrict expansion to a full curriculum. Cooper coordinates much evangelistic work with James and Lillie Vaus of the Los Angeles Hebrew Mission.</li>

<li>1932 - James Vaus delivers the main eulogy at T.C. Horton’s memorial service.</li>

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The Legacy of Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith at Biola Today

References

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