Obviously, I’ve been too preoccupied with other things. Some of you know my circumstances, and you may reason that I’m being a bit hard on myself, but the reality is that I somehow missed this in the hustle and bustle of life’s events.
I just found out today, via COG Writer web site, that Samuele Bacchiocchi died last month on 21 December, 2008 (see http://www.cogwriter.com/news/cog-news/sda-samuele-bacchiochi-dies). For those few who may not know who Samuel Bacchiocchi was, he was a famous Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) scholar who wrote extensively on the question of the Sabbath and the history of how the Catholic Church sanitized the shift from a Saturday to a Sunday observance due to “anti-Judaism”. Unlike Robert Thiel, however, I maintain that the SDAs are part of the COG family, that throughout both organizations’ early history they intermingled and influenced one another, and the Sabbath is not the only proof for that some in the SDA church are true Christians. Even before Mr Armstrong came on the scene, some people in isolated Sabbath keeping COGs were keeping the Holy Days. What many do not know is that they were taught this by an ex-Adventist! Reading Mr Thiel’s article, you can see that Dr Bacchiocchi kept the Holy Days and pondered why some of the larger SDA churches keep Christmas.
Well, as if that weren’t bad enough, it appears that Dr Bacchiocchi’s web site, “Biblical Perspectives” has now been taken down, after only one month. Much of his work was stored on that site, and it will be sorely missed. The COG has often used his research in support of the Sabbath and the Holy Days, as well as some of his research was used in tracing our spiritual heritage down through the ages.