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“H” is for Holmes Bible College

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  “H” is for Holmes Bible College. The roots of what is popularly called the oldest Pentecostal school in the world lie in a Bible study program that Presbyterian pastor Nickels John Holmes conducted at his family cottage on Paris mountain in 1893. In 1898 Holmes and his wife purchased the Altamont Hotel on Paris Mountain and converted it into the Altamont Bible and Missionary Institute. In 1903 the school moved to Columbia where it came under the sway of Pentecostalism. Within two years Holmes and the entire student body testified to receiving the gift of speaking in tongues. The school has remained oriented to Pentecostalism ever since. In 1916 the school returned to Greenville where it has remained to this day.   After a series of name changes, the 1998, the school became Holmes Bible College.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.