Currently, I’m reading The Great Controversy by Ellen White. The Adventists have been known to call themselves “the people of the book”. The book here referred to is the Bible. If there was ever another book to define the spirit, or perhaps the character, of Adventism, The Great Controversy would probably be that book.

Despite its Adventist edge, I believe that most grace-oriented, evangelical, Jesus-loving, truth-seeking Christians would be quite able to appreciate at least the first 17 chapters of the book. In chapter 18, however, things get a little difficult to grasp when an ordinary farmer named Miller–with little knowledge of Hebrew language or litterature–starts wrestling with Biblical prophecy. Ellen White elaborate on his hermeneutics, and it seems he reads the Bible as a storyline and valued the principle of basing conclusions on the totality of texts rather than the few obscure ones. Whether he was actually loyal to this approach is a different matter, of course.

No millenium before the Second Coming

He quickly came to the conclusion that Jesus would come before the millenium of peace. This makes a lot of sense to me. Jesus told us to be prepared and pay attention to dramatic events leading up to his coming, and he described his coming as entirely visible and something that would be quite sudden.

“the spiritual reign of Christ–a temporal millennium before the end of the world–was not sustained by the word of God. This doctrine, pointing to a thousand years of righteousness and peace before the personal coming of the Lord, put far off the terrors of the day of God. [...] Like every other error, its results were evil. It taught men to look far in the future for the coming of the Lord and prevented them from giving heed to the signs heralding His approach. It induced a feeling of confidence and security that was not well founded and led many to neglect the preparation necessary in order to meet their Lord.” (p. 321)

I like when Ellen White writes “a feeling of confidence and security that was not well founded”. Clearly, confidence and security might be well founded if the foundation is the grace of God. But if the foundation is the doctrine that Jesus probably won’t be around anytime soon, it’s certainly something else.

Day-year principle applied to Daniel 8:14

“The prophecy which seemed most clearly to reveal the time of the second advent was that of Daniel 8:14: “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Following his rule of making Scripture its own interpreter, Miller learned that a day in symbolic prophecy represents a year (Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:6); he saw that the period of 2300 prophetic days, or literal years, would extend far beyond the close of the Jewish dispensation, hence it could not refer to the sanctuary of that dispensation.”

The 2,300 days (or years) might be the most commonly mentioned period of time whenever the conversation is steered to Adventist prophecy. Of course, Ellen White later shows that Miller was wrong when he expected the earth to be the sanctuary and thus concluded that this period would end with the Second Coming. Today, the Adventist Church states that the end of this period marks the beginning of an investigative judgment among other things going on in Heaven.

Scripture, however, doesn’t say “days”, but “mornings and evenings”. Maybe this doesn’t make much of a difference, but some scholars claim that it does. Desmond Ford points out that these are not to be understood as periods, but particular moments, things that happen once (like sacrifices), not things that last and fills out the gaps in time. Thus they don’t make much sense as periods like “days” and “nights”. Even if they did, it is more likely that it meant 1,150 days than 2,300, because it’s 2,300 days and mornings alltogether. In addition to that, Ford notes that only Jehovahs Witnesses makes use of the day-year principle today.

70 weeks in Daniel 9 should be “cut off” from the 2,300 days

“After bidding Daniel “understand the matter, and consider the vision,” the very first words of the angel are: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy Holy City.” The word here translated “determined” literally signifies “cut off.” Seventy weeks, representing 490 years, are declared by the angel to be cut off, as specially pertaining to the Jews. But from what were they cut off? As the 2300 days was the only period of time mentioned in chapter 8, it must be the period from which the seventy weeks were cut off; the seventy weeks must therefore be a part of the 2300 days, and the two periods must begin together.”

Quite a number of assumptions are being made at this point, and there is no way I could consider all of them here. The general assumption is that the periods in Daniel 9 should be explanatory for the 2,300 “mornings and evenings” in Daniel 8. Secondary assumptions are that these periods start at the same time, and that also the 70 weeks should be understood in terms of years rather than days. Later, they would make the conclusion that the beginning of this period was in 457 BC which can be questioned as well. All these conclusions might be fair, but it takes a while to get there, and it’s a bumpy ride. I’m having a hard time feeling confident about the process. It seemed to me that so many things could’ve gone wrong up to this point.

A significant question is the last one: why does 70 weeks mean 490 years? While some Adventists won’t hesitate to reply that it is because of the day-year principle, other scholars will simply state “because the text says so”. Scripture talks of 70×7, but it does not say whether it speaks of days or years. Its fulfillment fits the Jesus story quite well. It is less obvious how it relates to the 2,300 mornings and evenings. Adventists claim that the Hebrew word for “determined” could actually be translated as “cut off”, and then it would have to be shorter than the “2,300 mornings and evenings” period. Apparently, lots of Hebrew scholars disagree that “chatchak” could ever mean (or signify, as Ellen White puts it) “cut off”?

Final considerations

This is a very controversial topic for a lot of Adventists. I’ve been at Newbold for almost two years, and none of the scholars here have argued for, even taught about, this doctrine. Perhaps they themselves share these reasonable doubts. How do we make known to the common church members that 1844 is not all that obvious? The greatest problem might be its implications for Ellen White’s ministry. Of course, I could just shut up and conform to my church, but I believe it would be much better if we could just discuss these issues openly and publicly in order we might move on to a better understanding of what Scripture truly teaches us.

“But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15)

(Update: I was reminded that most of my concerns in this blog post have to do with the calculations of the date which is not what 1844 is essentially about. I comment little on the concept of the sanctuary and the investigative judgment. Be that as it may, lots of Adventists regard these calculations as significant as well.)