Foundations of the Seventh-day Adventist Message and Mission

C. Summary

Underlying the theological controversy between the Millerites and other Christians was a question of the principles of hermeneutic and their application. The opponents of the Millerites can be classified as including both historicists and others who reflected historical-critical trends. In regard to the crucial issue of the interpretation of the little horn of Daniel 8, the majority of opponents who employed historicist hermeneutics identified the horn as Islam, while those who tended toward a historical-critical approach advocated Antiochus IV, Epiphanes as the fulfillment. FSDA 77.1

The Millerites rejected the view of Islam because it appeared to violate the historicist hermeneutical principles, and also because there existed no precise agreement between the symbolism of the biblical passage and the historical facts of the origin and rise of that religion. They criticized the Antiochus view because the historical data of the life of Antiochus also were difficult to harmonize with the exegesis of Daniel 8. It violated, they said, the prophetic time-sequence parallelism of Daniel and could provide no exact historical evidence for a period of persecution identifiable by the 2300 days of Daniel 8:14. FSDA 77.2

In this controversy the Millerites argued that the historicist interpretation of the little horn as the pagan and papal phases of Rome, the persecuting power of God’s people, was most consistent with available historical data. They especially emphasized that only the application of the year-day principle as a key to the interpretation of time periods in apocalyptic eschatology provided an exact time period for which there existed accurate historical evidence. FSDA 77.3