Ellen G. White and Her Critics

457 B.C. Date Questioned

The very logic of the position taken by the Millerite leaders after 1844 soon demanded that they question the date of the beginning of the 2300-day prophecy. They spoke, at first, of a margin of error of a few years as to its starting date, and as to the date of the crucifixion, which was a key date in the 70-week prophecy. They could entertain this idea of a small error in chronological and historical reckoning without questioning the major premises on which the movement rested. It was this margin-of-error idea that provided the plausibility for the new time setting of different Adventist preachers who kept announcing the end of the world, that is, the cleansing of the sanctuary, as due in 1845, 1846, and so on. Always their thinking was controlled by the premise that the sanctuary cleansing involved Christ’s Second Advent and the earth’s fiery destruction. Obviously the earth was still standing; therefore the sanctuary cleansing was still future. EGWC 169.4

The original margin-of-error idea quickly spent its force and did its sorry work of depleting the ranks through repeated disappointments, which cast doubt on the divine origin of the whole movement. EGWC 170.1

This led to the separating of the seventy weeks of Daniel’s prophecy from the 2300 days, for Adventist leaders in their study were unable to justify moving far from A.D. 457 as the starting date for the seventy weeks. But to do this was to leave the 2300-day prophecy floating in air, with no certain beginning, and consequently no certain ending. Furthermore, to separate these two prophecies was to repudiate the most primary premise on which the Advent movement had been reared. Miller believed that the seventy weeks belonged to the 2300 days and provided the clue to the beginning of that long period. There would probably have been no Advent Awakening in America in the 1840’s if he had not been persuaded that the two prophetic periods are related. EGWC 170.2

Thus the logical result of separating the seventy weeks and the 2300 days was to take from the movement its prophetic validation, and to self-condemn it before the world as being a false religious movement. Each step that the Millerite leaders took after 1844 led toward this sorry end. Rarely in religious history has a movement been so thoroughly undermined by its own leadership. The fact that the leadership proceeded sincerely, as they thought, only adds tragedy to the result that followed. The undermining, which began immediately after 1844, in a repudiation of the seventh-month movement, followed on logically to the virtually complete undermining of the prophetic pillars of the Millerite movement within a few decades. EGWC 170.3