The Timeline to 1844 came from Bible Scholars and believers not William Miller

[hobie]

Well, this is amazing. I was taking my wife to the beach as she had an outbreak which I thought the sun and warm waters would help heal. So we headed there and I grabbed my beach bag and made sure it had all my change of clothes, towels, and a book to read which I grabbed on the way out. So we get there and set up with beach chairs and bags and go in the water and it was so hot the sand was burning to walk on and the water ready for soup. Well anyway I finally get out of the water, and go to sit on the chairs, and sip a cool drink and pull out a book to read and relax. So I open the book I grabbed and come to a part where the words I am reading just leave me dumbfounded. Here is the part I had come across...

"The Historical Background of Seventh-Day Adventism Seventh-day Adventism sprang from the "Great Second Advent Awakening," which shook the religious world just before the middle of the nineteenth century when a reemphasis on the second advent of Jesus Christ was rampant in Britain and on the continent of Europe. Before long, many of the Old World views of prophetic interpretation crossed the Atlantic and penetrated American theological circles. Based largely upon the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Revelation, the theology of the Advent Movement was discussed in the newspapers as well as in theological journals. New Testament eschatology competed with stock market quotations for front-page space, and the "seventy weeks," "twenty-three hundred days," and "the abomination of desolation" (Daniel 8–9) were common subjects of conversation. Following the chronology of Archbishop Ussher, and interpreting the 2300 days of Daniel as 2300 years, many Bible students of various denominations concluded that Christ would come back about the year 1843. Of this studious number was one William Miller, a Baptist minister and resident of Lower Hampton, New York. The Great Second Advent Awakening, which swept the United States in the 1840’s, stemmed largely from the activities of this William Miller, who confidently taught in the year 1818 that in "about" twenty-five years, i.e., 1843, Jesus Christ would come again...At length his associates set October 22, 1844, as the final date when Jesus Christ would return for His saints."

I was intrigued as clearly this was saying that this timeline of the 2300 days of Daniel as 2300 years was seen by others and was being studied by many believers. William Miller was studying what many others were going over with great interest, and he was not some wild eyed extremist as we see. "Miller was raised by a deeply religious mother, but despite her zeal for his conversion, Miller became a deist. Only after a soul-searching experience that culminated in his conversion did he begin his preparation for ministry in the Baptist church. A great many books have been written about William Miller and the Millerite movement, but to this writer’s knowledge none of them proved Miller to be dishonest or deceptive in his prophetic interpretation of Scripture. Indeed, he enjoyed the reputation, among all who knew him, of being an honest, forthright Christian."

The problem was not the timeline but the event that they were looking at had been picked up with the wrong ending, which if they had been Jewish, would have been clear from their understanding of work of the High Priest in the earthly sanctuary. And we see more of what others were seeing then...

"Clearly it may be seen that although Miller popularized the 1843/1844 concept of Christ’s coming again, he was by no means alone. If we condemn him, we must also condemn a large number of internationally known scholars who were among the most highly educated men of their day. Yet they, too, had a blind spot in prophetic interpretation and endorsed this fallacious system of date-setting."

They were looking for the second advent, and we can see now how the fixation on this led to the great disappointment. Here is a clear and much better explanation than I could give of the issue from the book..

"Regardless of the number of scholars who confirmed his errors, however, the fact remains that Miller and the Millerite movement operated contrary to the express injunctions of Scripture. Both Miller and his followers lived to reap the reward of their foolhardy quest and to suffer crushing humiliation, ridicule, and abject despair.,, The final phase of the movement closed with the “Great Disappointment of 1844,” but as the Millerites disbanded, there emerged other groups, such as the First-day Adventists. However, in our study we are concerned primarily with three segments that later fused to produce the Seventh-day Adventist denomination... At this point in our historical analysis of Seventh-day Adventism, we believe it will be profitable to briefly review “The Great Disappointment of 1844” and its relationship to the Seventh-day Adventist doctrines of the heavenly sanctuary and the investigative judgment. The entire superstructure of the Millerites’ prophetic interpretation was based upon their view of the book of Daniel, chapters eight and nine, with particular emphasis upon Daniel 8:14 and 9:24–27. The Millerites believed that the prophecy of the seventy weeks of Daniel nine must date from the year 457 BC., which, as recent archaeological evidence confirms,16 was the exact date of the decree of King Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25). Tracing the seventy weeks of Daniel on the theory that, as the Hebrew indicated, it should be rendered “seventy weeks of years” or 490 years, the Millerites arrived at the date AD. 33; that is, from 457 BC. to AD. 33. Since this date generally corresponds with Christ’s crucifixion, Millerites then linked it to Daniel 8:14—“Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed”—with the seventy weeks of years prophecy, and the 2300 days became 2300 years. Thus, if you subtract 490 years (adding, of course, AD. 1 to 33), the figure arrived at is 1843. Many biblical scholars have historically shown that in Scripture a day frequently symbolizes a year; further, that the seventy weeks and 2300 days of Daniel could have begun on the same date. And that date, according to the Millerites, was 457 BC.

So we see here clearly that it was not William Miller who came up with the timeline leading to 1844, but it was from many of those who studied Gods Word, and this comes not from some advocate of Adventism or from the church, but from a surprising source...

[hobie]

And here the writer hits on the key point which is at the center of the prophecy which led to the disappointment and when understood correctly became a pillar of the foundation of the church.

"As we have seen, when the Millerite calculations failed, all appeared to be lost; but a singular event took place only three days later in a cornfield near Port Gibson, New York, which changed the face of Adventist history and brought about a reinterpretation of the eighth and ninth chapters of the book of Daniel, an interpretation which is a keystone in the arch of the Seventh-day Adventist view of prophecy. On October 25, 1844, following the “Great Disappointment,” Hiram Edson, a devout Adventist and follower of William Miller, was wending his way homeward with his friend O.R.L. Crosier. In order to avoid the mocking gazes and taunts of their neighbors, they cut across a cornfield. As they walked through the cornfield in deep silence and meditation, Hiram Edson stopped, became more deeply immersed in meditation, and then with upturned face indicative of a heartfelt prayer for spiritual light, he suddenly received a great spiritual “revelation.” In the words of Dr. Froom, Suddenly there burst upon his mind the thought that there were two phases to Christ’s ministry in the Heaven of Heavens, just as in the earthly sanctuary of old. In his own words, an overwhelming conviction came over him “that instead of our high priest coming out of the most holy of the heavenly sanctuary to come to this earth on the tenth day of the seventh month at the end of the twenty-three hundred days, He for the first time entered on that day the second apartment of that sanctuary, and that He had a work to perform in the most holy before coming to this earth.”18

In that instant, according to Seventh-day Adventist history, Hiram Edson found the reason why the Millerites had been disappointed. They had expected Christ to come to earth to cleanse the sanctuary, but the sanctuary was not the earth. It was located in heaven! Instead of coming to earth, therefore, Christ had passed from one “apartment” of the sanctuary into the other “apartment” to perform a closing work now known as the “investigative judgment.”

"These concepts are now understood to mean that in 1844 Christ entered the “second phase” of His ministry in the heavenly sanctuary, and ever since has been reviewing the cases of believers to determine their worthiness for eternal life. Further, He will come forth from the “second apartment,” or finish the “second phase” of His ministry in the sanctuary, to usher in judgment upon the world at His Great Second Advent. This, in essence, was the interpretation that shaped the later concepts of the “heavenly sanctuary” and the “investigative judgment” in Seventh-day Adventist theology. Thus, good Millerite-Adventists were justified in endorsing the work of William Miller..."

And he gives this..."Although I do not accept White’s explanation or the interpretations of Edson, Crosier, Froom, or Nichol, I would be at a loss to account for the growth and development of Seventh-day Adventism apart from the psychological framework of the “Great Disappointment of 1844.”