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A teenage boy sits in a back room of an old Adventist Church. The pastor explains to him for the first time the 2300-day prophecy of Daniel chapter 8.
Everything else the pastor has said in this baptismal class has seemed stunningly correct. It's been a beautiful banquet of biblical meals.
However, the study on the 2300-days seems the weakest of the bible studies -- hardly worth including among the amazing feast of Bible truths the boy has discovered in the last few months.
Now, 35 years later, that same Seventh-day Adventist boy gives baptismal studies to others. And sometimes some of those people studying say, "I can see how enthusiastic you are about this 2300-day prophecy."
What brought about the change in my attitude? Simply studying the Bible for myself.
Enthusiasm for Judgement
This 2300-day prophecy is how Adventists reach the amazing conclusion that God's last Judgement began in October 1844. This view has often been criticised by those critising the Adventist Church. However, about 20 years ago, the view became heavily criticised with the Adventist Church itself.
I was aware of the controversy when it was happening 20 years ago. However, at that time I did not try to read the thousands of pages of documents written about the subject. Instead, I decided to sit down and read the Bible passage for myself.
Since my days studying the Bible in the back room of that old Adventist Church, it had always seemed the best bet to see what the Bible itself had to say. And not studying all the documents on the controversy was a bonus. It left me free to study the Bible with a minimum of bias.
My plan was simple. I would just sit down and read Daniel 8 through from start to finish to see what it said. And that is what I did.
However, it seems that reading it wasn't enough. I needed more enlightenment. So I read it again. But I still didn't have the answer. So I picked up another Bible translation and read the passage again.
Enlightment still didn't come. So I read the chapter again. And again. And again.
I read Daniel 8 about a 100 times without very much enlightenment.
I read it in as many different translations as I could find. Each time I read it, I drew a blank. Then one day I read it in the translation I personally liked the least.
When reading The New English Bible verse 13 leapt out at me in a way I had never seen it before. This brought two changes into my life. Firstly, I learnt not to think poorly of any translation of the Living God's Word. And secondly, I became enthusiastic about the Judgement starting in October 1844.
Ancient empires
Daniel chapter 8 is a prophecy featuring two symbolic animals, a goat and a ram. These represent two ancient empires. You can read the chapter which contains this prophecy in just 3-4 minutes. In fact, if you click here you can have my own translation of this chapter appear in the adjoining column. You could deviate from my journey to 1844 to read the chapter for yourself right now.
A day for a year
Verse 14 of this chapter is talking about a time period, a period of "2300 days." Before the Seventh-day Adventist Church started, some Bible students held that that 2300 days was actually 2300 years.
The usual way to establish that these "days" equaled "years" has been to turn to "proof texts" in passages like Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6.
Numbers 14:34 is a passage about a punishment given to the Hebrew nation. They refused to go into the Promised Land because of the report some spies gave them about the land. God then decreed that for every day the spies had been in the land, the Hebrews would have to wander in the wilderness for a year. The spies were in the land 40 days, the nation was to be in the wilderness 40 years -- a day for a year.
The second "proof text" is Ezekiel 4:6. It is also about punishment of the Hebrew nation. God tells the prophet Ezekiel to lie on his side for a certain number of days. This symbolises the number of years the nation would be punished -- a day for a year.
These verses were considered adequate proof for this until about 20 years ago.
However, a controversy occured 20 years ago when one of our top theologians, Dr Desmond Ford, a very godly man, publically proclaimed that there is no connection between the 2300 days and these verses about a day for a year.
His comments seemed so self-evidently correct that within a few weeks of his talk on this subject at Pacific Union College in California, thousands of Adventists around the world had agreed he was correct.
Dr Ford was dropped from church employment, but continues as a loyal member of the church -- and as a full-time evangelist. However, his preaching still often contains little jabs against the teaching of the Judgement starting in 1844.
A long time period
Dr Ford adopted the view that the "little" horn in Daniel 8 is a little-known Syrian king called Antiochus IV. If the horn was Antiochus, the Adventist interpretation of the chapter could not be correct. The prophecy in the chapter would be covering only a short time span -- so the 2300 days could not be 2300 years.
We'll come back to Antiochus shortly.
The historical view of the Adventist Church and others is that this "horn" represents the great political/religious power based in Rome.
The prophecy of Daniel 8 is of three great and powerful political forces, represented as a goat, a ram, and a horn. As you will see in verse 20 in the column on the right, the ram represents the Medo-Persian Empire. That dominated the world stage from 539 BC to 331 BC.
You will see in verse 21 in the adjoining column that the goat represented the mighty Greek empire. Its domination began in 331 BC and continued for varying lengths of time in different areas. A convenient ending time for this empire from the point of view of a follower of God in Palestine would be 64 BC. At that point the Roman empire took control of the area.
Who is the horn?
In my baptismal studies in the back room of the old Adventist Church, I was taught that the "horn" of Daniel 8 was the Roman power. But which view is correct -- Dr Ford's, or the church's? When I sat down and read Daniel 8 one hundred times, I had no idea which view was right. Dr Ford has since said that I was prejudiced by my Adventist background, and that is why I came to the conclusion that this horn was the Roman power. But I can honestly say on oath before the great God, I was not prejudiced this way. In fact, my great personally loyality to Dr Ford could be a reason for suggesting I was prejudiced toward his view.
I believe I read the chapter without prejudice. But if there was any prejudice, reading the chapter one hundred times would certainly help make what the Bible says overrule it.
As I was reading The New English Bible, I saw the answer in verse 13. All my short life I had concentrated on verse 14 which says:
A question about time
The question asked in verse 13 is about how long is the period of the vision. The vision runs for hundreds or thousands of years. So clearly, the 2300 days (which is 6.5 years) could not be literal. The period was far longer.
Let me tell you what I saw in this verse 13 before I solve a few problems which Dr Ford sees in my thesis.
As I read The New English Bible, I saw for the first time that the Holy One asks a five-fold question. These five parts are:
A French general took the pope prisoner and removed the church's political powerc in mid-February 1798. That ended a virtually unbroken line of political power in Rome which ran from the reign of Augustus Caesar before Christ was born to 1798. So this part of the question ran until 1798.
How could the Sanctuary in heaven be suppressed? It couldn't be physically trodden down, but the truth of the Sanctuary could be suppressed.
It was a common view that the earth was the Sanctuary. However, it has been rediscovered that the Sanctuary is in Heaven. This rediscovery occured in October 1844, when a gentleman called Hiram Edson was walking through a grain field. He had a sudden insight that the Sanctuary was in heaven. Thus, this part of the question ran until October 1844.
Without going outside the chapter, I had established to myself that this 2300-day prophecy ended in 1844.
Meeting Dr Ford
This discovery of mine virtually remained my secret for many years. I preached on it several times. I explained it to many people in one-to-one conversations. And I once wrote an article on it for an Adventist magazine. But basically, few people knew of the concept.
I went about my life without thinking of my discovery for years at a time. But when I did think about it, it was with a touch of disappointment. Many people, including many ministers, left the church over this issue. On one occasion I studied this subject with one of the ministers who had left us. He was stunned and said, "Why we're we told about this?"
Years later my old Avondale College lecturer Dr Desmond Ford himself, came to preach in our area. I owned a local radio station at the time, and arranged to have Dr Ford come and do some interviews on relgion and health. Afterwards, I personally drove him home -- because I wanted to share my 1844 discovery with him.
Naturally, a Bible study with one of the church's top theologian needs to be at a somewhat deeper level than this article. One key in our discussion was: "Who is the "horn" in Daniel 8:9-12?" That is crucial to interpreting the passage.
I told Dr Ford that I drew up a chart that looked at the identifying marks of this horn. There were 20 identifying marks. I wrote on the chart some of the historical powers which were possible interpretations of the horm. I gave a point system for how well the various interpretations of the "horn" fitted.
Almost 20 years before Dr Ford had said that the "horn" was the little-known Syrian king Antiochus IV (mentioned earlier). Antiochus did not rate well in my graph. In fact, that interpretation received only 10.5 points out of 20. It was the lowest mark of all the possibilities I put on the list.
Faced with this, Dr Ford said words that electrified me. "Antiochus is not the little horn."
I was stunned, and elated. But not for long.
"The little horn," said Dr Ford, "is the latter-day AntiChrist."
It was disappointing for me. When I undermined one of his main reasona for rejecting that the 2300 days was 2300 years, it seemed as if Dr Ford abandoned his position and went to another.
I could clearly see that this "horn" was no latter-day AntiChrist -- because that would require a gap in the prophecy of about 2000 years. And if you read the whole chapter (in the adjoining column), you can see for yourself that there is no 2000-year gap between the world powers mentioned.
My disappointment was to grow worse. I was the only one who heard Dr Ford say that Antiochus was not the horn. And apparently I may be the only person ever to hear him say it. When he visited our area again six months later, in a public meeting I heard him say that Antiochus was the little horn. That was just the opposite of what he had said to me.
The 20 identifying marks which showed that the "horn" was not Antiochus had carried a huge amount of weight with him just six months before. Now it was a thing of the past.
That is my journey
That is my journey to 1844, dear reader. To me and to many others with whom I have shared it, it is satisfying. It shows our church's pioneers did "not follow cunningly devised fables" when they said that the 2300 days was 2300 years ending in 1844.
The discovery has been very satisfying to me. And perhaps it is to you. Or perhaps not.
Or perhaps it will only be satisfying to you when you read Daniel 8 one
hundred times.
Author: Phil Ward.