1844 Made Complicated Part 1

In Douglas Adams’ popular sci-fi novel titled The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a group of highly intelligent beings developed a supercomputer named Deep Thought, in order to determine the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. In the story, it takes Deep Thought 7 ½ million years to compute the answer which just happens to be a seemingly random number, 42. If only the answer to all the questions about life is this simple and can be calculated by a computer, it would certainly solve a lot of our problems.

Science fiction aside, there has been a much awaited event by Christians all over the world for over two millennia since the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, and that is the Second Advent. The First Advent of the Messiah has been prophesied in the Scriptures. Jews who believed that Jesus Christ is the Messiah have welcomed the Lord’s arrival and they eventually became known as Christians, while Jews who did not believe in Him died still waiting for the First Advent of the Messiah.

In the First Advent, there were many signs and prophecies scattered throughout Scriptures and even the Magi, who were not Jews were able to read the signs and guided by the Holy Spirit using the Star of Bethlehem, have made their way to worship the Lord. After Jesus’ ascension, many of the believers awaited eagerly for His soon return, believing that it would happen in their lifetime. But the hope that they have for Jesus’ soon return did not die with them. They have passed this hope to their children and their children’s children down to our present generation.

Good thing Jesus did not leave His followers clueless and left them many signs of His return. Some of these are:

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must ? happen, but the end is still to come. Matt. 24:6

Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Matt. 24:7-8

There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Luke 21:25-26

These signs have been visible since the time of the early Christians, and that’s why some people from the time of the apostles began to doubt the second coming of the Lord.

They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation. 2 Peter 3:4

The Second Advent is soon. But from a human perspective, Our “soon” may be different from God’s “soon”. The apostle Peter writes,

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:8-9

Sadly, some believers abandoned their faith and did not believe anymore that the Lord would return. Others however, with great zeal have been expecting the Lord and went on to predict His exact return, even down to the very day and hour. Had they remembered Jesus’ words, they would not have done this. Jesus said

But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Matt 24:36

Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 1st Thess. 5:1-2

Throughout history, many people have tried, and failed to predict the exact day of the Lord’s return. These are but a few:

• 1700 - Henry Archer
• 1844 - William Miller
• 1891 - Joseph Smith
• 1914 - Jehovah’s Witnesses
• 2011 - Harold Camping

Harold Camping

Harold Camping is the one that was fairly recent and has caught a lot of media attention. Harold Camping, through his group Family Radio, predicted that the end of the world would occur on May 21, 2011 and when it didn’t happen, changed the date to October 21, 2011.

Many of his believers donated money, amounting to millions of dollars. Others sold or gave away their properties believing that they will no longer need it but unfortunately, there were also some tragic cases of people killing themselves or their loved ones because of extreme fear or panic as the date drew near. Harold Camping himself died two years later in 2013.

Meanwhile, Family Radio administrators have repented of their date setting and Family Radio is still active to this day, just without the date setting. This is the sad reality when people were deluded into believing erroneous date setting for the Lord’s return. What happened to Harold Camping’s believers are eerily similar (except maybe for the cases of killings) to what happened with William Miller and the Millerite movement. And like the supercomputer Deep Thought who computed the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything, which is 42, we will explore how Miller derived the calculation of the Lord’s return and how he got the result of 1844.

William Miller

William Miller was born on February 15, 1782, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was a veteran in the American revolution and gained the rank of captain. After the war he became a farmer and took up civil duties such as constable, was elected as deputy sheriff and also served as Justice of the peace. Miller was born a Baptist but later converted to Deism. Deists believe in a Creator God but they also believe that after God created everything, He just left them to do whatever they please because He doesn’t care. But after Miller experienced the horrors of war and how he was miraculously saved, Miller then came to believe that God was at work in saving him so he turned back to God and back to the Baptist faith and renounced Deism. William Miller was also an active member of the Freemasons until 1831, but he found it incompatible with the Bible so he left the group. His thorough study of the Bible led him to conclude that the Second Coming would be sometime around 1843. Miller based his calculation primarily on Daniel 8:14

And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

This is the commonly known verse on how Miller got to the year 1843, but this understanding came to him much later. Miller has developed his so-called “15 proofs” to show how he got to the date but we will discuss this briefly in a little bit.

Miller has no specific date for his prediction but he eventually narrowed down his calculation. According to Miller, “My principles in brief are, that Jesus Christ will come again to this earth, cleanse, purify, and take possession of the same, with all the saints, sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. [1]” When the dates have passed without the Second Coming, Miller stated publicly,

I confess my error, and acknowledge my disappointment; yet I still believe that the day of the Lord is near, even at the door.

But in August of 1844 at a camp-meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire, Samuel Snow [3] presented the seventh-month message or “true midnight cry”, which claims that the Lord would return on the “tenth day of the seventh month” using the Jewish Karaite Calendar, this would correspond to October 22, 1844. However, like the previous dates that Miller predicted, this too ended up a failure, which came to be known as “The Great Disappointment.”

The Aftermath of the Great Disappointment

Because the Lord did not return on October 22, 1844 as the Millerites expected, The believers were publicly mocked and ridiculed, many of them sold all their possessions in anticipation of the Second Coming and have even convinced others to do the same as they wait for the Lord. William Miller wrote to Joshua Himes about his experience after the Great Disappointment

Some are tauntingly enquiring, ‘Have you not gone up?’ Even little children in the streets are shouting continually to passersby, ‘Have you a ticket to go up?’ The public prints, of the most fashionable and popular kind … are caricaturing in the most shameful manner of the ‘white robes of the saints,’ Revelation 6:11, the ‘going up,’ and the great day of ‘burning.’ Even the pulpits are desecrated by the repetition of scandalous and false reports concerning the ‘ascension robes’, and priests are using their powers and pens to fill the catalogue of scoffing in the most scandalous periodicals of the day[4]

Before October 22, 1844, the Millerites numbered in the thousands. But after the failed date, the Millerite movement splintered. Some abandoned their belief in God totally, while others went back to their previous denominations. The remaining few went on to found their own denomination, among them are the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists.

Those who remained steadfast to the 1844 doctrine were utterly devastated. Hiram Edson, one of the Millerite followers, who later became one of the pioneers of the Seventh-day Adventist church was recorded as stating,

Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept, and wept till the day dawned.[5]

William Miller, in his personal memoirs also recorded

Were I to live my life over again, with the same evidence that I then had, to be honest with God and man, I should have to do as I have done. I confess my error, and acknowledge my disappointment [6]

What the Millerites, Harold Camping’s Family Radio group, and other end-time date setters have experienced may be called Cognitive Dissonance. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary cognitive dissonance is defined as “Psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously”

The term came from the work of American psychologists, Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. Interestingly, in the book that they published titled: “When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World [7]”, the Millerites were included in the examples.

Cognitive dissonance happens when you have a belief or knowledge (cognition) that is incompatible (dissonance) with another. An example would be, You know that smoking is bad for your health but at the same time, you feel relaxed and calm when you smoke and it relieves your stress. Resolving this cognitive dissonance is usually by:[8]

• Rejecting or avoiding conflicting information: In order to keep their beliefs, they will dismiss or close their minds to any information that is in conflict with their beliefs. This is also known as “confirmation bias.”

• Persuading and justifying: Those who take this route will align themselves with similar minded people who will agree with them and they may also convince others that they are correct

• Reconciling the differences: This attempts to make the dissonant beliefs compatible and when done in Biblical matters for example, is what can be called as “hermeneutical gymnastics”. A fanciful way of making the Bible agree with one’s belief on a certain topic by twisting or manipulating, or taking it out of its context so it would fit that belief.

The faithful Millerites had a hard time accepting what was going on at that time, they didn’t know why the Lord did not return as predicted by Miller. They knew his calculations were correct and his proofs irrefutable and yet Christ did not return. However, their belief did not conform to reality because the Lord didn’t return as they predicted, hence the cognitive dissonance.

On the morning of October 23, 1844, hours after the Great Disappointment, the faithful Millerites gathered at the home of Hiram Edson, and they spent the morning in prayer. After their prayer, Edson, together with Owen Crosier went to visit the other Millerites to encourage them. As they were passing through a cornfield, Hiram Edson stopped in his tracks and Owen Crosier asked him why he was stopping, Edson replied:

The Lord was answering our morning prayer, by giving light with regard to our disappointment [9]

In Edson’s vision he wrote that

Heaven seemed open to my view, and I saw distinctly and clearly 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 2300 days, that 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. That He came to the marriage at that time [as mentioned in the parable of the Ten Virgins; in other words, to the Ancient of days to receive a kingdom, dominion, and glory; and we must wait for His return from the wedding [10]

This vision gave their group new hope that what Miller taught was correct. They had renewed vigor. They were given the right understanding. Miller’s date was correct but they got the event wrong. Instead of the earth being cleansed and Christ returning, it was the Heavenly Sanctuary that was being cleansed and Christ entering the Most Holy Place for the first time. We will take a closer look if this was indeed the case or perhaps this could be Hiram Edson’s way of reconciling the cognitive dissonance that they had just experienced?