Brief Review of New Views Regarding Millerite Chronology
By Grace E. Amadon
From the archives of Andrews University
Center for Adventist Research
Grace Amadon Collection
Box 2; Folder 4
In this limited sketch of the new positions with reference to the Millerite time problem, the following outline will be followed:
1. The Tisri New Year on October 22, Jerusalem meridian.
2. A request that the lunar meridian be dropped.
3. Principles employed in the calendation hitherto presented to the Committee.
4. Brief discussion of the lunar meridian “substitute.”
1. Tisri New Year on October 22, Jerusalem Meridian
Proposition (1) is taken from Elder Andreasen‟s first report with regard to the Millerite computations, and this was presented to the Committee last summer. The position then taken was much the same as that assumed by Bro. Wierts, and because of the importance of understanding this view, its argument will be examined. The following citation shows that the true calendar beginning of the Jewish day was understood:
The 13th day of October begins at midnight, as all civil days do. But the Jewish day begins at sunset. The two days do not therefore synchronize exactly. The civil day begins at midnight, and the Jewish day begins the previous evening at sunset. The first day of the Jewish
seventh month therefore began the evening of October 12 and lasted until sunset October 13. --M. L. A. (1), p. 11.
So far this argument is excellent, and it is based on calendar facts. But immediately comes this conclusion:
Their [Millerites] reasoning was this: According to the Karaite reckoning, the seventh month was October. The moon was in conjunction on October 11. It could not be seen until the 13th. As the visibility of the new moon determined the beginning of the new month, the 13the was the first day of the seventh month, and hence the 22nd was the 10th day on which they expected the Lord to come. This was clearly their reasoning, and in harmony with their accepted Jewish authorities. --M. L. A. (1), p. 11.
In a four-page supplement to this first report it is further stressed that
“The month did not begin the day after the appearance of the moon, it began „with‟ the first appearance, the thirteenth.” –M. L. A., Supplement, p. 2.
“That they did place the new month on the 13th is evident. That they also placed the phasis on the same day is equally evident.” –Idem, p. 4.
From these citations and others with regard to the moon‟s phasis, both in Boston and Jerusalem, the conclusions were then drawn that
1. In Boston, 1st day of Tisri was on October 13, and the phasis was also “visible the evening of the 13th.” –M. L. A.
In other words, the 1st of Tisri, from sunset of 12th (p. 11) to sunset of 13th, actually began 24 hours before the moon‟s first appearance. The second conclusion follows:
2. In Jerusalem, 1st day of Tisri was on October 13, and phasis was “on evening of the 13th,” and “relation would be the same as in Boston.” –Idem, p. 11.
3. Final conclusion – “the tenth day of the seventh month would come on the 22nd in Jerusalem as in Boston,” –Idem.
But this argument was not in harmony with the cited Millerite authorities in the 1844 periodicals. It was not the understanding of those who laid down the time argument for the seventh month movement, neither of him who wrote the paragraph, “Time at Jersulem,” for he plainly said that if the moon “did not appear till the evening of the 13th, then the first day of the tenth month [doubtless he meant seventh], might, even, be as late as the 14th.” – Midnight Cry, Oct. 19, 1844, p. 132.
On this point, at least, the Millerites were clear in the spring of 1844, that the first day of the new month always followed the moon‟s first appearance, and did not precede it. This fact was quoted again and again throughout 1843 from Prideaux. Bliss also was foremost in stressing this point. These students of prophecy must also have been acquainted with the following from Sir Isaac Newton:
For the Jews did not anticipate, but postpone their months; they thought it lawful to begin their months a day later than the first appearance of the new moon, because the new moon continued for more days than one; but not a day sooner, lest they should celebrate the new moon before there was any. –Newton, Sir Isaac, Observations upon the Prophecies, p. 161, London, 1733.
This excerpt from Prideaux was several times printed:
“None of them [months] had fewer than 29 days, and therefore they never looked for the new moon before the night following the 29th day; and, if they then saw it, the next day was the first day of the following month.” – [Prideaux, History of the Jews, Vol. 1, p. 51.] – Signs of the Times, Dec. 5, 1843, p. 135, col. 1.
The conclusion, therefore, that the Tisri new year in both Boston and Jerusalem began on October 13, and that the moon‟s phasis was not seen until sunset of that day – 24 hours after the Jewish day began – is not at all in keeping with the authorities whom the Millerites cite. Therefore the conclusion that the tenth day of
the Jewish seventh month in Jerusalem was October 22 is not drawn from reliable sources, and if there is anything at all in the 1844 literature that suggests this, it comes editors and preachers who came into the movement at the last moment, as it were, and who had nothing whatever to do with the establishment of the time reckoning upon which the midnight cry was founded.
And neither is it sound astronomical reasoning that October 13 was even the first day of Tisri in Jerusalem, for that would mean that the moon‟s first appearance would have to occur on the previous evening of October 12, near sunset – the very day itself of the sun‟s conjunction with the old moon. The following astronomical laws relate to such a calendar feature:
“Indeed, it does happen that the moon can be hidden and seen on the same day, but certainly this very rarely occurs; and it does not happen except, as Pliny says, when the sun is in Aries.” – Bacherius, Aegidius, Tractatus De Paschali Judacorum Cycle, p. 373, Antverpiae, 1834. [Bacherius is quoting from Scaliger.]
This famous statement from Pliny follows:
“The old and new moon are viaible [sic] on the same day or night in no other sign except Aries, and indeed it has happened very seldom to any one to have witnessed it.” – Pliny, Natural History, Vol. I, p. 49. Tr. Desbook and Riley, London, 1855.
In 1844, nor in any other year, is the Tisri moon‟s phasis in the sign Aries. The Tisri moon was in Libra, 180˚ distant from the spring sign of the ram. Hence it is absurd, and the conclusions of this Committee would so appear to every student of astronomical science, if the calendar on the Jerusalem neridian were laid down in such a way as to represent old moon and the moon‟s phasis as actually occurring on the same day in the fall of the year.
Furthermore, such calendation as the foregoing [sic], would place the Jerusalem Passover right on the day of full moon, instead of after it. Thus the civil date October 22 in Jerusalem for the tenth day of Tisri not only defies the laws of astronomy and the moon‟s motion, but it contravenes three of those of the Bible
also which commanded that the 14th of Nisan should follow the day of full moon in Jerusalem.
2. A Request that the Lunar Date Line be dropped
The recent review of the Millerite Chronology by Elder Andreasen is different from that he presented last summer. It is, he says, “a substitute for the invisible moon on the evening of the 12th of October in Boston in 1844,” and “a substitute for the lunar date line as a basis of calendation.” –M. L. A., Observations, p. 8.
Before discussing any phase of this second position respecting the Millerite calculations, please allow me to state that after our series of sub-committee sessions last year regarding the lunar calendar line, Elder Andreasen made the proposition that if I would say nothing more with respect to the moon‟s meridian, and leave it out of the argument, he would accept the charts and figures as they then stood. And only recently, Elder Kern repeated that our Brother still has that in view.
The calendar work up to date does not use the lunar meridian argument. It has thus far been strictly kept in abeyance, as per request, and the Millerite time problem, both in Jerusalem and Boston has been solved entirely on another basis. I was therefore surprised that the subject should be again set forth. However, for this I am not sorry, and if the Committee desires to take the time to seriously consider the laws and vital principles involved in the lunar meridian, they may sometime find these important truths of greater value than now appears.
3. Principles Employed in the Calendation hitherto presented to the Committee
In Jerusalem, the 19-year cycle was worked for the 1844 period, using the Passover law that Nisan 14 occurs on the next day after full moon in Jerusalem. Both the Nisan and Tisri moons were translated according to known rules governing the moon‟s phasis, and the 1844 dates were confirmed by the time of the moonsets on several latitudes in the east. This work was wholly on an astronomical basis. No
Millerite dates or rules were employed, and neither were the meridional principles introduced.
On the Boston meridian, two lines of solution were followed – one representing the Millerite procedure, and the other, the astronomical confirmation of their resultant dates. These dates can be reconstructed in calendar form by the laws pertaining to the lunar meridian, but this was not the method used.
The Millerite reckoning of the final end of the 2300-day prophecy was different from that described by Elder Andreasen. It was not based on the Tisri calculation either in Boston or in Jerusalem. The few statements by belated editors and preachers with regard to Jerusalem, a short time before the disappointment, and also the few scattering October 23‟s, had nothing at all to do with the reckoning that started the seventh month movement earlier in the year. The time principles that governed the seventh month chronology had been brewing for at least two years, perhaps more. The essential truths were solidly founded on the ancient Jewish year, not upon an unnatural form of it. Again and again, throughout 1843, a complete series of all the calendar features controlling Jewish time appeared in the Millerite papers – intercalation, leap moth Veadar, 19-year cycle, Metonic cycle, 84-year cycle, length of Jewish month and Jewish year, Karaite principle of the barley harvest, the laws of the moon‟s visibility, the position of the first day of the month, and of the moon‟s phasis, double new moon days for the diaspora, single new moon day in Palestine, etc. And after the spring disappointment, “Jewish year” was repeated three or four months in succession.
But, even so, calendation was not altogether the key to the new chronology which suddenly confronted the people in the summer of 1844, and which gave life to the midnight cry. The mainspring lay concealed in Daniel 9 and Matthew 25. Samuel Snow was one of several to discover that six lunar months had yet to be added to the spring date – itself a month later than first computed – in order to complete the prophecy. Snow got this largely from Daniel 9. His argument was simple, but impelling – that if Christ was crucified in the midst of the “week,” in the spring, than the end of the week, and therefore the end, not only of the 487th year, but also of the 2300th year, would come six lunar months later in the autumn.
On Sunday, July 21 in Boston, Snow was heard mightily proclaiming, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh on the tenth day of the seventh month – in the autumn!” Already, Bates says, they had settled that “the 17th day of April, 1844, Roman time, was the close of the year 1843 Bible time.” – Life of Bates, p. 297. If April 17, Roman time, or midnight, was the last day of the year “1843,” then the first day of the new year would have to begin at the next point of time, or sunset of April 18, Sylvester Bliss gives the key statement relating to this date, and it is more technically correct than the majority of the Millerite date records:
Consequently, this Jewish year began with the appearance of the moon on the 18th of April, bringing the Passover on the first of May – an entire moon later than the Rabbinical passover. Reckoning from this moon, the seventh Jewish month commenced with the appearance of the moon on the 13th of October; so that the tenth day of the seventh month synchronized with the 27th [sic] of that month.” – Advent Shield, January, 1845, p. 278.
Now, if the moon‟s first appearance was on April 18 – and it could not be otherwise than sunset of that day – then April 10 was the first day of Nisan on that calendar, as is abundantly testified.
“Reckoning from this moon,” Bliss continues. That is exactly what Snow, Bates, and the whole Exetor [sic] camp did. And it was that reckoning that inspired Snow to herald with mighty appeal, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh on the tenth day of the seventh month, October 22.” For if the six lunar months, or 177 days, are added to sunset of April 18, and if the Jewish year began then, as Bliss says, the resultant date was sunset of October 12, when the first day of Tisri began in America.
The foregoing is the method that established the chronology of the midnight cry. The prophecy could not wait for Tisri computation either in Jerusalem or Boston. For on that basis, the reckoning would have come too late for either midnight cry, or Second Angel’s Message. And furthermore, the differences of opinion that arose late in the period would have been disastrous to the movement if there had not been an earlier firm foundation, based upon the Bible primarily, and upon the pure ancient Jewish year, and not upon a distorted form of it.
The astronomical demonstration of the Millerite dates will be omitted here, inasmuch as it has been fully demonstrated in this Committee. A further line of confirmation of the calendation employed consists of a series of historical checks, both from the Bible, and from known events in history, which are tied to the Jewish feasts and their corresponding days of the week. With the year proved, such synchronisms make an exact corroboration of this luni-solar time method that has been constructed and almost completed in these Committee sessions during the past two and a half years. The Aramaic papyri dates – a representation of the true primitive Jewish reckoning – being tied to the Jewish vague year, thereby also becomes an acceptable check upon the lunar calculation by which they are solved.
4. Brief Discussion of the Lunar Meridian “Substitute”
The lunar date line itself needs no substitute for two reasons: (1) The laws governing the meridional beginning of the true lunar new year have not, per agreement, been used in the solution of the Millerite time problem. This evidence, by request, has been withheld. Then, why a substitute for that which has not been used?
(2) Also, there can be no true substitute for the governing principles of luni-solar time, which mark out to the minute the exact time and place of beginning of the moon’s new year. These laws were established by the Creator from the very origin of time, and they will last throughout eternity. If they seem useless and impractical to us, it is because we do not understand them.
The substitute alternatives offered by the rabbinical cycles, the Catholic missal, and the Episcopal ritual do not synchronize with the moon‟s phases within two or three days. These calendars are all based on fictitious moons, which “full” according to certain tables. Hence these systems of time-keeping cannot verify dates in the centuries before their construction.
The method proposed by Elder Andreasen is practically the same as that of Elder Washburn. Quotes:
“It was 11 o‟clock in Boston, sunset in Jerusalem. At that precise moment in Jerusalem [evening of the 13th] the new moon began. What were the people in Boston to do? There were still 18 hours left of the civil day in Boston before midnight. Doubtless this was the beginning of the seventh month.” – p. 8.
The argument lying back of these figures is this: If the new month Tisri began in Jerusalem at sunset of October 13, then, a priori, the calendar civil date of the whole Tisri new year‟s day – from sunset to sunset – was October 13/14, and the tenth of Tisri was October 22/23. And then, it is concluded, without sources, or acceptable support, or even precedent, that 11 a.m. in Boston, the corresponding instant of the Jerusalem sunset on October 13, was “doubtless the beginning of the month.” The whole first day of Tisri, therefore, in Boston, would be supposed to extend from 11 a.m. October 13 to 11 a.m. October 14, and 11 a.m. October 22 to 11 a.m. October 23.
The objections to this “substitute” calendation for the invisible Tisri moon are many. The following are important:
1. The Millerites themselves point out the fitting substitute for the invisible Tisri moon – that of the Nisan moon in April. This moon is easier to translate than the one in Jerusalem. One can‟t go wrong with the April new moon!
2. If there is any calendar sense at all to the proposed reckoning that the Tisri new year in Boston, 1844, should begin at 11 o‟clock in the morning, then certainly the Nisan new year ought to do the same. And Sylvester Bliss, two months after the disappointment, was wholly at variance with such a scheme, for he left on record that “this Jewish new year began with the appearance of the moon on the 18th of April,” which perforce, was at sunset. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that Bliss, the official recorder of the seventh month movement, and one of the two computers of Jerusalem time, did not allow that his own statement in any way changed the ancient beginning of the Jewish day in Boston.
3. The function of the moon’s meridian is to point out the precise beginning of the new year. This is a creative office of the moon. She was appointed – created in Hebrew – for this very purpose. The new year begins at sunset,
and it is always near sunset when the moon fulfils this charge. The substitute here proposed for this lunar agency is earth and sun performance with reference to the solar day. Thus is the true lunar new year obliterated, the time of beginning effaced, and the moon’s office in the regulation of time completely ignored!
These irregular calendar features are important to understand. A year ago it was proposed herein the Committee that the tenth day of Tisri be October 22 in Jerusalem. The phasis was placed after the new moon day, instead of before it. Now the scheme has changed, the Boston date of the new year, and also of the tenth Tisri is advanced 17 hours, and the time-honoured place of the moon‟s phasis is abolished, while earth and sun substitute for the “faithful witness in the sky.”
In conclusion, please allow me to suggest. It is too much to hope that this criticism will offer appeal to all of the Committee. Almost every day we are finding new and revealing Millerite statements that have been passed by Inasmuch as we do not at present need the lunar meridian in our reckoning, why not let it rest until we have more evidence?
G. Amadon
Underlined words in original. All other emphasis supplied. Due to the age of the original document, some numbers, personal names and cited sources were blurred and difficult to read. The reader may wish to compare between what is given here and the original, also available on this website.
Pesquisado por: Diná Soares
By Grace E. Amadon
From the archives of Andrews University
Center for Adventist Research
Grace Amadon Collection
Box 2; Folder 4
In this limited sketch of the new positions with reference to the Millerite time problem, the following outline will be followed:
1. The Tisri New Year on October 22, Jerusalem meridian.
2. A request that the lunar meridian be dropped.
3. Principles employed in the calendation hitherto presented to the Committee.
4. Brief discussion of the lunar meridian “substitute.”
1. Tisri New Year on October 22, Jerusalem Meridian
Proposition (1) is taken from Elder Andreasen‟s first report with regard to the Millerite computations, and this was presented to the Committee last summer. The position then taken was much the same as that assumed by Bro. Wierts, and because of the importance of understanding this view, its argument will be examined. The following citation shows that the true calendar beginning of the Jewish day was understood:
The 13th day of October begins at midnight, as all civil days do. But the Jewish day begins at sunset. The two days do not therefore synchronize exactly. The civil day begins at midnight, and the Jewish day begins the previous evening at sunset. The first day of the Jewish
seventh month therefore began the evening of October 12 and lasted until sunset October 13. --M. L. A. (1), p. 11.
So far this argument is excellent, and it is based on calendar facts. But immediately comes this conclusion:
Their [Millerites] reasoning was this: According to the Karaite reckoning, the seventh month was October. The moon was in conjunction on October 11. It could not be seen until the 13th. As the visibility of the new moon determined the beginning of the new month, the 13the was the first day of the seventh month, and hence the 22nd was the 10th day on which they expected the Lord to come. This was clearly their reasoning, and in harmony with their accepted Jewish authorities. --M. L. A. (1), p. 11.
In a four-page supplement to this first report it is further stressed that
“The month did not begin the day after the appearance of the moon, it began „with‟ the first appearance, the thirteenth.” –M. L. A., Supplement, p. 2.
“That they did place the new month on the 13th is evident. That they also placed the phasis on the same day is equally evident.” –Idem, p. 4.
From these citations and others with regard to the moon‟s phasis, both in Boston and Jerusalem, the conclusions were then drawn that
1. In Boston, 1st day of Tisri was on October 13, and the phasis was also “visible the evening of the 13th.” –M. L. A.
In other words, the 1st of Tisri, from sunset of 12th (p. 11) to sunset of 13th, actually began 24 hours before the moon‟s first appearance. The second conclusion follows:
2. In Jerusalem, 1st day of Tisri was on October 13, and phasis was “on evening of the 13th,” and “relation would be the same as in Boston.” –Idem, p. 11.
3. Final conclusion – “the tenth day of the seventh month would come on the 22nd in Jerusalem as in Boston,” –Idem.
But this argument was not in harmony with the cited Millerite authorities in the 1844 periodicals. It was not the understanding of those who laid down the time argument for the seventh month movement, neither of him who wrote the paragraph, “Time at Jersulem,” for he plainly said that if the moon “did not appear till the evening of the 13th, then the first day of the tenth month [doubtless he meant seventh], might, even, be as late as the 14th.” – Midnight Cry, Oct. 19, 1844, p. 132.
On this point, at least, the Millerites were clear in the spring of 1844, that the first day of the new month always followed the moon‟s first appearance, and did not precede it. This fact was quoted again and again throughout 1843 from Prideaux. Bliss also was foremost in stressing this point. These students of prophecy must also have been acquainted with the following from Sir Isaac Newton:
For the Jews did not anticipate, but postpone their months; they thought it lawful to begin their months a day later than the first appearance of the new moon, because the new moon continued for more days than one; but not a day sooner, lest they should celebrate the new moon before there was any. –Newton, Sir Isaac, Observations upon the Prophecies, p. 161, London, 1733.
This excerpt from Prideaux was several times printed:
“None of them [months] had fewer than 29 days, and therefore they never looked for the new moon before the night following the 29th day; and, if they then saw it, the next day was the first day of the following month.” – [Prideaux, History of the Jews, Vol. 1, p. 51.] – Signs of the Times, Dec. 5, 1843, p. 135, col. 1.
The conclusion, therefore, that the Tisri new year in both Boston and Jerusalem began on October 13, and that the moon‟s phasis was not seen until sunset of that day – 24 hours after the Jewish day began – is not at all in keeping with the authorities whom the Millerites cite. Therefore the conclusion that the tenth day of
the Jewish seventh month in Jerusalem was October 22 is not drawn from reliable sources, and if there is anything at all in the 1844 literature that suggests this, it comes editors and preachers who came into the movement at the last moment, as it were, and who had nothing whatever to do with the establishment of the time reckoning upon which the midnight cry was founded.
And neither is it sound astronomical reasoning that October 13 was even the first day of Tisri in Jerusalem, for that would mean that the moon‟s first appearance would have to occur on the previous evening of October 12, near sunset – the very day itself of the sun‟s conjunction with the old moon. The following astronomical laws relate to such a calendar feature:
“Indeed, it does happen that the moon can be hidden and seen on the same day, but certainly this very rarely occurs; and it does not happen except, as Pliny says, when the sun is in Aries.” – Bacherius, Aegidius, Tractatus De Paschali Judacorum Cycle, p. 373, Antverpiae, 1834. [Bacherius is quoting from Scaliger.]
This famous statement from Pliny follows:
“The old and new moon are viaible [sic] on the same day or night in no other sign except Aries, and indeed it has happened very seldom to any one to have witnessed it.” – Pliny, Natural History, Vol. I, p. 49. Tr. Desbook and Riley, London, 1855.
In 1844, nor in any other year, is the Tisri moon‟s phasis in the sign Aries. The Tisri moon was in Libra, 180˚ distant from the spring sign of the ram. Hence it is absurd, and the conclusions of this Committee would so appear to every student of astronomical science, if the calendar on the Jerusalem neridian were laid down in such a way as to represent old moon and the moon‟s phasis as actually occurring on the same day in the fall of the year.
Furthermore, such calendation as the foregoing [sic], would place the Jerusalem Passover right on the day of full moon, instead of after it. Thus the civil date October 22 in Jerusalem for the tenth day of Tisri not only defies the laws of astronomy and the moon‟s motion, but it contravenes three of those of the Bible
also which commanded that the 14th of Nisan should follow the day of full moon in Jerusalem.
2. A Request that the Lunar Date Line be dropped
The recent review of the Millerite Chronology by Elder Andreasen is different from that he presented last summer. It is, he says, “a substitute for the invisible moon on the evening of the 12th of October in Boston in 1844,” and “a substitute for the lunar date line as a basis of calendation.” –M. L. A., Observations, p. 8.
Before discussing any phase of this second position respecting the Millerite calculations, please allow me to state that after our series of sub-committee sessions last year regarding the lunar calendar line, Elder Andreasen made the proposition that if I would say nothing more with respect to the moon‟s meridian, and leave it out of the argument, he would accept the charts and figures as they then stood. And only recently, Elder Kern repeated that our Brother still has that in view.
The calendar work up to date does not use the lunar meridian argument. It has thus far been strictly kept in abeyance, as per request, and the Millerite time problem, both in Jerusalem and Boston has been solved entirely on another basis. I was therefore surprised that the subject should be again set forth. However, for this I am not sorry, and if the Committee desires to take the time to seriously consider the laws and vital principles involved in the lunar meridian, they may sometime find these important truths of greater value than now appears.
3. Principles Employed in the Calendation hitherto presented to the Committee
In Jerusalem, the 19-year cycle was worked for the 1844 period, using the Passover law that Nisan 14 occurs on the next day after full moon in Jerusalem. Both the Nisan and Tisri moons were translated according to known rules governing the moon‟s phasis, and the 1844 dates were confirmed by the time of the moonsets on several latitudes in the east. This work was wholly on an astronomical basis. No
Millerite dates or rules were employed, and neither were the meridional principles introduced.
On the Boston meridian, two lines of solution were followed – one representing the Millerite procedure, and the other, the astronomical confirmation of their resultant dates. These dates can be reconstructed in calendar form by the laws pertaining to the lunar meridian, but this was not the method used.
The Millerite reckoning of the final end of the 2300-day prophecy was different from that described by Elder Andreasen. It was not based on the Tisri calculation either in Boston or in Jerusalem. The few statements by belated editors and preachers with regard to Jerusalem, a short time before the disappointment, and also the few scattering October 23‟s, had nothing at all to do with the reckoning that started the seventh month movement earlier in the year. The time principles that governed the seventh month chronology had been brewing for at least two years, perhaps more. The essential truths were solidly founded on the ancient Jewish year, not upon an unnatural form of it. Again and again, throughout 1843, a complete series of all the calendar features controlling Jewish time appeared in the Millerite papers – intercalation, leap moth Veadar, 19-year cycle, Metonic cycle, 84-year cycle, length of Jewish month and Jewish year, Karaite principle of the barley harvest, the laws of the moon‟s visibility, the position of the first day of the month, and of the moon‟s phasis, double new moon days for the diaspora, single new moon day in Palestine, etc. And after the spring disappointment, “Jewish year” was repeated three or four months in succession.
But, even so, calendation was not altogether the key to the new chronology which suddenly confronted the people in the summer of 1844, and which gave life to the midnight cry. The mainspring lay concealed in Daniel 9 and Matthew 25. Samuel Snow was one of several to discover that six lunar months had yet to be added to the spring date – itself a month later than first computed – in order to complete the prophecy. Snow got this largely from Daniel 9. His argument was simple, but impelling – that if Christ was crucified in the midst of the “week,” in the spring, than the end of the week, and therefore the end, not only of the 487th year, but also of the 2300th year, would come six lunar months later in the autumn.
On Sunday, July 21 in Boston, Snow was heard mightily proclaiming, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh on the tenth day of the seventh month – in the autumn!” Already, Bates says, they had settled that “the 17th day of April, 1844, Roman time, was the close of the year 1843 Bible time.” – Life of Bates, p. 297. If April 17, Roman time, or midnight, was the last day of the year “1843,” then the first day of the new year would have to begin at the next point of time, or sunset of April 18, Sylvester Bliss gives the key statement relating to this date, and it is more technically correct than the majority of the Millerite date records:
Consequently, this Jewish year began with the appearance of the moon on the 18th of April, bringing the Passover on the first of May – an entire moon later than the Rabbinical passover. Reckoning from this moon, the seventh Jewish month commenced with the appearance of the moon on the 13th of October; so that the tenth day of the seventh month synchronized with the 27th [sic] of that month.” – Advent Shield, January, 1845, p. 278.
Now, if the moon‟s first appearance was on April 18 – and it could not be otherwise than sunset of that day – then April 10 was the first day of Nisan on that calendar, as is abundantly testified.
“Reckoning from this moon,” Bliss continues. That is exactly what Snow, Bates, and the whole Exetor [sic] camp did. And it was that reckoning that inspired Snow to herald with mighty appeal, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh on the tenth day of the seventh month, October 22.” For if the six lunar months, or 177 days, are added to sunset of April 18, and if the Jewish year began then, as Bliss says, the resultant date was sunset of October 12, when the first day of Tisri began in America.
The foregoing is the method that established the chronology of the midnight cry. The prophecy could not wait for Tisri computation either in Jerusalem or Boston. For on that basis, the reckoning would have come too late for either midnight cry, or Second Angel’s Message. And furthermore, the differences of opinion that arose late in the period would have been disastrous to the movement if there had not been an earlier firm foundation, based upon the Bible primarily, and upon the pure ancient Jewish year, and not upon a distorted form of it.
The astronomical demonstration of the Millerite dates will be omitted here, inasmuch as it has been fully demonstrated in this Committee. A further line of confirmation of the calendation employed consists of a series of historical checks, both from the Bible, and from known events in history, which are tied to the Jewish feasts and their corresponding days of the week. With the year proved, such synchronisms make an exact corroboration of this luni-solar time method that has been constructed and almost completed in these Committee sessions during the past two and a half years. The Aramaic papyri dates – a representation of the true primitive Jewish reckoning – being tied to the Jewish vague year, thereby also becomes an acceptable check upon the lunar calculation by which they are solved.
4. Brief Discussion of the Lunar Meridian “Substitute”
The lunar date line itself needs no substitute for two reasons: (1) The laws governing the meridional beginning of the true lunar new year have not, per agreement, been used in the solution of the Millerite time problem. This evidence, by request, has been withheld. Then, why a substitute for that which has not been used?
(2) Also, there can be no true substitute for the governing principles of luni-solar time, which mark out to the minute the exact time and place of beginning of the moon’s new year. These laws were established by the Creator from the very origin of time, and they will last throughout eternity. If they seem useless and impractical to us, it is because we do not understand them.
The substitute alternatives offered by the rabbinical cycles, the Catholic missal, and the Episcopal ritual do not synchronize with the moon‟s phases within two or three days. These calendars are all based on fictitious moons, which “full” according to certain tables. Hence these systems of time-keeping cannot verify dates in the centuries before their construction.
The method proposed by Elder Andreasen is practically the same as that of Elder Washburn. Quotes:
“It was 11 o‟clock in Boston, sunset in Jerusalem. At that precise moment in Jerusalem [evening of the 13th] the new moon began. What were the people in Boston to do? There were still 18 hours left of the civil day in Boston before midnight. Doubtless this was the beginning of the seventh month.” – p. 8.
The argument lying back of these figures is this: If the new month Tisri began in Jerusalem at sunset of October 13, then, a priori, the calendar civil date of the whole Tisri new year‟s day – from sunset to sunset – was October 13/14, and the tenth of Tisri was October 22/23. And then, it is concluded, without sources, or acceptable support, or even precedent, that 11 a.m. in Boston, the corresponding instant of the Jerusalem sunset on October 13, was “doubtless the beginning of the month.” The whole first day of Tisri, therefore, in Boston, would be supposed to extend from 11 a.m. October 13 to 11 a.m. October 14, and 11 a.m. October 22 to 11 a.m. October 23.
The objections to this “substitute” calendation for the invisible Tisri moon are many. The following are important:
1. The Millerites themselves point out the fitting substitute for the invisible Tisri moon – that of the Nisan moon in April. This moon is easier to translate than the one in Jerusalem. One can‟t go wrong with the April new moon!
2. If there is any calendar sense at all to the proposed reckoning that the Tisri new year in Boston, 1844, should begin at 11 o‟clock in the morning, then certainly the Nisan new year ought to do the same. And Sylvester Bliss, two months after the disappointment, was wholly at variance with such a scheme, for he left on record that “this Jewish new year began with the appearance of the moon on the 18th of April,” which perforce, was at sunset. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that Bliss, the official recorder of the seventh month movement, and one of the two computers of Jerusalem time, did not allow that his own statement in any way changed the ancient beginning of the Jewish day in Boston.
3. The function of the moon’s meridian is to point out the precise beginning of the new year. This is a creative office of the moon. She was appointed – created in Hebrew – for this very purpose. The new year begins at sunset,
and it is always near sunset when the moon fulfils this charge. The substitute here proposed for this lunar agency is earth and sun performance with reference to the solar day. Thus is the true lunar new year obliterated, the time of beginning effaced, and the moon’s office in the regulation of time completely ignored!
These irregular calendar features are important to understand. A year ago it was proposed herein the Committee that the tenth day of Tisri be October 22 in Jerusalem. The phasis was placed after the new moon day, instead of before it. Now the scheme has changed, the Boston date of the new year, and also of the tenth Tisri is advanced 17 hours, and the time-honoured place of the moon‟s phasis is abolished, while earth and sun substitute for the “faithful witness in the sky.”
In conclusion, please allow me to suggest. It is too much to hope that this criticism will offer appeal to all of the Committee. Almost every day we are finding new and revealing Millerite statements that have been passed by Inasmuch as we do not at present need the lunar meridian in our reckoning, why not let it rest until we have more evidence?
G. Amadon
Underlined words in original. All other emphasis supplied. Due to the age of the original document, some numbers, personal names and cited sources were blurred and difficult to read. The reader may wish to compare between what is given here and the original, also available on this website.
Pesquisado por: Diná Soares
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