Day-year principle

[4] It is actively taught by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Christadelphians, though the understanding is not unique to these Christian denominations; since for example, it is implied in the Prophecy of Seventy Weeks.

[10] In the 5th century Faustus of Riez gave the same interpretation of Revelation 11:9, writing 'three and a half days which correspond to three years and six months' ('Tres et dimidius dies tribus annis et sex mensibus respondent),[11] and in c. 550 Primasius also gave the same interpretation, writing 'it is possible to understand the three days and a half as three years and six months' ('Tres dies et dimidium possumus intelligere tres annos et sex menses').

[11] Primasius appears to have been the first to appeal directly to previous Biblical passages in order to substantiate the principle, referring to Numbers 14:34 in support of his interpretation of the three and a half days of Revelation 11:9.

Historicist interpretation of the Prophecy of Seventy Weeks was that it foretells with great specificity information about Jesus as the Messiah, not some lowlevel official or antichrist figure.

[21] Daniel 9:25 states that the 'seventy weeks' (generally interpreted as 490 years[22] according to the day-year principle) [23][1] is to begin "from the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem," which is when the Persian king Artaxerxes I, gave the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to Ezra, so the 490 years point to the time of Christ's anointing.

[27] Jesus is said to 'confirm' the "covenant"[28] between God and mankind by his death on the cross in the Spring (about Easter time) of 31 CE "in the midst of"[28] the last seven years.

Some of the representative voices among exegetes of the last 150 years are E. W. Hengstenberg,[32] J. N. Andrews,[33] E. B. Pusey,[34] J. Raska,[35] J. Hontheim,[36] Boutflower,[37] Uriah Smith,[38] O.

Thus the prophetic day-year principle correctly points to the anointed as the Messiah in A.D. 27 or the fifteenth year of Tiberius, not in the future or modern time.

The majority of historicists throughout history have identified the "1,260 days" as being fulfilled by one or more of the following time spans[45] and identify the Papal Office as the Antichrist and culmination of the Great Apostasy: The Millerites, like the earlier Bible students of the Reformation and post-Reformation eras and the Seventh-day Adventists,[52] understand the 1260 days as lasting AD 538 to 1798 as the duration of the papacy over Rome.

[56] Charles Taze Russel, founder of the Watchtower Society (now known as Jehovah's Witnesses), originally taught that "1874 onward is the time of the Lord's second presence"[57] using the day-year principle to understand the Bible.

Later, under the leadership of Joseph Rutherford, Jehovah's Witnesses revised this teaching to state that they "pointed to 1914 as the time for this great event to occur.

[60] In April of that year, Pepin, accompanied by Pope Stephen II entered northern Italy from France, forcing the Lombard King Aistulf to lift his siege of Rome, and return to Pavia.

[70] The verse in Daniel 8:25 which reads "...but he shall be broken without hand" is usually understood to mean that the destruction of the "little horn" or Papacy will not be caused by any human action.

David Simpson's book "A Plea for Religion and the Sacred Writings": Antichrist will retain some part of his dominion over the nations till about the year 2016.

The following is an excerpt from "The Covenanter", a Reformed Presbyterian publication (1857): The end of the 1260 years will not at once usher in the brightness of the Millennial day.

Most adherents of the day-year principle, interpret these feet "that were of iron and clay," as denoting the nations descended from and occupying areas of the former Roman Empire.

Henry Folbigg (1869) elaborated on this verse: It is here predicted that after the destruction of the papal beast, "the rest of the beasts," by which I understand the Pagan, Mahometan, Hindoo, Chinese, and other empires, "will have their dominion taken away," that is, they will gradually lose their dominion, perhaps be conquered and lose their heathen rulers—"but their lives"—the existence of various corrupt "and unchristian principles, " will be prolonged for a season and a time," which, if intended to be taken in the usual prophetic and symbolic sense would indicate a period of 450 years.

[79]Prior to Adam Clarke (Methodist), Jonathan Edwards, an Evangelical Reformed (Congregational) theologian commented on the views of his more well-known predecessors and contemporaries, and wrote that Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Fleming (Presbyterian), Moses Lowman (Presbyterian), Phillip Doddridge (Congregational), and Bishop Thomas Newton (Anglican), were in agreement that the 1,260 timeline should be calculated from the year 756 AD.

[81]Thomas Williams also acknowledged that this was the predominant view among the leading Protestant theologians of his time: Mr. Lowman, though an earlier commentator, is (we believe) far more generally followed; and he commences the 1260 days from about 756, when, bv aid of Pepin, King of France, the Pope obtained considerable temporalities.

[87] Catholicon, a monthly Catholic publication, implied (1816) that this timeline was more accurate than the other predictions of the time: Lowman, who allowing the greatest latitude, comes in our opinion nearest to the truth, to the distant year 2016.

[88]In 1870 the newly formed Kingdom of Italy annexed the remaining Papal States, depriving the Pope of his temporal rule.

Unaware that Papal rule would be restored, (albeit on a greatly diminished scale) in 1929 as head of the Vatican City state, the historicist view that the Papacy is the Antichrist rapidly declined in popularity as one of the defining characteristics of the Antichrist (i.e. that he would also be a political temporal power at the time of the return of Jesus) was no longer met.

In spite of its one time predominance, the 2016 prediction was largely forgotten and no major Protestant denomination currently subscribes to this timeline.

The distinctly Seventh-day Adventist doctrine of the divine investigative judgment beginning in 1844, based on the 2300 day prophecy of Daniel 8:14, relies on the day-year principle.

The 2300 days are understood to represent 2300 years stretching from 457 BC, the calculated starting date of the 70 weeks prophecy based on the 3rd decree found in Ezra, to 1844.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church traces its origins to the William Miller, who predicted that the second coming of Jesus would occur in 1844 by assuming that the cleansing of the Sanctuary of Daniel 8:14 meant the destruction of the earth, and applying the day-year principle.

Although the Millerites originally thought that 1844 represented the end of the world, those who later became Seventh-day Adventist reached the conclusion that 1844 marked the beginning of a divine pre-advent judgment called "the cleansing of the sanctuary".

[95] Although Christians have generally expected their Messiah to appear somewhere in Judeo-Christian lands, Baháʼís have noted[96] that Daniel himself was in Persia at the time the prophecy was made.