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The
1290 and 1335 Days of Daniel 12
Alberto R. Timm, Ph.D.
Professor
of Historical Theology
Brazil
Adventist University College - Campus 2
Director
of the Brazilian Ellen G. White Research Center
http://biblicalresearch.gc.adventist.org/documents/daniel12.htm
The
interpretation of the 1290 days and 1335 days of Daniel 12: 11, 12 as
1290 years and 1335 years respectively can be found already among the
Jewish expositors of the eighth century A.D. This interpretation, based
on the year-day principle (see Num 14:34; Ezek 4:6, 7), continued to be
advocated by the followers of Joachim of Floris
(1130-1202), as well as by several other expositors during the
pre-Reformation, the Reformation, and the subsequent Protestant
tradition.
William Miller (1782-1849), on his turn,
believed (1) that both the 1290 years and the 1335 years had began in
A.D. 508, with Clovis's victory over the Arian Visigoths, which was a
decisive step in uniting both political and ecclesiastic powers for
Medieval Catholicism to be able to punish the "heretics"; (2) that the
1290 years were fulfilled in 1798, with the imprisonment of Pope Pius
VI by the French army; and (3) that the 1335 years would extend for 45
years more, until the end of the 2300 years of Daniel 8:14 in 1843/1844.
This interpretation was kept by early
Sabbatarian Adventists,
becoming the historical position of the
Seventh-day
Adventist
Church up to our own days.
But in more recent years some independent
preachers started to propagate a "new light" on the 1290 and 1335 days
of Daniel 12. Rejecting the traditional Adventist understanding, such
individuals claim that both time-periods comprise "literal" days (and
not days which represent "years") to be fulfilled still in the future.
Some of them suggest that both periods will begin with the future
national Sunday law; that the 1290 "literal" days are the time-period
reserved for God's people to leave the cities; and that at the end of
the 1335 "literal" days the voice of God will announce the "day and
hour" of Christ's second coming.
As interesting as this theory might be,
there are at least five basic reasons which do not allow us to accept
it.
1. This
theory is based on a partial and biased reading of the Spirit of
Prophecy.
One of the arguments
used to justify the theory of the future fulfillment of the 1290 and
1335 days is the false claim that Ellen White regarded as erroneous the
notion that the 1335 days were already fulfilled in the past. Allusions
are made to Mrs. White letter "to the Church in Bro. Hastings house,"
dated as November 7, 1850, in which are mentioned some problems related
to Brother O. Hewit, of Dead River. In the
original text of this letter appears the following statement, "We told
him of some of his errors in the past, that the 1335 days were ended
and numerous errors of his."
Some advocates of the
"new prophetic light" argue that the conjunction "that" should be
understood in the above-quoted statement as bearing the meaning of "such
as.'' So they are able to make the sentence say that among the errors
Hewit held was the idea "that the 1335 days
were ended."
If Ellen White's
intention was really to correct Brother Hewit
for believing that the 1335 days were already fulfilled, then we are
left with the following questions: Why did Ellen White limit herself to
correct, in 1850, in a partial and biased form, only the personal
position of that brother, without any rebuke to other Adventist leaders
who also believed that this prophetic period was already fulfilled in
1844?
Why did she not reprove her own husband (James White) who
stated in the Review, still in 1857, that "the 1335 days ended
with the 2,300, with the
Midnight Cry in 1844"? Why did
she not reprove him for continuing to publish in the Review
several articles of other authors advocating the very same idea?
And more,
how could Ellen White declare in 1891 that "there will never again be a
message for the people of God that will be based on time"
if the
fulfillment of the 1290 and 1335 days were still in the future?
Evidences
that Ellen White believed that those prophetic periods were already
fulfilled in her own days can be found also in her statements saying
that Daniel was already being vindicated in his lot (see Dan 12:13)
since the beginning of the time of the end.
Thus, it seems evident that P. Gerard Damsteegt,
Professor of Church History at the Theological Seminary of Andrews
University, was correct when he declared that "already in 1850 E. G.
White had written that 'the 1335 days were ended,' without specifying
the time of their completion."
2. This
theory breaks the prophetic-literary parallelism of the book of Daniel.
In order
to justify the alleged future fulfillment of the 1290 and 1335 days,
the advocates of this "new prophetic light" claim without any constraint
that the content of Daniel 12:5-13, where those time-periods are
mentioned, is not part of the prophetic chain of Daniel 11. Yet, a more
careful analysis of the literary structure of the book of Daniel does
not confirm this theory.
William H.
Shea explains that in the book of Daniel
each prophetic period (1260, 1290, 1335, and 2300 days) appears as a
calibrating appendix to the basic body of the respective prophecy to
which it is related. For instance, the vision of chapter 7 is described
in verses 1-14, but the time related to it appears only in verse 25. In
chapter 8, the body of the vision is related in verses 1-12, but the
time appears only in verse 14. In a similar way, the prophetic
time-periods related to the vision of chapter 11 are only mentioned in
chapter 12.
Such parallelism
confirms that the 1290 days and the 1335 days of Daniel
12:11, 12 share the same
prophetic-apocalyptic nature of "a time, two times, and half a time" of
Daniel
7:25 (RSV), and of the 2300
"evenings and mornings" of Daniel
8:14 (RSV). So, if we apply
the year-day principle to the prophetic periods of Daniel 7 and 8, we
should also apply it to the time-periods of Daniel 12, for all these
time-periods are in someway interrelated between themselves, and the
description of each vision points only to a single fulfillment of the
prophetic time-period related to it.
Besides this, the
allusion in Daniel 12:11 (NIV) to the "daily sacrifice" and the
"abomination that causes desolation" connects the 1290 and
1335 days
not only with the content of the vision of Daniel 11 (see v. 31) but
also with the 2300 evenings and mornings of Daniel 8:14 (see 8:13;
9:27). The very same apostate power that would establish the
"abomination that causes desolation" in replacement to the "daily
sacrifice" is described in Daniel 7 and 8 as the "little horn," and in
Daniel 11 as the "king of the North."
Therefore, the attempt
to interpret some of the prophetic periods of Daniel (70 weeks, 2300
evenings and mornings) as days that symbolize years and others (1260
days, 1335 days) as mere literal days is completely inconsistent with
the prophetic-literary parallelism of the book of Daniel.
3.
This theory
rests on a non-biblical interpretation of the Hebrew term
tamid ("daily," "continuous").
The
theory that both the 1290 days and the 1335 days begin with the future
Sunday law is based on the assumption that in Daniel 12:11 the
expressions "daily sacrifice" and "abomination that causes desolation"
mean Sabbath and Sunday respectively. But also this assumption lacks
biblical foundation.
The expression "daily
sacrifice" is the translation of the Hebrew term
tamid, which means "daily" or "continuous," to which was
added the word "sacrifice," which does not appear in the original text
of Daniel 8:13 and
12:11. This term (tamid)
is used in the Scriptures in regard not only to the daily sacrifice of
the earthly sanctuary (see Exod 29:38, 42)
but also to several other aspects of the continuous ministration of that
sanctuary (see Exod 25:30; 27:20; 28:29, 38;
30:8; 1 Chr 16:6). In the book of Daniel the
term refers obviously to the continuous priestly ministry of Christ in
the heavenly sanctuary/temple (see Dan 8:9-14). The expression
"abomination that causes desolation" implies the whole counterfeit
system to that ministry, built upon the anti-biblical theories of the
natural immortality of the soul, the mediation of the saints, the
auricular confession, the sacrifice of the mass, etc.
We cannot agree with the
theory that in Daniel 12 the "daily" represent simply the Sabbath and
that the "abomination that causes desolation" represents only Sunday. To
believe in this way we would need to empty those expressions from the
broad meaning attributed to them by the biblical context in which they
appear and by the overall consensus of the Scriptures.
4. This
theory reflects the Jesuit futuristic interpretation of the Roman
Catholic Counter-Reformation.
The
defenders of the literal-futuristic interpretation of the 1290 and
1335 days pretend that their position is genuinely Adventist and
plainly endorsed by the Spirit of Prophecy. But if we analyze the
subject more carefully in the light of History we will perceive that
this theory actually rejects the Historicism and the year-day principle
of the Protestant tradition, aligning itself openly with the
literalistic Futurism of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation.
The
Protestant Reformers of sixteenth century identified the "little horn"
as the Papacy, from which would originate the "abomination that causes
desolation" mentioned by Daniel.
With the intention of freeing the Papacy from such
accusations, the Italian Cardinal Robert Bellarmine
(1542-1621), the most able and renown of all Jesuit polemicists,
suggested that the "little horn" was a mere king and that the 1260 and
1335 days were only literal days to be fulfilled only in the
time-period just prior to the end of the world.So
contemporary Papacy could no longer be identified with the "little horn"
or the "king of the North" and, consequently, could no longer be made
responsible for the "abomination that causes desolation."
Many
contemporary advocates of the futurist interpretation of the 1290 and
1335 days do not acknowledge the indebtedness of this theory to the
Futurism of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation. But even so such
individuals should at least recognize that "these futurist proposals
rest essentially on a misunderstanding of the thought patterns of Hebrew
prophecy," and that "they represent a reading of the Hebrew idiom
through Western eyeglasses."
5. This
theory disregards the warnings of the Spirit of Prophecy against the
attempt of extending the fulfillment of any time-prophecy beyond 1844.
If this
theory would be correct then, as soon as the Sunday law would be
promulgated, we would already know in advance when probation would end
and when Christ's Second Coming would take place. This is, therefore,
another subtle and tricky way of setting the time for the final events.
As original and creative as these attempts might seem, they are nothing
else than speculative proposals that ignore and/or despise, in the name
of the Spirit of Prophecy, the proper warnings of the Spirit of Prophecy
on this matter.
As early
as 1850 Ellen White warned, "The Lord showed me that TIME had not been a
test since 1844, and that time will never again be a test."
Later on she added that "there will never again be a
message for the people of God that will be based on time." "The Lord
showed me that the message must go, and that it must not be hung on
time; for time will never be a test again." "God has not revealed to us
the time when this message will close, or when probation will have an
end."It
will be only after the close of probation and shortly before the Second
Coming that God will declare to the saints "the day and hour of Jesus'
coming."
Commenting
the expression "there should be time no longer" (Rev 10:6, KJV), Ellen
White stated in 1900 that "this time, which the angel declares with a
solemn oath, is not the end of this world's history, neither of
probationary time, but of prophetic time, which should precede the
advent of our Lord. That is, the people will not have another message
upon definite time. After this period of time, reaching from 1842 to
1844, there can be no definite tracing of the prophetic time.”
Being this the case, why then some
professed Adventists still continue to insist on reapplying the 1290
days and the 1335 days of Daniel 12 to the future? Only God can judge
the degree of sincerity of such people. But one thing is certain,
“Faith in a lie will not have a sanctifying influence upon the life or
character. No error is truth, or can be made truth by repetition, or by
faith in it. . . . I may be perfectly sincere in following a wrong
road, but that will not make it the right road, or bring me to the place
I wished to reach.”
Conclusion
It is
therefore evident that the theory of a future fulfillment of the 1290
and 1335 days (1) is based on a partial and biased reading of the
Spirit of Prophecy; (2) breaks the prophetic-literary parallelism of the
book of Daniel; (3) rests on a non-biblical interpretation of the Hebrew
term tamid ("daily," "continuous");
(4) reflects the Jesuit futurist interpretation of the Roman Catholic
Counter-Reformation; and (5) disregards the warnings of the Spirit of
Prophecy against the attempt of extending the fulfillment of any
time-prophecy beyond 1844.
In a time
when the winds of false doctrines will be blowing with strong intensity
(see Eph
4:14) "to deceive, if
possible, even the elect" (Matt 24:24, NKJV), we will be secure only if
we are grounded on the clear and unmovable Word of God. All "new
lights," to be true, need to be in perfect harmony with the overall
consensus of the Scriptures and of the inspired writings of Ellen White.The
watchmen of God's people should never allow human conjectures and
speculations to hinder them from giving the trumpet the right sound (see
Ezek 33:1-9; 1 Cor 14:8).
References
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