1. 1844 Made Simpler (in 10 steps)
Roy Gane
SDA Theological Seminary, Andrews University
Adapted from:
Roy Gane, Altar Call (Berrien Springs, MI: Diadem, 1999), chapters 38-40; Who’s Afraid of the Judgment (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2006), chapter 8.

2. Reason
Reason for knowing time of judgment: to be able to participate (cf. Lev 23:26-32).
Now we participate by keeping the commandments of God and holding to the faith of Jesus (Rev 14:12).

3. Step 1: Identify the “Little Horn” (Daniel 8)
In Daniel 8, God’s sanctuary is justified after “2,300 evening morning” (v. 14)
Justifying the sanctuary solves problems caused by the evil “little horn” power.
The “little horn” arises after a succession of powers.

4. Step 1: Identify the “Little Horn” (Daniel 8)
Ram (vv. 3-4) = Medo-Persia (v. 20)
Goat (vv. 5-7) = Greece/Macedonia under its first king (vs. 21), i.e., Alexander the Great (330s B.C.).
Four horns (v. 8) = Hellenistic kingdoms (v. 22), i.e., Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucid Syria, Attalid Pergamum, and Antigonid Macedonia.

5. Step 1: Identify the “Little Horn” (Daniel 8)
“Little horn” = a greater empire from one of the four “winds of heaven,” i.e., directions to which Alexander’s empire was divided (vv. 8-9).
“Little horn” is distinct from the four Greek kingdoms, arises at the end of their rule, and supersedes all of them (vs. 23)
So “little horn” = Rome.

6. Step 1: Identify the “Little Horn” (Daniel 8)
Roman domination had two major phases.
Roman empire from shortly before the beginning of the Christian era to the fifth century A.D.
Church of Rome, which dominated the Middle Ages.

7. Step 1: Identify the “Little Horn” (Daniel 8)
In Daniel 8, justifying God’s sanctuary is after domination by the “little horn,” which is Rome.
Persia  Greece  4 kdms  Rome  Sanctuary Justified

8. Step 2: 2,300 Cannot be Literal Days
Question: “How long is the vision…?” (v. 13).
Answer: “2,300 evening morning” (v. 14), i.e., 2,300 days.
The vision lasts from Medo-Persia (vv. 1-3) until the end of Rome, many centuries.
This is many times longer than 2,300 literal days (less than 6 and 1/2 years).

9. Step 3: Daniel 9 Explains Daniel 8
Gabriel came to Daniel to help him “understand the vision” (9:23).
No vision in Dan 9, so this is the vision of Dan 8.
Gabriel comforted Daniel: Restoration for his people within “70 weeks,” sooner than the end of the 2,300 days (vv ).

10. Step 4: Beginning of “70 Weeks”
“70 weeks” began “from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem” (9:25), i.e., to restore ownership of the city to the Jews as their capital.
Decree of Persian king Artaxerxes I, which went with Ezra to Jerusalem in the seventh year of his reign (Ezra 7), i.e., B.C.
Ezra reached Jerusalem in 457 B.C. (Siegfried H. Horn and Lynn H. Wood, The Chronology of Ezra 7 [Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1953, 1970], 115, 127).

11. Step 5: “Weeks” of Years
“70 weeks” began in Persian era and included rebuilding Jerusalem and Messiah’s coming (9:24-27).
A “week” could be a week of years: Jubilee freedom after seven Sabbaths/weeks of years, i.e., 49 years (Lev 25:8-10).
In Daniel 9, freedom from foreign domination after “70 weeks” of years = 490 years.
“70 weeks” begin with 49 years (“7 weeks”; v. 25).

12. Step 6: End of 490 Years
No zero year between B.C. and A.D. time (1 B.C.  1 A.D.; not 1 B.C.  0  1 A.D.).
So 490 years from 457 B.C. is 34 A.D.
On a calculator: = 33, but add 1 because there was no zero year (490 years cover an extra year).

13. Step 6: End of 490 Years 34 A.D. is confirmed.
Messiah to come seven years before end of “70 weeks”, i.e., 27 A.D. (9:25-26).
Jesus began ministry in Tiberius’s 15th year (Lk 3:1).
Tiberius began reign on August 19, 14 A.D.
Jews counted first regnal year as part of year before first New Year’s Day (in October).
So 15th year = autumn 27 to autumn 28 A.D.

14. Step 7: Events Later in 2,300 Days
Christ was “cut off” and Jerusalem was destroyed with its temple (Dan 9:26).
Messiah would make a covenant with many and make the sacrificial system cease (v. 27; cf. Matt 26:28; 27:51; Heb 7-10).
Then there would be a false replacement: “an abomination that desolates…” (Dan 9:27).

15. Step 7: Events Later in 2,300 Days
This refers to what is predicted in 8:11-13 (v. 13—“transgression that makes desolate”) for the later part of the 2,300 days.
So 9:27 ties in to the rest of the story, which we already know from Daniel 8.
The Roman “little horn” would put earthly false worship in place of the earthly sacrifices that Christ had made to cease (in significance).

16. Step 8: 2,300 Years
The “little horn’s” abominations occur after the earthly temple was destroyed in 70 A.D.
So the sanctuary cleansed after 2,300 days must be God’s heavenly sanctuary (Heb 7-10).

17. Step 8: 2,300 Years
The 2,300 days of Daniel 8 and the 490 years of Daniel 9 both began during the Medo-Persian empire.
The 2,300 days reach beyond the 490 years, through the time of Rome’s false worship.
So the 2,300 must be longer than 490 years.
So the 2,300 must represent years (cf. Num 14:34; Ezek 4:6).

18. Step 9: 490 Years Overlap First Part of 2,300 Years
Gabriel explained “the vision” but only gave a beginning for the 490 years.
490 years = first phase of 2,300 years.
So the beginning point for the 2,300 years must be the same.
490 years to Christ’s first phase of atonement, and 2,300 years to His second phase of atonement.

19. Step 9: 490 Years Overlap First Part of 2,300 Years
“Seventy weeks are decreed for your people...” (Dan 9:24).
The Hebrew word translated “decreed” appears only here in the Bible.
In rabbinic Hebrew it is quite common, most often with the basic meaning “cut.”
Both meanings apply here: “70 weeks” cut off from 2,300 years, and also “decreed” for Jewish people.

20. Step 10: End of 2,300 Years
490 years began in 457 B.C., so the 2,300 years also began in 457 B.C.
Going forward 2,300 years from 457 B.C., without a zero year, comes to 1844 A.D, soon after the political power of the church of Rome was suspended in 1798.
It makes sense that a heavenly judgment beginning in 1844 would solve problems created earlier by the Roman power.