William Miller's own earliest published calculation, preceding the more famous specific date of October 22, 1844, that Christ would return sometime within a one year window running from March 21, 1843 to March 21, 1844. This entry is linked to, and its own outcome resolved by, the recalculation recorded as the Great Disappointment.
Facts
Fulfillment
Documented ResponseRather than abandoning the underlying chronology when the original window closed, Miller and his followers concluded an error remained in the calculation and searched for its correction. Samuel Snow's recalculation, fixing the specific date of October 22, 1844 on the Jewish civil calendar's Day of Atonement, was adopted by the wider movement within months. That recalculated date, and its own more famous failure, is recorded in this atlas as its own entry, the Great Disappointment. 2 Origins
Attributed Author / Compiler Classification
Kind of prophecyEschatological or End-Times Prophecy 3 Dating
Predicted DateBetween March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844, William Miller's own reckoning of the twenty three hundred day prophecy of Daniel 8:14, calculated on a Jewish religious calendar year rather than a single fixed date. 1 Date AttributedFirst preached publicly from 1831 onward; fixed as a specific one year window by the early 1840s as Miller's following grew. 1 Attributions
TraditionThe Millerite movement, an interdenominational American revivalist movement of the 1830s and 1840s. 1 Sources
Primary SourceWilliam Miller's own chronological writings and lectures, collected and analyzed in George Knight's and Ruth Doan's scholarly histories of the movement, document the original calculation and its revision. 1 Debunked
Claimed FulfillmentChrist's visible return to earth within the one year window ending March 21, 1844. The window closed without the expected event, an outcome Millerites at the time called their first disappointment, distinct from the larger Great Disappointment that followed the same autumn. 1 Connections
Associated With
This entry's own recalculation, made after the original 1843 to 1844 window closed without event, produced the specific October 22, 1844 date recorded as the Great Disappointment.
Source Millennial Fever and the End of the World: A Study of Millerite AdventismGeorge R. Knight
Attributed To
Source Millennial Fever and the End of the World: A Study of Millerite AdventismGeorge R. Knight
Authored By
Source Millennial Fever and the End of the World: A Study of Millerite AdventismGeorge R. Knight
Belongs to Tradition
Source Millennial Fever and the End of the World: A Study of Millerite AdventismGeorge R. Knight
Sources
1. Millennial Fever and the End of the World: A Study of Millerite Adventism
George R. Knight, Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1993Authored By: William Miller, Stored attributed-author property on this entity, cited to this source: William Miller.
2. The Miller Heresy, Millennialism, and American Culture
Ruth Alden Doan, Temple University Press, 1987
3. The Skeptic's Dictionary: doomsday & doomsday cults
The Skeptic's DictionaryExamplesQuote, Examples
In the nineteenth century, the Baptist preacher William Miller (1782-1849) said the world would end on 22 October 1844.
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