The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

32 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
study. A voluminous body of literature on the prophecies was
produced, numerous prophetic periodicals were started, and
prophetic conferences were held on both sides of the Atlantic.
The apocalyptic revival commenced in England, but soon
spread to the European Continent and the United States of
America where, in the latter case, it culminated in the well-known
Millerite movement. Based on interpretations of Daniel 8:14, the
predictions now developed generally pointed to 1843, 1844, or
1847 as the time for Christ’s second advent.
It was in this feverish atmosphere that a new interpretation of
the Gentile times was born, in which, for the first time, the oft-used
figure of 1,260 years was doubled to 2,520 years.
The chart presented on the facing page shows the results that
the “year-day” method of counting prophetic time-periods
produced over a period of seven centuries. Though almost all of
the thirty-six scholars and prophetic expositors listed were working
from the same basic Scriptural text referring to 1,260 days, very
rarely did they agree on the same starting and ending points for the
period’s fulfillment. The ending dates for the Gentile times set by
them or their followers ran all the way from 1260 C.E. to 2016
C.E. Yet all of them advanced what to them were cogent reasons
for arriving at their dates. What results now came from the
doubling of this figure in connection with Jesus’ statement about
the “Gentile times”?
John Aquila Brown
In the long history of prophetic speculation, John Aquila Brown in
England plays a notable role. Although no biographical data on
Brown has been found so far, he strongly influenced the
apocalyptic thinking of his time. He was the first expositor who
applied the supposed 2,300 year-days of Daniel 8:14 so that they
ended in 1843 (later 1844). 20 This became a key date of the Second
Advent movement. 21 He was also the first who arrived at a
prophetic time period of 2,520 years. Brown’s calculation of 2,520
years was based on his exposition of the “seven times” contained
20 Brown first published his chronology in an article in the London monthly The
Christian Observer of November 1810. According to his understanding of the
Gentile times, the “trampling Gentiles” were the Mohammedans (or Muslims), and
he therefore regarded the 1,260 years so widely commented on as Mohammedan
lunar years, corresponding to 1,222 solar years. He reckoned this period from 622
C.E. (the first year of the Mohammedan Hegira era) to 1844, when he expected the
coming of Christ and the restoration of the Jewish nation in Palestine.—J. A.
Brown, The Even-Tide, Vol. 1 (1823), pp. vii, xi, 1–60.
32