The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

Summary
The History of an Interpretation 59
The interpretation of the “Gentile times” as having been of 2,520
years, beginning in 607 B.C.E. (earlier, 606 B.C.E.) and ending in
1914 C.E., was not some divine revelation made to Pastor Charles
Taze Russell in the autumn of 1876. On the contrary, this idea has
a long history of development, with its roots far back in the past.
It had its origin in the “year-day principle,” first posited by
Rabbi Akibah ben Joseph in the first century C.E. From the ninth
century onward this principle was applied to the time periods of
Daniel by several Jewish rabbis.
Among Christians, Joachim of Floris in the twelfth century
probably was the first to pick up the idea, applying it to the 1,260
days of Revelation and the three and one-half times of Daniel.
After Joachim’s death, his followers soon identified the 1,260 year
period with the Gentile times of Luke 21:24, and this interpretation
was then common among groups, including the Reformers,
branded as heretics by the church of Rome during the following
centuries.
As time passed, and expectations failed when earlier
explanations proved to be wrong, the starting-point of the 1,260
(or, 1290) years was progressively moved forward, in order to make
them end in a then near future.
The first to arrive at a period of 2,520 years was apparently John
Aquila Brown in 1823. Although his calculation was founded upon
the “seven times” of Daniel 4, he did not equate those periods with
the “Gentile times” of Luke 21:24. But this was very soon done by
other expositors. Fixing the starting-point at 604 B.C.E., Brown
reached the year 1917 as the seven times’ termination date. By
using different starting-points, other biblical commentators in the
following decades arrived at a number of different terminal dates.
Some writers, who experimented with biblical “Jubilee cycles,”
arrived at a period of 2,450 (or, 2,452) years (49x49+49), which
they held to be the period of the Gentile times.
The accompanying table presents a selection of applications of the
2,520 (and 2,450) years made by different authors during the last
century. The calculations were in fact so numerous, that it would
probably be difficult to find a single year between the 1830’s and
1930’s that does not figure in some calculation as the terminal date
of the Gentile times! That a number of expositors pointed to 1914
or other years near to that date, such as 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919, 1922 and 1923, is, therefore, not a cause for astonishment.
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