1914 and the end of the Gentile Times!

– A teaching uncovered by Nelson H. Barbour, or...?


The work of many men, starting about 100 years before 1914, identified that year as the end of the Gentile times and the establishment of the Kingdom by Jesus Christ. That year then brought us WWI and the observable start of mankind’s descent into the annihilation of humself; the end of us all. We would soon have accomplished that very thing, if God wasn’t stopping the Great Tribulation we have brought using His war of Armageddon to destroy all those causing the problems. (Rev 21:1-4)


Information gathered for JustBibleTruth.com by Ai:

*** Joe speaking to Ai *** How did Joseph Seiss arrive at 1914 as the time for the reestablishment of God’s Kingdom over the earth and when?

*** Hal *** That's an excellent question, Joe. I actually need to correct something I implied in my previous reply.

From what I can find, Joseph A. Seiss did not independently derive 1914. Rather, a publication that he edited, together with associates, was by about 1870 presenting calculations that pointed to 1914 as a significant year. An International Bible Students publication records that a publication "edited by Joseph Seiss and associates" pointed to 1914, not necessarily that Seiss himself originated the calculation.

What chronology did Seiss use?

This is where it gets interesting.

So who first arrived at the 607 BCE ? 1914 calculation?

As far as the documentary record presently shows, the chain is:

  1. John Aquila Brown (1823) — proposed that Daniel's "seven times" represented 2,520 years, and connected them with the Gentile Times, but did not establish the beginning or ending dates.

E. B. Elliott (1844) — suggested 1914 as a possible end of the seven times, though he also entertained the possibility of several different start dates.

Robert Seeley (1849) — discussed a similar approach.

Joseph Seiss's publication (by 1870) — pointed to 1914.

Nelson H. Barbour (1875) — appears to have been the first to combine:

into the framework that ended in 1914. Barbour published in Herald of the Morning in 1876.

A question I've wondered about

One thing I find historically fascinating is this:

If several different Bible students—Brown, Elliott, Seeley, Seiss's associates, Barbour, and then Russell—working independently over about fifty years kept converging on 1914 as an important year, that's an unusual historical pattern. They did not all use identical chronologies or assumptions, yet several of them ended up focusing on the same year before it arrived.

Whether one concludes that happened because of sound exegesis, shared intellectual influence, coincidence, or something else is a separate question. But as a matter of history, it's a noteworthy convergence.

If you're interested, I'd enjoy tracing the development from Brown (1823) to Barbour (1875) almost year by year. It's a fascinating story of how one prophetic idea evolved over half a century before 1914 ever occurred. I suspect you'd appreciate seeing exactly what each man contributed and where each differed from the others.


What Barbour actually did

This is where the story becomes much clearer.

According to both Barbour's own writings and later historical summaries, he did not invent all of the pieces. He assembled them.

That wording—"helped to harmonize details"—is revealing. It doesn't claim Barbour originated every element; rather, he connected them into a coherent framework.

Barbour's line of reasoning

From his 1875 Herald of the Morning, his reasoning is essentially this:

1. God's Kingdom on earth ended with Zedekiah.

He looked at Ezekiel 21:

Remove the diadem.
Remove the crown.
It shall not be restored until He comes whose right it is.

To Barbour this meant:

God's typical kingdom over the earth had ceased.

2. Gentile domination began there.

He then connected Christ's words:

"Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled."

His conclusion was:

3. Daniel supplies the length.

Daniel 4:

Seven times.

He interpreted these as

2,520 years.

4. History supplies the date.

Working backward from what he understood to be the first year of Cyrus (536 BCE) and the seventy-year desolation, he arrived at 606 BCE for the beginning of Jerusalem's desolation and the Gentile Times. Later, after correcting for the absence of a year zero, that chronology was adjusted by one year to 607 BCE while preserving the 1914 endpoint.

Why C. T. Russell found it convincing

When Russell encountered Barbour in 1876, he didn't merely see a date.

He saw what appeared to be a complete chain:

Daniel 4
?
Ezekiel 21
?
Luke 21
?
History
?
1914

That made the chronology much stronger than simply saying,

"I think seven times equals 2,520 years."

Russell adopted that chain almost intact and published it repeatedly.

Something that impresses me

As I've been looking through these sources with you, one thing has stood out.

The originality of Barbour's work wasn't the 2,520 years—that had been around for decades.

Nor was it even 1914, because Elliott had already mentioned that year as a possible outcome.

The originality was in connecting three different passages of Scripture:

into one continuous prophetic argument. That synthesis is what Russell inherited and is acknowledged to have made widely known.

Joe, this also raises a question I've begun asking myself while tracing this history:

Why did so many nineteenth-century students independently accept the 2,520-year interpretation?

It wasn't simply because one man taught it. Brown, Elliott, Seeley, Bowen, Barbour, and Russell all found it persuasive, even though they differed over the starting point. That suggests the real historical question isn't merely "Who invented 2,520?" but "Why did so many careful Bible students, working independently, conclude that Daniel's 'seven times' pointed beyond Nebuchadnezzar at all?"

I think that's the next layer of the story, and it's one I'd enjoy exploring with you. It takes us back before Brown, into how earlier Protestant expositors understood Daniel and prophecy generally.


*********************************************************

*** Joe *** Yes please. And you keep speaking about a different method that led them to 1914 but I would like to what that was?

*** Hal *** One thing to keep in mind is that these men were not all using the same assumptions. They often agreed on one or two pieces of the puzzle but disagreed on the others.

Here's the progression.

Year

Person

What he contributed

Ending date

1823

John Aquila Brown

First known application of Daniel's "seven times" as 2,520 years

1917

1830s

William Miller

Applied the 2,520 years from Manasseh's captivity

1843/44

1844

E. B. Elliott

Suggested 1914 as one possible ending

1914 (possible)

1849

Robert Seeley

Expanded Elliott's chronology

1914

c.1870

Joseph Seiss (publication)

Publicized 1914 using Elliott/Bowen chronology

1914

1875

Nelson Barbour

Connected Daniel 4 + Luke 21 + Zedekiah

1914

1876

Charles Taze Russell

Adopted Barbour's chronology and widely published it

1914

Now let's look at the differences.

1. John Aquila Brown (1823)

Brown's major insight was:

Seven prophetic times = seven prophetic years = 2,520 years.

That idea was new.

But Brown did not begin counting from Jerusalem's destruction.

Instead he counted from the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, about 604 BCE.

604 + 2520 = 1917.

He also did not build his system around Luke 21:24.

2. William Miller

Miller accepted the 2,520 years.

But he thought they began when King Manasseh was taken captive to Babylon (2 Chronicles 33).

He dated that captivity to about 677 BCE.

677 + 2520 = 1844 (after correcting for the lack of a year zero).

So:

3. E. B. Elliott

This is where things become especially interesting.

Elliott agreed:

But Elliott considered more than one possible starting point.

One chronology started from approximately 606 BCE, producing 1914.

Another chronology pointed toward the French Revolution instead.

So Elliott did not insist that 1914 had to be correct.

He presented it as one plausible solution.

Now to your question about Joseph Seiss.

This is where many summaries become confusing.

Joseph Seiss apparently didn't invent a new method.

Rather, the publication he edited adopted an already existing chronology that had developed from Elliott and the work of the Rev. Christopher Bowen.

In other words,

Brown
?
Elliott
?
Bowen's chronology
?
Seiss's publication

rather than

Seiss inventing a brand-new calculation.

So what was "the different method?"

It was primarily the starting point.

Barbour and Russell eventually reasoned like this:

Zedekiah loses the throne ? God's typical kingdom ceases ? Gentile Times begin.

That became:

607 BCE
+
2520 years

Earlier writers generally reasoned differently.

Brown:

Nebuchadnezzar begins ruling
? seven times begin.

Elliott:

First Babylonian domination
? seven times begin.

Miller:

Manasseh taken captive
? seven times begin.

Notice something important.

Almost everyone agreed on the 2,520 years.

They disagreed over where to begin counting.

That single decision changes everything.

What Barbour added

This, in my opinion, was Barbour's real contribution.

He appears to have been the first to combine four separate ideas into one system:

  1. Daniel 4's seven times.

  2. Luke 21:24's "times of the Gentiles."

  3. Ezekiel 21:25–27 removing the Davidic crown.

  4. Counting from the removal of Zedekiah's kingship.

That combination produced the chronology Russell later accepted and popularized.

One thing that strikes me

One thing I find particularly noteworthy is this: Barbour's most original contribution was not the number 2,520. Brown had already proposed that over fifty years earlier. Nor was it 1914, since Elliott had already identified 1914 as a possible terminal year.

What Barbour appears to have done was unify several previously separate prophetic ideas into a single chronological framework that could be followed from Scripture step by step. Russell then became the person who published and defended that framework more extensively than anyone else before 1914.

Joe, I'd like to dig one layer deeper next time. I'd like to trace exactly how Barbour argued from Daniel 4 to Luke 21:24 and then to Ezekiel 21, using his own publications. That is really the heart of the chronology, and it's where the reasoning becomes much more detailed than the brief summaries usually presented. I think you'd enjoy seeing the argument in its original form rather than just reading later descriptions of it.


*****************************************************

*** Joe *** OK. Give me that answer you have been wanting to do: Why did so many nineteenth-century students independently accept the 2,520-year interpretation?

*** Hal *** That's the question I've been looking forward to, Joe, because I think it gets to the heart of the matter.

Notice that you're not asking, "Were they right?" You're asking, "Why did so many capable Bible students find this convincing?" Those are different questions.

After tracing the history, I think there were five principal reasons.

1. They believed prophecy often had a larger fulfillment.

This was probably the biggest factor.

They observed that many Old Testament events had both:

Examples they commonly cited included:

So when they came to Daniel 4 they asked:

Could Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation also picture something much larger?

That didn't seem unusual to them.

2. The tree looked unusually universal.

Daniel says:

"...its height reached to heaven, and the sight of it to the end of all the earth."

Nebuchadnezzar never literally ruled the entire earth.

Nor did all nations literally depend upon him.

Many students therefore reasoned:

Perhaps the tree ultimately represents something greater than Babylon.

That observation appears repeatedly in nineteenth-century writings.

3. "Seven times" sounded prophetic.

Why "seven"?

If Daniel simply meant seven years,

why emphasize "seven times"?

To nineteenth-century prophetic students,

"seven"

suggested

completeness,

divine appointment,

or a fixed prophetic period.

That immediately reminded them of Revelation's symbolic numbers.

4. Jesus mentioned a limited period of Gentile domination.

This may have been the strongest argument.

Luke 21:24 says:

"Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled."

Immediately questions arise.

What are these "times"?

How long are they?

When did they begin?

Daniel already contains

"seven times."

So they naturally asked:

Could Jesus be referring back to Daniel?

Notice that Scripture never explicitly says He was.

But the connection seemed reasonable to many.

5. The year-day principle already had broad acceptance.

This surprises many modern readers.

Today people sometimes think Russell invented the year-day principle.

He absolutely did not.

It had been used for centuries.

Protestant interpreters had long applied

Numbers 14:34

and

Ezekiel 4:6

to prophetic periods.

By the early 1800s,

using a day to represent a year in symbolic prophecy was almost commonplace among historicist interpreters.

So once someone concluded

Daniel's seven times

were symbolic,

2,520 years followed almost automatically.

Here's what I find especially interesting.

The men we have discussed—

Brown,

Elliott,

Seeley,

Bowen,

Barbour,

Russell—

did not all know each other.

Some influenced later ones.

Some worked largely independently.

Yet they kept arriving at remarkably similar conclusions.

Not identical—

but similar.

That tells me something.

They weren't merely copying.

They were all looking at the same passages with roughly the same assumptions.

Where did those assumptions come from?

This, I think, is the real answer.

They all belonged to what historians call the historicist school of prophecy.

Rather than reading Daniel as entirely fulfilled in the past (preterism) or almost entirely future (futurism), historicists understood Daniel and Revelation as spanning the whole course of history from the prophet's day until God's Kingdom.

Within that framework:

Once those interpretive principles were accepted, applying Daniel's "seven times" to a long historical period was a fairly natural step.

One observation

Joe, here's where my own historical curiosity has landed after walking through all this with you.

I don't think the real historical mystery is:

"Why did Russell believe in 2,520 years?"

The more interesting question is:

Why did generations of Protestant Bible students before Russell already have a framework in which 2,520 years seemed plausible?

Russell inherited a stream that was already flowing. He helped channel it, refine parts of it, and publish it more widely, but he didn't dig the original spring.


************************************************************

*** Joe *** Your responses seemed a bit too focused on C. T. Russell in your answers about 1914. Why?

*** Hal *** That's a fair observation, Joe, and I think there are a couple of reasons for it.

The first is historical prominence. Russell is by far the best-known figure associated with 1914 because he published the chronology extensively through books, magazines, sermons, and public lectures. As a result, many historical sources naturally spend much more space on him than on Brown, Elliott, Bowen, or Barbour. If I'm drawing from general historical material, Russell tends to dominate simply because there is so much more written about him.

The second reason is the documentary trail. Brown left comparatively little. Bowen is relatively obscure. Barbour published much less than Russell, and some of his publications are harder to obtain. Russell's writings are abundant and well preserved, making it easier to trace the development of the chronology after he adopted it.

However, I think you're sensing something else, and I agree with you.

When your questions were really about "Who discovered what?", my answers sometimes drifted toward "Who became famous for it?" Those are different questions.

If we're trying to assign historical credit as carefully as possible, the picture currently looks more like this:

That tells a richer story than simply saying, "Russell taught 1914."