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It was in 1836 that Miller first made his views concerning the Second Advent known in the publication Evidence From Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ About the Year 1843. He had been very cautious about expressing his views but this publication generated an intense response that soon called him to a life of Adventist preaching. (183:1) From this time onwards, the expectation of Jesus' Second Advent was spread far beyond the writings of religious academics, isolated preachers and Bible commentators. Miller gained the support and encouragement of more prominent preachers who provided him with the opportunity to spread these views to other American states. Miller and his supporters were very confident and an immense sense of expectation was generated; so when the expected date of 1843 passed, he and some other devoted Adventists reconsidered the opinions of those who had argued that 1844 was the more accurate date. The Adventist scholar Le Roy E. Froom recounts the transition from the 1843 to the 1844 date: (183:2) for over a decade before the actual Jewish year '1843' began, Miller realized that the prophesied 2300th year would not end until sometime in the common, civil, calendar year 1844, for he reckoned '1843' to be on the basis of the 'Jewish sacred year', which he understood extended from spring to spring. This he calculated as approximately from equinox to equinox, or March 21, 1843, to March 21, 1844. However, it was not until Miller's 'Jewish year 1843' ran out (in the spring of 1844) that the great majority of the Millerites began to pay serious heed to a few insistent voices in their midst. These had been trying to demonstrate that 2300 years from 457 BC would terminate over in the Jewish year '1844', not within the year '1844'. (The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. IV, 790-1)
(183:3)
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