Seventh-day Adventists always have been interested in biblical chronology, both historical and prophetic. The founders had participated in the Millerite movement, and had belonged to the segment that after 1844 still held that the 2300 prophetic days of Dan. 8:14 were fulfilled on Oct. 22, 1844, although they abandoned the Second Advent as the expected event for that day. Seventh-day Adventists believe that no time prophecies extend beyond the 2300 days; they thus set no dates for the Second Advent.
In historical biblical chronology, SDA scholars generally hold that the time statements in the Bible are valid but not necessarily all-inclusive; that exact B.C. dates cannot be assigned, for example, to the Creation or to any biblical events before the time of the later Hebrew kings ( see SDACom 1:196). Formerly, SDA publications, like others, cited Ussher’s seventeenth-century chronology (as printed in Bible margins since 1701); this scheme was once useful, as an approximation for the later periods of biblical history, but is now superseded by better attested dates in historical chronology as established by archaeology, and in some cases fixed by astronomy. Newer denominational textbooks employ these more exact findings. Seventh-day Adventists do not, however, accept the vast periods of the prehistoric time scale based on the evolutionary theory ( see Evolution ).
SDA scholars have made contributions to knowledge in the field of biblical and historical chronology—for example, Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), a Judah-Israel chronology; and Siegfried H. Horn and Lynn H. Wood, The Chronology of Ezra 7 (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1953). There are several summaries and discussions of biblical and historical chronology in this Reference Series ( see SDACom 1:174–196; 2:36, 77, 124–164; 3:45, 85–110, 326–327; 4:17–24; 5:227–266; 6:97–107; also SDADic , “Chronology” ). For SDA interpretations of certain chronological prophecies, see Twenty-three Hundred Days ; Year-Day Principle .