BATES, Joseph (1792-1872) and Prudence M. (1793-1870)

A cofounder and pioneer theologian of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Joseph Bates came from a background of seafaring and strong engagement in antislavery and health reform. In 1839 he accepted the teachings of William Miller and became a traveling preacher of some prominence in the Millerite movement. In 1845 Bates accepted the seventh-day Sabbath through the writings of T. M. Preble. Subsequently Bates became the leading advocate of the Sabbath among Adventists. His books published in the latter half of the 1840s focused on the eschatological significance of the Sabbath and were formative for the subsequent theological development of the church.1EGWLM 789.1

Joseph Bates married Prudence M. Nye in 1818. In his autobiography Bates cited the influence of Prudence among other factors leading to his conversion to Christianity in the mid-1820s. She joined her husband in the Millerite movement of the 1840s but held back when Joseph became a Sabbathkeeper in 1845. Not until five years later, in 1850, did she join the ranks of the Sabbatarian Adventists. “Strong-minded” is how Bates biographer George Knight describes her.1EGWLM 789.2

Perhaps the most significant interaction between Ellen White and Joseph Bates was in the theological give-and-take that took place between them during the period, roughly, of 1846 to 1851. Ellen White relates that it was through Joseph Bates that her “attention was first called to the Sabbath” in 1846. Even though at first she rejected his arguments, Ellen and James White were convinced by Bates's first book on the Sabbath, The Seventh Day Sabbath: A Perpetual Sign, published in August 1846.1EGWLM 789.3

Joseph Bates, in turn, acknowledged indebtedness to the visions of Ellen White as early as April 1847. “I confess,” he wrote of the visions, “that I have received light and instruction on many passages that I could not before clearly distinguish.” One likely example of such intellectual indebtedness is found in Bates's earliest formulations of the seminal “great controversy” motif in January 1847. Expanding on Revelation 12:17, Bates saw the “remnant … made war with … for keeping the commandments of God” as a prediction of the persecution of “those who keep God's Sabbath holy.”1EGWLM 789.4

This was not entirely innovative thinking, however. Already two years earlier, in her first vision, Ellen Harmon described the violent end-time persecution of the saints, although not specifying Sabbathkeeping as grounds for persecution. Bates would not have gained such ideas from current Millerite teaching, which did not anticipate such fierce pre-Advent oppression.1EGWLM 789.5

While Ellen White's visions agreed with the main findings of Joseph Bates's biblical interpretations, at times there was tension between the two. For example, as late as 1847 Bates held to the standard Millerite view that the saints would inhabit a renewed earth during the millennium. In contrast, there were indications already in Ellen White's first vision in 1844 that the redeemed would spend the 1,000 years in heaven. Likewise, for a time Bates was convinced that the revolutionary upheavals sweeping through Europe in 1848 were the beginnings of the “time of trouble, such as never was,” foretold in Daniel 12:1, while about the same time Ellen White was shown in vision that “the time of trouble, such as never was, had not yet commenced.”1EGWLM 789.6

See: Obituary: “Joseph Bates,” Review, Apr. 16, 1872, p. 143; obituary: “Prudy M. Bates,” Review, Sept. 6, 1870, p. 95; Joseph Bates, Autobiography of Joseph Bates: With Additional Material From Two Later Editions of the Same Work (Battle Creek, Mich.: Steam Press, 1868; reprint, Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 2004), pp. 179-181; George Knight, Joseph Bates: The Real Founder of Seventh-day Adventism, p. 197; Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, pp. 75, 76; James White and Ellen G. White, Life Sketches (1880 ed.), p. 128; Joseph Bates, “Remarks,” in James White, ed., A Word to the “Little Flock,” p. 21; Joseph Bates, The Seventh Day Sabbath: A Perpetual Sign, 2nd ed., p. 59; Ellen G. White, Lt 1, 1845 (Dec. 20), notes 12, 16; Lt 1, 1846 (Feb. 15), note 11; Lt 1, 1847 (Apr. 7), note 10; Ms 2, 1849 (Jan. 17), note 7.1EGWLM 789.7