Joseph Bates

author

Joseph Bates

1792–1872

A retired sea captain turned revivalist, he became one of the key early voices behind Sabbatarian Adventism and helped shape what became the Seventh-day Adventist Church. His life blended seafaring adventure, reform-minded conviction, and tireless religious advocacy.

4 Audiobooks

A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath and the Commandments of God With a Further History of God's Peculiar People from 1847-1848

A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath and the Commandments of God With a Further History of God's Peculiar People from 1847-1848

by Joseph Bates

The Opening Heavens or a Connected View of the Testimony of the Prophets and Apostles, Concerning the Opening Heavens, Compared With Astronomical Observations, and of the Present and Future Location of the New Jerusalem, the Paradise of God

The Opening Heavens or a Connected View of the Testimony of the Prophets and Apostles, Concerning the Opening Heavens, Compared With Astronomical Observations, and of the Present and Future Location of the New Jerusalem, the Paradise of God

by Joseph Bates

The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign 1847 edition

The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign 1847 edition

by Joseph Bates

The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment

The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment

by Joseph Bates

About the author

Born in Massachusetts in 1792, he went to sea as a teenager and spent many years working as a sailor and ship captain before leaving maritime life with financial independence. That unusually varied early career gave him a practical, disciplined style that later marked his public work as a speaker and writer.

He became active in the Advent movement and is widely remembered as one of the founders of the tradition that developed into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Sources also describe him as a reformer and pamphleteer, and credit him with strongly promoting seventh-day Sabbath observance among early Adventist leaders, including James and Ellen White.

He died in 1872, leaving behind autobiographical and religious writings that still matter to readers interested in the beginnings of Adventism and in the life of a 19th-century American preacher whose path to ministry began at sea.