The Incredible odds of fulfilled bible prophecy

[amb]

A 95% correct translation might be all you need to understand. There are mediocre preachers, good preachers, and great preachers. Even a mediocre preacher can convert people. Even a bad preacher might give a rare inspired sermon and convert people .

There's the possible, there's the impossible and between them the chasm is as wide as this galaxy.

 

[nodoubt]

Interesting article. But it still doesn't make the story Jive with the census date. Are you saying being 7 years off is better than being 10 years off? Wrong is still wrong.

Nope, not saying that at all. Cyrenius was a very important man which everyone seems to be overlooking. As Ussher tells us, Cyrenius or Quirinius, in the Annals of the World, (see 6055, 5 BC), obtained the proconsulate of Cilicia. "He could either be sent into nearby Syria, either as the censor, with an extraordinary power, or as Caesar's governor, with ordinary power." He also mentions Augustus made a little book stating the public riches, # of Roman citizens, etc. (6051) Ussher states in 6057 that "Luke would rather mention him than the governor Saturinius, because he would compare this taxing with another that was made ten years later." All of these quotes are from page 777, and confirm Luke’s account that Cyrenius had full power as the governor of Syria.

Except that there was no Roman Census that would have applied to Galilee.
Furthermore, there was No known Roman practice of requiring people to return to ancestral cities for census.

That’s incorrect on both counts. The census was to be for the entire Roman world so it would have applied to Galilee. Check any map of the Roman Empire from this period to show that Galilee would have been included. Plus we have proof that the Romans reached out into Africa for another census:
“Since the enrollment by households is approaching, it is necessary to command all who for any reason out of their own district to return to their own home in or to perform the usual business of the taxation.” This was issued by G. Vibius Maximus, Roman Governor of Egypt, AD 104. (Cobern, C.M. 1929. The New Archeological Discoveries and their Bearing upon the New Testament. New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, p. 47; Unger, M.F. 1962. Archaeology and the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, p. 64).
So, not only do we have historical evidence of a Roman census on a different continent, but also that required households to return to their ancestral homes. Once again, Luke’s passage is confirmed.

let's use the full acts line:
"Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out."
This line goes from him buying a field to him falling and bursting open.
Even if you added "yadda, yadda, yadda" in the middle of it, you would be shocked to think that there was a hanging, waiting multiple days and then tossing over a wall into a field. And then you have a story of a posthumous purchase of the field to make it all work.

Like I said, you have to understand this is in the context of the Jewish law at the time. During Passover a dead body would defile the entire city, so the body of Judas could not hang there for three or four days, it had to be removed from the city, or the city would remain defiled and the morning sacrifice couldn’t happen. Judas was already dead when his body was pushed up and over the wall where it “burst asunder”. The passage in Acts never states that Judas is alive at this point, nor does it say that the fall kills him. The explanation I have provided makes perfect sense in light of the Jewish law, but if you still don’t believe me, please check with a Jewish historian that is familiar with Jewish law during this period of time.

This is an inordinate amount of supposition attempting to marry these stories together.

Not when you understand the context of Passover and the Jewish law at the time.

Welcome to the forum and thank you for your post!

Thanks and God bless!

 

[nodoubt]

You know, I was actually planning on starting a thread about Jesus' failure to fulfill any biblical prophecies, and was even going to challenge DOC to cough up any prophecies he feels are convincing which haven't yet been debunked. Having read over most of these a while back, I can say with little remaining doubt that NONE of the alleged prophecies have been fulfilled at all. Posting a link to some Christian site with a tedious list of "fulfilled prophecies" doesn't prove squat, because I could easily counter by posting a link to a skeptic site that debunks every last one of them.

I see that DOC has already posted some of his favorites. Even though they've already been shredded by Abe_The_Man, This Guy, and Ocelot, I just felt like driving the final nail in the coffin. I should point out that anyone can make a prophecy and be correct, provided that there is no specific time or place given. If there were a real prophecy about Jesus, I would expect to see at least some mention of details such as virgin birth, son of God, prophet, miraculous powers, crucifixion, sacrificing himself for sins, resurrection, or ascension into heaven. All of these prophecies are disappointing in this respect, to say the least.

All we have here is the supposed time of death of this king. "Masiach" or "Messiah" means "anointed one" as in an anointed prince of Israel. The obvious problem with this prophecy is that Jesus was never an anointed monarch. Now let's look at the timing.

The 7 weeks and 62 weeks are two different periods of time. The Jews, from whom the scripture originated, never add these two periods together. So when do we start counting down the prophecy? There are four possible dates, as shown by this

539 BC - Cyrus permitted Jews to return to the land and rebuild their Temple.
520 BC - Darius permitted Jews to complete the rebuilding of the Temple.
457 BC - Artaxerxes allowed Ezra authority to lead the nation in the Laws of God.
445 BC - Artaxerxes gives Nememiah permission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

Adding 434 or 483 years to each of these dates (because I'm being generous) gives us:

539 BC = 105 BC or 56 BC
520 BC = 86 BC or 37 BC
457 BC = 23 BC or 26 AD
445 BC = 11 BC or 38 AD

For an alleged prophecy with such specific figures, these still miss the date of the crucifixion, and notice that the closest match uses the erroneous 69 years. (There must be something about that number that Christians like.) So this prophecy contains only one detail that could apply to any ruler, and Jesus was never an anointed king. Whoops.

Way to ignore the rest of the chapter. (Yes, it's relevant.) You can read the part of Micah 5 that you leave out

First of all, these passages clearly describe a military ruler, which Jesus clearly was not. Secondly, there's no way this prophecy could ever refer to Jesus unless he somehow managed to defeat the Assyrians some 600 years after they ceased to exist. Third, Israel was defeated by the Romans about 40 years after the death of Jesus, which could hardly be construed as living securely or in peace.

Silentknight, had to remove your URl's since noobie's can't post them....

Sounds as if you have spent a fair amount of time on trying to solve Daniel’s prophecy. The solution is quite simple, although this is like a classic math word problem in which you have to know some extraneous information to solve it. You correctly understood the 483 years, but you are trying to use our calendar (which didn’t exist at the time) instead of the Jewish calendar which Daniel would have been using.

The Jewish calendar consists of 12 months with 30 days each or a total of 360 days per year. To convert this to our calendar, take the 483 years times 360 days = 173,880 days. Divide 173,880 days by 365, equaling 476 years on our calendar.

For the starting point, you were close with the 445 BC date. Nehemiah 2:1 tells us when the 483 years (or 476 years on our calendar) starts:
1 And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes," (New King James)

The 20th year of Artaxerxes spanned 445 to 444 BC. Nisan is the first month of the Biblical calendar, putting this in 444 BC, not 445 BC.

At this point we have a semi-simple math problem, subtracting 476 from 444 BC which equals 33 AD (there’s no 0 BC or 0 AD reference point, so you have to compensate by adding an additional year in). 33 AD is when the "anointed one" (Jesus) was cut off (crucified). So Daniel’s prophecy was precisely correct.

God bless.

 

[tsig]

Cahn ah git an amen!!!!

Aamen and hollerlujah!!

 

[tsig]

Silentknight, had to remove your URl's since noobie's can't post them....

Sounds as if you have spent a fair amount of time on trying to solve Daniel’s prophecy. The solution is quite simple, although this is like a classic math word problem in which you have to know some extraneous information to solve it. You correctly understood the 483 years, but you are trying to use our calendar (which didn’t exist at the time) instead of the Jewish calendar which Daniel would have been using.

The Jewish calendar consists of 12 months with 30 days each or a total of 360 days per year. To convert this to our calendar, take the 483 years times 360 days = 173,880 days. Divide 173,880 days by 365, equaling 476 years on our calendar.

For the starting point, you were close with the 445 BC date. Nehemiah 2:1 tells us when the 483 years (or 476 years on our calendar) starts:
1 And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes," (New King James)

The 20th year of Artaxerxes spanned 445 to 444 BC. Nisan is the first month of the Biblical calendar, putting this in 444 BC, not 445 BC.

At this point we have a semi-simple math problem, subtracting 476 from 444 BC which equals 33 AD (there’s no 0 BC or 0 AD reference point, so you have to compensate by adding an additional year in). 33 AD is when the "anointed one" (Jesus) was cut off (crucified). So Daniel’s prophecy was precisely correct.

God bless.

You're sure Jesus died in 33 AD?

 

[Resume]

You're sure Jesus died in 33 AD?

I'd like to know how he's sure that Jesus lived to have died in 33 AD.

 

[zooterkin]

Nope, not saying that at all. Cyrenius was a very important man which everyone seems to be overlooking. As Ussher tells us, Cyrenius or Quirinius, in the Annals of the World, (see 6055, 5 BC), obtained the proconsulate of Cilicia.

And what was Ussher's source for this? He also placed the creation of the world at 4004 BC, so I wouldn't regard him as infallible.

"He could either be sent into nearby Syria, either as the censor, with an extraordinary power, or as Caesar's governor, with ordinary power." He also mentions Augustus made a little book stating the public riches, # of Roman citizens, etc. (6051) Ussher states in 6057 that "Luke would rather mention him than the governor Saturinius, because he would compare this taxing with another that was made ten years later." All of these quotes are from page 777, and confirm Luke’s account that Cyrenius had full power as the governor of Syria.

How does something written 1600 years after the time concerned confirm anything, unless he had access to a primary source?

That’s incorrect on both counts. The census was to be for the entire Roman world so it would have applied to Galilee.

And yet there is no other mention of this census of the entire Roman world. Anyway, wasn't Galilee ruled by Herod Antipas at the time, it wasn't a Roman province per se.

Check any map of the Roman Empire from this period to show that Galilee would have been included. Plus we have proof that the Romans reached out into Africa for another census:
“Since the enrollment by households is approaching, it is necessary to command all who for any reason out of their own district to return to their own home in or to perform the usual business of the taxation.”

This was issued by G. Vibius Maximus, Roman Governor of Egypt, AD 104. (Cobern, C.M. 1929. The New Archeological Discoveries and their Bearing upon the New Testament. New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, p. 47; Unger, M.F. 1962. Archaeology and the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, p. 64).
So, not only do we have historical evidence of a Roman census on a different continent, but also that required households to return to their ancestral homes. Once again, Luke’s passage is confirmed.

Nice try at equivocation, but the quote just says "own home", not "ancestral homes".

 

[dafydd]

New archeological discoveries in 1962!

 

[ddt]

Nope, not saying that at all. Cyrenius was a very important man which everyone seems to be overlooking.

How so? Everybody acknowledges that Quirinius was governor of Syria from 6AD.

(Cyrenius, btw, is the transcription into Latin of the Greek transcription of Quirinius)

As Ussher tells us, Cyrenius or Quirinius, in the Annals of the World, (see 6055, 5 BC), obtained the proconsulate of Cilicia. "He could either be sent into nearby Syria, either as the censor, with an extraordinary power, or as Caesar's governor, with ordinary power."

This is surreal. You're quoting as authority a 17th C. bishop who calculated the day of Creation?

Here's a link to Ussher's Annals of the World and the text version on archive.org,
Hint: either hackney up the links a bit until you've got your 15 posts, or go over to the humor section to up your post count.

He also mentions Augustus made a little book stating the public riches, # of Roman citizens, etc. (6051) Ussher states in 6057 that "Luke would rather mention him than the governor Saturinius, because he would compare this taxing with another that was made ten years later." All of these quotes are from page 777, and confirm Luke’s account that Cyrenius had full power as the governor of Syria.

Could you try to make a clear argument here? I'm not sure what you're aiming at. Ussher seems to try to say "it's possible that Quirinius held another high-ranking post in Syria during Herod's reign, and somehow there was a census conducted and Quirinius' name attached to it". Look at his use of weasel words, also known as modal verbs ("may", "might") in 6049-6056. He seems to suggest that Quirinius might have been a procurator under a proper governor, specifically under Saturninus (governor of Syria 9-6BCE) who is mentioned by Tertullian - though we already know that Saturninus' procurator was Volumnius. And getting Herod's death from 4BCE up to 1BCE - as your previous post claimed - doesn't seem relevant then either.

That’s incorrect on both counts. The census was to be for the entire Roman world so it would have applied to Galilee. Check any map of the Roman Empire from this period to show that Galilee would have been included.

Galilee was a vassal state at the time. It was not ruled by a Roman governor, but by a local king (ethnarch). How to raise his taxes - that's what these censuses are for - was up to the ethnarch, as it was for the governors in provinces. Empire-wide censuses were held by August - but of Roman citizens only. The first empire-wide census of all residents was held only under Vespasian in 74CE.

Plus we have proof that the Romans reached out into Africa for another census:
“Since the enrollment by households is approaching, it is necessary to command all who for any reason out of their own district to return to their own home in or to perform the usual business of the taxation.” This was issued by G. Vibius Maximus, Roman Governor of Egypt, AD 104. (Cobern, C.M. 1929. The New Archeological Discoveries and their Bearing upon the New Testament. New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, p. 47; Unger, M.F. 1962. Archaeology and the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, p. 64).
So, not only do we have historical evidence of a Roman census on a different continent, but also that required households to return to their ancestral homes. Once again, Luke’s passage is confirmed.

You're shifting the goal posts - see the two words I highlighted. Returning to your own home seems reasonable; returning to your ancestral home, going back 1000 years, not. Furthermore, could you give a link or a quote so we can assess the quality of that work. The title of the book suggest it is of apologetic nature, and I've seen already enough from DOC's links that apologists are not beneath lying about the proper translation of the original text.

ETA: damn, zooterkin beat me to the central points...

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Cut off = crucified?

If the prophesy meant crucified, why did it just not say crucified.

And why say "anointed one" when it would have been so much clearer to say "Jesus".

Sorry, I'm still waiting for those rabbits in the PreCambrian!

 

[Fast Eddie B]

BTW, how does one reconcile prophecy with free will?

It seems that to make that prophecy come to pass, Pontius Pilate would have had no choice but to order the crucifixion. In fact, everyone's actions that led up to that event would have to play out a certain way. The word "puppets" comes to mind.

I guess that's an argument from final consequences, but if prophecy were ever deemed proven, it would certainly lead to an entirely new set of paradoxes.

Would it not?

 

[RobDegraves]

The solution is quite simple, although this is like a classic math word problem in which you have to know some extraneous information to solve it. You correctly understood the 483 years, but you are trying to use our calendar (which didn’t exist at the time) instead of the Jewish calendar which Daniel would have been using.

The Jewish calendar consists of 12 months with 30 days each or a total of 360 days per year. To convert this to our calendar, take the 483 years times 360 days = 173,880 days. Divide 173,880 days by 365, equaling 476 years on our calendar.

For the starting point, you were close with the 445 BC date. Nehemiah 2:1 tells us when the 483 years (or 476 years on our calendar) starts:
1 And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes," (New King James)

The 20th year of Artaxerxes spanned 445 to 444 BC. Nisan is the first month of the Biblical calendar, putting this in 444 BC, not 445 BC.

At this point we have a semi-simple math problem, subtracting 476 from 444 BC which equals 33 AD (there’s no 0 BC or 0 AD reference point, so you have to compensate by adding an additional year in). 33 AD is when the "anointed one" (Jesus) was cut off (crucified). So Daniel’s prophecy was precisely correct.

Gosh, that is wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to start.

1. The "Jewish" calendar at the time added an extra month every two or three years to keep Passover in the spring.

2. There were different calendars with different starting points. For example the Kingdom of Israel vs the Kingdom of Judah.

3. Monarchs often changed the starting dates of calendars to suit their own purposes.

I could go on and on... it's a very complex subject and I'm not an expert in that specific field. All you did was to take a very simplified view and generalize it to fit your view point.

That's always wrong.

 

[zooterkin]

New archeological discoveries in 1962!

I know! It's dangerously cutting edge compared with what we're used to, with Thomas Arnold, Sir William M. Ramsay, et al.

 

[dafydd]

I know! It's dangerously cutting edge compared with what we're used to, with Thomas Arnold, Sir William M. Ramsay, et al.

At least the believers are being dragged into the 20th century.

 

[joobz]

nodoubt,
the problems with your first points have been effectively addressed by Zooketerin and ddt. I would like to focus on the follow issue.

Like I said, you have to understand this is in the context of the Jewish law at the time. During Passover a dead body would defile the entire city, so the body of Judas could not hang there for three or four days, it had to be removed from the city, or the city would remain defiled and the morning sacrifice couldn’t happen. Judas was already dead when his body was pushed up and over the wall where it “burst asunder”. The passage in Acts never states that Judas is alive at this point, nor does it say that the fall kills him. The explanation I have provided makes perfect sense in light of the Jewish law, but if you still don’t believe me, please check with a Jewish historian that is familiar with Jewish law during this period of time.

You have assumed so much:
1.) he hung himself inside the city (not specified in text)
2.) That this happened during passover (not specified in text)
3.) That he hung himself immediately (in specified in text)
4.) That they bought the field in his name posthumously (Not specified in text)
5.) That he was tossed over a wall into the field (not specified in text)
6.) That significant time passed between purchasing a field and falling dead (not specified in the compound sentence of the text)
7.) That the person falling in the acts text is already dead (not specified in text)

There are so many assumptions that you are making to gel these accounts that it is simply impossible to imagine that it would be convincing to anyone who didn't already want to believe that the accounts were consistent.

As I asked previously, and which you avoided, Would you accept a similar level of assumptions needed to explain away inconsistencies in other holy texts?

 

[ddt]

And what was Ussher's source for this? He also placed the creation of the world at 4004 BC, so I wouldn't regard him as infallible.

Ussher picks and chooses from Josephus, Tacitus, Strabo, Cassius Dio, Tertullian and, last but not least - Luke. See my link.

And yet there is no other mention of this census of the entire Roman world. Anyway, wasn't Galilee ruled by Herod Antipas at the time, it wasn't a Roman province per se.

There's one ancient mention of a census, viz. in Tertullian, "Against Marcion", Book IV, ch. 19, par. 10 (and Latin original), ca 200CE :

Also it is well known that a census had just been taken in
Judaea by Sentius Saturninus, and they might have inquired of
his ancestry in those records.

As noted in my previous post, Saturninus was governor of Syria between 9BCE and 6BCE. Also should be noted that Tertullian was a theologian, and this book attacks the Marcion heresy; while on the other hand, Tacitus and Flavius Josephus and Cassius Dio were historians, and they are silent on a census at the time. Josephus does spend considerable time dwelling on Quirinius' census in 6CE, see his Antiquities Book 18. Moreover, in Book 17, he mentions Volumnius as sidekick to Saturninus. Nevertheless, Ussher mashes this into one in his "Annals":

6054. The words of Luke tell us when this same taxing was made.
vv when Cyrenius or Quirinius was governor of Syria."
6055. Luke would rather mention him than of the governor of Saturninus because he would compare this taxing with another that was made by the same Quirinius ten years later after Archelaus was sent into banishment. He stated that of the two taxings that this was the first that was the time of the birth of Christ.

And as you may remember, Luke wrote in Luke 2:1-2:

1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while[a] Quirinius was governor of Syria.)

As you see, there's no comparison between two censuses as Ussher claims, and Luke clearly states that Quirinius governed Syria.

So, who are you going to believe: historian Josephus (and the other Roman historians for general data as to how and when censuses were conducted); or theologian Tertullian who seems more like the first apologetic to note the contradiction between Matthew and Luke and lo!, attaches another name to the census to whitewash the problem?

 

[mjt532]

Silentknight, had to remove your URl's since noobie's can't post them....

Sounds as if you have spent a fair amount of time on trying to solve Daniel’s prophecy. The solution is quite simple, although this is like a classic math word problem in which you have to know some extraneous information to solve it. You correctly understood the 483 years, but you are trying to use our calendar (which didn’t exist at the time) instead of the Jewish calendar which Daniel would have been using.

The Jewish calendar consists of 12 months with 30 days each or a total of 360 days per year. To convert this to our calendar, take the 483 years times 360 days = 173,880 days. Divide 173,880 days by 365, equaling 476 years on our calendar.

For the starting point, you were close with the 445 BC date. Nehemiah 2:1 tells us when the 483 years (or 476 years on our calendar) starts:
1 And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes," (New King James)

The 20th year of Artaxerxes spanned 445 to 444 BC. Nisan is the first month of the Biblical calendar, putting this in 444 BC, not 445 BC.

At this point we have a semi-simple math problem, subtracting 476 from 444 BC which equals 33 AD (there’s no 0 BC or 0 AD reference point, so you have to compensate by adding an additional year in). 33 AD is when the "anointed one" (Jesus) was cut off (crucified). So Daniel’s prophecy was precisely correct.

God bless.

This is one of the most hotly debated passages in the entire bible. The first question we have to ask is: is this a specific prophecy? Let's look at a very specific prophecy for reference, and see where Daniel 9 compares. Harold Camping predicted that the rapture (millions or billions or Christians suddenly disappearing from the earth) would occur on May 21 2011. That's an exact date, and an undeniable event expected to take place. He didn't say '500 years after the great earthquake, the spiritual reckoning will occur.' So a 100% specific prophecy means an exact date, and an exact event predicted. There can be no debate about what is intended, and when. Anything less, and we have a less than 100% specific prophecy.



Then there are vague prophecies, such as we find in Nostrdamus. Nostradamus believers don't read his writings and make predictions for the future; instead they wait for significant events to take place and search his writings for anything that could be considered a prophecy of the events.



This prophecy is obviously somewhere inbetween Nostradamus and Harold Camping, but I would argue that it's much closer to Nostradamus.

It's a vague prophecy because there are several questions about Daniel 9 that have no definitive answer. A change in answer to any one of these questions changes the result of the prediction. Change the answer to just a few questions, and we may have radically different results. Here are the questions that are difficult to answer.


1) What is exactly a 'week' or 'seven'? I'm not going to spend much time on this, because most schoars agree that this refers to a unit of 7 years. Keep in mind that there are those who interpret 'seven' metaphorically. If this is correct, the whole passage is hardly an impressive prophecy.


2) Which translation do we use? There is a huge translation problem. If you look at 20 different translations, maybe 10 of them will use one translation, and the other 10 will use the alternative translation. This is the difference in v 25:

From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. (NIV)

From the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. (ESV)

The former translation combines the 7 and 62 'sevens' as one unit. The second translation separates them. The second translation makes sense for a couple of reasons.

--Why would Daniel say '7 + 62'? Isn't it much more natural to say '69' if the 69 'sevens' are a single unit? On your 69th birthday, would you tell people that you're 62 and 7? Conservative scholars will claim that the 7 'sevens' refer to the time it takes to rebuild the city. So if the prophecy began in 444 BCE, the rebuilding would have been completed 7 'sevens', or 49 years later, in 395 BCE. However, the text does not indicate that the first 7 'sevens' are designated for the rebuilding. And there is no historical evidence of the rebuilding of Jerusalem being finished on that date.

--V 26 says 'After the 62 sevens...' If the 7 and 62 'sevens' are to be combined, wouldn't it say 'After the 69 sevens'?

The second translation may seem odd, because it implies 2 messiahs. Fromm the decree until messiah #1 comes, there will be 7 'sevens'. From that time until messiah #2 is cut off, there will be 62 'sevens.' Keep in mind that 'messiah' just means 'anointed one.' Cyrus is described as 'messiah' by Isaiah, because he was kind to Israel. There isn't just one 'THE Messiah.'

Now, even if the second translation is correct, it still could be a prediction about Jesus. But there would have to be the first messiah after the first set of 7 'sevens'. If the prophecy begins in 444 CE, that would mean messiah #1 would 'come' 49 years later, or about 395 BCE. (Who would that be?) The second messiah, Jesus, would be cut off 62 'sevens' later, or about 39 CE (unless you convert from lunar to solar years, see question #7, which would make the date 32 CE.)


3) What is the starting date? V 25 says it's the going forth of word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Is there any wonder there is so much disagreement about when to start this prophecy? Not even conservative scholars, most of whom believe this prophecy is about Jesus, agree on the date. Some use a decree in 457 BCE, some use a decree in 444 BCE. The two groups who prefer one of those date over the other, answer some of the other questions raised here in different ways...and both groups come up with Jesus as the fulfillment! For example, those who start with 457 BCE answer questions 4 and 7 differntly than those who start out with the 444 BCE date. It would have been much clearer if 'Daniel' had said something like 'starting in the 20th year of Artaxerxes I...'

It might seem tempting to start with the 444 BCE date. This 'decree' is found in Nehemiah 2:5--"If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it.” The king grants his request, and he goes off to rebuild the city. There we have it, a clear decree to rebuild Jerusalem, right?

Well, maybe...the rest of the book of Nehemiah is about this rebuilding project. So, we might expect that Nehemiah goes and rebuilds the city, finishes, and then comes back, and that's how the book ends. But that's not what happens. If you continure reading in ch 2, Nehemiah talks about building the gates and the walls. In v 17 he says "let us rebuild the walls of Jerusalem." If you read the entire book, only the walls get rebuilt, not the entire city as Dan 9:25 suggests. Then he returns to the king, which he seemed to promise in v 6, that he would do after the project was completed. So is this 'decree' about rebuilding the city, or just the walls?

When Artaxerxes says 'yes you have my permission' the same thing as a decree?

If it's so clear that this is 'the decree', why do some conservatives instead use the decree of 457 BCE?


4) What does 'comes' mean in v 25? For example, let's assume this passage really is predicting Jesus. 'Comes' could mean the day he was born. Those who believe that the prophecy starts in 457 BCE say it means the start of his ministry. Those who believe that 444 BCE is the proper starting date might say that it's when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, just before he died.


5) When v 26 says 'After the 62 sevens', does that mean immediately after? For example, could messiah 'coming' refer to his birth, and could 'after the 62 sevens he will be cut off' just be an indefinite amount of time? So maybe Jesus fulfills the prophecy by 'coming' in 4 BCE at his birth. 30 some-odd years later, an indefinite period of time 'after' this coming, he fulfills the prophecy by being 'cut off' or dying. This may seem like a strange interpretation. But it's not strange in light of how many christians interpret prophecy, by arbitraritly placing large gaps of time within certain prophecies.. (See question #6)


6) Is it acceptable to place a large gap of time inbetween weeks 69 and 70? One would expect that if there are 70 'sevens', that they would be consecutive. Let's assume that the 69th week ends with Jesus' crucifixion in 33 CE. That would mean that the events in verses 26 and 27 would occur by 7 years later, in 40 CE. Obviously, nothing significant happened anywhere near that date. So for many Christians who adopt the view that Jesus fulfills this prophecy, the claim is that there is a 'gap' of at least 2000 years between weeks 69 and 70. Those who suggest this view are called dispensationalists. They have no problem separating events within a single verse by thousands of years. For example, in Daniel 11, there is a description of Antiochus Epiphanes, who persecuted the Jews in the second century BCE. (Scholars who are not conservative believe that Daniel was written during his reign to comfort a persecuted nation, adn not during the 6th century BCE when Daniel claims to have been written.) When we read through verse 39, we have a clear description of the events surrounding Antiochus' reign. But when we read verses 40-45, this doesn't match the life of Antiochus. So dispensationalists claim that these verses all the sudden refer to the Antichrist, not Antiochus. And they happen 2000+ years after the events described up until v 39. This presupposition of using 'gaps' of time within certain prophecies seems to be an excuse for why those prophecies didn't seem to turn out the way they were supposed to.


7) Do we convert lunar years to solar years? Those who start the prophecy at 444 BCE come up with a date of 40 CE as the ending. Of course we don't know exactly when Jesus died, but typically dates anywhere between 29 and 33 CE are used. So we're off 6-10 years. But if we undertand that 'Daniel' understood a year as 360 days, we would have to convert to a 365.25 day calendar, and we get 33 CE. I don't know the answer to this, but I suspect it's not valid. If it turned out that Jesus died in 39 CE, those Christians would be arguing that the lunar year conversion is nonsense. Those who start off with the 457 BCE date don't use this conversion.


8) Do the dates have to come out exactly? For example, let's consider an entirely different interpretation of this passage. The prophecy is a re-interpretation of Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy in Jer 25. Yes, Israel came back to its land after being deported, like Jeremiah predicted. But in the time that Daniel was written (about 165 BCE), it didn't seem that the idyllic depiction as described by Jeremiah was taking place. The Seleucid king Antiochus was persecuting the Jews, so the unknown author of Daniel wrote this book from the perspective of a fictional character 400 years in the author's past, to encourage his people of his time. Jeremiah's idyllic prophecy didn't fail, because the 70 years of Jeremiah were really 70 'sevens' of years! And in the next few years, by 164 BCE, Daniel's re-interpretation of Jeremiah's orignial prophecy would be fulfilled. If we start the prophecy at 586 BCE, adding 7 'sevens' gets us to 537 BCE, which is one year within the time when Cyrus (called 'Messiah' in Isaiah) allowed the Jews to start returning home. If we go forward 62 'sevens' from that date, we get 104 BCE. This is not an important date in Jewish history, but 171 BCE is...this would be the date that Onias III, the Jewish high priest, was 'cut off' by Antiochus. So Onias would be the second messiah. According to FF Bruce (a Christian who holds something close to this view) "That the actual count of years from 538 BCE to 171 BCE is considerably less than 434 is not of great importance when we are dealing with schematic numbers."

So to summarize, in this view Daniel 9 is a re-interpretation of Jeremiah's prophecy (Jer 25) that Israel would remain in captivity in Babylon 70 years, after which time they would return and everything would be wonderful. It's really not 70 years, but 70 'sevens' of years, that God would take to complete Jeremiah's original prophecy . Prophecy starts in 586 BCE. The first messiah is Cyrus in 538 BCE, who allows the Israelites to start returning home. (Another alternative is someone named Joshua, the high priest when Zerubbabel came to Jerusalem per Cyrus' edict.) The second messiah is Onias III, who is cut off after the 62 'sevens' in 171 BCE. The 70th week ends in 164 BCE...this is indeed when Anthiochus died. The 'abomination that causes desolation' (v 27) is when Antiochus sacrificed pigs in the Jewish temple, around 167 BCE.

My personal opinion is that this is the best interpretation, when we consider that 'Daniel' is concerned with events of his time, around 165 BCE. He believes that God is about to end the persecution, and restore Israel to its former glory very soon. The difficulty is the start of the prophecy, which seems to be a word directly from God (not man) that Jerusalem will be rebuilt. I'm still unconvinced on this part of the interpretation, but everything else in this interpretation seems to make sense.


9) Was there an expectation of 'THE Messiah' in the first centuty, specifically because of this passage? If so, there is an element of self-fulfilling prophecy. There is a video on Youtube by Richard Carrier called 'Rapture Day' (start around 23:48) where this claim is made. If this is the case, then we would expect there to be many people who claimed to be Messiah around the time of Jesus. And this is indeed the case. For the sake of argument, let's assume that either the 457 or 444 BCE start date is correct. We now have multiple dates when Daniel 9 could be considered to be fulfilled, depending on how we answer questions 4, 5 and 7. So we have 1) expectation of THE Messiah around the time Jesus lived, specifically becasue of this prediction. 2) Two possible starting dates. 3) different possibilities for the word 'comes' 4) Two outcomes depending on whether we convert from lunar years to solar. 5) Different possible dates for the crucifixion 6) Multiple people who claimed to be the messiah. Given these 6 factors, isn't it likely that the prophecy will 'seem' to be fulfilled by Jesus?

And since the expectation is there, that THE Messiah would come around that time...isn't it now more likely that this self-fulfilling prophecy would lead to a Messiah that would gain a following?


So again here we have 9 questions, all of which are difficult to answer. Changing the answer to any one of them changes the results...changing the answer to more than one multiplies this effect, so that there could be literally hundreds of permutations. If Christians want to claim that they believe this passage is about Jesus, fine...but to dogmatically assert that this somehow proves it is quite a leap.

 

[Hokulele]

Nice first post, mjt. Welcome!

 

[amb]

A great first post. Congratulations.

 

[nodoubt]

You're sure Jesus died in 33 AD?

Yes, and God bless.