DANIEL AND THE COMING MESSIAH
It has been a long controversy over whether the prophecy of Daniel 9:25–26a was written later than conservative Bible scholars claim. Conservatives date the book of Daniel to the 6thcentury BC, and believe the prophet himself wrote the book.1Conversely, the Wikipedia entry on Daniel shows that the liberal view dates the book of Daniel later, yet even then as early as the 1stor 2ndcentury BC, that is, before-Christ.2This is important because even liberal scholars thus concede that the book of Daniel predates Christ,3yet fail to offer any credible explanation about how the prophecy of Daniel 9:25–26a could be fulfilled long after Daniel died.
The angel, Gabriel. Doge’s Palace, Venice.
According to Daniel 9, the angel Gabriel gives Daniel skill and understanding about the future of his people, the Jews. Gabriel’s message is contained in verses 24–27. Of particular note are verses 25 to 26a, because they foretell the time of Messiah’s “cutting off”—i.e., his death—after 69 ‘weeks’ (Hebrew, lit. sevens)4from when the commandment is given to restore and to build Jerusalem.5The importance for us today, over 25centuries later, is to see if this prophecy was ever fulfilled. Here are verses 24–26a:
(24)Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy City, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. (25)Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem untothe Messiah [Heb. lit. Anointed] the Prince shall be seven weeks,and threescore and two weeks:the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. (26a)And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah[lit.an Anointed One] be cut off, but not for himself:6
This chapter will attempt to show that the above portion of prophecy in verses 25–26a was fulfilled, and, further, that a (Julian) date of Friday, May 1, 33 ADwas the date of the crucifixion, i.e. the “cutting off” of Christ, and that his resurrection was Sunday, May 3, 33 AD. I will also explain why other dates are not possible.
In reviewing the evidence, we will examine quite a number of things: 1) The reliability of the date of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem (the beginning ‘bookend’ date of Daniel’s prophecy); 2) The lunar–solar calendar of the Jews, which involved (a) periodic, intercalated months, and (b) when a month was reckoned to have begun; 3) The length of year at the Creation and in Daniel’s prophecy, which is 360 days, and how an exile of 70 years of 360 days would have served as a sign to the Jews. Also, how the historical record allows for this duration via: (a) harmonizing the biblical and Babylonian records regarding the reigning years of kings; (b) examining how the 1st century historian Josephus7 is “neutral” and therefore not unharmonious with the Bible regarding an exile lasting 70 years of 360 days each; (c) seeing what circumstantial evidence the 6th century Nabonidus Chronicle suggests; 4) NASA charts showing moon phases (and lunar eclipses) in history; 5) The unreliability of the commonly accepted year of death for Herod the Great (4 BC), and why a 1 BC date is the more probable one, given (a) internal evidences within Josephus, as well as (b) the biblical statement that Christ was “about 30 years of age” when he began his ministry, which followed the ministry of his forerunner John the Baptist “in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar,” 6) The Gregorian and Julian calendars, and how the day of the week is determined for specific dates in history; 7) What day of the month and time of day the Passover was slain according to the
Old Testament, echoed today by the current Jewish practice of eating the Passover on the evening following the sacrifice; 8) Christ’s statement about the sign of Jonah being three days and three nights; 9) Conundrums surrounding the order of Passion Week events: (a) an introductory note on the setting apart of the lamb on the 10th of Nisan; (b) whether there are irreconcilable differences in where the gospels place the 10th of Nisan in Passion Week; (c) the importance of the dative case in Matthew 26:17 and Mark 14:12; (d) the 10th of Nisan in relation to the Preparation of the Last Supper and Passover; (e) the Passion Week chronology of Mark, from the Triumphal Entry to the Crucifixion; (f) did Mary anoint Jesus twice? If not, why do the gospels seem to place it on two different days?; (g) further significance of the 10th of Nisan.
Before examining these points, certain Christian readers familiar with the Bible may have already dismissed the May 1 and 3, 33 AD (Julian) dates for the Crucifixion and Resurrection respectively, because they believe Christ must have died on a Wednesday or Thursday, but not on a Friday. Although I was formerly of either one of these positions at different times, I will explain why a Wednesday or Thursday crucifixion date appears calendrically impossible, despite Christ likening his burial to three days and three nights. Another consideration is that some of the above nine points and sub–points must be considered in relation to, not independently of, other points. The reasons for this should become clear as we proceed. Finally, I give dates in BC and AD, not BCE and CE, which to me seems only fitting to a subject which so closely considers dates relating to the Lord.8
Daniel’s Answer to the King, by Briton Rivière. The prophecy of Daniel’s 70 weeks
came in the 1st regnal year of Darius the King, or Darius the Mede (probably Gobryas,
the governor/ruler of Babylon appointed by Cyrus). The vision came in the same year
or possibly the year after Daniel was put in the lions’ den. Rivière properly shows
Daniel as an old man. For if Daniel were a young teenager in 606 BC at the beginning
of the exile, he would have been in his 80s in the year 538/7 BC, i.e., the 1st regnal year
of Cyrus.
1 RELIABILITY OF THE BEGINNING DATE OF THE PROPHECY
In any hypothesis trying to establish two ‘bookend’ dates for a specific intervallic period, such as the 69 weeks of Daniel 9:25, one should seek the least likely disputed date, and calculate either forward or backward from there. In this case it is the beginning date, that of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem, given by Artaxerxes [I] in his 20th year, according to Nehemiah 2:1. History indicates Artaxerxes ascended the throne probably some months after the death of his father Xerxes, who was assassinated in August, 465 BC.9 Harold Hoehner points out that the ascension–year system was used. That is, by Persian practice Artaxerxes’ 1st regnal year would have begun on or about the time of the vernal equinox marking the new year (in this case, 464 BC) after the king’s ascension. The Persian calendar was closely akin to that of the Hebrews, who began their ceremonial year in the month of Nisan (Mar/Apr) on or about the same time as the Persian new year. The purpose of the ceremonial year was so that the Jews could celebrate their religious festivals in relation to the seasons. But during the exile Jewish historians used their agricultural (or civic or exilic) calendar running from Tishri to Tishri (Sep/Oct, the seventh month) to mark the reigns of kings. As Hoehner explains the significance between the Jewish ceremonial and civic calendars, the reason Nehemiah in 1:1 mentions Chislev, the ninth month, but a chapter later states that Nisan, the first month, was also in the 20th year of Artaxerxes’ reign, is because the Jews of the 5th century BC had for some time reckoned a regent’s year from Tishri to Tishri, not Nisan to Nisan (as during the Exodus and also their contemporary Persians). And thus Nehemiah was using the contemporary Jewish civic calendar. Explains Hoehner:
To have Nisan later than Chislev (in the same year) may seem strange until one realizes that Nehemiah was using a Tishri–to–Tishri (September/October) dating method rather than the Persian Nisan–to–Nisan method. Nehemiah was following what was used by the kings of Judah earlier in their history.[10] This method used by Nehemiah is confirmed by the Jews in Elephantine [an Egyptian isle] who also used this method during the same time period as Nehemiah.[11]
So then, the 1st year of Artaxerxes’ reign by Jewish reckoning would have begun on the Tishri following Artaxerxes’ ascension, i.e., Tishri, 464
BC, and lasting until Tishri, 463 BC. Thus the Nisan in the 1st year of Artaxerxes would have been in the year 463, making the Nisan on the 20th year of Artaxerxes in 444. So then, let us accept a working hypothesis of Nisan, 444 BC as the date the commandment was given to restore and build Jerusalem. In passing, for those not familiar with the subject, it is important to remember that although four
‘decrees’ were issued pertaining to Israel’s return to their former land, a unique feature of Daniel’s prophecy is the specific mention of the restoration and building of Jerusalem (not the temple), which alone fits the last
‘decree’ issued by Artaxerxes in 444 BC. In the most technical sense of the word, the last was a commandment, not a decree.12
Nehemiah was a Jewish exile and cupbearer to King
Artaxerxes of Persia. In 444 BC Nehemiah asked to go to
Jerusalem to rebuild the city of his fathers’ tombs. “Then
the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, “How
long will your journey be, and when will you return?” So it
pleased the king to send me, and I gave him a definite
time” (Neh. 6:2).
2. THE CALENDAR OF THE JEWS
The Jews based their yearly calendar on lunar and solar considerations after 763 BC (discussion later in this book). Because 12 full cycles of the moon fell short of a solar year by about 11 days, the Jews (at least at certain points in their history) intercalated a month every few years, so that the months remained more or less in sync with the four seasons of the year. (Conversely, for example, Islam defines their year as 12 full moon cycles without regard to the solar year. Therefore important holy days in Islam move backward through the calendar regardless of the seasons of the year.) Another reason an additional month was periodically intercalated every few years (or so) in the Jewish calendar was because the waving of a sheaf of barley—the Offering of First–Fruits—
was commanded (in the Old Testament) to be offered on the 16th of Nisan, the first month. Yet sometimes the barley had not matured in a year when Nisan ‘fell behind.’ And so, if necessary, a month was intercalated to allow the barley to mature.
Sheaves of barley
Another consideration regarding the Jewish calendar—how the Jews reckoned the beginning of the month—will be discussed under point #4, NASA’s moon chart.
3. CREATION’S 360–DAY YEAR—ITS APPEARANCE IN DANIEL
Sir Robert Anderson in his noted late 19th century work, The Coming Prince, discerned that the 69 “weeks” (Heb. lit. sevens) spoken of by Daniel were not periods of seven solar years, but of seven
years of 360 days each. Anderson also demonstrated that a study of dates pertaining to the Noahic Flood in Genesis 7—8 showed that antediluvian months were of 30 days each. The biblical record was also noted by the Russian–born, Jewish–American scholar, Immanuel Velikovsky, in his controversial book, Worlds in Collision. Velikovsky used the biblical record as an evidence for a period in history when years were comprised of 360–day years. By the way, when I broached the subject of Velikovsky and a 360–day year13 in an online discussion with some atheists and agnostics, I marveled at how quickly they demonized Velikovsky, as if even his straightforward research into the 360–day year, i.e. the calendar utilized by cultures around the world prior to the 8th century BC, was somehow unhistorical. The real problem with these critics was their over–commitment to uniformitarian, old–earth ideas.
Sir Robert Anderson (1841 –
1918), author of The Coming
Prince. Anderson believed the
70 weeks of Daniel’s prophecy
were comprised of 360–day
years.
It eliminated for them any possibility that the earth could have had a shorter year just thousands of years ago. Meanwhile, they paradoxically assumed a big bang event which they believed randomly spun chaos into a universe of complexity and function in a time span no mathematician has properly explained, in a process whose characteristic feature is alleged to be non–uniformitarian via sporadic and sudden punctuation.
But moving on, when one considers that God said, e.g., the sun and moon (and stars) were appointed to tell the seasons, it suggests that at one time the moon’s orbit was 30 days instead of 29½, and that the earth’s orbit around the sun equaled 12 lunar orbits, making a total of 360 days. Such periodicity would mean or imply (1) the original creation entailed uniformly even, not wobbly movements by our earth and moon, as well as more circular, less elliptical, orbits; and (2) a relative emphasis on a base 12 system rather than a base 10 system pertaining to at least the orbits of the earth and moon. This would allow for a greater number of multiples to express these orbits in simple mathematical fractions. For in the number 12 we have the multiples 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12, whereas in the number 10 we have merely 1, 2, 5, and 10. Therefore the earth, for example, would have traveled 1/4 of the way around the sun in exactly three months, with each month representing 1/12 of the earth’s orbit because of an equal 30–day duration, etc. Thus they “told the seasons.” At some point, if to consider the matter from another angle, it seems we ought to ask ourselves what the likely origin was, which thought it natural to segment a circle into 360 units instead of other numbered possibilities, if this were not derived from some pattern observable in nature from earliest, even biblical, times. One is reminded of Velikovsky’s observation that Chinese geometry originally divided a circle into 360 points, but then later divided it by 365.25.
At any rate, one of the vexing questions that no one has seemed to answer (nor raised?) is why Christ would have expected the Jews of his time to suppose the “weeks” spoken of by Daniel were of seven years of 360–days each (implied in Lk. 19:42; see argument following), rather than 365+. Conservative biblical scholars quote the usual verses in Revelation to show that the 70th (and last) week of Daniel was regarded by the Apostle John to be seven years of 360 days each, implying all the weeks should be considered seven years of 360 days each. (John speaks of 42 months, or 1260 days, and appears to refer to two 42–month periods (Rev. 11:2–3; 13:5). That is interesting and good for scholars to point out, but Revelation was written decades after the Ascension of Christ, and it doesn’t answer why Christ, just prior to his descending the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem at his Triumphal Entry, felt his generation was accountable to have known in “this thy day” the things that pertained to their peace (Lk. 19:42). For that would have required that the Jews had been counting off 360–day years since Nisan, 444 BC. But why ever would they have done so? For nothing in the prophets specifically directed them to this end.
In fact it appears there is a good reason why God would have wanted the Jews to count off 360–day years centuries before the Incarnation of the Son, even as they continued to reckon their usual lunar–solar years (to mark the beginning of Nisan and their sacred year, to observe their festivals in their proper seasons). In short, arguably, God wanted them to look for Messiah’s coming with anticipation—i.e., to be so mindful of his appearance that they should count down the time—year by year, day by day, because a 360–day year implied that Christ intended to restore the Jewish nation (spiritually and geographically), yet also the earth (physically) as at the beginning of creation.
Now, to further test the theory that the Jews could have understood why God wanted them to count off 360–day years would require proving the exile was about 69, not 70, years (i.e., years in the normal sense of the word). This is because 70 years of 360 days works out to 69 years less 2 days of ‘normal’ years. Therefore, if we are correct, the Jews should have noted the exile fell about one year short in terms of
‘normal’ years, and this in turn should have led them to examine why this was the case, if for some reason they had already forgotten that a 360–day year existed prior to 763 BC (discussion in Chapter 6).
Now, it would be significant if such a period of 69 ‘normal’ years harmonized not merely all the historical biblical data (some of which skeptics claim is internally contradictory), but also (1) the Babylonian record of the early years of Nebuchadnezzar (II) (a.k.a. The Jerusalem Chronicle),14 with its record of his conquering Jerusalem in his 7th year in 597 BC; (2) statements in Josephus; and (3) biblical and extra–biblical statements about Cyrus’ 1st year of reign, when the Jews returned to build the temple.
COMPLAINT AGAINST THE POSSIBILITY OF A 70–YEAR EXILE
But that all these biblical and extra–biblical sources might agree (or not conflict) has been dismissed by skeptics, such as author, Chris Sandoval, in his book, The Failures of Daniel’s Prophecies, on the infidels.org website. Says Sandoval:
The most serious difficulty with this interpretation is that Daniel’s dates for Jeremiah’s
seventy–year prophecy are off by three years. However, this is a problem for believers as
well as skeptics. Some evangelical commentators maintain that the seventy years represent
the time that Babylonia dominated the Holy Land, lasting from Nebuchadnezzar’s rise to
power in 605 BC to the fall of Babylon followed by the return of the first exiles in 538
BC.[42] However, this period of time is only 67 years, which happens to be three years too
short. Others maintain that the seventy years represent the time that the Temple in
Jerusalem lay in ruins, lasting from the destruction of the First Temple in 587 BC to the
dedication of the Second Temple in 515 BC (Zech. 1:12; 7:5).[43] However, this is 72 years,
two years too long. No commentator of any theological persuasion has managed to come
up with a better interpretation.
Whether Sandoval is stating a fact—that no theologian has provided a reasonable explanation—is questionable, since, e.g., no one can know all that has been written on the subject in foreign languages. But probably Sandoval merely means that no one appears to have solved the problem, and from the standpoint of English–speaking thinkers that would seem to be the case. Nevertheless, we’ll attempt an explanation here in the next three points (a, b, and c).
HARMONIZING THE REIGNING YEARS OF KINGS
(a) HARMONIZATION OF THE BIBLE WITH THE BABYLONIAN RECORD
First, then, let us consider the beginning ‘bookend’ date for the Babylonian exile. The commonly accepted date for Nebuchadnezzar’s initial deportation of Judah is March 16, 597 BC.15 (Judah was one of the 12 tribes of Israel occupying a large portion of southern Palestine, including Jerusalem.)