Introduction

Four verses of the Book of Daniel have mesmerized modern Christian apologists to no end. In Daniel 9:24-27, we not only have a mention of the Messiah but when he'll come and what would happen to him. Since Daniel is known to have been written before Jesus, if this is supposed to refer to his time, this is no later invention.

What makes this infinitely more interesting is the fact that it offers precise dating from when the counting begins. The calculations that have been presented are also very intriguing. The decree to rebuild Jerusalem mentioned in verse 25 recalls the permission Nehemiah obtained from Artaxerxes I to go and do just that (Neh. 2). The year of this decree is a bit disputed as we'll see.

1. Interpreting the Verses
2. The Date of the Decree to Rebuild Jerusalem
3. 360-Day Year
4. The Time from the Decree to Jesus
1. The Math
2. From Nehemiah to the Resurrection
5. Problems
6. Objections
1. Daniel is a 2nd Century BC book
2. Daniel 9:27 refers to Antiochus IV
3. The Gregorian Calendar
4. The Prophecy is Supposed to be a Mystery
7. Resources

I. Interpreting the Verses

The actual text of the verses (KJV):

Verse 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.

Verse 25: Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

Verse 26: And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

Verse 27: And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

At this point, the critical verse is 25: does the author try to say, as the ESV has it, that from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem in 445/4 BC the Messiah, or Anointed Prince, will come 7 weeks later (Zerubbabel?), and the city will be rebuilt for 62 weeks? Or is it saying that the Messiah will come after these 69 weeks after which the city has been rebuilt?

First of all, Zerubbabel lived 80 years before this and is connected with rebuilding the Temple, not the city. Nobody in connection with the restoration of Jerusalem, not Nehemiah, not Ezra, nor any of the High Priests, had any distinction of an Anointed Prince. Nehemiah was a Persian appointed governor, and that's as far as any importance is given to his title in the narrative.

Nor is Daniel under any illusions that there was some such "unknown" character because his very statement makes this person very important and he should've been known or else the author would know people would mock his failure of a prediction. The last two verses are dramatic and important enough so that no one ever seriously interpreted verse 25 this way.

The author isn't talking about an actual 70 weeks or ~1.5 years, though 62 actual weeks is a plausible amount of time to rebuild Jerusalem, despite it being spacious and big. For one, in Daniel 12 there is a recap of the final "week". This is now plainly stated to be 7 years (Dan. 12:7b - compare with vv.11-12). The same language is found in Revelation - too much of a coincidence if it wasn't in any way referring to Daniel's mini-apocalypse with similar events and numbers (1290 in Dan. 12:11 vs 1260 in Rev. 11:2-3, 12:6,14, 13:5). This section follows immediately Daniel's inquiry into the 70 years of Jeremiah's prophecy. This prophecy itself is a collection of the 70 Sabbaths the Hebrews didn't follow since around the days of Saul, so we have one example of non-literal and non-linear time here. Moreover, the years of disobedience by Judah and Israel are symbolized as days in Ezekiel (Ez. 4:4-6). So are the 40 years of Wandering (Num. 14:33-34). The Talmud also interpreted it as 490 years. The correlation of a "week" (the Hebrew) as 7 years is found in a Roman writer in the first century BC, so possibly Daniel was rewritten in more modern terms as was common at the time (cf. Isaiah scroll). Nor are the 70 weeks a reinterpretion of Jeremiah's 70 years because the details, reasons, and nature is completely different. Daniel does not say anywhere that the 70 years are over, he merely pleads with God for clemency, much like the angel in Zechariah 1:12. God responds by distracting Daniel from his present grief by not only comforting him of the fact that Jerusalem will be rebuilt, but that the righteous would then triumph. Since there was no rebuilding of Jerusalem going on during Jeremiah's 70 years, this cannot be a reinterpretation.

So with this in mind, we have to look at the 70 weeks as the time from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem, however long this might take, to the events that occur with the Messiah, whoever he might be, at his appearance in the last week.

One final, good objection I want to give some attention is why Daniel splits up the timeframe of 70 weeks into 7 and 62 weeks and the last one. The final week is understandable: it's very eventful. The other two, one has to wonder. But such archaic ways of expression aren't uncommon, and he probably did this because of the symbol of 7 - very prominent both for Persians and for Jews. Ezekiel does the same thing with sums of shekels totaling a mina (Ez. 45:12). He divides the 60 shekel mina into "20 shekels and 25 shekels and 15 shekels" for no reason other than to relate it to the common people who probably never saw more than 25 shekels in one place most of their life. Moreover, Daniel's random number of 2300 days (Dan. 8:14) is very close to the multiple of 30 times an equally special 77, rounded down from 2310 (a common rounding such as in the Persepolis Fortification Tablets (509-494 BC), where, for example, 5 months and 10 days get rounded to 5 months [PF 1045, Hallock, p.303], and 1 month and 20 days rounded to 2 months [PF 1078]).

Other interpretations:

• The Talmud considers the 490 years to start from the destruction of the First Temple
• These weren't years but since letters represented numbers, maybe meant something else

II. The Date of the Decree to Rebuild Jerusalem

If one is convinced that this decree has any significance here, two immediate questions come up:

1. Which decree - Ezra's or Nehemiah's?
2. When is this decree to be dated?

The first option is the time Ezra gives for his journey from Babylon to Jerusalem (Ezra 7:9):

• Leaves: Day 1, Month 1, Year 7 of Artaxerxes I
• Arrives: Day 1, Month 5, Year 7 of Artaxerxes I

Artaxerxes I began his reign in 465 BC. However, since the Persians used Accession Reckoning, his first year actually begins in the Spring of 464 BC. This would make the first and fifth months of Artaxerxes' 7th year - 458 BC. Ezra also used the religious calendar of Nisan to Nisan reckoning (Ezra 3:1-6). If Ezra used Non-Accession Reckoning (unlikely), this would mean 459 BC. So the time is 459/8 BC.

If one does not convert the 483 years to solar, from Ezra's Nisan 1, 459/8 BC to Jesus' crucifixion (Nisan 14, 33 AD), we get 490/1 years and 13 days. If we use the Gregorian calendar, Nisan 1, 459 BC (=April 19) and Nisan 1, 458 BC (=April 8). Both of these overshoot April 3, and are behind by a little less than 7 or 8 years. There was an intercalated month at the end of Artaxerxes' 5th Year (before Nisan 459 BC, if Ezra used non-accession Spring), which began on March 20. March 27 with the Passion Week doesn't match April 3.

Even assuming there was some kind of calculation between Daniel's day (Dan. 9:1 - 539 or 538 BC; irrespective of his calendar, because 540 BC also had no intercalated months) and the decree to rebuild Jerusalem, to reduce it by the intercalated months between Daniel and Ezra (or Nehemiah - 36 intercalated months in his case), we don't get a match. Neither 539 nor 538 BC had an intercalated month, so if we eliminate the 31 intercalation months between 539/8 BC and Artaxerxes' 7th, there are 31 months, totalling 930 days (intercalation months were always 30 days). Both 459 BC and 458 BC still overshoot by 5 years 195 days (458 BC) and 6 years 184 days (459 BC).

The other option is the permission given Nehemiah by the same king in his 20th year (Neh. 2). Before I go into details as to what year that would be, I want to explain why I don't think it's the time given in Ezra.

First of all, there is no decree of any rebuilding of Jerusalem in Ezra, and nothing of the sort happens in the book. The king bids Ezra to go and instruct the Jews in the Law. There is not a single verse that mentions any kind of rebuilding of the city. Ezra 9:9d speaks of "...and he has given us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem," but this is a clear metaphor in the community that emigrated back to the homeland. It's Judah as well as Jerusalem. If anything, it could be a reference to the walls of the Temple (Ezra 5:8), but it's just the protection of not being Exiles anymore, despite the city still being in ruins. Just the mere fact of a reorganization of the people - the true city/synagogue - is enough at this point.

In Nehemiah, however, we have no doubt of Jerusalem being rebuilt, with official letters (Neh. 2:5-10). Moreover, if we are to make any kind of chronological sense of the fact that Ezra is in Jerusalem over 10 years before Nehemiah arrives, yet gives the first instructions for the religious observance of the Feast of Tabernacles to the Exiles (Neh. 8), this means Jerusalem wasn't rebuilt in Ezra's day. It is true, Tabernacles is also observed 70 years earlier in Ezra 3:1-6. But there is no mention of the temporary shelters there (Neh. 8:17 - this verse says this hadn't been celebrated like this since Joshua's day). It's possible that Ezra simply did not have enough authority and manpower to enforce the threat in Ezra 10:7-8, despite v.9, which doesn't mean some couldn't have avoided, or a general relapse like the one Nehemiah encountered [Neh. 13]; how strong or lasting could such a drastic change be without official enforcement like Nehemiah's anyway? At any rate, we don't need to push that point, since we can easily remind that there simply is no rebuilding of Jerusalem or mention of that in Ezra - it reads and very much ends like a lot more work is needed to be done; something Nehemiah completes well.

So when was the decree in Nehemiah? The text says Nisan 20th year of Artaxerxes (Neh. 2:1). This doesn't have to mean Nisan 1 when the day isn't mentioned (cf. Ezra 7:8-9), because the day was frequently omitted. In the Persian Fortification Tablets, when the day is mentioned (e.g. 1st/2nd/3rd/etc of the month), all are equally infrequent, and most of the time it was just the month (e.g. " on the fifth month, 24th Year").

Nisan 1, 445 BC was April 18, 445 BC. However, an interesting chronological piece in the very beginning, Nehemiah 1:1, has the royal servant receive news of Jerusalem's plight in...Kislev of the 20th Year of Artaxerxes - in other words December of 445 BC! Did Nehemiah time travel?

Nehemiah must've been using Judah's Tishri-to-Tishri Calendar which began the new year in the Fall, roughly around September. This would explain why the spring (Nisan 1) of the following for us year is still Artaxerxes' 20th. The Persians, like the Kingdom of Israel and the religious calendar of the Old Testament, began their year in Nisan 1. They used the Accession Reckoning, but so did Judah's Tishri Calendar. [Horn, Siegfried H. “The Babylonian Chronicle and the Ancient Calendar of the. Kingdom of Judah,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 5.1 (1967): 18-19]

Nehemiah was a governor of Judea who returned to it, apparently permanently, after honoring his promise to return to king Artaxerxes I. It's likely he would have used the civil Judean calendar that started in the Fall and used Accession Reckoning. Daniel uses the same calendar (Dan. 1:1 - Carchemish).

The time when Artaxerxes I ascended the throne now matters a little more than just the year. Xerxes I was assassinated by his chief bodyguard, Artabanus, in August 465 BC. A short set of intrigues followed where Artaxerxes was led to believe the Crown Prince Darius was the murderer, but after a few months before Artabanus could seize the throne, Artaxerxes was informed of the truth and removed the attempted usurper. All these events took some months and it's generally accepted Artaxerxes was crowned in December 465 BC (Encyclopedia Iranica). This means that for Nehemiah's Fall Accession Reckoning Calendar, Artaxerxes' I first year was from ~September 464-463 BC, not March/April 464-463 BC as it was for the Persians. This makes Kislev of the 20th year of Artaxerxes, as Nehemiah counted it, December 445 BC. And Nisan 1 of his 20th was not March/April 445 BC, but March/April 444 BC - a very important point for later. Specifically, March 2, 444 BC.

Leo Depuydt sees an alternative, where Nehemiah, a Persian court official, was counting Artaxerxes' regnal years, similar to other examples (Behistun Inscription, Apis bull stelae, and Herodotus). ["Evidence for Accession Dating under the Achaemenids" Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 115, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1995), pp.196-9] But his interpretations aren't forceful in my opinion. He tries to interpret Herodotus VII.7, where he says Xerxes crushed an Egyptian revolt in the second year after the death of Darius, to mean VII.20 is talking about four years from Xerxes becoming king, rather than as Herodotus explicitly says, four years after crushing the Egyptian revolt. He rightly says that the second year after Darius died would be November 485 - November 484 BC, but then instead of placing the quelling of the revolt during that period (in the second year after Darius' death, not at the end/after it), he starts the four years at November 484 BC, correctly concluding from this incorrect premise there's no time for Xerxes' invasion of Greece.

Moreover, the Apis bull stelae are interpreted through accession reckoning and turmoil, which he shortens arbitrarily from 1.5 years to half a year, which is still "longer than the customary 70 days" between Apis bull death and the birth of the next one, of which he cites an example anyway. [p.197, n.23] So that's not very convincing. I don't think that "...Neh. 1:1 and 2:1 may well constitute an isolated Biblical report of a regnal dating method in use at the Persian court..." [p.196] He seems firm in this judgment based on Neh. 8:14 that states Sukkoth is in the seventh month, indicating a Spring calendar. But Nehemiah 8-12 was clearly written by a different hand, speaking of Nehemiah in the third person, probably by priests who would've used the religious Nisan calendar as opposed to the civil Tishri one of Nehemiah the government official.

The best idea remains that Nehemiah was using a Tishri Accession Calendar, where Artaxerxes I's accession year was ~December 465 BC - Tishri (~September) 464 BC, and his first year begins in the fall of 464 BC, making Nisan of his twentieth be in 444 BC.

III. 360-Day Year

If we go back to the fact that Daniel's 70 Weeks are 70 sets of 7 years, then we see when he expected the Messiah to come! What the nature of this Messiah's actions or their result exactly is according to him, we don't need to discuss here. What's important is to do the math and see where these 490 years take us.

Now I'm going to repeat a pretty familiar for many line of reasoning. But I'll provide enough justification. The usual interpretation amongst many Christian circles is that Daniel's 490 years aren't exact solar years. Meaning one can't simply take 444 BC and add 490 years to it to get his timeline for the Messiah's arrival. It's not because this brings us to 47 AD when there wasn't any Messiah other than some ripoff revolutionary Josephus records for the twentieth time.

Daniel rounds his months to 30 days. This was done by the Persians as early as Darius I. In the Persepolis Fortification Tablets (509-494 BC), rations given for less than a month are always fractions of a 30-day period. So in PF 1045, 5 months and 10 days equate to rations for 5¹⁄₃ months. A man conscripted for 3 months 10 days with rations of 3 BAR of grain per month is given 10 BAR (=3¹⁄₃ months; PF 1059). Rations for 3 months and 3 days equate to 3¹⁄₁₀ months (PF 1077). If it's objected that those specific months happened to have 30 days (e.g. in 1077 the 9th month, which would have been a 30-day month), then PF 678 has 90 sheep be given at a rate of 1¹⁄₂ sheep daily for 2 consecutive months (10th and 11th of Darius' 19th year) and 90÷1.5 is 60 (i.e. two 30-day months; the Babylonian, Persian, Elamite, and Hebrew year alternated months with 30 and 29 days except on a leap year, but those months were after the 6th or 12th for the Babylonians and Persians, and these are the 10th and 11th). There's never a break in this pattern of convenience where 1 month = 30 days. Documents without the month number (e.g. first, second) follow it too (PF 1685 - 4 months 10 days = rations for 4¹⁄₃ months).

Hence, Hallock writes:

Where the period is more than one month, the calculations are based on thirty days to the month, even when a particular month had only twenty-nine days. Thus in PF 1241 the twelve months of the twenty-third year are figured as 360 days, though actually this year had only 355 days...[Hallock (1969), Persepolis Fortification Tablets, p.38]

Daniel 12:7 speaks of 3.5 years, and Dan. 12:11 of 1290 days which is exactly 43 30-day months (slightly over 3.5 years) - something happened in that month, and then another 30-day month and a half brings the total to 1335. Revelation is even more obvious in this, where in Rev. 11:2-3, 12:6,14, 13:5 - 42 months are exactly 1260 days. And Revelation's author, who was much closer to the time and culture of Daniel than we are, is using the same language for 3¹⁄₂ years as Daniel 12:7 (Rev. 12:14).

The intercalated months are also frequently omitted or unmentioned in the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, again probably for brevity and convenience (e.g. PF 745-6, 748-9 and others). So one shouldn't expect Daniel's prophecy to be considering them.

Daniel's Tishri accession calendar (began Year 1 of a new king on the next September/October) would not prevent him from beginning the count on Nehemiah's decree, seeing how Jeremiah who uses a Tishri Accession Reckoning like Daniel does not use it for the beginning of the Exile (Jer. 52:31-34), or else it would post-date Amel-Marduk's death (August 560 BC, whereas a Tishri Accession count for the Exile would make the end of the 37th year in Jer. 52:31 be in the Fall of 560 BC).

IV. The Time from the Decree to Jesus

IV.A. The Math

Knowing that we're dealing with 490 years, 360 days each, we should convert them into solar years to see where we go from March 2, 444 BC.

We remove the last week because that's when the Messiah arrives and begins his confirmation of the Covenant which is a dual symbolism for Jesus' three year ministry and the four years of the Jewish War (middle of the week), as well as the Passion Week (where he also teaches many, more publicly and openly vs earlier [cf. MT 13:10-17 vs 26:55]). So we have the 7 and 62 = 69 in Daniel 9:25, leaving us with 483 "luni-solar" years. Multiplying by 360 we get 173880 days. We divide by the exact number of days in a year: 365.2422 [How Many Days Are in a Year? - NASA] [tropical and sidereal years do not have any relevance here; they are with respect to the stars for our convenience, not an actual, accurate astronomical measurement, and they are gauged by the Gregorian Calendar actually (for our convenience, as it should be the exact days in a year)]

483 years made up of 360 days is 173880 days. Dividing that by 365.2422 we get 476.06766...Which is 476, 24 days, 17 hours. [the remainder 0.06766...multiplied back by 365.2422 is approx. 24.7128 days. Taking this 0.7128 days and multiplying it by 24 hours gives us a little over 17 hours (even if we multiply by the more accurate 23 hours and 56 minutes (=23.933...hours) instead of 24, it gives us 17 hours and 3.58 minutes)]

Nisan 1 began in the evening of March 2 in 444 BC (on the New Moon, not as the Islamic new month begins on the first sliver of crescent visible after the new moon). Objections to this include the fact that in Persia Nisan 1, 444 BC was April 3, not March 2. [Parker & Dubberstein (2007), Babylonian Chronology: 626 B.C. - A.D. 75, p.32] But from Jerusalem, in accordance with when the new moon was visible, this is 5:21 P.M., March 2 (not March 5 or 8 - Source). Consequently, those who round the 173,880 days to 476 years, ignoring the 24.71 days, do so only because that gives exactly April 3, 33 AD.

IV.B. From Nehemiah to the Crucifixion

The Jews began their day in evening, as did Daniel (Dan. 8:14 - evenings mentioned before mornings), as did the Babylonians, Greeks, and probably the Persians. The feast in Neh. 2:1 probably took place at night. It would've been some time before the king noticed Nehemiah, but judging by how much he allows him (the cupbearer was an important position; starting with the later years of Nebuchadnezzar, many foreigners gained high positions some of NorthWest Semitic provenance [Waerzeggers, Caroline and Maarja Seire (eds.). Xerxes and Babylonia: The Cuneiform Evidence (Peeters, 2018), p.27]), he was clearly a close and important person, so perhaps not too long. Maybe it was early evening. One could suppose the Persians were celebrating their New Year, but if we're assuming March 2 as Nehemiah's Nisan 1, this would be a whole month too early. The decree could've been written not too long after Nehemiah's request, or perhaps the next day. So we can suppose the evening of March 2/morning March 3. Merely the spoken word wouldn't have been enough (compare Dan. 6:7-9). So that's when the 476 years, 24 days, 17 hours begin.

Adding 476 years to 444 BC gives us 33 AD, not 32 AD (476-444=32), because there was no year 0: adding 1 year to 1 BC gives 1 AD; adding 2 -> 2 AD, so, if we move forward by 443 years, we reach 1 BC leaving us with 33 years = 33 AD.

The Friday Jesus was crucified on, if in the year 33 AD (instead of the only possible alternate, 30 AD), fell on April 3, 33 AD. The Gospels tell us the 9th hour (=3pm).

If we interpret Dan. 9:27 to refer to Jesus' ministry and death after some years "in the middle of the week", then From 5:30 PM, March 2, 33 AD, adding 24 days and 17 hours, one gets April 3, 10:30 AM. Jesus' crucifixion began around 9 AM (Mark 15:25), technically dead around 3 PM (Mark 15:34). Since 10:30 AM marks the end of the 476 years, 24 days, 17 hours, the actual death is a few hours after. Yet the action that directly caused someone's death could be described as having killed him even if the person technically lingered a little longer (e.g. Josiah's death at Megiddo [2 Ki 23:29-30] or in Jerusalem [2 Chron. 23:24]; Jairus' daughter [Mark 5:23 vs Matt. 9:18]).

This of course assumes the decree in Neh. 2:1 was on Nisan 1. If it were later, one wouldn't be adding the Passion Week, or it could be later than Nisan 8, making the numbers not match.

V. Problems

Attractive as this hypothesis is, it has numerous flaws, both technical and logical. The first problem is that Nisan, 444 BC began on April 3. There was no intercalation month prior to it in Artaxerxes' previous year (i.e. after Elul 445 BC or Adar 444 BC). So there is no date but April 3 for Nisan 1 in 444 BC. That Daniel wouldn't count intercalated months is irrelevant to this (there are 36 intercalated months between his prophecy and Nehemiah 2:1; what to do with those (=1080 days)?).

The only way to make the math work is if Daniel somehow skipped the intercalated months from the time of his prophecy to the decree, and when he said Messiah would be cut off at the end of the "7 and 62 weeks" (9:26), he meant during the middle of the 70th week (9:27) - an expression similar to "after three days and three nights" = "on the third day" (Esther 4:16, 5:1), or the Sabbath year "after 7 years" means "on the 7th year" (Jer. 34:14). In that case, from Daniel to Nehemiah there are 1080 fewer days, and since Jesus' ministry would be a little over 3 years (see below), one could theoretically make the numbers match: 3 years is 1095.7266 days (0.7266 days = ~17 hours), so we have the 1080+24 days, making it fit if Jesus' ministry was 3 years and 9 days, which is possible.

But why Daniel's reckoning would make a difference even if he wasn't considering the intercalated months between himself and Nehemiah's decree is incomprehensible. Even if the angel counted the whole time from Daniel's prophecy to Jesus' death in solar years, which he then turned into prophetic, the starting point is Nehemiah's decree. Why would the angel begin his count with the solar years from Daniel to Nehemiah, converting those into prophetic years to then get chronologically an even bigger time (by prophetic years) between Nehemiah and Jesus? If anything, it'd be the opposite and one would have even less time than the above proposal. The angel incoporating the time from Daniel to Nehemiah is unanswerable. In essence, one is asked to consider the count to have begun almost 3 years before Nisan, 444 BC!

Nehemiah would've certainly correlated his account with the Israelite calendar, the way he has in 1:1 and 2:1 (despite the lack of specific days - cf. Ezra 3:1,6). And since the religious holidays were observed since the rebuilding of the Temple, it's not like nobody would've intercalated them (otherwise Nisan would've fallen behind by much more than a month - it would've been at any time by Nehemiah's day).

But nowhere does either Daniel or other Scriptures require that the fulfilment of a general timeframe be to the day, this was simply an interesting exercise. Neither Daniel 9:2 nor elsewhere are Jeremiah's 70 years necessary to be to the day. Like an ETA for a flight, a rough estimate is always the best measure, especially with ancient modes of reckoning when people didn't have as precise and standardized calendars as we do today. The AD-BC system, hailing from the 6th century, was a much easier and more flexible tool than the reckoning from the reign of a particular king because it wasn't relative, everyone could immediately calculate the years between any two events, and there was no confusion (e.g. which king, his starting year, etc). This is why the Greeks and Romans used Olympiads and A.U.C. in addition to "Xth year of Y emperor".

There is another way to show that this day-splitting does not lead anywhere: the final week - Jesus' ministry and the Jewish War.

Jesus' ministry plus the Jewish War (=the Tribulations) are almost exactly 7 years when combined. So like Jeremiah's 70 missing Sabbath years can be collected consecutively, and symbolized by Daniel's 70 weeks, the Passion week serves as a high point of the story. During this week, Jesus taught much more openly (Matt. 26:55) as Dan. 9:27a also tells us.

And I want to demonstrate that the final week shared between Jesus' ministry and the Roman war was also (maybe exactly) 7 years - Daniel's final week. This takes us a little into the chronology of Jesus' ministry, but we can abbreviate:

• John the Baptist begins his ministry in Tiberius' 15th year (Luke 3:1) - September 17, 28 - September 17, 29 AD
• After about a year John the Baptist is famous. Being the son of one of the main priestly families (Luke 1:5) will do that for you, combined with his political criticisms of the establishment (Matt. 3:7; Luke 3:12; Matt. 14:4) and religious function (plus asceticism). cf. the Jewish exorcists, the seven sons of Sceva (Acts 19:14)). After a year or so, he baptizes Jesus.
• Jesus' baptism is strongly implied in John to be a few weeks before the Passover, which would be the Passover of 30 AD: the water into wine miracle at Cana is a few days after his baptism (John 1:43, 2:1). After a few more days (John 2:12) he prepares to leave for the Passover a little earlier than most (John 2:13). But this interval isn't going to be more than a few days, not more than a week or two because he's at Capernaum (Peter's house most likely) and not his home, Nazareth. This shows how destitute he was: he didn't need or have anything to bring along from home to Jerusalem (cf. Matt. 10:10), and shows it was the beginning of his ministry.

In conclusion, Jesus' ministry was a few weeks over 3 years. The Jewish War is also as near-precisely able to be determined. The burning of the Temple occurs on Av 9, 70 AD (late August), so that's our end date. The beginning is a little tricky and subjective. Josephus is very generous and gives us several exact dates:

• Elul 6, 66 AD the rebellious faction in Jerusalem, the "innovators" assault the Roman soldiers stationed there
• Elul 7 they kill them except their commander
• Tishri 29 when Cestius begins the siege against Jerusalem (3 days after Tishri 27 would be the 29th because Josephus would count 27 as day 1)
• Marcheshvan 8 when Cestius is defeated at Beth Horon

The first date has the least support. Josephus reports that the anti-war faction in Jerusalem held out hope that war could be avoided. The second date is possible, but there is still hope even when Cestius is encamped on Mount Scopus a few days before he begins the assault: Agrippa sends some messengers to the Jews and says all would be forgotten if they would lay down their weapons (some ringleaders would've been killed for sure, but the whole thing would've been avoided). By Marcheshvan 8 the point of no return was reached when the Roman XII Legion was decimated. Even if everyone left Jerusalem, you bet your city's getting destroyed. Whichever date we pick we have at least 1-2 months less than 4 years.

Instead we have to look for an event or decision that eliminated turning back as an option: like trying to unscramble eggs. Josephus is again invaluable here. He gives us the following:

• Elul 7, the same day the Roman soldiers were killed in Jerusalem, Caesarea slaughters its Jewish inhabitants (BJ 2.18.1)
• Within days, the Jews in Palestine living in Hellenistic cities retaliate, after which these cities attack (or sometimes spare the non-"innovators") back

Cestus continues and arrives at Antipatris around Tishri 15 (BJ 2.19.1). He continues on to Jerusalem. Even after the Roman army was encamped near Jerusalem, two ambassadors are sent who were to inform the Jews that surrounded the Romans that they would be forgiven fully if they threw away their weapons. Possibly a lie, especially so for the leaders, this would have avoided the war. And specifically, we should be interested at what point was the Temple in danger. So the fact that Masada and some other places held out until 73 AD is irrelevant. When was it that the burning of the Temple, even though it was accidental by both sides, was naturally going to be reached one way or another?

The Roman messengers are attacked and Cestius responds by beginning the siege of Jerusalem. This is Tishri 27 (the fourth day is Tishri 30 - 2.19.4). The only other date would be the point of no return after Cestius' army is annihilated at the Battle of Beth Horon, 11 days later on 8 Marcheshvan (BJ 2.19.9). Although Josephus maintains that the war could've been easily won if Cestius had pressed his soldiers forward, avoiding all the casualties including the destruction of the Temple, he also notes how Cestius didn't do this as if by the hand of Providence. Yet if the Battle of Beth Horon weren't so integral, I don't think Josephus nor his sources would've remembered it. After the annihilation of much of the XII Legion, you can bet your city was going to be destroyed even if everyone abandoned it. And so we have our starting and ending points for the Jewish War: either from Tishri 29 or Marcheshvan 8, 66 AD to Ab 9, 70 AD. Since there are short, normal, and long Jewish years, this is a minimum of 1427 days for Tishri 29, and a maximum of 1435, and a 1436/1444 days for Cheshvan 8. If the Temple burned for a few more days (by tradition 2-3), then we add a few more.

This is important because we have to remember that this final week is a 360-day year period of 7 years = 2520 days. If we take the more likely date for the start of the war, Cheshvan 8, and take the middle from 1436/1444 (1440), then Jesus' ministry under this calculation would be around 1080 days or a little under 3 years (~2 years, 350 days). Even if we take the lowest number of days possible for the war, 1427, Jesus' ministry is still under 3 years (by 2-3 days). This is not the impression one gets from John at all, so we see an additional reason why Daniel's 70 sevens should not be interpreted so tightly.

The prophecy would've counted it from Nisan 444 BC to Nisan 33 AD (=476 years, presented as 483 years). The lack of precision for time periods such as decades like Jeremiah's 70 years was also acceptable. For example, Thucydides' Pentecontaetia or "fifty years" between the Greek victory at Plataea in 479 BC and the start of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC was less than 50 years. [Whether one dates the Pentecontaetia from the Battle of Salamis or Plataea (much more reasonable), it is still less than 50 years: Salamis was in September 480, while Plataea in August 479, while the Peloponnesian War must've begun before May 431 BC, because at the end of its first year Pericles gave a customary speech commemorating the dead from war, and he died in the outbreak of the Athenian plague in early May 430 BC. [source] This makes the total 48 years and 8 months - 49 years and 7 months at most] In WWI, the Hundred Days Offensive was technically 95 days. The Hundred Years' War was from May 1337 - October 19 (or later), 1453. Daniel himself rounds 1290 days into 3.5 years (Dan. 12:7, 11). In Exodus 12:40 it is noted that the Exodus took place exactly 430 years after Abraham's entry into Canaan (which makes sense as ancient Mesopotamian semi-nomad traders like Abraham would have done this in the spring - William G. Dever "How Archaeology Illuminates the Bible" lecture). But it's nothing necessary, neither then nor in the later timed prophecies. Though, interestingly, since these 430 years' days and months varied, this might imply one cannot recalculate Daniel's years into solar years.

Similarly, the day is also not necessary to be precise. "On the same day" was an expression (1 Macc. 1:54 vs 4:52-54; cf. Ex. 12:40).

The error in such a methodology should've already been seen by the fact that, on the one hand, rounding is accepted for Daniel's 483 360-day years, yet on the other, these are converted into solar years with merciless technicality. It's simply cherry-picking when to be technical.

If like the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, Nehemiah didn't care about the actual Nisan day, could Daniel have cared about the actual year vs rounding when the Tablets and he rounded them to 360 days? Yet the timing is so near calculating it that way. It's truly left a mystery even thousands of years after completed.

VI. Objections

1. Daniel is a 2nd Century BC book

This goes a little beyond the purpose of this article. Nevertheless, the times and facts don't match with this. Aside from the fact that Antiochus didn't destroy the Temple, which like everything else in an unverifiably subjective theory is ascribed to Daniel being "in error," the Messiah that he speaks of is forcibly picked as Onias III who died in 171/0 BC. This makes the 434 years start from the first Babylonian captivity in 605/4 BC which Daniel mentions (after Carchemish when Nebuchadnezzar went to Palestine, perhaps because of the Egyptian-installed Jehoiakim). So Daniel was knowledgeable enough (and he's not following Jeremiah, whose book he knows [Dan. 9:2], who gives the time as the 3rd, not 4th year of Jehoiakim) to know of the Babylonian reckoning that squares this with the Non-Accession Reckoning used by Jeremiah, yet he's dumb enough to get a ton of details, many from his lifetime, wrong.

Moreover, this interpretation renders the initial 7 weeks lost; no one knew of any decree to rebuild Jerusalem prior to 605 or 587 BC, because Jerusalem hadn't been destroyed at all. And so there's no way Daniel would date the 434 years from 605/4 BC.

Finally, just because he mentions a few captives, including himself, during the 605/4 BC Babylonian attack, doesn't mean he starts dating Jeremiah's 70 years from that point. It would have been clear to the author who obviously would've read the prophets (Jeremiah for example), had he lived in the 2nd century BC, that the 70 years were still ongoing at least until the Temple had begun construction in Darius' reign (Zech. 7:3-5 - the fasting had been going on until very recently). Daniel 9:1-2ff does acknowledge the years as still uncompleted, but this is the first year of Cyrus' reign, and 70 years from 605/4 BC would therefore still be incomplete, if whole. Daniel's plea in vv.3ff can be interpreted either as a plea that these years will end soon, yet there's apparently no sign of improvement of the situation (despite the fact that a 2nd century author would know the decree to restore the Temple was given in Cyrus' first year). Or it could be Daniel lamenting that there was still a lot more time (decades) to go. But the fact that he must've known of Zechariah shows that there is no way Daniel 9:24-27 refers to any Onias III as the Messiah-Prince.

There are many more examples of this type of subjective deduction, especially with respect to this book because of the specific (and accurate) prophecies it makes about Palestine and its locale from Xerxes I and on.

2. Daniel 9:27 refers to Antiochus IV

That Daniel refers to the Seleucid period for a lot of the prophecies, including probably to Antiochus in 9:27, there isn't a problem. Like the apocalyptic predictions by Jesus (MT 24//MK 13//LK 21), some of the events were for present times, some for the End Times, and some had a double meaning.

The bleak outlook in Daniel is why he's not dated to later than the end of 164 BC when the Jews retook the Temple. Yet Daniel knows of Antiochus' death (Dan. 9:27b) if Dan. 9:27 refers to him, so either the verse doesn't entirely refer to him, or the events don't to the 160's BC.

In this case, just like the apocalypse by Jesus in the Gospels, we have a dualism, maybe even trialism for those who "end sacrifices":

1. Antiochus IV who stopped sacrifices, defiled the Temple, but did not destroy it


2. Jesus who ended the need for sacrifices, but didn't destroy the Temple


3. Titus who destroyed the Temple

3. The Gregorian Calendar

Sometimes it's objected that this doesn't account for the 23 days the Gregorian Calendar adds to correct the Julian. But this is untrue both for our calculation of the 69 Sevens and for our dates in 444 BC and 33 AD. The former we already showed by giving the 3 extra Julian days to the 21 days leftover if we divide 69x7x360 (=173880 days) by 365.25 (the Julian Calendar). The latter is computer generated from astronomy and so the error is impossible with respect to the calendar we use because it's based on the same thing: the amount of time the Earth spins around the Sun once. The only challenge is to correlate this with the appropriate local time periods (e.g. Nisan 1), but this is a completely different issue.

It would be like saying we can't have or know about an April 3, 33 AD, because they didn't use the month April - irrelevant, as this is just a name for a time of the year that corresponded to how the ancients calculated the new month (new moon) and the exact mathematics we use in astronomy. It's like saying we can't use the year 444 BC for Artaxerxes I's 21st year because no one used this type of year count at the time.

4. The Prophecy is Supposed to be a Mystery Sealed till the End Times

This is a very valid point which can easily be missed in many other cases. People, including professional historians, easily misinterpret sources of the straightforward past, let alone a vague, highly interpretive prophecy of the future where there's no hindsight.

But one is always free to speculate, following the Golden Mean of the Probable. And the numbers here are too tantalizing, at least to my mind, not to give at least a passing suggestion of one possibility, which is all this is.

And obviously the vision isn't supposed to be a hidden one that no one could or should try to decipher. Regarding the time of Alexander the Great and on, Daniel 8:26 says much the same thing: to "seal up the vision". Yet the angel is perfectly happy to not only give the prophecy to Daniel (and his readers) in Dan. 8:1-14, but to interpret it in detail that leaves one to guess only when and not what would be happening (8:15-25).

VII. Resources

• Parker & Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology: 626 B.C. - A.D. 75 (2007)