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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: the reliquary of Ockham's razor
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This alleged prophecy was debated here.
Quote:
Daniel 9.24-27
The claim that Jesus fulfills Daniel 9.24-27 to the very day was first invented by an amateur nineteenth-century apologist by the name of Sir Robert Anderson. He set out his reasoning in a book called The Coming Prince http://www.whatsaiththescripture.co...ng.Prince.html. The claim was more recently popularized by the apologist Josh McDowell in Evidence that demands a verdict (1972), 178ff.
Unfortunately for Sir Robert Anderson, Josh McDowell and Jason Gastrich, this fulfillment claim is completely false.
a. In the first place, Sir Robert Anderson’s calculations have been proved to be in error. He was out by three days. If this were the only problem with Anderson’s claim, then it might not seem such a grave error; by changing some of his assumptions it could possibly even be ‘corrected’. However, there are much more substantial and thus more serious problems with Anderson’s theory, as I have outlined below. But at this stage it is enough to note that Jason’s so-called ‘fulfillment’, as he calculates it, is incorrect.
b. Jason’s claim that the Jews in fact had a 360-day year is a fiction. So, the whole calculation is based on an artificial foundation, not founded in the reality of Babylonian and Jewish calendars.
c. AD 32 is not recognized as a plausible year for the crucifixion of Jesus to have taken place. As a host of scholars have recognized, Nisan 14 (Passover) only fell on the right days of the week in AD 30 and AD 33. Anderson’s theory demands that the crucifixion occurred in AD 32, which according to the astronomical data, is highly unlikely in AD 32.
d. The start-date has been arbitrarily chosen so as to place the end of the 434-year term in the ministry of Jesus.
e. The central context of the prophecy in the Book of Daniel is the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, in the 160s BC – not the time of Jesus in the first century AD. To say that the prophecy in Daniel 9.24-27 is fulfilled in Jesus is false, because it was intended to be ‘fulfilled’ in a time nearly 200 years previous!
Daniel 9.24-27 was not intended to be fulfilled in Jesus, and was not in fact fulfilled in Jesus. To the naïve reader Anderson's claim may appear to be an amazing case of prophecy-fulfillment. But on closer examination it turns out to be a complete misinterpretation and misapplication of the ‘prophet’ Daniel’s words. Because Anderson’s calculations fool many people with their sophistry, I will now explain in some detail why his theory is completely false.
a) Sir Robert Anderson’s ‘amazing’ miscalculations
Anderson concluded that Daniel 9.24-27 was precisely fulfilled by finding exactly 173,880 days (i.e. 69 ‘sevens’ of 360-day years) between March 14, 445 BC and April 6, AD 32 in the Julian calendar.
Anderson’s error was to state that there were 173,880 days between these two Julian dates. In fact, there are 173,883 (including day one). The reason for Anderson’s mistake was that he made an erroneous adjustment of 3 days to ‘correct’ for the fact that there are 3 more leap years counted in the old Julian calendar than what is required by the Gregorian. But when one is dealing with days, and not converting them into solar years, no such adjustment is required.
“Converting that count of days into solar years in order to immediately divide again and allow leap years into the calculation is a superflous, unnecessary and erroneous step in the process ... one may simply count days in any calendar using whatever leap year rule that calendar happened to implement, accurate or not relative to a solar year. The only criterion is that you count days by accurately following the rules of the calendar you are picking the start and end dates in.”
http://www.theism.net/anderson.htm
Using Anderson's starting date, ending date, and the rules of the calendars in question, the result is always 173,883. This is illustrated using the Julian Date Numbers (‘JDNs’) for Anderson’s starting date and ending date. A JDN represents a single day in time and any given event in time can only have happened on one JDN.
Anderson’s start date:
JDN: 1558960
Julian Calendar: Mar 14, 445 BC
Gregorian Calendar: Mar 9, 445 BC
Anderson’s end date:
JDN: 1732842
Julian Calendar: Apr 6, 32 AD
Gregorian Calendar: Apr 4, 32 AD
Therefore, 1558960 - 1732842 = 173,882, and
173,882 + 1(counting inclusively, in Jewish terms) = 173,883.
Anderson miscalculated the number of days, and so only demonstrated how Daniel 9.24-27 doesn't work!.
b) The 360-day year is a fiction
Jason claims that “the Jewish calendar and many other calendars were based on a 360 day [year], which is also called a "lunar year".” I ask Jason: where do you get this idea from? Unless you find some support that the Jews in fact used a 360-day year system for the period from the fifth century BC to the first century AD, I will have to call your bluff.
To the contrary, it is well known that, in order to balance the calendar with the solar year, the Babylonians in fact added an extra (‘intercalated’) month. Therefore, on average, the years from the fifth century BC to the first century AD would have been 365 days, not your fictional ‘360 days’. But if you have evidence to the contrary, please produce it.
Until you do produce evidence that the Babylonians or Jews in fact used 360-day years, we must conclude that your claim is based on a theoretical and a completely artificial ‘year’. It sounds good in theory. But it is a complete nonsense, devoid of any reality. The Babylonians and Jews weren’t completely stupid, Jason. They noticed the increasing differences between the lunar and solar years, and developed their own methods to keep them synchronized over the long term.
And when you appreciate which calendar the Jews used in reality, you will realize that adding 483 years to 454 BC brings us to AD 39 – well outside of the terminus ante quem (latest possible date) for Jesus’ death.
So Anderson's claim fails on this ground as well.
c) The year AD 32 cannot be the year of Jesus’s crucifixion
Jason simply asserts that AD 32 is the date of Jesus death. But what evidence do you actually have to corroborate your (erroneous) calculations? Anything?
To the contrary, there is damning evidence against a 32 AD crucifixion. If reliance is placed on the Gospel accounts, the death of Jesus must have occurred between the 15th year of Tiberius in AD 27 and the end of Pilate’s term in AD 36/37. Jason puts ‘Palm Sunday’ on Nisan 10, which makes Nisan 14 (Passover) the following Thursday.
Accepting these assumptions, in the period AD 27 – AD 36 the only options for the year of Jesus’s crucifixion are as follows:
Date Day Jewish Date
30 CE April 6 Thursday Nisan 14
30 CE April 7 Friday Nisan 14
33 CE April 3 Friday Nisan 14
So by your own admission, 32 AD was never an option. Astronomical data about the Nisan new moon in 32 AD places Nisan 14 on Monday! Even if the sliver of the new moon was not observed at the end of day 29, the new moon would be sanctified at the end of the following day – still far too early for a Friday (or even Thursday) crucifixion.
Anderson’s miscalculations, which only allow for the crucifixion of Jesus in AD 32, are not adequately reconciled with the Gospel accounts.
We have to ask why Anderson, and Jason following him, concludes that AD 32 is the year of Jesus’ death. The answer is not that there is any evidence of Jesus’ death being in AD 32. It is rather that Anderson had forced all the prophecies into his artificial contrivance. But when we actually examine whether AD 32 is a possibility – independent of such artificial calculations – we find that it is highly unlikely.
So Anderson's claim fails on this ground as well.
d) The start-date was arbitrarily chosen
The start-date has been arbitrarily chosen by Anderson so that the 434 years would finish during the time of Jesus’s life and ministry. It has been arbitrarily chosen from a number of possible “words” (dbr) that “went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.”
There is a much more likely interpretation of this ‘word’. And that is it refers to Jeremiah’s original ‘word’. As Ezra 1.1-3 records, King Cryus’s edict of 538 BC, which allowed the Jewish return from exile, was made in order that “the word of YHWH by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished.” Likewise, 2 Chronicles 26.22-23 makes it clear that King Cryus’s edict was made “to fulfill the word of YHWH by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had made up for its sabbaths.”
So the initial seventy-year prophecy of Jeremiah was considered to have expired in 538, with the establishment of Cyrus’s Persian kingdom. In the Book of Daniel, the first epoch of 49 years (7 ‘sevens’) directly corresponds to the period between the destruction of Jerusalem and the return from the exile i.e. 587/86 to 538 BC.
It is therefore in 538 BC that the second epoch of 434 years (the 62 ‘sevens’) begins - when 2 Chronicles and Ezra both describe the edict from Cyrus, “Messiah the Prince”.
It is King Cyrus who is “a messiah the prince” referred to in Daniel 9.25. Isaiah also refers to King Cyrus as YHWH’s ‘messiah’. It is Cyrus who deutero-Isaiah 'prophesied' would rebuild Jerusalem:
“[YHWH] says of Cyrus, "He is my shepherd, and he shall carry out all my purpose"; and who says of Jerusalem, "It shall be rebuilt," and of the temple, "Your foundation shall be laid." Thus says YHWH to his Messiah, to Cyrus… ”
- Isa 44.28-45.1
Once the word had gone out to rebuild Jerusalem from God’s messiah Cyrus, the 62 sevens (434 years) commenced.
So Anderson's claim fails on this ground as well.
e) The ‘prophecy’ in the Book of Daniel is ‘fulfilled’ in the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes
But what makes Anderson’s AD 32 ‘fulfillment’ ultimately ridiculous and unfeasible is that it ignores the context of the Book of Daniel – which does not refer to the life of Jesus at all, but is an apocalypse centered on the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175 – 163 BC).
The vast majority of contemporary scholars accept that the final form of the Book of Daniel was composed in c165 BC, during this traumatic period in Israel’s history. This is not based, as many apologists would have you believe, on any bias against supernatural prophecy. But it is based on the internal textual and theological evidence of the Book of Daniel itself, together with the external evidence of Daniel mapping so closely against the historical accounts of Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ reign. As John J Collins puts it:
”The issue is not whether a divinely inspired prophet could have foretold the events which took place under Antiochus Epiphanes 400 years before they occurred. The question is whether this possibility carries any probability: is it the most satisfactory way to explain what we find in Daniel? Modern critical scholarship has held that it is not.”
Briefly, the main reasons that scholars have decided on a c165 BC dating for Daniel are as follows:
- There is an incredible correspondence of events between Daniel (especially Chapter 11) and profane history of the Hellenistic Empires right up until the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The comparison is dramatically displayed in this chronology: http://www.tektonics.com/prophecy/d...chronology.html . However, the events in Daniel 11.40ff were not fulfilled. Unsurprisingly, only the ex eventu prophecies (‘prophecies’ made after the fact) were ‘fulfilled’.
- Historical inaccuracies in both the ‘court-tales’ and ‘vision’ sections of Daniel demonstrate that this is not a book written by someone high up in the Court of Nebuchadnezzar, because the author is ignorant of many key facts he should have been aware of if he were indeed a 6th-century author. The author of Daniel creates a deportation in the third year of Jehoiakim. He mistakes Belshazzar for the son of Nebuchadnezzar (he was the son of Nabonidus). He invents an intervening ‘Median Empire’ as one of the four empires of the visions, and also a ‘Darius the Mede’, who is described as the son of Xerxes, and is said to have conquered Babylon (instead of Cyrus).
- The linguistic characteristics support the late dating. There are tell-tale Persian loan words which suggest a long period of Persian influence, and also some Greek words, including the musical instrument the ‘symponia’.
- The apocalyptic theology is quite late. The legalist food-laws, highly-developed angelology and doctrine of the resurrection in Chapter 12 are 2ndC BC features, but not 6thC features.
Daniel 9.24-27 takes us from the time of Jeremiah’s ‘word’ going out (588/87 BC), to the time of “an anointed prince” / “Messiah the Prince” / King Cyrus (538 BC), to a time after 62 weeks when “an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing.” This final week commences with the cutting of an ‘anointed one’: from the time of the murder of Onias III (at the end of 170s BC) to the time of the purification of the Temple (in 164 BC).
The remainder of the ex eventu ‘prophecy’ in Daniel 9.24-27 is completely ‘fulfilled’ by Antiochus’ actions. When Antiochus invades Israel and sacks the Temple, the ‘prophecy’ in Daniel 9.26 that stated “the troops of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary” is fulfilled. When Antiochus chooses the Tobiad family and Jason as the new high priest to replace Onias III, he makes “a strong covenant with many for one week.” After Jason wrongly hears that Antiochus had died in battle in Egypt, Jason forsakes his covenant with Antiochus (Daniel 11.30). So, midway through these seven years (Daniel 9.27; c.f. 7.25; 8.14, 26; 12.7), the “enraged” Antiochus concludes there is a revolt, and makes a violent response: violating and plundering the Temple (Daniel 11.31; 1 Maccabees 1.20-23), and banning traditional Jewish practice by ordering an end to all sacrifice (Daniel 9.27; c.f. 7.25; 8.11-13; 11.31; 1 Maccabees 1.41-53), and even making the Temple an altar for Baal / Zeus – the “abomination that desolates” or “desecrating sacrilege” (Daniel 9.27; 8.11-13; 11.31; 1 Maccabees 1.54-55).
To try to ‘force-fit’ Daniel’s detailed description of the Hellenistic Empire and Antiochus into a description of Jesus is poor interpretation of Daniel.
n.b. If you have been observant, you might object that the 62 sevens (434 years) do not fit into the 538 BC to 170 BC timeframe – the 62 sevens is 66 years too much. Your objection is clearly correct! But it poses no problem to this interpretation. The chronological data in the Book of Daniel is simply not accurate. I noted the examples of his Median Empire and ‘Darius’. Furthermore, in Daniel 11.2 Daniel includes only four kings in the Persian Empire before the Macedonian conquest. Interestingly, this is a common problem for contemporary and later histories. In Bell Jud 6.4.8 Josephus calculates the time from the second building of the Temple (the second year of Cyrus) to the destruction of the Second Temple to be 639 years. He adds 33 years too many! In Ant 20.10 Josephus calculates the time from the return from Exile (the first year of Cyrus) to Antiochus V Eupator (164-162 BC) to be 414 years. He is 41 years out. And then in Ant 13.11.1 he calculates the time from the return to Aristobul I (105-104 BC) to be 481 years. He has added 49 years this time. Demetrius calculates 573 years from the exile of the 10 tribes (722BC) to Ptolemaios IV (222 BC). He over-cooked it by 70 years. So there is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that the author of Daniel was working from an incorrect chronology. And there is also the possibility that the 62 sevens were not interpreted literally at all. Recall that the 70 sevens are connected with the prophecy of Jeremiah that the Exile will endure 70 years. 2 Chronicles 36.21 interprets the Exile as a required period of righteousness for the country to “pay off its Sabbaths” – which is also taken up in Daniel 9.24 (“to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness”). Just as the regnal years of the Judean kings from Solomon to Zedekiah (who disobeyed YHWH) totaled 434 years, the people were asked to live righteously according to the commandments of Yahweh for a compensating equal number of years. Whether this is the rationale for the 434 period or not, it illustrates that there may have been some symbolic understanding to the period of 434 years, despite it not being literally true.
Conclusion – Daniel 9.24-27
Jason’s conclusion that Daniel 9.24-27 predicts Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem is based on an old miscalculation by Sir Robert Anderson, which has long been known to be full of embarrassing holes. The calculations simply don’t work. And even if they did work, they require the substitution of an artificial 360-day year that was never operative in Babylon or Israel, except in the minds of some gullible apologists. On top of all this, Anderson’s theory ends in 32 AD - which scholars do not recognize to be a serious option for the death of Jesus. Furthermore, he arbitrarily picks a different start-date from the intended start-date of Jeremiah’s original prophecy (which in fact produces a 39 AD death of Jesus – three years after Paul’s conversion!). The mess that Jason has got himself into is easily cleaned up, if he recognizes that the ex eventu ‘prophecy’ in Daniel was meant all along to refer to Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
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There you have it.
best,
Peter Kirby
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07-02-2003, 04:03 PM
Another thread about christ in the old testament
