Re: 70 Weeks

From: Allen Roy (allenroy@peoplepc.com)
Date: Sat Apr 27 2002 - 23:40:13 EDT

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    From: "Satterlee Michael" <mgs928532001@yahoo.com>
    > You wrote: Finegan [who dates Ezra's return to 458,
    > not 457] makes the typical mistake of trying to date
    > the decree and Ezra's trip according to the
    > Babylonian-Persian calendar which went from spring to
    > spring rather than the Jewish calendar which went from
    > fall to fall.
    >
    > This is too debatable an issue for us to answer here
    > with any certainty.

    Ever since the institution of the servieces of the ancient wilderness
    Tabernacle, God decreed that their year to begin and end in the Fall of the
    year. That is why Yom Kipur is still celebrated in the Fall today.

    > You wrote: [Concerning the 15th year of Tiberius
    > Caesar] Again the problem here is trying to use the
    > Roman calendar and the Roman system of counting regnal
    > years and claiming that that is what Luke used.
    >
    > Luke wrote his gopel to a Roman army officer. (Luke
    > 1:3) Thus it is highly doubtful that he would have
    > dated the year of Christ's baptism in a way that would
    > have cauused him to think it occurred two years later
    > than it actually did.

    There has been a lot of speculation about who Theophilus was. About all
    that we can get from the Bible is that his name is Greek and it means
    "friend of God." That he was a Roman officer is pure speculation.

    However, the argument that Luke dated according to Roman accounting so the
    supposed Roman officer would understand, is undermined by Josephus.
    Josephus wrote his history for his Roman captors, and yet he used the Hebrew
    reckoning for the 1st century kings and NOT the Roman reckoning.

    > You wrote: The death of Christ in AD 33 is very
    > unlikely ...
    >
    > I'll take the opinion of those who have studied this
    > subject matter far more than you and I have. And I've
    > studied this subject matter very thoroughly for years
    > now. Finegan says AD 33. As do most other New
    > Testament historians today.

    I need to digress here for a moment. It is a logical falacy to resort to
    appeals to authority. It may seem impressive, but it has nothing to do with
    the truth of the matter. Truth is not determined by who or how many may
    assert a position. As I have stated on this list before, scientific truth
    is not determined by vote. I have heard it said, how can so many scientists
    be wrong and only a few YECs be right? The majority does not insure
    validity or truth.

    I will NOT take the opinion of the majority simply because it is the
    majority and I don't know better. I will study until I know all the facts
    and make a decision based on that, NOT on what someone else may think.

    This is the situation for the year of the death of Christ. There is serious
    evidence against AD 33 and 30. But a vote is not going to settle the issue.

    > Something we should keep in mind is that if we hope to
    > use the "70 weeks" prophecy as a means of convincing
    > people that Jesus was the promised Messiah, it is
    > helpful to be able to have our dates for the baptism
    > and death of Jesus match up with those we can show
    > them in common reference books. AD 29 is the date we
    > will there find listed as the 15th year of Tiberius
    > Caesar. AD 33 is the date we will find most often
    > listed today for the death of Christ.

    There is a famous Biblical principle: Let the Bible interpret the Bible.
    In other words, and in this case, for both the 457 BC and 27 AD, the
    calendric system that should be used is the one defined in the Bible not any
    other reckoning system. That is why the Thrid Decree was in 457 BC and 15th
    year of Tiberius was in 27 AD.
    >
    > But how does the fact that Nehemiah did not give his
    > order to begin rebuilding Jerusalem until 440 BC help
    > us to make sense of Daniel's "Seventy Weeks" prophecy?
    > As most students of Bible prophecy know, Daniel's
    > "seventy weeks" are generally understood as referring
    > to seventy weeks of years (seventy sets of seven
    > years) totaling a period of 490 solar years. But the
    > Jews used a lunar calendar! Their years were lunar
    > years, not solar years. So a week of years to the Jews
    > would have meant seven lunar years. And seventy weeks
    > of years to the Jews would have meant 490 lunar years,
    > not 490 solar years.

    Yes, they used a Lunar Calender, but the added extra months somthing like 7
    times in 19 years. So the end resut was that they were able to keep the
    lunar years fairly closely in sinc with the solar years. They keep in sinc
    with the seasons this way. So in effect they recognized the solar year and
    kept they lunar year in line with the Solar year.

    > Every few years the Jews added an extra month to the
    > tail end of their lunar calendars to make sure that
    > their lunar calendar never fell too far out of sync
    > with the solar year. At the time of Daniel they had no
    > set system of doing so. When they did so they called
    > this "intercalary" month "second Adar." However, the
    > fact that they did so does not change the fact that,
    > to the Jews, "a year" normally meant 354 days. For
    > that is the number of days which one of their
    > calendars normally contained. Their calendars usually
    > consisted of six 29 day months and six 30 day months.
    > So, to the Jews a "year" was a lunar year, and a week
    > of years (literally a "seven" of years) was seven
    > lunar years. And "seventy" "sevens" of lunar years
    > would have been understood by them to mean 490 lunar
    > years, none of which are by nature solar-adjusted.
    >
    > Now, since one lunar year contains 354.367 days, 490
    > lunar years contain 173,639.83 days. And 173,639.83
    > days divided by 365.2425 (the number of days in a
    > solar year) equal 475.40 solar years. With these
    > things in mind, I have come to conclusion that
    > Daniel's "seventy weeks" were a period of 475.4 years
    > which ran from 440 BC to 36 AD.

    So, in effect, the angel really didn't mean 70 weeks of years, but rather he
    meant 67.9 weeks of years. I read of such manipulations before which try to
    explain that the Bible really doesn't mean what it says. I can see no
    reason to modify what the bible says when it is clear that the 69 week fit
    perfectly from the Biblically counted dates of 457 BC to 27 AD.



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