Allen,
Thank you for your reply to my letter to you on the 70 weeks. It certainly is
too bad that this matter cannot be resolved with some certainty. For if it
could, it would be a powerful means of convincing the Jews that Jesus was
their promised Messiah.
I read what you had to say in response to my comments and all of your
responses were fair and reasonable.
The largest obstacle I have in accepting your understanding is believing that
the 70 weeks began to run with Artaxerxes' decree to Ezra, a decree which
neither ordered nor resulted in any documented rebuilding work. For Daniel
said the 70 weeks would begin with an order to rebuild Jerusalem. It is for
that same reason that most others who have studied this prophecy over the
years have not assigned its starting point to Artaxerxes' decree to Ezra. It
seems to me that the only ones who do have favored that decree because with
it's date of issue they are able to come pretty close to making Daniel's
prophecy match up with the historical chronology of Christ's ministry and
death. It seems to me that they have not favored that decree because either
its contents or eventual results closely matched the description of the kind
of decree Daniel's prophecy itself described.
In any case, I appreciate your discussing this matter with me. I hope all is
going well for you.
Your brother in Christ,
Mike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Apr 29 2002 - 12:36:07 EDT