Religion: The 70 Week Prophecy of Daniel 9

Date: 29 July, 2006

NOTE: This article is a preliminary work. I fully intend to completly rewrite it in a more thorough manner. So here's to intensions...

Daniel 9:24



Reconciliation to iniquity, end of sins, most holy, seal up prophecy -- sure sounds like Christ to me. A pretty fair description, more connectable then Nostradamus' so-called "prophecies" anyway.

Daniel 9:25a

Know therefore and discern, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem...

This marks the starting point of the time frame layed out by the passage. There were several decrees that have been suggested as being that referred to in this verse



Some contend that the second decree of Artaxerxes, to Nehamiah, is the beginning of the prophecy. That requires some gymnastics that would, in my opinion, make it all hogwash -- if that is the date, then prophecy does not easily stand alone as True unless you presuppose so, and I personally have no other foundation for faith upon which to presuppose. That gets into the whole cutting-off the last week of the 70 and slapping it onto the end of time and... well it's a stretch.

But it doesn't end at that. The first two decrees -- well, they're shaky -- and when Nehemiah finally did rebuild the walls, it was under Artaxerxes, not Darius or Cyrus. I am of the opinion that the first decree of Artaxerxes -- where he allowed the Israelites to go to their homeland, with generous gifts and and promises -- is the "going forth of the command" for the restoration of the city. Nehemiah might have been the one who went forth, but the promise was made years before him.

This brings us to the seventh year of Artaxerxes' reign {ref. Ezra 7:8}. Without getting into complications over the year of ascension traditions and the archaelogical evidence for the exact history of the Persian kings, hopefully you will take my word that the 7th year of Artaxerxes was the year 457 B.C.E.

Daniel 9:25b

...to the Anointed One, the prince, shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks: it shall be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times.

Here we get into the concept of "weeks." The accepted interpretation is that each day represents a year. Some point to the following verse as a proof-text:

Ezekiel 4:6b

I have appointed thee each day for a year

That presupposes that this tradition applies to the entire Bible, and is not specific to Ezekiel's circumstance in that passage. In my opinion Ezekiel 4:6 alone is not enough to establish a day-equals-year theory for all of Bible prophecy.

But such gymnastics, again, are not needed. The Hebrew word for "week" used in Daniel 9 is "shabuwa." Now, I don't know Hebrew, but Strongs dictionary tells me:

Strongs Hebrew Dictionary:

7620 shabuwa` shaw-boo'-ah literal, sevened, i.e. a week (specifically, of years):--seven, week.

A "week" in Hebrew, from what I understand, simply means "seven," as we might say a "dozen." And they were in the habbit of using it to represent years.

Daniel 9:25b

...to the Anointed One, * the prince, shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks: it shall be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times.

Seven weeks, sixty-two weeks. The theory is that the seven weeks are listed seperate because it took forty-nine years to rebuild Jerusalem. I don't know the evidence for that, but frankly I think it's unimportant. Add them together and we have 69 weeks.



If you're following along remember there is no year 0 between B.C.E. and A.C.E.

Exactly when Jesus lived and acted and died is difficult to determine to the day. However, history informs us that King Herod died in 4 B.C.E., meaning Christ could have been born no later then 4 B.C.E.

If Christ was born in 4 B.C.E., and was thirty years old when he started his ministry (ref. Luke 3:23), then, low and behold, he would have started teaching and preaching in 27 A.C.E.! Quite the coincidence, considering how strong the correlation between Daniel 9:24 and Christ are.

Daniel 9:26, 27

After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One shall be cut off, and shall have nothing: and the people of the prince who shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end of it shall be with a flood, and even to the end shall be war; desolations are determined.



After the 483 years we have not one week but half a week to look at. In the midst of the week "sacrifice and the offering to cease." And what did Jesus do 3 years after his baptism? Sacrifice himself, the fulfillment of what the entire Jewish sacrificial system pointed to.

And what about the end of the last week? Some say it was the stoning of Stephen, but I don't see that as important. The important part is the correlation to Christ.

Now, to cover a little loose ground. I make it look all perfect, but couldn't it all have been fabricated? Possibilities include



This first doubt is the simplest to tackle. Without getting into the wide array of archaelogical fragments and evidence here and there, the Biblical texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls alone, having been dated by several independant agencies, were all written well before the time of Christ. This group of writings contained 8 copies of the book of Daniel (And 44 of the other prophets). Carbon dating, Paleography, and local archaelogical evidence all have been applied to the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the latest copy of the book of Daniel dates to 165 B.C.

Even generously giving the skeptic this leeway, and saying that Daniel didn't really live at the time he claims, and that it was written in 165 B.C.E., it does not serve to injure the 70-week prophecy's claim to validity.

The second doubt I listed is that Christ himself crafted his life to make himself appear to be the fulfillment of the prophecy. If he understood the when and what-fors, couldn't he have made himself fulfill it on purpose?

There are not one, not two, not five, but dozens of Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled in the Gospels' account of Christ' life.

But you don't take the Gospel's account to be 100% historically accurate, you say? Okay, so let's not presume it's word-for-word. Let's just take 8 major parts of Christ' life



Peter Stoner calculated in Science Speaks that the chance that any man, throughout all of history, could fill eight prophecies of this nature is something like 1 in 10 ^ 17 (A 1 followed by 17 zeros).

Need help visualizing that? Stealing Sonter's anology:

If you take 10^17 silver dollars and pour them out in a yard in texas -- you would fill the entire state two feet deep in sliver dollars.

Now, mark one of these coins pink, blindfold a man, let him roam about and pick one at random. The chances of that being the pink silver dollar are about as high as a non-divine Christ crafting his life to match the old testament.

And that's presuming only eight criteria for the Messiah have been filled.

Presume 48 prophecies, another number Stoner lines out, and... well... we lose texas all together. A silver dollar is much too big to illustrate. Our little 10^17 is now 10^157!! Spontaneous generation of life in my wooden elephant is probably more likely!

So, did Christ craft his fulfillment? Hardly likely.

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© 2006-2008, Eric "SigmaX" Scott