The Skeptical Review Online - The Seventieth Week Of Daniel

Jack Kinsella has ventured once again into the charlatanic arena of "amazing" biblical prophecy fulfillments. This time he blessed readers of his Omega Letter with a countdown to the "rapture," which he has determined from Daniel's prophecy of the "seventy weeks" (Dan. 9:24-27) is just around the corner. This particular prophecy has probably been twisted and distorted by prophecy-fulfillment snake doctors more than any other single biblical prophecy, and, believe me, that is saying a lot. The interpretations of this particular prophecy have been so diverse that it would be impossible to summarize all of them in one article, but I will mention one of them before I take Kinsella's article apart and show that his "fulfillment" scenario is no more credible than any of the others. In The Coming Prince, for example, Sir Robert Anderson presented a fulfillment scenario of this prophecy, which claimed that it was fulfilled to the very day when Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem as described in Matthew 21:1-11 and its parallel accounts in Mark 11:1-10 and Luke 19:29-38. I mention Anderson's fulfillment scenario to show just how much the prophecy-fulfillment experts disagree on what Daniel meant. Anderson claimed that it was fulfilled to the very day at the time of an event in the life of Jesus, but Kinsella--or rather whatever prophecy "expert" he was parroting--claims that it has not yet been fulfilled but will be very soon. Hence, two popular fulfillment scenarios are more than two thousand years apart in their claims of when the Daniel-9 prophecy was or will be fulfilled. Both of them parade their fulfillment scenarios with arrogant certitude before their respectively gullible audiences.

Those who are interested in seeing how ridiculous Anderson's fulfillment scenario was can go to the July 1999 archives of the old alt.bible.errancy forum to read an extended debate on this issue, which began with a diehard disciple of Anderson presenting the fulfillment claim and ended 18 months later when he finally admitted that Anderson's count of 173,880 days from his beginning date (Julian March 14, 445 BC) to his end date (Julian April 6, AD 32) was calendrically indefensible. Those of us who opposed this idiot did everything but draw pictures for him, but the evidence that finally forced him to admit that Anderson was wrong was our calculations based on Julian Day Numbers, the same astronomical system of dating that I used in "Ezekiel's 'Exact' Prophecy of the Restoration of Israel" to show irreparable flaws in Kinsella's claim that the prophecy in Ezekiel 4:1-8 was fulfilled to the very day when Israel declared its independence on May 14,1948. Those who want to equip themselves to dissect "exact, to-the-very-day" prophecy fulfillment claims should take the time to learn how to apply Julian Day Numbers to the the fulfillment claims. It is usually the simplest way to prove them wrong.

In taking apart Kinsella's fulfillment scenario of Daniel 9:24-27 to show that it is just as untenable as his spin on Ezekiel 4, I will follow my practice of using Kinsella and Till headers so that readers will be able to follow who is saying what. I will do Kinsella a favor and correct his punctuation so that readers won't think that his article was written by someone who never attended a class in which punctuation rules were discussed.

Kinsella:
Sometimes it looks like the population of Planet Earth has taken a collective vacation from sanity.

Till:
For once, Kinsella has said something that I agree with. Every time I read a prophecy-fulfillment article in the Omega Letter or some other similar forum, I can't help thinking that the population of planet Earth has taken a collective vacation from sanity. I have a long-standing challenge that I will repeat here so that Kinsella can dodge it. I defy any proponent of prophecy fulfillments to produce a single verifiable case of biblical prophecy fulfillment. It simply cannot be done, because when the same standards of evidence are applied to biblical prophecy-fulfillment claims that reasonable people would apply to nonbiblical prophecies, the claims of biblical prophecy fulfillments simply cannot pass muster. If Kinsella wants to try to prove me wrong on this, I will make this website available for him to do so. I predict that we will hear nothing from him.

Kinsella:
The opening shots in the war on terror on 9/11 were an insane act on the part of al-Qaeda. The Taliban refusal to turn him over in the aftermath was an act of political and personal insanity.

Till:
Turn him over? Kinsella is apparently so uninformed that he doesn't even know that al-Qaeda is an organization. It isn't a person, so there was no way way that the Taliban, which is another organization, could have turned him over. Furthermore, since members of al-Qaeda are scattered all over the world, there was no way that the ruling religious party in Afghanistan could have turned them all over.

And this guy Kinsella presumes to tell us about exact biblical prophecy fulfillments? Incredible!

Kinsella:
India and Pakistan are on the verge of outright nuclear war--a military and strategic insanity. The Europeans believe Yasser Arafat will keep his word to make peace if Israel surrenders--insane behavior at so many levels it defies description.

Till:
Yes, it is almost as insane as believing that the lying, chickenhawk leaders of our present government could be trusted to keep their word. I say this only because Kinsella's website indicates that he is a Bush sycophant, and admiring that man is an insane behavior at so many levels that it too defies description.

Kinsella:
But through the seeming insanity one can detect good, orderly direction. All one needs to do is recognize the signs of the times.

Till:
And, of course, Jack Kinsella is just the one who can tell us all about the signs of the times. No doubt, he can tell us about the signs of the times with about as much accuracy as he calculated his to-the-very-day fulfillment of the prophecy in Ezekiel 4.

Kinsella:
The Hebrew prophet Daniel was given a complete outline of Israel's future history, broken into subdivisions of time of seven years each. In Hebrew, "shabua", [sic] translated as "week" in Daniel 9:26, is a "week of years," in much the same way the Greek system is in use today. A "decade" denotes ten years in the way a "shabua" or "week" denotes a period of seven years.

Till:
I will show that Kinsella's claim of "a complete outline of Israel's future history" in Daniel 9:26 falls completely apart under scrutiny, but I will wait until he sticks his foot into his mouth on this issue before I shove it farther in.

Kinsella:
Daniel was told by the revealing angel that "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" [Daniel 9:24].

Till:
Here is lesson one for those who want to prepare themselves to rebut the claims of those who try to peddle prophecy-fulfillment claims. Don't let the proponent of the fulfillment claim get away with quoting the prophetic statement out of context. Force him to show that the full context of the statement supports his interpretation of it, because the very first criterion of valid prophecy fulfillment is that the one who makes the fulfillment claim must prove that the prophetic statement on which he is basing his claim meant what he is saying that it meant. As we will see when I dismantle Kinsella's fulfillment scenario below, he--or rather the proponents of the scenario that he is parroting--claims that the 70 weeks of Daniel 9:24 began in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, which Kinsella claims was 444 BC. Before I shoot this fulfillment claim full of holes, I am first going to take the time to explicate the broader context of Daniel 9:24ff to show that it was never intended to mean what Kinsella and his like-minded cohorts distort it to mean.

Daniel 9 opens with Daniel saying that in the first year of the reign of "Darius," he [Daniel] had come to "understand by the books the number of the years whereof the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem" (v:2). Then Daniel explained that he had "set his face toward Yahweh God to make request by prayer and supplications with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes" (v: 4). Daniel prayed to Yahweh and made confession of the iniquities of the people, which he specified in verses 5 through 7. In verses 8 through 15, the prayer continued, and Daniel acknowledged that "all Israel" had transgressed and had not kept Yahweh's word and walked according to his laws that he had set before them by the prophets. Daniel stated that he realized that God had poured out on Israel the "curse and the oath" that had been spoken by Moses (a probable reference to the tirade attributed to Moses in Deuteronomy 29-31). Beginning with verse 16, Daniel prayed that Yahweh would "let [his] anger be turned away from [his] city of Jerusalem" and "incline his ear toward their desolation and forgive his people" (vs:18-19).

Verse 19 said that while Daniel was speaking, praying, and confessing his sin and the sin of the people of Israel, the angel Gabriel appeared and informed him: "Oh, Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand." Now notice what Gabriel plainly said: he had come to give Daniel skill to understand. Well, understand what? Surely, he was referring to what Daniel had been praying about. He had prayed for the forgiveness of his sins and the sins of the people, a prayer that had been precipitated by Daniel's reading what Jeremiah had said about the seventy years, a clear reference to Jeremiah's prophecy that the Judean captivity in Babylon would last for 70 years (Jer. 25:11).

Gabriel continued his enlightenment of Daniel by saying, "At the beginning of your supplications a word went out, and I have come to declare it, for you are greatly beloved. So consider the word and understand the vision: "Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city: to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand: from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an anointed prince, there shall be seven weeks; and for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with streets and moat, but in a troubled time" (vs:23-25).

Since Daniel 9 began with the writer saying that he had come to understand "by the books" what "the number of the years" had meant when "the word of Yahweh" came to Jeremiah the prophet, the most likely interpretation of the reference to the "word going out to rebuild Jerusalem" is that this "word" was what Jeremiah twice had said about the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 30:18 "Thus says Yahweh, 'Behold I will bring back the captivity of Jacob's tents, and have mercy on his dwelling places. The city shall be built upon its own mound, and the palace shall remain according to its own plan.'"

Jeremiah 31:38 The days are surely coming, says Yahweh, when the city shall be rebuilt for Yahweh from the tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.

In both of these passages, Jeremiah spoke of what Yahweh had said about the rebuilding of Jerusalem, so since Daniel 9 began with the prophet saying that he had perceived in the books the number of years, according to the "word of Yahweh," that had to be fulfilled in the seventy years of Jerusalem's devastation spoken by Jeremiah, it is perfectly sensible to think that the "word that went forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem" was the "word" that Jeremiah claimed that Yahweh had spoken to him (as quoted above). This view is strengthened by the fact that dâbâr was the Hebrew word used in verse 2 in reference to the "word of Yahweh [that] came to Jeremiah the prophet" concerning the seventy years and was also the word used in verse 25 in referring to the "word that went forth to restore and build Jerusalem." Although some English versions refer to a commandment or decree that went forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, the actual Hebrew word used here was dâbâr, which was the word most often used in the Old Testament to refer to "the word of Yahweh." These facts place on Kinsella the burden of proving that the reference to the "word that went forth" in Daniel 9:25 could not have been Yahweh's word spoken through Jeremiah to rebuild and restore Jerusalem but unequivocally had to be a "word" that was issued by Artaxerxes.

With all this in mind, let's now look at another entirely plausible meaning that this passage could have had. Gabriel said that a word went out from the beginning of Daniel's supplications. What was the subject of Daniel's supplications? He was asking that Yahweh forgive the sins of his people and turn his anger away from them and "your city Jerusalem" (v:16). Well, what was this "word" that went out? Why couldn't verse 25 mean that the word that went out "at the beginning of [Daniel's] supplication" was a word from Yahweh that Jerusalem would be rebuilt? This is a reasonable conclusion from the following information stated in this text.

Gabriel said that he had come to give Daniel skill to understand (vs:22).
Gabriel said that at the beginning of Daniel's prayer a "word" had gone out.
Gabriel said that Daniel should consider the word and understand that 70 weeks had been decreed for his people and the holy city (v:24).
Gabriel then said that Daniel should know and understand that "from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem" until the coming of an anointed prince and the building of Jerusalem 7 weeks and 62 weeks would pass (v:25).

So let Kinsella or any of his rapture-deluded cohorts tell us why this passage cannot be understood to mean that Gabriel was telling Daniel that the word to rebuild Jerusalem had gone out from Yahweh at the beginning of his prayer. That would be a perfectly sensible interpretation. Daniel had prayed, and Yahweh had answered his prayer at that time by sending out the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. This would necessitate beginning the 70 weeks from the time that Daniel began his prayer, but as we will see, this interpretation would put the countdown to the prophecy's fulfillment entirely too early to fit into Kinsella's fulfillment scenario, so he isn't likely to accept this view.

Another reasonable interpretation, which I personally prefer, is the one that I mentioned briefly above. The word to rebuild Jerusalem was the word that had gone out from Jeremiah in the passages that I quoted above (Jer. 30:18; Jer. 31:38). This view can be justified by the fact that the whole context of this chapter began with Daniel's claim that he had come to understand the number of years that had to be fulfilled for the desolations of Jerusalem, according to the word of Jeremiah. Daniel prayed for enlightenment, and Gabriel came to enlighten him and tell him that the seventy years of Jeremiah were actually seven weeks [of years]. Since Jeremiah's prophecy concerned how long the Judeans would be in captivity, no "fulfillment" of Daniel's understanding of Jeremiah's prophecy could begin with a decree issued by Artaxerxes, who reigned years after the Babylonian captivity was over, but the "fulfillment" would have to be dated from the time of Jeremiah. In other words, the 70 weeks had to begin with either the word that Jeremiah spoke or Daniel's prayer. As I have already explained above, since Jeremiah had said in 30:18 that Yahweh would rebuild Jerusalem, it is entirely plausible that the word that "went out" in Daniel 9:25 was the word that Jeremiah had spoken, which he claimed was the "word of Yahweh."

Here are two very plausible interpretations of Daniel 9:25. Either one would begin the "countdown" to fulfillment much too early to fit into Kinsella's scenario, so until he can establish unequivocally that Daniel couldn't possibly have been referring to either one of these beginning points as the time when the word went out, he cannot establish a key point in his prophecy-fulfillment claim, which is that the "word" that went out was a decree issued by the Persian king Artaxerxes. This brings us back to the first criterion of prophecy fulfillment, which I mentioned earlier above: before one can claim that a prophecy was fulfilled, he must establish unequivocally that the alleged prophecy meant exactly what the one arguing for fulfillment claims that it meant. Neither Kinsella nor any of his like-minded cohorts can establish that, although I will gladly give any of them a forum here to do so if they wish to accept this challenge.

I have now explicated the 9th chapter of Daniel down to where the prophetic statement began, so I will analyze the remaining verses as I walk us through Kinsella's fulfillment scenario.

Kinsella:
In this verse [Dan. 9:24], we see a six-fold purpose to be accomplished in Daniel's "Seventy Weeks" or 490 years. First, to finish Israel's sin--the rejection of the Messiah at the First Advent.

Till:
Just where did Kinsella get the screwy idea that Daniel's prophecy here had anything to do with Israel's "rejection of the Messiah at the first advent"? What exactly did Daniel say that can by any stretch of imagination be construed to mean this? Daniel said that he had come to understand the meaning of "the number of years" in the word of Yahweh spoken through Jeremiah the prophet (Dan. 9:2), and Jeremiah's seventy years had clear reference to the length of the Judean captivity in Babylon.

Jeremiah 25:11 This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12 Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, says Yahweh, making the land an everlasting waste.

Jeremiah 29:10 For thus says Yahweh: Only when Babylon's seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.

Jeremiah's 70 years referred to the Judean captivity in Babylon, so when Kinsella or anyone else tries to give it reference to "Israel's rejection of the Messiah at the first advent," he is reading into the text something that isn't there.

Kinsella:
Then there is a skip forward in time to His Second Advent, at which time, an end will be made of sin, reconciliation will be made for Israel's iniquity, everlasting righteousness will [be] introduced to Israel, Israel's Scriptures will be vindicated by the fulfillment of all prophecy and finally, the return of Christ at the conclusion of the war of Armageddon, at which time He will be anointed and will take His seat at the Throne of David.

Till:
Wow! We have six bald-faced assertions here, none of which Kinsella or anyone else can successfully defend. For now, I will advise readers to wait until the end of this article to see my demolishment of this "skip-forward-to-a-second-advent theory, which is a key part of most scenarios that claim amazing fulfillments of Daniel 9:25. Kinsella doesn't try to defend that theory until much later, so there is no need for me to address it until he presents his "arguments" or rather assertions. Here, I will point out that Kinsella has made the same mistake that he did in his spin on Ezekiel 4:5-6. There, he added the 390 and 40 years to get one continuous period of 430 years, whereas a reading of this text clearly shows that it was referring to two separate periods of time: 390 [or 150 years, depending on what version is accepted] for the punishment of the house of Israel or the northern kingdom and 40 years for the punishment of the house of Judah or the southern kingdom. As I showed in "Ezekiel's 'Exact' Prophecy of the Restoration of Israel," these were clearly intended to be two separate time periods that overlapped and not the one continuous period that Kinsella and his cohorts claim. In the same way, the seventy weeks of Daniel 9 were clearly presented as three separate time periods, which, in this case, did add up to seventy weeks altogether. However, the prince, which Kinsella called "the Messiah" to dupe his readers into thinking that it was a prophecy of the coming of Jesus, was to come not at the end of sixty-nine weeks, as Kinsella claims below, but after seven weeks. There are easy ways to show that this was the meaning of the text. The simplest way is to read the text in a modern English translation instead of the archaic language of the KJV. Notice the expressions that I emphasize in bold print in the NRSV quotation below.

Daniel 9:24 "Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city: to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand: from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an anointed prince, there shall be seven weeks; and for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with streets and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing, and the troops of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed.

Notice that the text plainly says that "an anointed prince" would come after seven weeks, then there would be a period of sixty-two weeks for the rebuilding of the city, and finally, after the sixty-two weeks of rebuilding, "an anointed one" would be cut off. Kinsella and his cohorts try to add the seven weeks to the sixty-two weeks to get one uninterrupted sixty-nine week period after which the "anointed one" would come, but that is not what the text says. There would be just seven weeks until the time of an anointed prince. The seven weeks and the sixty-two weeks, although apparently intended to be one continuous stretch of time, would nevertheless be interrupted by the coming of "an anointed prince" after seven weeks, which would then be followed by sixty-two weeks. That a seven-week period and then a separate sixty-two-week period were clearly meant in this text can be corroborated by simply reading the text in other modern versions.

RSV: Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. Then after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing....

That is clear enough that even Kinsella should be able to understand it. There would be seven weeks from the going forth of the word till the coming of "an anointed one." Then the city would be built again for sixty-two weeks, and then after the sixty-two weeks, "an anointed one" would be cut off. This passage was clearly predicting the coming of two different "anointed ones," one who would come after seven weeks and one who would be "cut off" after sixty-two more weeks. If Kinsella can't read this and understand it, I recommend that he take a course in elementary literary interpretation.

Other modern English translations make the meaning just as clear as the RSV and the NRSV.

REB: Know, then, and understand: from the time that the decree went forth that Jerusalem should be restored and rebuilt, seven of those seventy will pass till the appearance of one anointed, a prince; then for sixty-two it will remain restored, rebuilt with streets and conduits. At the critical time, after the sixty-two have passed, the anointed prince will be removed, and no one will take his part....

GNB: Note this and understand it: From the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until God's chosen leader comes, seven times seven years will pass. Jerusalem will be rebuilt with streets and strong defenses, and will stand for seven times sixty-two years, but this will be a time of troubles. And at the end of that time God's chosen leader will be killed unjustly....

NAB: Know and understand this: From the utterance of the word that Jerusalem was to be rebuilt until one who is anointed and a leader, there shall be seven weeks. During sixty-two weeks it shall be rebuilt, with streets and trenches, in time of affliction. After the sixty-two weeks an anointed one shall be cut down when he does not possess the city....

ESV: Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing.

NIRN: Here is what I want you to know and understand. There will be seven 'weeks.' Then there will be 62 'weeks.' The seven 'weeks' will begin when an order is given to rebuild Jerusalem and make it like new again.

MSG: Here is what you must understand: From the time the word goes out to rebuild Jerusalem until the coming of the Anointed Leader, there will be seven sevens. The rebuilding will take sixty-two sevens, including building streets and digging a moat. Those will be rough times. After the sixty-two sevens, the Anointed Leader will be killed--the end of him.

Jewish Publication Society: You must know and understand: From the issuance of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the [time of the] anointed leader is seven weeks; and for sixty-two weeks it will be rebuilt, square and mote, but in a time of distress. And after those sixty-two weeks, the anointed one will disappear and vanish.

These translations all indicate that Daniel was saying that an "anointed one" would come seven weeks (49 years) after the going forth of the word to rebuild Jerusalem, that Jerusalem would then stand for 62 weeks (434 years), after which an "anointed one" would be cut off (killed). So I am not "speculating" at all when I insist that this must be regarded as a possible meaning that Daniel intended. It has very strong support from English translations, and until Kinsella and his cohorts can show us conclusively that "Daniel" could not have meant this, they have failed to make their case. The matter is that simple. Now let them deal with it or just admit that they can't.

Kinsella's interpretation is dependent on the KJV, but even it, by repunctuation, can be made to support the view that a Messiah or "anointed one" would come after seven weeks and that Jerusalem would then be rebuilt for 62 weeks, after which another "anointed one" would be cut off. Let's look at the KJ version as it was punctuated by the translators.

9:25 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. 26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off...

Please notice the punctuation marks and then compare this KJ version to the repunctuated version below, while keeping in mind that punctuation is a late invention. Hebrew did not use our modern punctuation marks.

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. 26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off....

I know from my experience in teaching English that the placing of punctuation marks can affect the idea communicated by a written statement, and it is apparent that the KJV translators punctuated this verse so that readers would think that the seven weeks and 62 weeks referred to just one continuous period that would pass until the coming of the Messiah, but as the translations above indicate, there are many scholars who do not agree with this view. Common sense should tell readers that the spin put onto this verse by the KJV translators is unlikely, for why would the writer of this verse have said that seven weeks and sixty-two weeks would pass until the coming of an anointed one? Why didn't he just say that 69 weeks would pass until an anointed one came if that was indeed what he meant? The fact that he separated the seven weeks and the 62 weeks is a clear indication that the writer was actually talking about two different time periods.

Besides the clarity of the modern English translations, there is another way to show that the writer of Daniel 9:25 clearly meant for the seven weeks and the sixty-two weeks to be understood as distinctly separate periods of time. This is indicated by the presence of the Hebrew ‘atnah after seven weeks, which was a type of punctuation that in this case would indicate that the seven weeks were separate from the 62 weeks. In an explication of the seventy weeks of Daniel 9, the Jewish writer Gerald Sigal explained the function of the Hebrew ‘atnah and applied it to what he considers a flagrant mistranslation of Daniel 9:25 in the KJV, which version most prophecy-fulfillment advocates rely on when claiming this as an example of amazing prophecy fulfillment.

The punctuation mark ‘atnah functions as the main pause within a sentence. The ‘atnah is the approximate equivalent of the semicolon in the modern system of punctuation. It thus has the effect of separating the seven weeks from the sixty-two weeks: "... until an anointed one, a prince, shall be seven weeks; then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again..." (9:25).

Something that most fulfillment proponents probably don't know about the KJV version of Daniel 9:25 is that the original KJV recognized the presence of the ‘atnah in this verse. That original version said in this verse that there "shall be seuen weekes; and threescore and two weekes, the street shall be built againe...." Notice that this version of the KJV separated the seven weeks from the 62 with a semi-colon. Even the 1885 revision of the KJV recognized the separation by using a colon instead of the semi-colon: "(T)here shall be seven weeks: and threescore and two weeks, it shall be built again...." I have been unable to find exactly when the KJV was repunctuated to reflect the probable mistranslation that is currently in Daniel 9:25, but I suspect that the change was due to a recognition that the prophecy could not be construed to have reference to the coming of a "prince" or "messiah" at any time close to the period when Jesus allegedly lived unless the seven weeks were combined with the 62 to form one continuous period of 69 weeks, but if Kinsella and his cohorts are going to defend this meaning, they have to show that this was the unequivocal intention of the writer of Daniel. Failing to prove that, they will not be able to advance past the very first step required in proving prophecy fulfilling, which is the obligation to prove that the alleged prophetic statement meant what they are claiming that it meant.

Before I leave this point, I want to call everyone's attention to a couple of footnotes that the NAB includes about Daniel 9:25-26 to which I have added bold-print emphasis.

9:25 From the utterance.... to be rebuilt: from the time of Jeremiah's prophecy. One... anointed and a leader: either Cyrus, who was called the anointed of the Lord to end the exile (Is. 45:1) or the high priest Joshua, who presided over the rebuilding of the altar of sacrifice after the exile (Ez. 3:2). Seven weeks, forty-nine years, an approximation of the time of the exile. During sixty-two weeks... rebuilt: a period of 434 years, roughly approximating the interval between the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the exile and the beginning of the Seleucid persecution.

9:26 An anointed: doubtless the high priest Onias III, murdered in 171 B. C., from which the author dates the beginning of the persecution. Onias was in exile when he was killed....

These footnotes show that there are responsible biblical scholars who recognize that Daniel 9:25 was never intended to mean what prophecy-fulfillment buffs like Kinsella have distorted it into meaning. Before I go on to Kinsella's next point, I will call reader attention to the statement in the first NAB footnote quoted above, which pointed out that king Cyrus [of Persia] was referred to in Isaiah 45:1 as "Yahweh's anointed." He issued a decree in the first year of his reign (Ezra 1:1-4) that permitted the Judean captives to return to Jerusalem. The first year of his reign in Babylon would have been 539 BC, which would have been 49 years after Nebuchadnezzar's second sacking of Jerusalem in 588-587 BC, when most of the Judeans were taken away to Babylon (2 Kings 25:8-21). "Isaiah," who called Cyrus "Yahweh's anointed," also prophesied that Cyrus would issue an order for Jerusalem to be rebuilt.

Isaiah 44:24 "This is what Yahweh says-- your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am Yahweh, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself, 25 who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense, 26 who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, 'It shall be inhabited,' of the towns of Judah, 'They shall be built,' and of their ruins, 'I will restore them,' 27 who says to the watery deep, 'Be dry, and I will dry up your streams,' 28 who says of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt," and of the temple, "Let its foundations be laid."'

Since the prophet Isaiah lived some 200 years before Cyrus, the references to him must have been made by someone who made additions to the original work of Isaiah. Most responsible Bible scholars recognize this probability, and call this editor "Isaiah II." Whoever he was, he was undoubtedly a postexilic editor who knew about Cyrus's decree that had allowed the Judean captives to return to Jerusalem, and this enabled him to "predict" that Cyrus would say that Jerusalem should be rebuilt. Here, then, is a clear biblical indication that people at that time understood that the word that went forth to rebuild Jerusalem was issued by Cyrus and not by Artaxerxes, as Kinsella claims below, so Kinsella and his cohorts will have to show us that Cyrus, "the anointed of Yahweh," could not have been the "anointed one" who would come after the first seven weeks (49 years) of Daniel 9:25. If they are going to claim an amazing fulfillment of the prophecy in this verse, they must show us that the unequivocal meaning of this verse was what they are asserting.

Kinsella:
The angel went on to lock in the time. "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,

Till:
As I just showed above, the most likely meaning of this part of the verse was that seven weeks or 49 years would pass from the going forth of the word to rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one would come. Forty-nine years would have passed well before the time of Jesus, so this statement could not have been a prophecy of his coming. As I just showed above, however, it could easily have been an after-the-fact "prophecy" of king Cyrus of Persia, whom "Isaiah" called Yahweh's anointed and "predicted" that he would say that Jerusalem should be rebuilt.

Notice also that I referred to the coming of an anointed one and not to the anointed one. There was no definite article before the word mashiach, so those who use "the Messiah" in referring to this verse are misrepresenting its intended meaning. Since there was no definite article here, a more accurate translation would be "an anointed one." Christians try their best to make this a prophecy of Jesus, but to do so, they must torturously distort the verse to make it mean what it probably was never intended to mean. Sigal's article linked to above also has a good discussion of this problem in the claims that Daniel 9:25 was prophesying the coming of Jesus.

Kinsella:
and threescore and two weeks... And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself:" [Daniel 9:25, 26].

Till:
As shown above, the sixty-two weeks or 434 years were separate from the seven weeks or 49 years. If we begin counting after the end of the exile, which was probably the time that the seven weeks referred to, 434 years would have ended about the time of the Seleucid persecutions, as the footnotes quoted above from the NAB point out. To show that this prophecy had probable reference to that period would require me to drag this article out for several pages, so I am going to link interested readers to other debates I have conducted on this same issue. "Good History in the Book of Daniel" and "Bad History in the Book of Daniel" contain detailed explications of Daniel's visions to show that this book was a second-century BC work, which was written to make the persecuted Jews of that time believe that a sixth-century BC prophet had predicted that they would triumph over their Seleucid persecutors. Those who are interested in reading more about the evidence for a second-century BC authorship of Daniel can go to Everette Hatcher's first article in this long debate and use the index pages of each issue of The Skeptical Review to find subsequent articles that Hatcher and I exchanged. If the entire debate is read, I am sure that open-minded readers will see very convincing evidence of a second-century BC authorship of this book.

Before I leave this point, I should address an issue that critics of the second-century BC dating of Daniel will invariably raise. If the end of the seven weeks (49 years) is deemed to be 539 BC, the first year of Cyrus, who issued a decree to allow the Judeans to return to Jerusalem, then the 62 weeks or 434 years would have ended in 105 BC, about a half century after the midcentury persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, so they will claim that this scenario doesn't fit Daniel's prophecy. In so arguing, they are assuming that whatever the prophecy meant had to be inerrant. In other words, they are projecting onto Daniel their assumption that this book was divinely inspired and therefore had to be accurate in everything it says, but if "Daniel" was not so inspired, it wouldn't follow that everything that he wrote was inerrant. In other words, it is more than just a little probable that someone writing "history" in the Seleucid period, some of which reached back four centuries before his time, would have made mistakes. After all, a writer of that time would not have had access to libraries, newspaper files, internet articles, and such like that we have today, so let's try to imagine how difficult it would be to write a history of, say, colonial New England today if we had the same kind of limited resources. Almost anyone in our society would know that pilgrims came to New England aboard the Mayflower, but how many of us would know the exact date of their landing (November 11, 1620) at Plymouth? Most people writing under such circumstances would have to guess and would probably get the date wrong. An error of 50 or 60 years would not be at all unlikely. Likewise, if someone wanted to write a history of Jamestown Colony but had no library sources to use, would he know that the first Virginia Company settlers landed at Jamestown Island on May 14, 1607? How many people today would know, without consulting reference works, exactly when George Washington was born?

I cited above "Bad History in the Book of Daniel," an article that will show that the author of this book was confused on several points of 6th-century BC Babylonian history, some of which I will discuss further along. There is no surprise, then, in learning that his chronology was off a bit in his 70-week prophecy, even though he was writing after the fact. Such mistakes were not at all uncommon in the works of those who wrote history in ancient times. In Beasts, Horns, and the Antichrist, page 97, Brodrick D. Shepherd cited Samuel Driver and Frederick Farrar to point out some specific examples of such mistakes.

Driver points out similar chronological errors made by the Jewish historian Josephus and Hellenistic Jew Demetrius: 1) Josephus errs by some 30 years in reckoning 639 years between the second year of Cyrus (537/536 BC) and the destruction of Jerusalem (AD 70). 2) He errs by 60 years in reckoning 434 years from the end of the Captivity (538 BC) to the reign of Antiochus Eupator (164-162 BC). 3) He errs by 50 years in reckoning 481 years from the end of the Captivity to the time of Aristobulus (105/104 BC). 4) Demetrius errs some 70 years in reckoning 573 years from the Captivity of the ten tribes (722/721 BC) to the time of Ptolemy IV (222 BC).

After citing these mistakes claimed by Driver, Shepherd then quoted Frederick Farrar.

In other words, he [Demetrius] makes as nearly as possible the same miscalculation as the writer of Daniel. This seems to show that there was some traditional error in the current chronology; and it cannot be overlooked that in ancient days the means for coming to accurate chronological conclusions were exceedingly imperfect.

Shepherd cited "The Book of Daniel," Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, University Press, 1922, p. 147, as the source of the information from Driver and "The Book of Daniel," The Expositor's Bible, vol. 4, Eerdmans, 1956, p. 423) as the source of the quotation from Farrar. I live in the middle of nowhere, so I have encountered difficulty locating these books. I have sent for these through interlibrary loan, and after I have checked them for accuracy, I will change the quotations above to primary sources and also correct errors if any were made. For now, I seem to be on safe ground when I say that finding a mistake of 60 years in Daniel's chronology would be just typical of the times in which he wrote when, as Farrar said, "the means for coming to accurate chronological conclusions were exceedingly imperfect."

Kinsella:
Beginning at a specific point in history and moving forward in time from there, the angel said that after sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years, the Messiah shall be cut off [killed] but not for Himself [He was blameless].

Till:
No, the angel said neither. As I have shown above, the seven weeks or 49 years were separate from the 62 weeks or 434 years. There is just no linguistic support at all for the attempts to make Daniel 9:25 refer to an extended period of 69 weeks or 483 years. Furthermore, this text did not say that "the Messiah" would be cut off. It said that an anointed one would be cut off. There was no definite article before mashiach in this verse. As the footnote quoted above from the NAB indicated, that this "anointed one" was "the high priest Onias III, [who was] murdered in 171 B. C." is a widely held view of scholars who aren't looking for amazing prophecy fulfillments where none occurred.

Kinsella:
History records only one decree that authorized the rebuilding of the city. "And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king . . . I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it. [Nehemiah 2:1,5]

According to modern dating research, the 20th year of the Persian king Xerxes would have been 444 BC.

Till:
Kinsella seems to have his kings confused here. He referred to the "20th year of the Persian king Xerxes," which he claims would have been 444 BC, but a foundation principle of his fulfillment scenario is that the decree to rebuild Jerusalem was issued by Artaxerxes. Xerxes was the father of Artaxerxes, and he reigned from 485 to 465 BC. Since he was succeeded by his son Artaxerxes, the 20th year of the latter's reign would have been in 445 BC rather than 444 BC, as Kinsella claimed above to make Artaxerxes fit into his preconceived mold of an amaxing prophecy fulfillment. The fact is that most proponents of an amazing fulfillment of Daniel 9:25 fix the 20th year of Artaxerxes' reign at 445 BC. Here, for example, is a paragraph from Chuck Missler's fulfillment version of the same "prophecy.

Artaxerxes Longimanus ascended to the throne of the Medo-Persian empire in July 465 B.C. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1990 ed.). The twentieth year of his reign would have begun in July 446 B.C. The decree occurred approximately nine months later in the month of Nisan (March/April on our calendar). By Hebrew tradition when the day of the month is not specifically stated (as in Artaxerxes decree), it is given to be the first day of that month. Consequently, the very day of Artaxerxes' decree was the first day of the Hebrew month Nisan in 445 B.C. The first day of Nisan in 445 B.C. corresponds to the 14th day of March. These dates were confirmed through astronomical calculations at the British Royal Observatory and reported by Sir Robert Anderson (Robert Anderson, The Coming Prince, Kregel. Reprinted in 1984.).

Missler continued to present the Anderson version of this fulfillment claim, and Anderson's version presented in The Coming Prince has been discredited so thoroughly that I cannot believe that any intelligent person would continue to defend it. Members of the old alt.bible.errancy internet forum know that Anderson's fulfillment scenario was debated for 18 months in response to a fellow named Don Keyes, who kept defending this fulfillment scenario in the face of clear evidence that Anderson was wrong. The debate with him began on July 13, 1999, and continued for 18 months before he finally admitted that Anderson's fulfillment scenario was untenable. Those who have the patience to read the hundreds of posts on this subject can find them by going to "Seventy Weeks of Daniel" in the alt.bible.errancy archives. This will take you to a sorted-by-date listing of posts on the 70 weeks of Daniel. Those who have the patience to read the hundreds of posts listed will see that Bruce Monson, David Lee [Mooney], and I, among others, so exposed the falsity of Anderson's fulfillment scenario that Keyes finally had to admit that Anderson had erred.

Another fulfillment scenario began with a different starting date.

Purpose of this Calendar for Biblical Prophecy is to show that:

1. King Artaxerxes' 20th year began on September 18, 446 BC and ended on September 5, 445 BC (Hebrew Calendar Dates using the Julian Calendar)

2. Artaxerxes' Decree Issued to Rebuild Jerusalem occurred on Sunday, March 16, 445 BC (Julian Calendar Date)

Anderson claimed that the decree of Artaxeres was issued on Nisan 1, 445 BC, which would have been Friday, March 14th, if the Julian Calendar had been in use then and Friday, March 9th, if the Gregorian calendar had been in use. This is the scenario that Missler defended above, but the article just quoted claimed a beginning date two days later than Anderson's. We will see below that Kinsella presented a clear and certain beginning date of March 5, 444 BC, which was almost a year after the scenarios presented above. There are also other fulfillment claims that used still different dates. In The Rapture: Truth or Consequences, Hal Lindsey claimed a fulfillment that began on March 6, 444 BC (p. 3), but fixed March 29, AD 33, rather than April 6, AD 32, as Anderson had claimed, as the date of fulfillment. There is no need here to waste time rebutting fulfillment scenarios when those who claim amazing fulfillment of Daniel 9:25 can't even agree among themselves on importart particulars like when the countdown to fulfillment began and ended. If the fulfillment of Daniel 9:25 was so clear and certain, I have never been able to understand why this exact, to-the-very-day prophecy fulfillment has been assigned so many different beginning and ending dates. My task here is to show that Kinsella's fulfillment claim is untenable, so I will focus on doing that rather than trying in a single article to expose the silliness of all of the contradictory fulfillment claims.

Sir Isaac Newton got into the controversy over Daniel 9:25 and fixed the date of Artaxerxes' alleged decree at 458 BC.

The book of Ezra gives the year of the decree to rebuild Jerusalem as being the seventh year of Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:7). While that might not mean much to the average modern reader, Newton's extensive knowledge of ancient history allowed him to identify that Persian king as Artaxerxes I (Artaxerxes Longimanus), and to place the decree in the year 458 BC.

So when did the countdown to fulfillment of this prophecy begin? In 444 BC or 445 BC? Or did it begin in 458 BC? Was the exact beginning date of the countdown Gregorian March 5, 444 BC, or was it Julian March 6, 445 BC, or Gregorian March 14, 445 BC? Those who take the time to check into the various versions of this prophecy-fulfillment claim will see that still different beginning dates have been proposed, so how can reasonable people be expected to see an amazing, to-the-very-day prophecy fulfillment in all of this when the proponents of fulfillment can't agree among themselves on key dates in their fulfillment claims?

Before I go to Kinsella's claim below that Artaxerxes issued a decree to rebuild Jerusalem on Nisan 1, 444 BC, I will first show that there is no evidence that Artaxerxes ever issued such a decree. Indeed, there is biblical evidence that Artaxerxes ordered the people of Jerusalem to stop a rebuilding project, which they had begun with the approval of Cyrus.

Upon arriving in Jerusalem after Cyrus's decree permitting their return, the people gathered in Jerusalem (Ezra 3:1) and began to rebuild the temple (Ezra 3:8-13).
When people living around Jerusalem heard what was being done, they asked permission to help in the project (Ezra 4:1-3), and when their request was denied, they tried through the reigns of Cyrus, Darius, and Ahasuerus to disrupt the building project (Ezra 4:4-6).

Then when Artaxerxes became king, those trying to disrupt the temple project sent a letter to Artaxerxes, who had succeeded his father Ahasuerus (Xerxes).

Ezra 4:7 And in the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam and Mithredath and Tabeel and the rest of their associates wrote to King Artaxerxes of Persia; the letter was written in Aramaic and translated. 8 Rehum the royal deputy and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes as follows 9 (then Rehum the royal deputy, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their associates, the judges, the envoys, the officials, the Persians, the people of Erech, the Babylonians, the people of Susa, that is, the Elamites, 10 and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnappar deported and settled in the cities of Samaria and in the rest of the province Beyond the River wrote--and now 11 this is a copy of the letter that they sent): "To King Artaxerxes: Your servants, the people of the province Beyond the River, send greeting. And now 12 may it be known to the king that the Jews who came up from you to us have gone to Jerusalem. They are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city; they are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations. 13 Now may it be known to the king that, if this city is rebuilt and the walls finished, they will not pay tribute, custom, or toll, and the royal revenue will be reduced. 14 Now because we share the salt of the palace and it is not fitting for us to witness the king's dishonor, therefore we send and inform the king, 15 so that a search may be made in the annals of your ancestors. You will discover in the annals that this is a rebellious city, hurtful to kings and provinces, and that sedition was stirred up in it from long ago. On that account this city was laid waste. 16 We make known to the king that, if this city is rebuilt and its walls finished, you will then have no possession in the province Beyond the River."

In reply to this letter, the king [Artaxerxes] sent a reply that ordered the work in Jerusalem to stop.

4:17 The king sent an answer: "To Rehum the royal deputy and Shimshai the scribe and the rest of their associates who live in Samaria and in the rest of the province Beyond the River, greeting. And now 18 the letter that you sent to us has been read in translation before me. 19 So I made a decree, and someone searched and discovered that this city has risen against kings from long ago, and that rebellion and sedition have been made in it. 20 Jerusalem has had mighty kings who ruled over the whole province Beyond the River, to whom tribute, custom, and toll were paid. 21 Therefore issue an order that these people be made to cease, and that this city not be rebuilt, until I make a decree. 22 Moreover, take care not to be slack in this matter; why should damage grow to the hurt of the king?" 23 Then when the copy of King Artaxerxes' letter was read before Rehum and the scribe Shimshai and their associates, they hurried to the Jews in Jerusalem and by force and power made them cease. 24 At that time the work on the house of God in Jerusalem stopped and was discontinued until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia.

The better known king Darius was a predecessor of Artaxerxes, but the latter had an illegitimate son Darius Ochus, who became king after Artaxerxes, so unless the author of Ezra made a grievous error, the king Darius referred to in the text above would have been Artaxerxes' successor-son Darius Ochus. More important, however, is that the same verse says that work on the house of God in Jerusalem was stopped by a letter from Artaxerxes and didn't resume until the reign of Darius. Both of the letters quoted above give support to the view that Cyrus of Persia was the one who decreed that Jerusalem should be rebuilt--in accordance with "Isaiah's" prophecy quoted earlier--whereas Artaxerxes actually stopped the rebuilding work in Jerusalem.

Still further support for the view that Cyrus was the one who decreed that Jerusalem should be rebuilt is found in a report that this Darius found in the archives a decree that Cyrus had issued to rebuild Jerusalem. This came about when prophets stirred Zerubbabel and Jeshua to begin working on the temple again despite the command of Artaxerxes to stop the work. The resumption of the work brought about the following response.

Ezra 5:3 At the same time Tattenai the governor of the province Beyond the River and Shethar-bozenai and their associates came to them and spoke to them thus, "Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure?" 4 They also asked them this, "What are the names of the men who are building this building?" 5 But the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until a report reached Darius and then answer was returned by letter in reply to it. 6 The copy of the letter that Tattenai the governor of the province Beyond the River and Shethar-bozenai and his associates the envoys who were in the province Beyond the River sent to King Darius; 7 they sent him a report, in which was written as follows: "To Darius the king, all peace! 8 May it be known to the king that we went to the province of Judah, to the house of the great God. It is being built of hewn stone, and timber is laid in the walls; this work is being done diligently and prospers in their hands. 9 Then we spoke to those elders and asked them, 'Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure?' 10 We also asked them their names, for your information, so that we might write down the names of the men at their head. 11 This was their reply to us: 'We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the house that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished. 12 But because our ancestors had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia. 13 However, King Cyrus of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, made a decree that this house of God should be rebuilt. 14 Moreover, the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem and had brought into the temple of Babylon, these King Cyrus took out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered to a man named Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor. 15 He said to him, "Take these vessels; go and put them in the temple in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt on its site." 16 Then this Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundations of the house of God in Jerusalem; and from that time until now it has been under construction, and it is not yet finished.'

The governors and inspectors then included in their letter to Darius a request that he search the royal archives to see if king Cyrus had ever issued such a decree. Darius ordered that the search be made, and it resulted in the discovery of a scroll in the royal palace at Media on which the following report had been written.

Ezra 6:3 In the first year of his reign, King Cyrus issued a decree: Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the house be rebuilt, the place where sacrifices are offered and burnt offerings are brought; its height shall be sixty cubits and its width sixty cubits, 4 with three courses of hewn stones and one course of timber; let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. 5 Moreover, let the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be restored and brought back to the temple in Jerusalem, each to its place; you shall put them in the house of God.

Upon discovering this scroll in the royal archives, Darius issued the following orders.

Ezra 6:6 Now you, Tattenai, governor of the province Beyond the River, Shethar-bozenai, and you, their associates, the envoys in the province Beyond the River, keep away; 7 let the work on this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its site. 8 Moreover I make a decree regarding what you shall do for these elders of the Jews for the rebuilding of this house of God: the cost is to be paid to these people, in full and without delay, from the royal revenue, the tribute of the province Beyond the River. 9 Whatever is needed--young bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil, as the priests in Jerusalem require--let that be given to them day by day without fail, 10 so that they may offer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king and his children. 11 Furthermore I decree that if anyone alters this edict, a beam shall be pulled out of the house of the perpetrator, who then shall be impaled on it. The house shall be made a dunghill. 12 May the God who has established his name there overthrow any king or people that shall put forth a hand to alter this, or to destroy this house of God in Jerusalem. I, Darius, make a decree; let it be done with all diligence.

This is evidently the decree that removed the stop-work order by Artaxerxes referred to above, and all of the passages pertaining to this work in Jerusalem that I have quoted above certainly don't help the claim of Sir Robert Anderson, Jack Kinsella, et al that the decree to rebuild Jerusalem was issued by Artaxerxes in 445 or 444 BC. The proof text that advocates of this view cite actually doesn't say anything about a decree to rebuild Jerusalem. It merely refers to permission that Artaxerxes gave to his servant Nehemiah to go to Jerusalem and to a request that the keeper of the king's forest in that region provide him with timber.

Nehemiah 2:1 In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was served him, I carried the wine and gave it to the king. Now, I had never been sad in his presence before. 2 So the king said to me, "Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This can only be sadness of the heart." Then I was very much afraid. 3 I said to the king, "May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad, when the city, the place of my ancestors' graves, lies waste, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?" 4 Then the king said to me, "What do you request?" So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5 Then I said to the king, "If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor with you, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my ancestors' graves, so that I may rebuild it." 6 The king said to me (the queen also was sitting beside him), "How long will you be gone, and when will you return?" So it pleased the king to send me, and I set him a date. 7 Then I said to the king, "If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may grant me passage until I arrive in Judah; 8 and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, directing him to give me timber to make beams for the gates of the temple fortress, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy." And the king granted me what I asked, for the gracious hand of my God was upon me. 9 Then I came to the governors of the province Beyond the River, and gave them the king's letters. Now the king had sent officers of the army and cavalry with me.

So there is nothing about a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem in this text. It merely states that Artaxerxes granted Nehemiah permission to go to Jerusalem and gave him letters of introduction that would guarantee him safe passage and noninterference of officials after he arrived in Jerusalem. The passage goes on to say that when Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, he found that it lay in waste, and so he motivated the people living there to begin working on the city. That, however, is entirely different from saying that Artaxerxes issued a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.

I quoted above a reference to the opinion of Sir Isaac Newton that Artaxerxes issued a decree to rebuild Jerusalem in the seventh year of his reign. That claim was made on the basis of a passage in Ezra 7, and the full context of a letter that Artaxerxes issued to Ezra in this chapter will show that one can make a better case for Newton's position than the one that Kinsella and others have tried to defend.

Ezra 7:6 (T)his Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses that Yahweh the God of Israel had given; and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of Yahweh his God was upon him. 7 Some of the people of Israel, and some of the priests and Levites, the singers and gatekeepers, and the temple servants also went up to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes. 8 They came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king. 9 On the first day of the first month the journey up from Babylon was begun, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the gracious hand of his God was upon him. 10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of Yahweh, and to do it, and to teach the statutes and ordinances in Israel. 11 This is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to the priest Ezra, the scribe, a scholar of the text of the commandments of Yahweh and his statutes for Israel: 12 "Artaxerxes, king of kings, to the priest Ezra, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven: Peace. And now 13 I decree that any of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom who freely offers to go to Jerusalem may go with you. 14 For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of your God, which is in your hand, 15 and also to convey the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, 16 with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the freewill offerings of the people and the priests, given willingly for the house of their God in Jerusalem. 17 With this money, then, you shall with all diligence buy bulls, rams, and lambs, and their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God in Jerusalem. 18 Whatever seems good to you and your colleagues to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do, according to the will of your God. 19 The vessels that have been given you for the service of the house of your God, you shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem. 20 And whatever else is required for the house of your God, which you are responsible for providing, you may provide out of the king's treasury. 21 I, King Artaxerxes, decree to all the treasurers in the province Beyond the River: Whatever the priest Ezra, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence, 22 up to one hundred talents of silver, one hundred cors of wheat, one hundred baths of wine, one hundred baths of oil, and unlimited salt. 23 Whatever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be done with zeal for the house of the God of heaven, or wrath will come upon the realm of the king and his heirs. 24 We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on any of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God. 25 And you, Ezra, according to the God-given wisdom you possess, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River who know the laws of your God; and you shall teach those who do not know them. 26 All who will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on them, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of their goods or for imprisonment." 27 Blessed be Yahweh, the God of our ancestors, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king to glorify the house of Yahweh in Jerusalem, 28 and who extended to me steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king's mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of Yahweh my God was upon me, and I gathered leaders from Israel to go up with me.

Artaxerxes' letter to Ezra actually spoke of what the king had decreed, but it made no actual mention of rebuilding either Jerusalem or the temple. The decree merely required that the king's subjects cooperate in restoring temple worship in Jerusalem, and to that end Artaxerxes contributed money and animals, grain, and oil to be used in temple sacrifices. There is no biblical record of any decree that Artaxerxes ever made for Jerusalem to be rebuilt, but, as I said above, the letter given to Ezra could be more easily construed to be a "command" or "decree" to rebuild Jerusalem than the letter to Nehemiah. Why then don't prophecy-fulfillment buffs like Kinsella, Anderson, Missler, et al give the seventh year of Artaxerxes as the beginning date for their countdown to fulfillment? Well, the seventh year of Artaxerxes fell in 458 BC, so if they used that as their starting date, look what that would do to their fulfillment scenario. The 69 weeks or 483 years would have ended in AD 25, much too soon to have an amazing, to-the-very-day fulfillment of the spin that they want to put on Daniel 9:25. As I said at the beginning of this reply to Kinsella, however, in order to have a verifiable case of prophecy fulfillment, the one claiming fulfillment must prove that the original prophetic statement meant what he claims that it meant. Kinsella, then, must show us that Daniel 9:25 had unequivocal reference to a word or command from Artaxerxes issued in 444 BC rather than a decree issued in 445 or 458 BC. He must show that this word or command could not have been issued by Cyrus as claimed in Ezra 1:1-4 and "prophesied" in Isaiah 44:28, and after establishing all that, he must show that the word that went out was not referring to Jeremiah's "word" that Jerusalem would be rebuilt (Jeremiah 30:18) or to the decree of Cyrus discovered by Darius in the archives or to the letters from Artaxerxes to Ezra and Nehemiah or to the letter from Darius quoted above, which ordered his subjects to let the Jews continue rebuilding the temple. So from whom exactly did the word to "restore and rebuild Jerusalem" go forth? Was it Cyrus, or was it Artaxerxes, or was it Darius? If Artaxerxes, which "word" of his was being referred to? Was it the letter to Ezra or the letter to Nehemiah?

In other words, Kinsealla has his work cut out for him.

Kinsella:
The reference to the 'month of Nisan' with no reference to the day indicates the first day of the month.

Till:
The claim that Artaxerxes issued a decree to rebuild Jerusalem has been shown to be false, and now Kinsella is parroting another false claim often made by those who want to find amazing prophecy fulfillment where none exists. Without bothering to check the claim for accuracy, Kinsella, like Chuck Missler, in his article quoted above, has asserted that ancient documents that gave the month in which events occurred, without specifying the day of the month, meant that the events had happened on the first day of that month, but there is no truth at all to this claim. The following biblical examples will show the falsity of Kinsella's assertion.

Jeremiah 39:1 In the ninth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, in the tenth month, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and besieged it....

2 Kings 25:1 And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and laid siege to it....

The first text says that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem in the tenth month of his ninth year, so according to Kinsella and his cohorts, this would mean that the siege happened on the first day of the tenth month, but the parallel text says that the siege began on the 10th day of the 10th month, and there are other examples that dispute this commonly heard claim that when ancient documents dated events with reference to the month when they occurred, with "no reference to the day [of the month], the first day of that month was intended."

1 Kings 6:1 In the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of Yahweh.

2 Chronicles 3:1 Solomon began to build the house of Yahweh in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where Yahweh had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had designated, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2 He began to build on the second day of the second month of the fourth year of his reign.

According to Kinsella's dating premise, the first text above would mean that Solomon began work on the temple on the first day of the second month, but the other text states that the work began on the second day of the second month.

1 Chronicles 12:15 These [sons of Gad] are the men who crossed the Jordan in the first month, when it was overflowing all its banks, and put to flight all those in the valleys, to the east and to the west.

Joshua 4:19 The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho.

According to Kinsella's false dating principle, the first text above should be interpreted to mean that the people of Israel [which would have included the sons of Gad] had crossed the Jordan on the first day of the first month, but the second text states that the crossing occurred on the 10th day of the first month.

I could cite other examples, but these are sufficient to show that a fundamental premise in Kinsella's fulfillment claim is false: dating an event with reference to the month it happened without specifying what day of the month it was did not mean that the event had happened on the first day of that month. As we will soon see, this spells a lot of trouble for Kinsella's fulfillment scenario.

Kinsella:
Using the Hebrew calendar, the first day of Nisan, BC 444, corresponds to the modern date of March 5.

Till:
Keep in mind what we have noted above: the omission of what day of the month it was when Artaxerxes gave Nehemiah permission to go to Jerusalem does not mean that this happened on the first day of the month. That is an assumption that Kinsella must prove, and I have debated this very prophecy-fulfillment claim enough to know that he cannot prove that this event happened on the first day of the month of Nisan. An additional problem to keep in mind is that the verse that Kinsella is citing as a proof text says that the event in question happened "in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king" (Neh. 2:1), and the 20th year of Artaxerxes, as noted above, would have been 445 BC rather than 444 BC. As we will soon see, the problems quickly multiply in Kinsella's fulfillment scenario.

An even bigger error in his scenario is the verifiable fact that Nisan 1 in 444 BC was not March 5th in the modern [Gregorian] calendar. The Gregorian calendar didn't exist at that time, but astronomers have projected both the Gregorian and Julian calendars back in time, and these are called "proleptic calendars." There are also conversion calendars accessible on internet sites, which can be used to determine proleptic Julian and Gregorian dates for any day in the past as far back as proleptic January 1, 4713 BC. If Gregorian March 5, 444 BC, is typed into the Gregorian window at the "Rosetta Calendar" conversion site, it will show that this Gregorian date fell on Tuesday in 444 BC and that it would have been Tuesday, March 10th, if the Julian calendar had been in use then. Most important, however, is that the conversion window for the Hebrew calendar at this site shows that Gregorian March 5, 444 BC, was the 7th of Adar II in that year and not Nisan 1. Kinsella has said that the decree of Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem was issued on Nisan 1 in 444 BC, so he did all of his calculations below on the incorrect assumption that Nisan 1 in that year would have been March 5th. The conversion site linked to above will show that Nisan 1 in that year would have been March 28th in the Gregorian calendar and April 2nd in the Julian calendar. I have checked these dates and double checked them and double checked them again, so I urge readers to click the link above to the Rosetta calendar conversion site to see for themselves that my calendric calculations are correct.

So much for Kinsella's exact, to-the-very-day prophecy fulfillment.

Before I leave this point, I want to call reader attention to the fact that 7 Adar II was the correct equivalent of Kinsella's incorrect March 5, 444 BC. This fact calls attention to something that Kinsella probably doesn't know: in some years, there will be two months of Adar in the Jewish calendar, and 444 BC was one of the years that had an additional month of Adar. The reason why some years had two Adars will be explained further along when I demolish Kinsella's attempt to convert the Gregorian years from March 5, 444 BC, through March 30, AD 33, into days, which he then converted into Hebrew years of 360 days. This poor guy doesn't seem to know that the Hebrews periodically added to their calendar a second month of Adar in order to keep their calendar synchronized with the solar year so that the seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter) wouldn't drift with respect to the dates in their calendar. What I mean by this will be explained fully when I come to where Kinsella tried to convert the 476+ Gregorian years in his scenario into 483 "Hebrew years," but essentially the matter is parallel to the way that we add an additional year to our calendar every four years to keep it synchronized with the sun. The Hebrews, in effect, had a leap-month that they added periodically to achieve the same effect, but over time, the Hebrew years averaged 365 days in length just as ours do.

Kinsella:
Counting forward 483 years from 444 BC to AD 33 is 477 years. But BC 1 and AD 1 are the same year, so deducting that year leaves us with 476 years.

Till:
Kinsella has just showed an appalling calendric ignorance. BC 1 and AD 1 were not the same year. He seems to be confused by the absence of a year 0 in our calendric system. What happened is that when the present calendric system was adopted, we went from the year 1 BC to the year AD 1, but a simple illustration should be sufficient to show even Kinsella just how badly he has erred here. Let's suppose that the Gregorian calendar had been in use in the year 1 BC and that a child named John had been born on January 1 of that year. At the end of 1 BC on December 31, that child would have been one year old, and the next year would have begun with January 1, AD 1. If the year AD 1, however, were the same as the year 1 BC, then at the end of AD 1 on December 31, the child John would have still been just one year old. No one has to be a mathematical wizard to see the absurdity in thinking that a child who had lived through 24 months would have been just one year old.

This huge calendric blunder should be sufficient to convince readers that Kinsella's prophecy fulfillment scenario is seriously flawed, but, as we will see, the problems continue.

Kinsella:
Four hundred seventy-six years times 365.24219879 days is 173,855 days.

Till:
Since Kinsella made an obvious mistake in assuming that 1 BC and AD 1 were the same year, his "deduction" of a year was an error. From March 5, 444 BC, to March 30, AD 33, there would have actually been 476.068 years. One cannot begin counting on the 5th day of March in 444 BC and count through the 30th day of March in AD 33 and finish with an even number of years. The even number of years would have ended with March 4, AD 33, and the 25 days from March 5th to March 30th would have been a fraction of a year (25 ÷ 365 = .068) that would have to be entered into the calculations to find out the number of days that had passed between the two dates in Kinsella's scenario. If we multiply 476.068 (years) by 365.24219879 (the number of days in a solar year), we will get 173,880 days. We will see below that Kinsella compensated for his original mistake by adding the fractional year (25 days from March 5th to March 30th), so the answer he got was the one he needed, i. e., 173,880. This total, by the way, happens to be the number of days that Sir Robert Anderson claimed in his fulfillment scenario. Kinsella, like those who have tried to revamp Anderson's discredited scenario, continue to borrow the 173,880 days, which was the foundation stone of Anderson's scenario, but we will soon see that these 173,880 days were arrived at to use in an incorrect argument that the Hebrew calendar was based on a 360-day year. The fulfillment advocates needed 173,880 days to divide by 360 to get 483, which was the number of weeks (years) in the Daniel 9:25 prophecy. I will show the fallacy in this line of argument when I come to it in Kinsella's argument.

Kinsella:
Jesus was crucified on March 30, AD 33,

Till:
Exactly how did Kinsella arrive at this date? He didn't bother to say, but the date of Jesus's alleged crucifixion has long been a point of controversy. Origin said in Contra Celsus (4:23), for example, "For it was, I believe, forty-two years from the time when they crucified Jesus to the destruction of Jerusalem." Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, so the date that Origin gave for the crucifixion would put it in AD 28, five years before Kinsella's scenario. Speculation about the date of the crucifixion continues to this date, but there are some bits of information that can be pieced together to show that AD 33 was improbable. The New Testament claims that Herod was king when Jesus was born (Matt. 2:3-15), but Herod died in 4 BC, so if we assume that Jesus was born the very year that Herod died, he would have begun his personal ministry in AD 26, because Luke said that Jesus was "about thirty" when he began to teach (Luke 3:23). If he wasn't crucified until AD 33, his personal ministry would have spanned seven years, but the gospel narratives certainly don't indicate that he taught for that long before he was crucified.

Kinsella's crucifixion date also conflicts with what the New Testament says about the time when Jesus was crucified. According to Mark, he was allegedly crucified on the day of the Passover, which in the Jewish calendar always falls on Nisan 15, as the quotation below from "Passover Date, an article on a Jewish website confirms.

In fact, in the Hebrew calendar, Passover always occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan and ends on the 22nd day of Nissan.

This date is confirmed by several biblical references that fix the date at the 15th day of the Hebrew month Abib, later changed to Nisan, which was the first month in the Jewish calendar.

Leviticus 23:5 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, there shall be a passover offering to Yahweh, 6 and on the fifteenth day of the same month is the festival of unleavened bread to Yahweh.

Numbers 9:1 Yahweh spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying: 2 Let the Israelites keep the passover at its appointed time. 3 On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time; according to all its statutes and all its regulations you shall keep it. 4 So Moses told the Israelites that they should keep the passover. 5 They kept the passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, in the wilderness of Sinai. Just as Yahweh had commanded Moses, so the Israelites did.

The Jewish day began at sunset, so at twilight on the 14th day of the month of Abib or Nisan, the Jews would kill the paschal lamb (Ex. 12:1-4) so that it could be sacrificed and eaten on the night of Passover, and then, as the text from Leviticus quoted above says, the next day, the 15th day of the month, the festival of unleavened bread would begin. The relevance of this can be seen when Kinsella's date of the crucifixion is compared to biblical texts, which say that Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples the night before he was crucified.

Mark 14:12 On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, "Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?" 13 So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, 14 and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, 'The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' 15 He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there." 16 So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal. 17 When it was evening, he came with the twelve.

As noted above, the killing of the paschal lamb was done at twilight on the 14th day of the first month (Nisan), so this conversation with the disciples would have happened on that day. The Passover meal eaten that night, after sunset, would have been on the 15th of Nisan. Later that night, Judas betrayed Jesus, and he was arrested (Mark 14:43-46). Jesus was taken that night to the high priest and the chief priests and scribes (Mark 14:53). The next morning, which would have still been Nisan 15, he was taken to Pilate (Mark 15:1), and later he was taken and crucified at the third hour (Mark 15:23-25). All of this means that if the Bible is inerrant, then Jesus was crucified on Nisan 15, but March 30, AD 33, was not Nisan 15 in the Hebrew calendar. That can be verified by typing March 30, AD 33, into the Gregorian window at the "Rosetta Calendar" conversion site. This will show that March 30, AD 33, was actually Nisan 12 in the Jewish calendar, so if Jesus was indeed crucified on the day of the Passover in AD 33, he would have been crucified on April 2nd (Nisan 15) of that year, or else the Bible is not inerrant.

So much for Kinsella's amazing prophecy fulfillment.

Kinsella:
so there are an extra 25 days to add to the equation, giving a grand total of 173,880 days.

Till:
Yes, the extra 25 days would have to be added to determine how many days had passed between March 5, 444 BC, and March 30, AD 33, but March 5, 444 BC, as we noted above, was not Nisan 1 in the Hebrew calendar, and as we just noticed, Jesus could not have been crucified on March 30, AD 33, because that day was not Nisan 15 in the Hebrew Calendar. What good does it do to have a starting date that was not equivalent to Nisan 1, 444 BC, which Kinsella claimed was the day that Artaxerxes issued a decree to rebuild Jerusalem, and what good does it do to have a terminal date that does not conform to the day that the New Testament claims that Jesus was crucified?

The calendar conversion windows at the Rosetta Canendar site will show that Nisan 1, 444 BC, was the same day as Gregorian March 28, 444 BC. At this point, I intend to use Julian Day Numbers to show just how far off Kinsella's to-the-very-day fulfillment scenario is, but before doing that, I first need to define what Julian Day Numbers are. I recommend that readers click this link to Peter Meyer's article about Julian Day Numbers so that they can learn from an expert what they are. In reading this article, you will learn that Julian Day Numbers (JDNs) are numbers given to days for the convenience of determining when events happened without having dates confused by calendars, which will give different dates to events. My birthdate, for example, is April 26, 1933, in the Gregorian calendar, but it would have been April 13, 1933, had we still been using the Julian calendar at that time, and the date was Nisan 30, 5693, in the Jewish calendar. It would be yet other dates in other calendars.

JDNs simplify the confusing calendric systems by numbering the days. The Julian calendar, which we don't use today, was projected back to the year 4713 BC, which became the first year in the JDN system, so the first day of that year was given the number 0, the second day 1, the third 2, and so up until the present day (October 2, 2005, as I am writing this), which is Julian Day Number 2453646. In other words, 2,453,646 days have passed in the JDN system since January 1, 4713 BC. The JDN of my birthdate (Gregorian April 26, 1933) is 2427189, so if I should want to know how many days I have lived, I simply subtract this number from 2453646, the JDN for today (October 2, 2005). The answer is 26457 (2453646 - 2427189 = 26457), so I have now lived a total of 26,457 days. How time flies!

By using the real Gregorian date for Kinsella's claim that Artaxerxes decreed the rebuilding of Jerusalem on Nisan 1, 444 BC, we can use JDNs to show that there would not have been 173,880 days between that date and March 30, AD 33. As I have already explained, the Rosetta conversion calendar shows that Nisan 1, 444 BC, was actually Gregorian March 28, 444 BC. The JDN for that date was 1559344, and the JDN for Gregorian March 30, AD 33, was 1733202, so to find out how many days passed between those two dates, all we have to do is subtract 1559344 from 1733202. When we do, we find that only 173,858 days (1733202 - 1559344 = 173,858) passed from Gregorian March 28, 444 BC to Gregorian March 30, AD 30, so Kinsella's fulfillment scenario is 22 days short of the 173,880 that he needs to claim an amazing prophecy fulfillment.

On the chance, that Kinsella erred by using dates from the Julian calendar in his scenario, I checked to see if there would have been 173,880 days between Julian March 5, 444 BC, and Julian March 30, AD 33. The Rosetta conversion calendar shows that the JDN for Julian March 5, 444 BC, is 1559316 and that the JDN for Julian March 30, AD 33, was 1733200, so 1733200 - 1559316 = 173,884, which would be four days too many to fit into Kinsella's scenario. Furthermore, Julian March 30, AD 33, was not Nisan 15 (Passover day) in the Hebrew calendar. It was Nisan 10, so Kinsella's wonderfully accurate, to-the-very-day prophecy fulfillment proves to be untenable.

I even used the dates in the Hebrew calendar to see if they would fit into Kinsella's scenario. The JDN for Nisan 1 in the year 444 BC (year 3317 in the Hebrew calendar) is 1559344, and the JDN for Nisan 12 AD 33 (which was the equivalent of Gregorian March 30) is 1733202, so 1733202 - 1559344 = 173,858, which won't fit into Kinsella's 173,880-day scenario either. As we noted above, the gospel of Mark claimed that Jesus was crucified on the day of the Passover, which would have been Nisan 15, so the JDN of that date (which would have been April 2nd in the Gregorian calendar) is 1733202 + 3 = 1733205. Using this number would add only three more days to the 173,858, so it seems that Kinsella's fulfillment scenario fails just about any way that it is looked at. Before Kinsella ever publishes another example of amazing prophecy fulfillment, he should check his math better than he did this time.

Kinsella:
So, from the going forth of the commandment on March 5, BC 444, until March 30, AD 33, was exactly 173,880 days

Till:
Although there were indeed 173,880 days between the two dates in Kinseall's scenario, we have just seen how his brilliant prophecy-fulfillment fell apart in that (1) he claimed that the "going forth of the commandment" to restore and rebuild Jerusalem happened on Nisan 1 in 445 BC but then in his calculations used the wrong Gregorian date, which was actually March 28, 444 BC instead of March 5, (2) he selected a terminal date in his fulfillment scenario that could not have been the date that Jesus was crucified, because March 30, AD 33, was not Nisan 15 [the day of the Passover] in the Hebrew calendar, (3) he cannot prove whether the commandment went forth from Jeremiah or Cyrus of Persia or Artaxerxes or Darius, (4) if he should be able to prove that the commandment went forth from Artaxerxes, he cannot prove whether it went forth in 458 BC or 445 BC or 444 BC, and (5) if he should be able to prove that the prophecy referred to a command that went forth from Artaxerxes in the month of Nisan in 444 BC, he cannot prove what day of that month the commandment was issued.

In a word, Kinsella's amazing fulfillment scenario has more holes in it than a sieve.

Kinsella:
divided by 360 day lunar equals exactly 483 years.

Till:
Since there are so many versions of this 173,880-day prophecy-fulfillment claim, which all use the tactic of dividing these days by 360 to get 483 Jewish years, everyone who wants to be prepared to debunk these fulfillment claims should pay careful attention to what is coming next in my rebuttal of Kinsella's version of this fulfillment claim, because it can be used to debunk whatever versions are being trumpeted as amazing prophecy fulfillment. You will need to know just one thing: the Jewish years over time averaged 365 days in length, just as they do in our present calendric system. I explained above that the Hebrews had a "leap month" in their calendar, which they added periodically to keep their lunar calendar synchronized with the solar year. A more detailed explanation of this intercalated month (a second Adar) was given by the author of "Passover Date," an article on a Jewish website, which I quoted earlier to show that the Jewish Passover always falls on the same date--Nisan 15. Notice the last sentence emphasized in bold print.

In fact, in the Hebrew calendar, Passover always occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan and ends on the 22nd day of Nissan. However, in the Gregorian calendar which comprises the January to December months of the year, Passover begins and ends on different days each year. Why? (I had to ask) Well, I asked, so here comes the answer: the Hebrew calendar is primarily a lunar calendar, meaning the months are determined by the new moon that occurs when the first sliver of the moon appears following the complete darkness of the moon, and the Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar based upon the Earth's rotation around the sun. Since there are 12.4 lunar months in every solar year, this means that a 12-month lunar calendar will lose about 11 days off the solar calendar every year. Since the Passover date is a fixed date in the Hebrew calendar then this means that the Passover date would occur earlier and earlier in the Springtime in the solar year until it would occur in the Wintertime, then in Autumn, then in Summer, and then back to Spring, and so on. To make up for this 'drift' in the Passover date through the solar months of the solar year, an extra month was periodically added to the Hebrew calendar so that the Passover date would drift back about 11 days each year for about two or three years, then jump forward by about a month's worth of days (29 or 30 days).

The article went on to explain how Rabbi Hillel II in AD 358 refined this system to reduce the "drifting" problem, but the fact remains that over time, the Jewish year in biblical times averaged 365 days just as it does now in our Gregorian system. Hence, Kinsetta's claim of a 360-day Jewish year has no more basis in fact than did his fulfillment scenario in general.

Kinsetta:
Daniel 9:26 goes on to say that after Messiah is 'cut off but not for Himself', "the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city."

Within a generation of Israel's rejection of the Messiah, General [and future Emperor] Titus of Rome led his legions into Jerusalem where the city was sacked and the Temple utterly destroyed.

Till:
What does the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, which happened 40 years after Kinsella's date for the crucifixion, have to do with his fulfillment claim? His position is that the 69 weeks ended when Jesus was crucified and, as we will see him claiming below, the prophecy then leaped into the distant future, where the seventieth week has yet to come. If this scenario is what Daniel meant, then what would any date or time period between the crucifixion of Jesus and the present day have to do with this prophecy? Since he has introduced the Roman destruction of Jerusalem into the picture, I will be glad to show that it had nothing at all to do with the intended meaning of Daniel's prophecies.

As noted above, scholars who don't have any inerrancy axes to grind or rapture dreams to wish for recognize that the "anointed one" was the high priest Onias III, who was assassinated in 171 BC. The destruction of "the city" or Jerusalem by the troops of "the prince" was a reference to the army that Antiochus Epiphanes sent to Jerusalem under the command of Apollonius in 167 BC. The pillage of Jerusalem that followed was described in the apocryphal book of 1 Maccabees.

1 Maccabees 1:29 Two years later the king [Antiochus] sent to the cities of Judah a chief collector of tribute, and he came to Jerusalem with a large force. 30 Deceitfully he spoke peaceable words to them, and they believed him; but he suddenly fell upon the city, dealt it a severe blow, and destroyed many people of Israel. 31 He plundered the city, burned it with fire, and tore down its houses and its surrounding walls. 32 They took captive the women and children, and seized the livestock. 33 Then they fortified the city of David with a great strong wall and strong towers, and it became their citadel.

Kinsella must remember that the first responsibility of the one who claims prophecy fulfillment is that he must prove that the prophetic statement meant what the proponent of fulfillment is claiming. In this case, Kinsella must prove that "the people [troops] of the prince" who came and destroyed the city were the Roman troops of AD 70 rather than the troops of Antiochus under the command of Apollonius in 167 BC. Those who want to see in Daniel 9:25 an amazing prophecy about Jesus will contend that the "people of the prince" who destroyed the city were the Roman forces under the command of Titus. In Prophecy: Fact or Fiction, Josh McDowell defended the same scenario as Kinsella's, which began on March 5, 444 BC, and ended on March 30, AD 33, but as we have seen, even though this period did have exactly 173,880 days in it, its starting and terminal dates do not conform to the claims that Artaxerxes issued his decree to rebuild Jerusalem on 1 Nisan in the year 444 BC and that Jesus was crucified on March 30, AD 33. At any rate, this was McDowell's scenario, which Kinsella probably borrowed from him, and on page 21 of the book just cited above, McDowell argued that "the people [troops] of the prince" had to have reference to the Roman forces of Titus, because his destruction of the temple was total and complete in AD 70, but the temple wasn't completely destroyed in 167 BC when the forces of Antiochus under the command of Apollonius plundered Jerusalem; however, Daniel 9:26 did not say that the "people [troops] of the prince would come" and totally and completely destroy the temple. It simply said that they would come and destroy the city and the sanctuary, and as far as faithful Jews of that era were concerned, the forces of Antiochus had indeed destroyed the sanctuary. An article about Hanuka at EverythingJewish.com described the condition of the temple after control of it was regained by the Maccabeans.

Led by Judah Maccabee, the most famous of Mattityahu’s five sons, the Maccabees, a force much smaller than the powerful Greek armies, finally triumphed in 165 B.C.E. On the 25th of Kislev, the Maccabees reclaimed the Jewish Temple, which was, at that point, almost unrecognizable as a place of Jewish worship.

I cited above articles in which I debated the dating of Daniel with the fundamentalist Christian Everette Hatcher. That debate and the articles specifically cited will show that responsible scholarship dates the authorship of Daniel in the second century BC. To take the time here to list and discuss all of the reasons why scholars with no inerrancy axes to grind do not consider this book to be the work of a sixth-century BC Jewish official in the Babylonian government would drag this article out forever, so I will instead urge readers to review the responsible literature written on this subject. Some good sources would be S. R. Driver's "The Book of Daniel" in Cambridge Bible for Scholars and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1922); H. H. Rowley's Darius the Mede and the Four World Empires in the Book of Daniel (University of Wales Press, 1959); Norman Porteous's Daniel: A Commentary (The Westminister Press, 1965). I have found these books to be useful in my debates with fundamentalists who have tried to defend the traditional view that Daniel was written in the 6th century BC by a Jewish official in Babylon. I also recommend Beasts, Horns, and the Antichrist by Brodrick D. Shepherd (Cliffside Publishing House), which refutes the traditional view of Daniel in a simple format that even those who have limited knowledge of this book should be able to understand. I think that it does a commendable job of debunking attempts to make Daniel 9:25 a prophecy of the coming of Jesus.

With all that said, I have to return to the claim of Kinsella and his cohorts that "the people [troops] of the prince" who would come and destroy the city and the sanctuary were the Roman forces of Titus who plundered Jerusalem in AD 70. The position of those who hold to this scenario is that the 69 weeks ended either with the triumphal entry, the crucifixion, or some other specific event in the life of Christ, so if they are correct in their claim, what would any event after the 69 weeks have to do with this prophecy, since they also claim that the 70th week was to be postponed until some time in the distant future? The only sensible conclusion to reach is that Daniel meant for his readers to understand that the 69 weeks would end, at which time the "people of the prince" would come to destroy the city and the sanctuary and the prince would make a "strong covenant with many" for a week, which would be the seventieth and final week in the prophecy. All of the talk about a "gap" or a "leap" forward cannot be justified by the language of the text.

Kinsella:
The 'people' identified by the angel to Daniel are proved by history to be the Roman Empire, currently embodied by the European Union.

Till:
I assume that everyone has noticed that Kinsella, who up until this point tried to sustain his position with mathematical precision, suddenly stopped offering any support for his claims, so he is now doing nothing but arguing by assertion. Just how has "history" proven that the "people" referred to here were "the Roman Empire"? Kinsella gave us no arguments to respond to here, and argumentation by assertion is a recognized logical fallacy.

Kinsella:
The 'prince' of that 'people' is the antichrist.

Till:
Here is another assertion for which Kinsella didn't offer even a scintilla of supporting evidence. There is nothing here for me to do except to show, as I continue my rebuttal, that the evidence supports the view that the author of Daniel was "predicting" events relating to the time in which he was writing, i. e., the second century BC, and that the "prince" who made the covenant with many was Antiochus Epiphanes.

Kinsella:
As an aside, according to the Jewish historian [and eyewitness] Josephus, the Romans burned the Temple so completely its ornate gold fixtures melted and ran between the stones of the Temple.

To recover this rich booty, the soldiers dismantled the Temple, stone by stone, fulfilling Jesus' prophecy of a generation before; "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down" [Matthew 24:2].

Till:
Kinsella did not cite where Josephus said this. I have heard this claim before, but if it was made anywhere in Josephus's account of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, I have been unable to find it. An electronic version of Wars of the Jews is available on line, and I took the time to use gold as a keyword to see if Josephus had made this claim anywhere within Book 6, which is the part where he described the sacking of Jerusalem and the temple. Instead of a claim that the temple gold had melted and run between the stones of the temple, I found in 6:8.3 an account of how the soldiers had plundered the temple and its treasury of all of its valuables.

3. But now at this time it was that one of the priests, the son of Thebuthus, whose name was Jesus, upon his having security given him, by the oath of Caesar, that he should be preserved, upon condition that he should deliver to him certain of the precious things that had been reposited in the temple (29) came out of it, and delivered him from the wall of the holy house two candlesticks, like to those that lay in the holy house, with tables, and cisterns, and vials, all made of solid gold, and very heavy. He also delivered to him the veils and the garments, with the precious stones, and a great number of other precious vessels that belonged to their sacred worship. The treasurer of the temple also, whose name was Phineas, was seized on, and showed Titus the coats and girdles of the priests, with a great quantity of purple and scarlet, which were there reposited for the uses of the veil, as also a great deal of cinnamon and cassia, with a large quantity of other sweet spices, (30) which used to be mixed together, and offered as incense to God every day. A great many other treasures were also delivered to him, with sacred ornaments of the temple not a few; which things thus delivered to Titus obtained of him for this man the same pardon that he had allowed to such as deserted of their own accord (emphasis added).

Prior to this, Josephus had said that the Roman soldiers had taken "such vast quantities" of plunder from the temple and its store houses that "in Syria a pound weight of gold was sold for half its former value" (6:6.1), so if Josephus ever said what Kinsella claimed above, I would appreciate his citing the book, chapter, and section. Those who are interested in checking this claim for it accuracy can find the description of the burning of the temple in Book 6, Chapters 4 through 6. Those who read it will see that Kinsella's claim above is probably bogus.

The fact is that the destruction of the temple in AD 70 was not as complete as Kinsella claimed. There was enough left that the Jews later tried to rebuild it by permission of Emperor Hadrian, and they were making good progress on it until the emperor began to have second thoughts and stopped work on it. In this section of one of my many replies to Robert Turkel's attempts to defend the silly doctrine of preterism, I summarized this rebuilding project that took place during the Bar Kokhba rebellion, which was led by Shimon Bar Kokhba. When that uprising was finally quelled, Hadrian undertook to destroy completely the Jewish system of worship by plowing under the city of Jerusalem and replacing it with a settlement that was called Aelia Capitolina. It was at this time that the remaining stones in the temple were torn apart and dispersed, but even that "destruction" wasn't entirely complete, because the retaining walls of the former temple remain until today, one of which is called the "wailing wall." A picture of the southwest corner of the temple mount shows that there are still some stones remaining in place for the old temple, so it just isn't true that Jesus's prophecy that not one temple stone would be left upon another had been wonderfully fulfilled.

When prophecy-fulfillment buffs claim marvelous fulfillments, they almost always run into problems that don't quite fit into their fulfillment scenarios, but if Kinsella wants to know what Josephus really thought about the relationship of Daniel's prophecies to the destruction of the temple, he should read Book 12, Chapter 7, Section 6, in Antiquities of the Jews, where he attributed fulfillment of those prophecies to temple desecrations during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes.

When therefore the generals of Antiochus's armies had been beaten so often, Judas assembled the people together, and told them, that after these many victories which God had given them, they ought to go up to Jerusalem, and purify the temple, and offer the appointed sacrifices. But as soon as he, with the whole multitude, was come to Jerusalem, and found the temple deserted, and its gates burnt down, and plants growing in the temple of their own accord, on account of its desertion, he and those that were with him began to lament, and were quite confounded at the sight of the temple; so he chose out some of his soldiers, and gave them order to fight against those guards that were in the citadel, until he should have purified the temple. When therefore he had carefully purged it, and had brought in new vessels, the candlestick, the table [of shew-bread], and the altar [of incense], which were made of gold, he hung up the veils at the gates, and added doors to them. He also took down the altar [of burnt-offering], and built a new one of stones that he gathered together, and not of such as were hewn with iron tools. So on the five and twentieth day of the month Casleu, which the Macedonians call Apeliens, they lighted the lamps that were on the candlestick, and offered incense upon the altar [of incense], and laid the loaves upon the table [of shew-bread], and offered burnt-offerings upon the new altar [of burnt-offering]. Now it so fell out, that these things were done on the very same day on which their Divine worship had fallen off, and was reduced to a profane and common use, after three years' time; for so it was, that the temple was made desolate by Antiochus, and so continued for three years. This desolation happened to the temple in the hundred forty and fifth year, on the twenty-fifth day of the month Apeliens, and on the hundred fifty and third olympiad: but it was dedicated anew, on the same day, the twenty-fifth of the month Apeliens, on the hundred and forty-eighth year, and on the hundred and fifty-fourth olympiad. And this desolation came to pass according to the prophecy of Daniel, which was given four hundred and eight years before; for he declared that the Macedonians would dissolve that worship [for some time].

Olympiads were four-year periods in Greek chronology, reckoned from the beginning of one celebration of the olympic games until the next. The 153rd Olympiad dated from 168-165 BC, so Josephus's date falls within the range of the Maccabean dating of the desecration of the temple by Antiochus. Notice that Josephus said that the "desolation" lasted for three years, and keep those three years in mind when we come to Kinsella's attempt below to make Daniel's "time, times, and half a time" refer to some 1,290-day period that will happen during a "tribulation" whose coming he envisions at some time in the distant future. For here, we just want to notice that Josephus clearly said that Daniel's prophecies about a desecration of the temple were fulfilled in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Kinsella:
The coming prince of Daniel 9:26, the antichrist, kicks off the Tribulation Period

Till:
And what is Kinsella's proof that the "coming prince of Daniel 9:26" was the antichrist? He gave none. He simply asserted it. The fact is, however, that neither Daniel nor any other Old Testament writer ever spoke about an "antichrist." This is a term that was used only five times in the New Testament, all five times in the epistles of "John," and they have sparked all kinds of speculations, most of which cannot be harmonized with what "John" said in using this term. Tribulationists, i. e., those who believe that they see a period of future tribulation in Daniel 9, see "the antichrist" as an evil, powerful ruler who will arise at the time of Jesus's return, which, of course, has yet to happen (if it ever will), but that is not at all what "John," the only writer to use the term, meant.

He said, for example, that there wasn't just one antichrist but many.

1 John 2:18 Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour.

Tribulationists often speak of "the antichrist," but the New Testament passage that first used this term clearly said that "many antichrists" had already come, by which it could be known that "it is the last hour." Well, the last hour has lasted for almost 2,000 years now, and tribulationists are still talking about the coming of "the antichrist."

On the basis of what "John" said about this "person," however, I can prove that I am the antichrist.

1 John 1:22 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.

Well, it certainly is no secret that I don't believe that Jesus is the Christ, and I deny the existence of the entities known as "the father and the son." Hence, we have "John's" word for it: I am an antichrist. I said "an antichrist," because if an antichrist is someone who denies the father and the son and that Jesus is the Christ, there are indeed many antichrists in the world. Why then is Kinsella and his ilk looking for the antichrist to come?

"Well, we may as well look at the other two passages where "John" mentioned "antichrist."

1 John 4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world.

I once made a public profession of belief in Jesus Christ, which at the time I thought was necessary to be "saved," but I no longer confess that "Jesus is the Christ," so it still looks very much as if I meet "John's" qualifications to be an antichrist. Furthermore, "John" said that "the spirit of the antichrist" was already in the world, so since the spirit of the antichrist has been in the world for almost 2,000 years, why are Kinsella and his ilk getting their shorts into a wad over a belief that "the antichrist" is coming? Don't they believe what their inspired, inerrant "word of God" says?

2 John 7 Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist!

So here poor Kinsella is eagerly waiting for "the antichrist" to come when his own inspired, inerrant "word of God" clearly claims that anyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is the antichrist. This is just an example of how silly doctrinal beliefs can arise when there is no scriptural basis for them.

Kinsella:
- and starts the clock running -- with an event as historically definite as was Artexerxe's [sic] Decree.

Till:
For once Kinsella has said something I can agree with. The kicking off of the "tribulation" by the antichrist is indeed as historically definite as was Artaxerxes's decree, but we have seen above that there is no historical basis at all for any claim that Artaxerxes ever issued a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. There is no need for me to rehash here my rebuttals of that claim, but until Kinsella can rebut that information, the running of his "tribulation clock" isn't very definite at all.

Kinsella:
According to Daniel 9:27, the antichrist 'confirms a covenant' between Israel and her enemies.

Till:
Daniel 9:27 confirms no such thing. This verse says that "(h)e [the coming prince] shall make a strong covenant with many for one week." The verse says nothing at all about a person that Kinsella calls "the antichrist." That is a spin put onto this statement by Kinsella and his tribulationist cohorts, but as I will soon show, the evidence clearly supports the view that this "prince" was Antiochus Epiphanes and that the one-week convenant was made in the second century BC.

Kinsella:
This 'covenant', or treaty, is confirmed as an agreement of seven year's duration. [Not coincidentally, the exact length of the Tribulation Period - Daniel's 70th Week].

Till:
See how Kinsella begs the question that the 70th week of Daniel is the "Tribulation Period," which he and his tribulationist cohorts think has yet to come? Daniel spoke of three periods: (1) seven weeks or 49 years, (2) 62 weeks or 434 years, and (3) one week or seven years. Although the biblical text clearly shows that they were two separate periods, tribulationists try to make the seven weeks and the 62 weeks into one continuous period of 483 years, which they claim--incorrectly, as shown above--ended with the cruxifion of Jesus, but then instead of having the one week or seven years be a continuation of the 483 years, they invent a "gap" that leaps forward in time until the [snicker, snicker] return of Jesus, which still hasn't happened after almost 2,000 years. Kinsella spoke of the "antichrist's" having "started the clock running," but this twisted scenario isn't so much a matter of the clock running as it is the clock stopping. They try to put time on hold after Daniel's perceived 69th weeks--which they allege ended with some event in the life of Christ, most often his crucifixion--and keep it there until Jesus [snicker, snicker] returns again, at which time, there will be a "rapture"--which the Bible says nothing at all about, as I showed in "What Rapture?"--at which time (according to some rapture scenarios), there will be a seven-year period of tribulation.

Believe it or not, folks, rapturists/tribulationists find all of that in Daniel 9:25-27, or, to be more exact, they read all of this into the passage in Daniel.

These guys give no consideration at all to second-century BC history, which gives far more evidence that Daniel was speaking of Antiochus Epiphanes when he referred to a "coming prince" and a "strong convenant" that this "prince" would make for a week. References to this "covenant" are in the book of 1 Maccabees.

1 Macabees 1:10 From them [the generals who divided Alexander's kingdom] came forth a sinful root, Antiochus Epiphanes, son of King Antiochus; he had been a hostage in Rome. He began to reign in the one hundred thirty-seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks [175 BC]. 11 In those days certain renegades came out from Israel and misled many, saying, "Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles around us, for since we separated from them many disasters have come upon us." 12 This proposal pleased them, 13 and some of the people eagerly went to the king [Antiochus], who authorized them to observe the ordinances of the Gentiles. 14 So they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, according to Gentile custom, 15 and removed the marks of circumcision, and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil.

1 Macabees 1:41 Then the king [Antiochus] wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, 42 and that all should give up their particular customs. 43 All the Gentiles accepted the command of the king. Many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath.

The Jews who entered into this agreement or covenant abondoned Judaism and adopted the Hellinization program of Antiochus. In 11:30-32, Daniel spoke of Jews who would "forsake the holy covenant" and "do wickedly against the covenant," but, of course, sensible students of the book of Daniel know that the writer was "prophesying" after the fact in passages like this.

This "covenant" banned the Levitical system of daily sacrifices in the temple.

1 Maccabees 1:44 And the king sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem and the towns of Judah; he directed them to follow customs strange to the land, 45 to forbid burnt offerings and sacrifices and drink offerings in the sanctuary, to profane sabbaths and festivals, 46 to defile the sanctuary and the priests, 47 to build altars and sacred precincts and shrines for idols, to sacrifice swine and other unclean animals, 48 and to leave their sons uncircumcised. They were to make themselves abominable by everything unclean and profane, 49 so that they would forget the law and change all the ordinances. 50 He added, "And whoever does not obey the command of the king shall die."

This decree that Antiochus issued fits perfectly the description in Daniel 9:27.

Daniel 9:26 After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing, and the troops of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. 27 He [the prince] shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall make sacrifice and offering cease; and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator."

So after the 62 weeks had ended, an "anointed one" [Onias III] was cut off [assassinated], and then the one week, which would be the final week in the prophecy, would come, at which time, the "prince" would make a "strong covenant." During that short-lived covenant, Antiochus ordered the cessation of temple sacrifices and put the infamous abomination of desolation into the temple. The passage quoted above from 1 Maccabees 1 referred to Antiochus's order to "to build altars and sacred precincts and shrines for idols" and "to sacrifice swine and other unclean animals." To faithful Jews, this part of the "covenant" would have been an appalling abomination, but another text in 1 Maccabees clearly states that the infamous abomination of desolation, which Christians have tried to associate with the Roman destruction of the temple, actually occurred in the time of Antiochus. In my debates on preterism with Robert Turkel, I addressed in detail the Maccabean identification of Daniel's abomination of desolation. Readers can find it in this section of "Turkel Rides--Er--Stumbles Again (1-B)," but for reader convenience I am going to quote the entire part where I showed that all of Daniel's "prophecies" about the desecration of the temple happened in the Maccabean period. I am including the part where I explicated the meaning of "the little horn that waxed great" in Daniel 7 and 8, because this information will become important further along when Kinsella jumps to the "time, times, and a half a time" in Daniel 11.

As for what Daniel's "abomination of desolation" was, that can easily be established to the satisfaction of any reasonable person, because the book of 1 Maccabees, which was also written around the second century BC, recorded the Jewish persecutions of Antiochus and his attempts to abolish Judaism. During the period of 167-164 BC, he banned sacrifices in the temple and defiled the sanctuary of the temple with pagan sacrifices. These were all referred to in 1 Maccabees.

1 Maccabees 1:44-50 Moreover king Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, and every one should leave his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king. Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the sabbath. For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Juda that they should follow the strange laws of the land, and forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the sabbaths and festival days: and pollute the sanctuary and holy people: set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine's flesh, and unclean beasts: that they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation: to the end they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances. And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said, he should die.

In December of 167 BC, the temple was defiled with pagan sacrifices and the erection of a statue of Zeus [Jupiter], which were also mentioned in the same context of 1 Maccabees.>

1 Maccabees 1:54-59 Now the fifteenth day of the month Casleu, in the hundred forty and fifth year, they [Seleucid officials] set up the abomination of desolation upon the altar, and built idol altars throughout the cities of Juda on every side; and burnt incense at the doors of their houses, and in the streets. And when they had rent in pieces the books of the law which they found, they burnt them with fire. And whosoever was found with any the book of the testament, or if any committed to the law, the king's commandment was, that they should put him to death. Thus did they by their authority unto the Israelites every month, to as many as were found in the cities. Now the five and twentieth day of the month they did sacrifice upon the idol altar, which was upon the altar of God. At which time according to the commandment they put to death certain women, that had caused their children to be circumcised. And they hanged the infants about their necks, and rifled their houses, and slew them that had circumcised them. Howbeit many in Israel were fully resolved and confirmed in themselves not to eat any unclean thing. Wherefore the rather to die, that they might not be defiled with meats, and that they might not profane the holy covenant: so then they died. And there was very great wrath upon Israel.

First Maccabees was a highly respected apocryphal work, which many church authorities believed should have been accorded canonicity. The first edition of the King James Bible, from which the quotations above were taken, in fact, contained this book. Turkel often quotes from the KJV, so only by a hair did this book miss being a part of the Bible that Turkel defends. This book, written shortly after the Maccabean wars by someone who could easily have been a contemporary of this conflict, says that the "abomination of desolation" was the pagan sacrifices that were offered on the temple altar during the attempts of Antiochus to suppress Judaism. While Antiochus was engaged in conflicts in Persia, his armies in Judea were routed, after which the temple was cleansed and daily Jewish sacrifices restored. This cleansing was referred to later in terms that again identified Daniel's abomination of desolation as the desecrating pagan sacrifices.

1 Maccabees 6:1-8 About that time [when Judas Maccabaus waged war with the descendants of Esau] king Antiochus travelling through the high countries heard say, that Elymais in the country of Persia was a city greatly renowned for riches, silver, and gold; And that there was in it a very rich temple, wherein were coverings of gold, and breastplates, and shields, which Alexander, son of Philip, the Macedonian king, who reigned first among the Grecians, had left there. Wherefore he came and sought to take the city, and to spoil it; but he was not able, because they of the city, having had warning thereof, Rose up against him in battle: so he fled, and departed thence with great heaviness, and returned to Babylon. Moreover there came one who brought him tidings into Persia, that the armies, which went against the land of Judea, were put to flight: And that Lysias, who went forth first with a great power was driven away of the Jews; and that they were made strong by the armour, and power, and store of spoils, which they had gotten of the armies, whom they had destroyed: Also that they had pulled down the abomination, which he had set up upon the altar in Jerusalem, and that they had compassed about the sanctuary with high walls, as before, and his city Bethsura. Now when the king heard these words, he was astonished and sore moved: whereupon he laid him down upon his bed, and fell sick for grief, because it had not befallen him as he looked for.

That the after-the-fact "prophecies" of Daniel were directed at the period of Jewish persecutions during the time of Antiochus can be very reasonably concluded by noticing in the passages quoted above such things as the reference to the resolution of many in Israel "not to eat any unclean thing," which Antiochus was urging them to do, so that "they might not be defiled with meats" or "profane the holy covenant." This echoes the tale in Daniel 1 of the determination of Daniel and his three friends not to defile themselves with the king's unclean delicacies (Dan. 1:8-13), for which decision Yahweh had rewarded them with better health than the other young Judeans whom the king had chosen for special instruction in the learning and language of the Chaldeans. This was "Daniel's" way of telling his contemporaries who were facing the same problem that Yahweh would also reward them if they refused to defile themselves with the unclean foods of Antiochus.

In what was quoted above from 1 Maccabees, we saw efforts of Antiochus to change the sacred laws and seasons of the Jews, which Daniel predicted after the fact would happen.

Daniel 7:25 He [the last "horn" that grew out on the fourth beast] shall speak words against the Most High, shall wear out the holy ones of the Most High, and shall attempt to change the sacred seasons and the law....

First Maccabees referred to a decree of Antiochus to abolish Jewish sacrifices in the temple and to close the sanctuary.

Daniel 8:11 Even against the prince of the host it [the "little horn" that waxed great] acted arrogantly; it took the regular burnt offering away from him and overthrew the place of his sanctuary.

First Maccabees referred to an "abomination of desolation" that was set upon the altar in the temple and the desecration of the sanctuary.

Daniel 8:13 Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the one that spoke, "For how long is this vision concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate, and the giving over of the sanctuary and host to be trampled?"

Daniel 11:31 Forces sent by him [the contemptible person of v:21] shall occupy and profane the temple and fortress. They shall abolish the regular burnt offering and set up the abomination that makes desolate.

If Turkel had even one tenth as much evidence as this to support his claim that Daniel's "abomination of desolation" was a prophecy of the Roman desecration of the temple in AD 70, he would get so excited that he would wet his pants. He, his preterist cohorts, and dispensationalists alike take their positions on "the abomination of desolation" only because the New Testament attributed this reference to Jesus, so they are, in effect, saying, "Jesus said it, so that is good enough for me," but not a one of them--not a single one of them--can prove that Jesus ever said any such thing. As far as they can actually know, the reference to the abomination of desolation "spoken of through Daniel" was merely words that "Matthew" put into the mouth of Jesus as he was embellishing what he was plagiarizing from "Mark's" gospel. If Turkel wants to defend Keener's claim that the abomination of desolation was the Roman desecration of the temple, let's have a go at it. I will have no trouble at all matching his "scholars" with scholars who give the view that I have summarized above.

Kinsella has tried to enlist the testimony of Josephus on his side in defense of the 173,880-day fulfillment scenario that he claims was wonderfully fulfilled, but in Antiquities of the Jews, Book 12, Chapter 7, Section 6 Josephus clearly said that the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel was fulfilled in the Maccabean wars in the second-century BC.

When therefore the generals of Antiochus's armies had been beaten so often, Judas assembled the people together, and told them, that after these many victories which God had given them, they ought to go up to Jerusalem, and purify the temple, and offer the appointed sacrifices. But as soon as he, with the whole multitude, was come to Jerusalem, and found the temple deserted, and its gates burnt down, and plants growing in the temple of their own accord, on account of its desertion, he and those that were with him began to lament, and were quite confounded at the sight of the temple; so he chose out some of his soldiers, and gave them order to fight against those guards that were in the citadel, until he should have purified the temple. When therefore he had carefully purged it, and had brought in new vessels, the candlestick, the table [of shew-bread], and the altar [of incense], which were made of gold, he hung up the veils at the gates, and added doors to them. He also took down the altar [of burnt-offering], and built a new one of stones that he gathered together, and not of such as were hewn with iron tools. So on the five and twentieth day of the month Casleu, which the Macedonians call Apeliens, they lighted the lamps that were on the candlestick, and offered incense upon the altar [of incense], and laid the loaves upon the table [of shew-bread], and offered burnt-offerings upon the new altar [of burnt-offering]. Now it so fell out, that these things were done on the very same day on which their Divine worship had fallen off, and was reduced to a profane and common use, after three years' time; for so it was, that the temple was made desolate by Antiochus, and so continued for three years. This desolation happened to the temple in the hundred forty and fifth year, on the twenty-fifth day of the month Apeliens, and on the hundred fifty and third olympiad: but it was dedicated anew, on the same day, the twenty-fifth of the month Apeliens, on the hundred and forty-eighth year, and on the hundred and fifty-fourth olympiad. And this desolation came to pass according to the prophecy of Daniel, which was given four hundred and eight years before; for he declared that the Macedonians would dissolve that worship [for some time].

Readers who want to see a more complete discussion of Josephus's opinion about Daniel's abomination of desolation should go to this section of the third part of my "wrapping up" replies to Turkel's preterist claims. Those who try to put Daniel's prophecies into a first-century AD Christian setting can do so only by ignoring mountains of evidence that Daniel was speaking about second-century BC events.

Kinsella:
The Book of Daniel says that from the signing of that treaty until it is broken by the antichrist is three and one-half years [time, times and a half' (Dan 12:7)].

Till:
Rather than accepting Kinsella's spin on this verse, let's look at what it actually says.

Daniel 12:6 Then I, Daniel, looked, and two others appeared, one standing on this bank of the stream and one on the other. 6 One of them said to the man clothed in linen, who was upstream, "How long shall it be until the end of these wonders?" 7 The man clothed in linen, who was upstream, raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven. And I heard him swear by the one who lives forever that it would be for a time, two times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end, all these things would be accomplished.

This passage must be linked back to Daniel 7:25, which first apoke of the "time, times, and half a time": He [the fourth beast] shall speak words against the Most High, shall wear out the holy ones of the Most High, and shall attempt to change the sacred seasons and the law; and they shall be given into his power for a time, two times, and half a time.

We have already seen that 1 Maccabees detailed the efforts of Antiochus "to change the sacred seasons and the law," and he was able to do this for three and a half years. In the passage just quoted above from Josephus, he said that the desolations of Antiochus "continued for three years," so this period is most likely the "time, times, and half a time" of Daniel 7:25 and 12:7. We have noticed where 1 Macabees 1:10 said that Antiochus came to power in "the year 137 of the Greek era," which would have been 175 BC. In the same context, we have seen that after he came to power, he made a covenant with apostate Jews, which was followed by removing Onias III from the high priesthood. The section below from "Brief Historical Background to the New Testament" summarizes accurately, in my opinion, the turmoil of this period and its short duration caused by opposition to the Hellenizing influences of Antiochus.

Judea as part of the Seleucid kingdom existed in an uneasy relationship with its overlord. A major source of tension was over the issue of Hellenism, which was the state-supported culture of the Seleucid kingdom; the Seleucid rulers encouraged Hellenism among their subject peoples in hope of unifying them into a single culture, thereby lessening the possibility of dissension and revolt. There was a political faction of Jews in Judea that was in favor of the Hellenization of Jewish society, to whom 1 & 2 Maccabees refer in unfavorable terms (These men are called "men outside the law" or "the lawless men"). Under Antiochus IV in 174 BCE Onias III, the High Priest, was deposed by Antiochus IV in favor of his brother Joshua, who went by the Hellenistic name of Jason. Joshua (Jason) offered Antiochus IV money and cooperation in the process of Hellenization, if he made him High Priest; Antiochus accepted the offer. Joshua was High Priest for three years (174-171 BCE) during which time he built a gymnasion in Jerusalem, a cultural institution instrumental in the promotion of Hellenistic culture. After three years, in 171 BCE, a rival to Joshua (Jason) named Menelaus made a better offer to Antiochus IV; as a result, Joshua (Jason) was deposed as High Priest and was replaced by Menelaus, who arranged to have Onias III murdered. In 170 BCE, Joshua (Jason) and his followers attacked Jerusalem, and forced his rival, Menelaus, to take refuge in the citadel in Jerusalem. Antiochus IV used this incident as a pretense to intervene militarily in the affairs of Judea. At the time he was involved in a successful campaign against the Ptolemaic kingdom to the south of Judea, and on his return to Syria in 169 BCE, invaded Jerusalem, slaughtered many Jews who opposed him, and plundered the Temple. He was aided in all this by Menelaus and his supporters.

Notice that Antiochus reached an agreement with apostate Jews, but after three years, he deposed his puppet priest in favor of one who had made him a better offer, after which Onias III was assassinated, an event that so outraged conservative Jews that they attacked Jerusalem and forced the new puppet priest into exile. All of this happened midway into the one week (seven-year) covenant that Antiochus had made with the apostate Jews. He used the unrest in Jerusalem as an excuse to invade it and plunder the temple. A continuation of the article quoted above explains what happened after Antiochus plundered the temple.

In 168 BCE, Antiochus began another campaign against the Ptolemaic kingdom in order to consolidate his previous gains, but this time before he could carry out his intentions, the Roman general Popilius Laeneas sent an ultimatum to Antiochus ordering him to withdraw from Egypt or else be considered an enemy of Rome (The Ptolemaic kingdom had become an ally of Rome). Antiochus withdrew unwillingly; instead of attacking Egypt, he ordered that Jerusalem become a Hellenistic city and that Judaism become an outlawed religion and way of life. Those Jews who would not cooperate would be killed and their wives and children sold into slavery. The Jews were forbidden to circumcise their children, observe the Sabbath, in short, to do anything that would mark them off as Jews. A pagan altar was placed upon the altar in the Temple and animals—including pigs—were sacrificed to the Olympic Zeus. The worship of the other Greek gods was also introduced in Jerusalem and other parts of Judea; pagan altars were built and Jews were encouraged to participate in sacrifices at these altars. There were Jews who welcomed the policy of forced Hellenization and cooperated with Antiochus; there were also those who opposed the policy and refused to abandon the Law, the conformity to which made the Jews distinctive as a people.

I would like for Kinsella or any of his tribulationist cohorts to explain to us why this period of unrest that lasted for about seven years could not have been the seventieth week of Daniel 9:24-27. Midway into the covenant that Antiochus made with the apostate Jews he did indeed "cause the sacrifice and the oblations to cease" (9:27) and set up an "abomination of desolation" in the temple (9:27). A description of this period of turmoil was also recorded in 2 Maccabees 4, which tells of Jason's purchase of the office of high priest for 360 talents of silver coins, a promise of 80 talents later, and an offer to pay an additional 150 talents for permission to build a gymnasium. The chapter continues to tell of the offer of Menelaus to outbid Jason on the office of high priest and the subsequent supplanting of Jason and the murder of Onias III. Chapter 5 tells of the plundering of Jerusalem and the temple by Antiochus, and Chapter Six tells about the pollution of the temple by dedicating it to Zeus and the pagan celebrations that followed. In a word, the turmoil of this seven-year period is well documented in ancient literature, so Kinsella needs to explain to us just how he knows that "Daniel" was speaking about some seven-year period in the distant future rather than to the social and religious upheavals that were caused by antiochus during the period described above.

I have noticed that I already have 145K in this article, so I want to avoid imposing on reader patience by adding another 145K, which would be necessary to explicate the visions of Daniel to show that this fourth beast was the empire of Alexander the Great, which broke apart after his early death to form the different kingdoms that brought Antiochus Epiphanes to power. Since I have already plowed that ground in detail, I am going to link to past articles on this subject, which interested readers can go to if they wish to see clear evidence that Antiochus Epiphanes was the "little horn" that grew out of the fourth beast and "waxed great." As noted earlier, an article by Everette Hatcher, "The Critics' Admissions Concerning Daniel," started a debate on the authorship of this book, which waged for over two years. I replied to Hatcher in the same issue. By going to the 1998 index page, readers can easily find the articles on Daniel for the rest of that year. I have already linked readers to "Bad History in the Book of Daniel" and its companion article "Good History in the Book of Daniel," which if read in this order will show that the writer of Daniel seemed not to know important historical facts about the 6th-century BC empire in which he was allegedly a high official. He thought, for example, that Belshazzar was Nebuchadnezzar's son (Dan 5:1-24), as did also the second-century BC author of the apocryphal book Baruch (1:10-13), and that Babylon had fallen to the Medes (Dan. 5:30-31), whose kingdom had already been absorbed by Persia, when Babylon was actually conquered by king Cyrus of Persia. "Good History" will show that the writer's "prophecies" became more and more accurate the closer they came to events of the second century and that he then was able to "predict" with uncanny accuracy second-century BC events up until the point where he began to "prophesy" events that would take place after the time he was living in. He then lost his touch, because, of course, he no longer had the advantage of "prophesying" after the fact. Common sense will tell readers that this is an indication that the author of Daniel was writing in the second century about events that he knew had already happened, but then when he reached his contemporary time period and tried to predict what was going to happen after that, he made several glaring misjudgments. In "Good History," I did almost verse-by-verse explications of Daniel's visions to show that the first beast in his visions was the Babylonian empire, the second one a Median kingdom, the third one a Persian kingdom, and the last one the Grecian empire of Alexander the Great. The break-up of Alexander's empire brought the Seleucid kings to power in Palestine, and Antiochus IV Epiphanes was the king who reigned there during the time of the Maccabean conflict. I show in this article, that he was "the little horn that waxed great."

My exchanges with Hatcher continued after that, and those who wish to read them can locate them by going to the index pages for 1999, 2000, 2001, etc. These exchanges will show that despite the efforts of fundamentalist Christians to link Daniel's prophecies to Christianity and the Roman Empire, Daniel actually said nothing about the Roman Empire in his prophecies. The fourth and last empire in his visions and prophecies was clearly the Grecian kingdom of Alexander the Great and the fragments that grew out of it after its break-up.

Kinsella:
The Book of Daniel says that from the signing of that treaty until it is broken by the antichrist is three and one-half years [time, times and a half' (Dan 12:7)].

Till:
No, Daniel did not say this, because Daniel said nothing about "the antichrist." As I showed above, this is a New Testament concept that has been distorted to apply to an individual that "John" never intended it to have reference to. I defy Kinsella or anyone else to show where Daniel ever referred to "the antichrist" or to the Roman Empire.

Kinsella:
To further confirm it, from the breaking of that treaty at the midpoint until the return of Christ is precisely 1260 days - three and one-half years.

Till:
I have shown above that midway in the seven-year period that Daniel was really referring to (after the fact), "the prince" [Antiochus Epiphanes] plundered Jerusalem and the temple, so until Kinsella can show us any kind of credible evidence at all that Daniel's "prophecies" pertained to Jesus, there is no need for further comment on this. With the detailed information cited above, I have already swatted a mosquitio with a sledgehammer.

Kinsella:
We have already seen the precision with which God counted down sixty-nine weeks of years.

Till:
We have? Just when did we see that precision? I have shown that Kinsella's fulfillment scenario, apparently appropriated from Josh McDowell, claimed that Artaxerxes's decree to rebuild Jersusalem was issued on 1 Nisan in the year 444 BC, but he then began his countdown from Gregorian March 5, 444 BC, which was not the same day as Nisan 1 in that year. His scenario counted down to the day that Jesus was crucified, which he claimed was March 30, AD 33, but I showed that the gospel of Mark claimed that Jesus was crucified on the day of the Passover, which was April 2nd of AD 33. So just where is the "precision" that Kinsella is claiming here?

Kinsella:
One week remains.

Till:
No, one week does not remain, because I showed above--and documented my information--that the seventieth week of Daniel obviously referred to a turbulent period of about seven years during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, which immediately followed the 69 weeks. I would like to see Kinsella present even one hundredth as much evidence that "Daniel" was referring to some seven-year period in the distant future that hasn't even come yet, even though we are now living 2600 years after the time of the biblical character Daniel.

Kinsella:
There is no reason to think God has fired His accountant.

Till:
Well, if "Daniel" really did mean the 173,880-day period that Kinsella claimed in his scenario, then God should fire his accountant, because this period didn't begin with what Kinsella claims was the day that Artaxerxes issued his decree, and it didn't end with the date on which the New Testament claims that Jesus was crucified. Even better then firing his accountant, God should have his prophets speak in language clear enough that everyone would know what was being prophesied. What value is there in "prophecies" that provoke as much controversy as those in the book of Daniel? Furthermore, the spins that tribulationists have put onto Daniel's prophecies presents God as having inspired his prophets to prophesy in a secret code that no one was able to understand until the likes of Sir Richard Anderson, Josh McDowell, Hal Lindsey, Jack Kinsella, et al came along, and then when these prophecy experts finally did arrive on this scene, they couldn't agree on the meanings of important elements of the prophecies.

Kinsella:
So, logically, anyone familiar with the Scriptures who observes the breaking of the treaty with Israel by antichrist could know exactly, to the day, when Jesus was to return.

Till:
What treaty with Israel? Where did Daniel say anything about a treaty with Israel? As I have shown, the "covenant" of Daniel 9:27 was an agreement that Antiochus made with apostate Jews in the second-century BC, around 174 BC, to be more exact.

What antichrist? Where did Daniel say anything about an "antichrist"? I have already shucked this assertion down to the cob and exposed it as an empty ear of nothing, so there is no need for me to rehash the rebuttal here.

Kinsella:
But wait! What about what Jesus Himself said of His coming? He said, "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only" [Matthew 24:36].

Clearly, He could not have been speaking of the same event that could be so easily calculated. Is this a contradiction?

Till:
No, it is simply a distortion on Kinsella's part (as I will soon show). He is trying to find a rapture in the New Testament, but as I showed in "What Rapture?" there is no such doctrine taught. The word rapture appears nowhere in the entire Bible and certainly not in the book of Daniel.

Kinsella:
According to 1 Thessalonians Chapter 4, there is a secret return of Christ, the one of which Jesus spoke.

Paul writes, "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [precede] them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

Till:
This is a "secret" return? Jesus will descend from heaven with a shout from the voice of the archangel and "with the trump of God," and that is going to be a "secret" return? This shows just how desperate tribulationists are to find their "rapture" in the New Testment. Elsewhere the sound of a trumpet is mentioned in reference to the descent of Jesus, so let's see what these texts say.

Matthew 24:29 Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see 'the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven' with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Here we are told that all the tribes of the earth will see the son of man coming at which time angels will be sent out with a loud trumpet. By what principles of literary interpretation did Kinsella determine that the trumpet sound in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 was not the same trumpet referred to when Jesus said that all tribes of the earth would see his coming?

Another New Testament text indicates that the "trump of God" that the apostle Paul referred to has to be the same tumpet sound that Jesus referred to; otherwise, the New Testament is not inerrant.

1 Corinthians 15:50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

Notice that Paul said in the first text that when the Lord descended with a loud shout and the "trump" of God, the dead in Christ would rise first and then those who were alive would be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Surely, that was what Paul was also referring to in 1 Corinthians 15 when he said that "we will not all die, but we will all be changed." That change, he went on to say would happen at the last trumpet, at which time "the dead will be raised imperishable." If this is to be the last trumpet, how could there be room for another trumpet after the so-called "rapture" is over? The answer is that the New Testament doesn't teach such a doctrine. It teaches that the righteous and the unrighteous will be raised when Jesus returns at the sound of "the last trumpet."

Furthermore, there is a text in the gospel of John that clearly says that Jesus will raise the righteous and the unrighteous at the same time, at the same hour, on the last day.

John 6:37 Everything that the Father gives me [Jesus] will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; 38 for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day." 41 Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42 They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" 43 Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" 53 So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day....

In the chapter just before this, Jesus clearly stated that this resurrection at the last day would include the unrighteous as well as the righteous.

John 5:25 Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life. 25 "Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; 27 and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when ALL who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and will come out--those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

The rapture scenario that Kinsella is trying to peddle has Jesus "secretely" raising the righteous and then after a period of tribulation returning and raising the unrighteous, but this spin on the passage in 1 Thessalonians is inconsistent with the the passages just quoted above. Clearly, the New Testament teaches that both the righteous and the unrighteous will be raised at the same hour "on the last day."

Kinsella:
This secret Advent, in which the Lord comes for His Church in the air, is not the same event as the one in which He puts His foot upon the Mount of Olives, splitting it in two [Zechariah 14:4]

Till:
Well, let's take a look at this text to see just how much Kinsella is distorting it too.

Zechariah 14:1 See, a day is coming for Yahweh, when the plunder taken from you will be divided in your midst. 2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses looted and the women raped; half the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. 3 Then Yahweh will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. 4 On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward.

Tribulationists want to see Jesus in all of the Old Testament apocalyptic passages that predicted victory by Israel or Judah over Gentile nations gathered against them. Undoubtedly, they do this because no such conflict ever happened in Israelite history, and so inerrantists try to rationalize the prophetic failures by making them all references to something that would happen in the distant future. Notice, however, that there is no mention of Jesus or a "Messiah" in the text just quoted. It says that Yahweh would stand upon the Mount of Olives. It says nothing about Jesus or a "Messiah" standing on the mountain, but there is a way to show from the full context of Zechariah 14 that it was not referring to a time when Jesus would return to earth after a "rapture" of the saints and stand upon the Mount of Olives. In the rapture/tribulation scenario that Kinsella is trying to peddle, when Jesus comes back to earth again, he will lead the forces of righteousness against "the antichrist," defeat him, and then reign on earth for a thousand years. Well, let's see if the full context of Zechariah 14 will support that interpretation. After describing a battle in which Yahweh fought with the forces of Jerusalem and inflicted terrible plagues and suffering on the people who would war against Jerusalem, the book of Zechariah closed with this prediction of a world in which Yahweh would be worshiped in the temple in Jerusalem by all nations of the world.

Zechariah 14:16 Then all who survive of the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, Yahweh of hosts, and to keep the festival of booths. 17 If any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Yahweh of hosts, there will be no rain upon them. 18 And if the family of Egypt do not go up and present themselves, then on them shall come the plague that Yahweh inflicts on the nations that do not go up to keep the festival of booths. 19 Such shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to keep the festival of booths. 20 On that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, "Holy to Yahweh." And the cooking pots in the house of Yahweh shall be as holy as the bowls in front of the altar; 21 and every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to Yahweh of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and use them to boil the flesh of the sacrifice. And there shall no longer be traders in the house of Yahweh of hosts on that day.

The festival of booths or tabernacles was celebrated by the Israelites on the 15th day of Tishri. It was an occasion when the people lived for seven days in "booths" made from tree branches to commemorate Yahweh's protection of the Israelites while they were in the wilderness. The "prophet" Zechariah was apparently obsessed with a belief that this festival had been neglected by the Jews, because he predicted that when Yahweh had led Judah to victory over all the nations of the world, those who survived the bloodbath would come to Jerusalem each year to keep the festival of booths. Does Kinsella seriously believe that this is a prophecy that the people who survive Armageddon will go each year to Jerusalem to keep the festival of booths? The passage above went on to say that those nations who did not go up to the festival of booths would have rain withheld from them. Does Kinsella think that this is going to happen too after the battle of Armageddon? The passage ends with references to sacrifices that will be made in "the house of Yahweh," which, of course, would be the temple. Does Kinsella really believe that Jesus's defeat of "the antichrist" at Armageddon will usher in a period when temple sacrifices will be restored? If Jesus is going to restore Judaism after he mops up "the antichrist" at Armageddon, then why did he come to earth to abrogate that system, as New Testament passages like Colossians 2:13-15, Ephesians 2:15-16, Hebrews 9:15, and various others obviously teach? The rapture/tribulation belief makes God look like a nincompoop who couldn't make up his mind about what religion he want his "people" to have.

These prophecies of Zechariah were just like others in passages like Jeremiah 33:14-18, which predicted that temple worship would be restored and that David would never lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel and that the Levitical priests would never lack a man in Yahweh's presence making burnt-offerings and grain offerings "for all time." Such passages as these are nothing more than the rantings of ethnocentric mystics who naively believed that their way of worship was going to triumph over all the world and last forever. All such prophecies failed, but biblicists can't force themselves to admit this, so they spend their time trying to put figurative or metaphorical spins on them so that they can cling to a naive hope that they will be fulfilled some day in the future.

Preterists have also tried to appropriate Zechariah 12-14 as proof texts for their position that Jesus "returned" symbolically in AD 70 when the Romans plundered Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. In the third part of my "Humpty Dumpty" replies to Robert Turkel's attempts to defend preterism, I explicated the full context of his favorite verse in Zechariah, i. e., 12:10, to show that this chapter was referring to a belief that Yahweh would help Judah in a war against all nations, which would unify the world under the one god Yahweh and make temple worship worldwide. I showed that if these "prophecies" were referring to events that would happen in the first century AD, then they had obviously failed in several points. Kinsella believes that Zechariah's prophecies were referring to an even more distant future, but my explication in the article linked to above would apply to this rapture/tribulation spin too.

If Kinsella thinks that Zechariah 14:4 was a prophecy of a final conflict that will happen after a period of tribulation in the distant future, let him present his arguments, and I will be glad to answer them. I suspect that Kinsella presented no arguments for his apparent view on this text because he has none to present, so all that he can do is assert.

Kinsella:
Paul's description of the Lord's coming has Him coming in the air, not touching down to earth.

Till:
I can agree with what Kinsella said here. New Testament passages about the second coming of Jesus indicate a belief that the righteous living at the time will be "changed" in the twinkling of an eye and caught up in the air to meet him and that the dead will be resurrected. I know of no passage that teaches that Jesus will ever again stand upon the earth. However, since the relevant passages also teach, as I have noted above, that all of this will happen "at the last trump" and that both the righteous and the unrighteous will be raised "at the last hour," all this leaves no room for the "rapture" that Kinsella is naively hoping for.

Kinsella:
Paul is referring to what is commonly called the Rapture of the Church.

Till:
As I have shown above and in my article "What Rapture?" the Bible teaches no such doctrine. Since Kinsella has presented no argument in support of that doctrine but has merely asserted that there will be a "rapture," he has given me nothing to reply to.

Kinsella:
Since this secret Advent's timing cannot, according to Jesus, be calculated,

Till:
As I have shown above, the New Testament never spoke of any "secret advent." It clearly predicted that there would be one final coming of Jesus, which would be "the last day," at which time he would resurrect both the righteous and the unrighteous.

Kinsella:
it cannot be the same event as the Second Coming.

Till:
There is no argumentation here, not even so much as a single biblical proof text offered, so there is nothing here for me to answer. I have shown in detail above that (1) Daniel's prophecies were referring to second-century BC events that ended during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes and that (2) the New Testament speaks of a second and final coming of Jesus, which will happen at the last day. If Kinsella thinks that I have misapplied the scriptures I have quoted, let him explain how there could be a resurrection of the righteous at the time of a "rapture," which he thinks will usher in a seven-year period of tribulation, before the resurrection of the unrighteous (at the end of the tribulation) if Jesus plainly said in John 5:25-29, quoted above, that he would resurrect both the righteous and the unrighteous at the same hour on the last day.

Kinsella:
That Triumphant Return can be calculated precisely one minute after the antichrist signs the 7-year treaty.

Till:
Where did Daniel say anything about the signing of a 7-year treaty? Where did he say anything about "the antichrist"? I have presented above a mountain of evidence to show that Daniel said a "prince"--not the antichrist--would make a strong covenant with "many" for a week, and I have quoted information from the books of Maccabees and other sources to show how the actions of Antiochus Epiphanes during a period from about 171 BC (when Onias III was assassinated) until Antiochus's control was broken by Jewish rebellion fits perfectly into Daniel's prophecy of a seventieth week. For a period from 167 to 163 BC, Antiochus desecrated the temple, so there are the "time, times, and half a time" or 1,290 days that Kinsella is so excited above. Those days are long gone now, but Kinsella and his like-minded cohorts are naively waiting for them to happen at some time in the future.

Kinsella:
Since the Tribulation Period is the time of 'Jacob's Trouble' - Daniel's 70th Week, it is a time reserved for Israel, not the Church. Remember, it is to make 'reconciliation for sin' and to 'bring in everlasting righteousness' already accomplished at the Cross.

Till:
Kinsella is doing nothing now but stringing together tribulationist assertions for which he doesn't offer a scrap of supporting evidence. He referred to "Jacob's trouble" above, which is a reference to Jeremiah 30:7

Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.

Does anyone see here any indication that Jeremiah was referring to events in the distant future that haven't even happened yet? The fact is that the full context of this verse clearly shows that Jeremiah was referring to his contemporary times. I regret having to drag this article out so long, but I am going to quote that broader context so that readers can plainly see that "Jacob's troubles" pertained to Jeremiah's prediction that Yahweh would bring the Judeans out of Babylonian captivity.

Jeremiah 30:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, 2 Thus speaketh Yahweh God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. 3 For, lo, the days come, saith Yahweh, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith Yahweh: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it. 4 And these are the words that Yahweh spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. 5 For thus saith Yahweh; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. 6 Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? 7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. 8 For it shall come to pass in that day, saith Yahweh of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him....

At this time, Israel, the northern kingdom had been taken into captivity, and Judah, the southern kingdom, into Babylonian captivity, but Jeremiah was predicting that Yahweh would bring the captives back to the land that he had given to them. Isaiah before him had predicted the return of the captives of the northern kingdom (Isaiah 11), and Ezekiel, a contemporary of Jeremiah, did too (Ezek. 4:4-8). Prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, etc. were concerned with the events of their time, so their predictions were intended to give their contemporaries hope through their troubled times, but, of course, many of their predictions failed to materialized. Biblicists cannot accept these failures, and so they try to put futuristic spins on them to make them apply to time periods that the prophets never intended. That in a nutshell is what Kinsella has done throughout his article.

Kinsella;
But the Tribulation Period is the final week of the Age of the Law. The Temple will be in full operation and the Mosaic Law in full force. The Church Age is concluded with the antichrist's treaty.

Till:
As I showed above, one of Kinsella's proof texts is in a broader context in Zechariah 14 in which the prophet envisioned a time when Judah would triumph over all nations and bring about a period when all nations would come to Jerusalem to keep the festival of booths and that those who didn't would have rain withheld from them. This passage obviously described an extended period of time and not just a brief seven-year period. It is just another example of failed Old Testament prophecy, but Kinsella and his ilk just can't accept the idea of failed prophecies, and so they go to all sorts of extremes to give them meanings that referred to some distant future time, as if prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Daniel, et al were vitally concerned about the far-distant future but cared little about conditions in their contemporary times.

Kinsella believes that this "tribulation period" is still some time in the future. Hence, he is arguing that the seven weeks (49 years) and the 62 weeks (434 years) were one continuous, uninterrupted period of 69 weeks (483 years) but that the seventieth week (seven years) was not to be a continuation of the 69 weeks, so his dispensationalist cohorts have injected into the seventy weeks, a "gap" of almost 2,000 years so far (and still counting). There is absolutely no linguistic justification for this distortion of the "prophecy."

Daniel 9:24 "Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city: to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand: from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an anointed prince, there shall be seven weeks; and for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with streets and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing, and the troops of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. 27 He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall make sacrifice and offering cease; and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator."

Here is the full text of the prophecy. The text began with the statement that seventy weeks had been decreed for Daniel's people and his holy city to finish the transgression, etc., but if the seventy weeks began in 444 BC, as Kinsella claims, almost 350 weeks have now passed, and the seventieth week still hasn't come. Kinsella and his dispensationalist cohorts try to circumvent this problem by injecting a "gap"--which has now reached almost 2000 years--between the 69 weeks and the seventieth week, but I defy Kinsella or anyone else to find linguistic justification for the insertion of such a "gap" into this text.

Kinsella:
Given the current situation in the Middle East, some kind of confirmation of a seven year agreement [like Oslo] is an absolute necessity, either to prevent all out war or at the conclusion of any such war.

Till:
Ever since Israel declared its independence in 1948, tribulationists have wet their pants every time some important official in the Near East sneezed, but all of the present-day turmoil in that region cannot remove the obvious fact that the writer of Daniel was concerned with the events of his turbulent times and not those of a distant future.

Kinsella:
Bible prophecy says it will happen.

Till:
Where? I assume that everyone noticed that Kinsella offered no scripture to support this assertion.

Kinsella:
The Bible also says it begins a time of judgment against Israel and the Gentile world. The Church was already judged at the Cross.

Till:
Ditto. Kinsella is doing nothing now that stringing together tribulationist assertions for which he offers not even strained biblical interpretations in support of them.

Kinsella:
Here's what it all means, boiled down into a single sentence. At some point before that treaty is signed, Jesus Christ will descend from heaven with a shout, and the voice of an archangel, and all those living who placed their faith in Christ will be snatched away, to be forever with Christ.

Till:
I have thoroughly rebutted this assertion above, so I can be brief here. Kinsella is misapplying 1 Thessalonians 4:16.

For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 7 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.

In his distortion of this verse, Kinsella conveniently failed to say that his proof text also says that the dead in Christ will rise first, before the righteous living at that time will be caught up into the air, but if the dead in Christ are raised at this time, this will have to be the last day, or else John 6:37-54 is not inerrant, because this passage, quoted in its entirety above, plainly says that Jesus will raise the righteous on the last day. If this then is "the last day," how can there afterwards be a seven-year period of tribulation and a thousand-year reign of Jesus on earth? Maybe Kinsella can explain it to us.

And maybe pigs will fly someday too.

Kinsella:
That treaty could happen at almost any moment.

Till:
Yes, yes, we have been hearing that ever since 1948, and all of my 72 years, I have been hearing that Jesus is coming soon. Such drivel as this is propagated by charlatans like Kinsella, who hope to profit from the gullibility of people silly enough to believe it.

I will repeat here my challenge for Kinsella to show where Daniel ever spoke of any "treaty" that would be signed with "the antichrist."

Kinsella:
And that means the Rapture of the Church is even closer.

Till:
I will cite again my article "What Rapture?" in which I examined the so-called "rapture" doctrine and showed that the Bible teaches no such thing. I challenge Kinsella to reply to this article and prove me wrong.

Kinsella:
What a time to be alive!

Till:
It would be an even better time if there were no charlatans like Jack Kinsella duping gullible people into sending them $10 per month and sometimes even more to have access to their distortions of biblical texts.