SRR #76 | All the Evenings and Mornings – Danielic Imperative Part 14

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I do a podcast. I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone.
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When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield exposing the air and combating the air.
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We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so the next few statements that I'm going to make,
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I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.
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We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style. I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing.
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It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible. Jesus said,
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Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
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It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. In this episode of Simple Riff from Monterradio, Timothy Kaufman answers some questions from a listener about the books of Maccabees and the historicist school of eschatology, and then introduces us to the concept of intercalation, the
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Jewish practice of adding an additional month to the calendar every few years, as well as the ancient
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Jewish practice of commemorating the Akedah or the binding of Isaac or the ashes of Isaac on Rosh Hashanah.
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With these two key concepts of intercalation and the binding of Isaac, we're able to pinpoint to the day exactly when the first armed conflict took place against the
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Jews and the temple during the 70th week of Daniel. And with that information, we can show that there would have been 2 ,300 literal days from the time of the first assault on the temple on Rosh Hashanah in 170
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BC until the rededication of the altar in 164 BC as prophesied in Daniel 8 .14.
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Also, by understanding the concept of intercalation, we are able to show why a three -and -a -half -year period in Daniel 12 .7
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is described as 1 ,290 days in Daniel 12 .11 instead of the 1 ,260 as we might have expected.
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Using this information, we are able to show that Antiochus IV's decree to forbid sacrifices to anyone else but Jupiter would have occurred on the
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Ides of June, the festival of Jupiter Invictus in 167 BC, 1 ,290 days prior to the rededication of the temple.
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For more, here's Tim. Okay, thank you Tim for that introduction.
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We're glad to be back and we appreciate the folks who are listening and the emails we get.
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We'll be addressing one of those emails today before we get started into this episode. We wrapped up last week on the 70th week of Daniel as it is described in Daniel 9 in the prophecy of the 70 weeks.
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What we want to do this week is pick up on all the other time periods that are contained within that 70th week and one time period that actually goes beyond it by 45 days.
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The 70th week is seven years long and within that seven years there is a period of 2 ,300 days according to Daniel 8 .14.
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And within that 2 ,300 day period there is a 1 ,290 day period according to Daniel 12 .11
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that is also described as time, times, and a half or three and a half years according to Daniel 12 .7.
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And by the way, we're going to talk today about why three and a half years is described here in Scriptures as 1 ,290 days instead of 1 ,260 as it is in other sections of Scripture where three and a half years is 42 months.
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Then there is a 45 day period that goes beyond the 1 ,290 days because after describing the events within the 1 ,290 days there is the blessing for those who persevere to the 1 ,335.
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So even though things are resolved to some extent at the end of the 70 weeks there is another 45 day period tacked on at the end and we'll see why there would be some remaining difficulty for the
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Jews during that 45 day period even though the 70 weeks was over. But before we do that, we had a very insightful question from a listener and I want to spend a few minutes on those questions.
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I'll let Tim Shaughnessy go ahead and read the email and then we'll respond to the questions in turn. So Tim, can you go ahead and read the question for us?
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Sure. This email comes in to us from Tony Brown. Tony writes, Hi guys.
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I've often wondered why so many people believe that in the thousands of years since many of the biblical prophecies have been recorded, practically none have already come to pass.
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Stands to reason that quite a few would have already been fulfilled, so I've been listening intently to the
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Imperative Series. Started at part 6 and now I'm wondering about the frequent references to the apocryphal books, notably 1st and 2nd
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Maccabees. How are they reliable? I know that many of these books are confirmed by the
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Catholic Church, but I thought the true church doesn't acknowledge them as accurate or reliable.
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Is the unreliability only in regards to theological matters and okay for historical records or events?
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Confused on this? I really look forward to a future episode laying out your overall eschatological position.
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I find myself premill of sort, but for the most part undecided on exactly what
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I believe. I think this podcast can help me nail down a few things. Blessings, dear brothers,
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Tony Brown. Well, Tony, thank you for the email. And to all of our listeners, if you have a question for Tim or a question or a comment, you can email us at semper .refermanda
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.radio at gmail .com. And I'm just going to hand this back over to Tim, to you,
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Tim, so that you can answer it. Okay, those are some great questions. Let me first say that there's a lot to be said about eschatological prophecies that have already been fulfilled.
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And we want to get to those in their turn. We're spending a tremendous amount of time on the Danielic timeline, because that timeline helps us understand what
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Jesus said and what John said, since they both built their eschatological framework around the
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Danielic timeline. We really can't understand Jesus and John's eschatology without understanding Daniel.
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And one of the most important parts of that timeline is when the statue of Nebuchadnezzar's dream transitions from the iron legs to the iron and clay feet, and then from iron and clay feet to iron and clay toes.
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It is important because a heavenly kingdom is supposed to be set up and transferred during the period of the feet, according to Daniel 2 .44,
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because it is during the period of the feet that God sets up a heavenly kingdom, which shall not be left to other people.
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But it is from among the toes of the feet that Antichrist is to emerge and take earthly dominion. Both kingdoms are established during the period of the feet, and if we can't figure out when the feet begin and when the toes begin, we might end up falling for the wrong kingdom, thinking it is the kingdom of God when it is really the kingdom of Antichrist.
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And a lot of Jesus and John's prophecies have already come to pass. Some before Jerusalem even fell, and others that began happening in the third century, and we'll get to those in this series eventually.
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We plan to show that all the seals, six of the trumpets, and six of the bowl judgments are already behind us, and have been gradually occurring since the period of the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's statue.
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But to be able to show that, we have to be able to establish when the feet begin and when the toes begin, and we'll be covering that a little bit later.
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Now, before going any further, I'll state for the record, since this is one of the questions that Tony asked,
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I am a historicist, but unlike other historicists, I believe Antichrist rose up much earlier than others have claimed.
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Some would say 476 AD with the fall of the Roman Empire. Some would say 800
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AD when Charlemagne was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III. I place it much earlier than that for reasons we discussed early in this series, and the evidence for a 13 -way division of the
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Roman Empire in the scriptures and in the historical record. I place the rise of the little horn of Daniel 7 in the 360s
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AD with Pope Damasus I, and the uprooting of the three of the thirteen dioceses of the
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Roman Empire, namely Egypt, Italy, and Oriens, at the time of the Council of Constantinople in 381
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AD, and the subsequent Council of Rome in 382 AD. That is when the doctrine of the three
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Petrine Seas of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch was established, by which Roman Catholicism still today claims universal apostolic authority over the entire
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Church of Christ, claiming that Peter had set up the church at Antioch, sent his disciple
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Mark to Alexandria, and then ended up in Rome and founded the church there. And those three apostolic seas comprise a sea of one, according to the doctrine of the three
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Petrine Seas. And that time period, in the latter part of the fourth century, is also the time of the emergence of the characteristically
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Roman Catholic errors, like the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, Mary's sinlessness,
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Mary's perpetual virginity, the veneration of relics, the use of votive candles, transubstantiation, the celibate priesthood, the sacrifice of the
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Mass, intercession of saints, prayers for the dead, and baptismal regeneration, among others.
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And then, with the little horn having arisen and taken three of the thirteen dioceses of the
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Roman Empire, leaving ten, the Roman Catholic Church then took over as the successor to the
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Roman Empire and stepped in and began to exercise the civil power of the sword to ensure orthodoxy, essentially setting up an earthly kingdom, claiming that it was the
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Heavenly One Christ it established, when in fact it was the very opposite. When you think about all those doctrines suddenly emerging in stepwise fashion like a flood at exactly the same time that Roman Catholicism arose as the successor to the
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Roman Empire, you'll have some semblance of how we'll be looking at Revelation chapter 12, and we'll get to that eventually.
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We covered some of that in the first six episodes, but for now we must focus on Daniel to establish the timeline.
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We'll come back to Revelation a little bit later. But in any case, my point is that I differ from the historicists in that I would have
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Antichrist rise much earlier. But, to differentiate myself from allegations of preterism,
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I plan to show from the Scriptures, and in particular from Daniel's timeline, that there is simply no way
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Antichrist could arise prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. And that rules out Nero as the
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Antichrist of prophecy. And to wrap up this quick summary, I am pre -mill because I believe the millennium is a literal 1 ,000 years, but it cannot begin until after Antichrist and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire when
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Jesus returns to smite the nations and set up his earthly kingdom, according to Revelation 19. And that clearly has not happened yet.
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Thus, we must by definition be pre -mill. We will have much more to say on that later, but it was a good question and worthy of a summary response.
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If you disagree with us on that, we love you, and we are still in fellowship with you, and we hope that you love us and remain in fellowship with us.
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And frankly, I just appreciate that some folks are hearing us out on this detailed and tedious exposition of Daniel. It is hard to listen to all the details, and I appreciate those who have stuck around this long, and it is even harder to hear someone try to overturn 2 ,000 years of traditional interpretation of Daniel 9 as a messianic prophecy.
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So, kudos and thanks to those who have persevered to this point. Now, the rest of the question is quite interesting about the
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Maccabees, so let's address that quickly. There are actually four books of the Maccabees, two of which ended up in the
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Roman Catholic Bible, and even early Roman Catholics did not believe that they were scriptural. For example, even
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Pope Gregory the Great, in his Discourse on the Book of Job, states explicitly that the books of Maccabees are not received as canonical.
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Just look up Moralia and Job, Volume 2, Chapter 19, Paragraph 32. And Pope Gregory the
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Great says that the books are not canonical, but are brought forth for the edification of the Church because they contain stories about the courage and valor of the
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Maccabees. The four books are simply letters written between and among the survivors of the persecution of Antiochus IV in order to document the events and encourage one another to persevere even through persecution.
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They are as authoritative as yesterday's newspaper because they simply document certain events.
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To some degree, the events documented in the books of Maccabees are corroborated in other historical sources like Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Livius, Josephus, and Cicero, among others, but they are simply the most complete narrative we have of the period of Antiochus IV, and thus they shed light on a period of great significance to the
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Danielic timeline because they recorded the fulfillment of what Gabriel had prophesied. So yes, these first two books of the
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Maccabees are now considered inspired Scripture by the Roman Catholic Church, formerly canonized as Scripture at the
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Council of Trent in the 16th century, but they were not always considered to be Scripture. But let me illustrate something significant here, and again
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I appreciate Tony's question and I want to make sure I answer it clearly. I do not believe the books of the
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Maccabees are inspired Scripture, and in some points they manifest inconsistencies that are hard to reconcile, and in fact they actually at some points explicitly acknowledge that their record of events contains errors because the writers knew that they were not infallible, just run -of -the -mill historians doing their best to document events.
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But as detailed historical documents go, they're pretty much all we've got about that period. Now think for a moment about four critical events in the history of eschatology.
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The four -way division of the Greek Empire after Alexander, the reign of Antiochus IV, the destruction of Jerusalem under the
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Roman Empire, and the final 13 -way division of the Roman Empire. All of these events were prophesied in Scripture, but their fulfillment is not documented in the
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Scriptures. So how do we figure out how Gabriel's prophecy of a four -way division of the Greek Empire actually occurred?
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Well, we have to examine the writings of contemporary historians or those of other writers from the succeeding centuries who knew about it.
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We examine Diodorus Siculus and his Library of History, Marcus Junianus Justinus and his
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Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, Plutarch and his Life of Demetrius, Appian's History of the
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Syrian Wars, Memnon and his History of Heraclea, and many others. How do we understand
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Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, the destruction of which is not actually reported in the
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Scriptures? We consult Josephus and his Wars of the Jews and the Histories of Tacitus. How do we understand the division of the
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Roman Empire into 13 dioceses at the end of the 4th century? We have to consult the Latter Cullus Veronensis, a
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Roman administrative document from the early 4th century, and the Notitia Dignitatum, a
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Roman administrative document from the latter part of the 4th century. Now, none of these documents are inspired or scriptural.
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They are just written historical documents that give us insight into the fulfillment of scriptural prophecies of the division of the
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Greek Empire, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the division of the Roman Empire. So when we want to understand the reign of Antiochus IV, which was prophesied in Daniel 8, 9, 11, and 12, we have to consult the historical record.
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And by far the best we have is the writings of the Maccabees and their successors immediately following the events.
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If, hypothetically, the Roman Catholic Church decided to add Diodorus Siculus' Library of History to its
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Bible, it would not make the Library of History less valuable as a historical document to help us understand the fulfillment of Gabriel's prophecy of a four -way division of Alexander's Empire.
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And similarly, just because Roman Catholicism has added 1st and 2nd Maccabees to their Bible, it does not make them less valuable as historical documentation, and their value as historical documents is the only reason we appeal to them here.
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We do not believe that they are scriptural or inspired. So thank you, Tony, for some very insightful questions, and thanks for all of our listeners.
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So let's turn back to Daniel. We concluded last week with the 70th week of Daniel, showing first that the 70th week came after the 62, rather than after 69, as is traditionally assumed, and that the beginning of the 70th week coincided with the end of the 62 weeks in 171
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BC. Antiochus IV confirmed, or literally strengthened, a covenant for one week, or seven years, regarding the
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Jews adopting the Greek way of life. The strengthening of that covenant resulted in the death of Onias III, the high priest.
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We also showed last week that three and a half years after confirming the covenant, Antiochus IV outlawed legitimate sacrifices.
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Then after that, he set up a statue of Jupiter on the altar. And three and a half years after prohibiting sacrifices, the
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Jews took the temple back, cleansed the sanctuary, and rebuilt and rededicated the altar according to the law of Moses.
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The cleansing of the sanctuary and the rededication of the altar would have included anointing the altar, which the scripture says is most holy.
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Therefore, the 70th week concluded with the anointing of the most holy. Thus, as we showed,
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Antiochus IV prospered till the indignation be accomplished, as the angelic narrator said in Daniel 11 .36.
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And the end of the indignation, as Gabriel described it in Daniel 8 .19, was completed when the sanctuary was cleansed, as the angel explained in Daniel 8 .14,
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and when the most holy was anointed, as Gabriel said in Daniel 9 .24. All of these events were headed toward the singular event of a proper, lawful,
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Mosaic restoration of the sanctuary and the altar, which the Jews had defiled, and for which they had been sent into captivity for 70 years, and which punishment was multiplied sevenfold to continue the desolations of the city, the people, and the sanctuary until they repented and rededicated the altar, as instructed by Ezekiel in chapter 43.
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When his instructions were finally followed, it was the end of sin, because the Jews finally repented of profaning the temple, it was the restoration of perpetual righteousness, or the everlasting righteousness of the statutes of the law, and it brought about reconciliation, because the
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Lord promised that when they finally purified the altar, according to Ezekiel's instructions, I will accept you, saith the
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Lord. That's Ezekiel 43 .27. That is the completion of the 70th week, as revealed in Daniel chapter 9, which concluded with the anointing of the most holy altar in accordance with Exodus 40 .10.
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Now, before we move on from it, we want to emphasize that traditionally the 70th week is interpreted in a messianic context, as if the protagonist,
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Jesus Christ, made a seven -year covenant and put an end to sacrifices.
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But the scriptures actually portray the antagonist, Antiochus IV, as confirming the covenant and prohibiting sacrifices.
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This is confirmed for us in Daniel 11 .22 -23, which says that the vile person of Daniel 11 .21
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is the one who makes a league or covenant with the people, and before him the prince of the covenant, or the high priest, is broken.
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It is also confirmed in Daniel 8 .11 -12, which says that it is the evil king, not the prince of the host, or the high priest, who causes sacrifices to cease.
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To reemphasize our point, it is the protagonist in the story, that is the faithful Jews, who end the covenant with Antiochus, restore the altar, and restore sacrifices.
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In other words, the fulfillment was mosaic, not messianic, and we have missed it for millennia because of the tradition of imposing a messianic construct on the text.
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But the text is not messianic. The 70 weeks of Daniel did not foresee the coming of the
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Messiah, the prince who was cut off and anointed and sacrificed for our sins. The 70 weeks was divided into three subsets of weeks, seven of which ended with the coming of an anointed ruler,
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Cyrus the king of Persia, 62 sevens ended with the murder of the anointed high priest,
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Onias III, and one week ended with the cleansing of the sanctuary and the rededication and anointing of the altar, which is most holy.
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We will conclude our discussion in Daniel 9 simply by saying that every reference to the end of sacrifices, the end of sin, reconciliation, restoration of perpetual righteousness, an anointed ruler and an anointed being cut off, and the anointing of the most holy, does not have to be about Jesus.
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Such statements, depending on context, can be about Christ, and indeed many such references in the
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New Testament refer to him in those terms, but that is not the context of Daniel 9, and we ought not force it to be.
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Now there is an awful lot more to discuss about that 70th week, because Daniel addresses the events of that final week in Daniel 8, when he refers to the 2 ,300 evenings and mornings in Daniel 8 .14,
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and he also addresses the second half of the week when he mentions time times and a half in Daniel 12 .7,
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and the 1 ,290 days in Daniel 12 .11, and then makes reference to another 45 days beyond the 70th week when he says,
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Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the 1 ,305 and 30 days in Daniel 12 .12.
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So there are four time periods we will focus on today. 2 ,300 days for the daily sacrifice and the transgressions of desolation to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden underfoot in Daniel 8 .13
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and 14. Time, times and in half when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people all these things shall be finished.
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That's Daniel 12 .7. 1 ,290 days from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away and the abomination that make a desolate set up.
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That's Daniel 12 .11. And the 1 ,335 days because it says in Daniel 12 .12,
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Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the 1 ,305 and 30 days. So 2 ,300 days is about six years and four months, so there is a 2 ,300 day period within the 70th week that includes not only the end of sacrifice and the transgression of desolation, but also the trampling of the sanctuary and the host.
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In this case, the host is the host of heaven or the stars of Daniel's vision in chapter 8, which is a figurative reference to the people of God based on Genesis chapter 37.
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The time, times and a half is understood to refer to a three and a half year period that constitutes the second half of the week because the text says that all these things shall be finished after he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people.
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And that coincides with the end of the 2 ,300 days because they both end with the cleansing of the sanctuary and the anointing of the altar and the restoration of lawful sacrifices.
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Then there is a 45 day period beyond that and we're going to cover all those today or it may be that we have to extend this into next week based on time constraints, but we'll see how we do.
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To give our listeners a quick backdrop for our discussion today, we're going to introduce a couple of new concepts to our conversation and it's absolutely critical that we cover these because they have a tremendous significance in our understanding of the 2 ,300 days and the 1 ,290 days.
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First is the concept of intercalation and the second is the Akedah or what the Jews called the binding of Isaac as described in Genesis 22 where Abraham attempts to sacrifice
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Isaac on a makeshift altar. The concepts will be determinative in our exploration of the
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Jewish calendar and their annual celebrations during the Maccabean era that we are discussing, particularly from the years from 171 to 164
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BC, the 70th week of Daniel. So let's talk about intercalation first.
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The concept of intercalation is important to us because the Jewish calendar is a lunar solar calendar which goes by the motion of the moon for its months but by the motion of the sun for its years.
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Months can be 29 to 30 days long and thus a normal year can have 353, 354, or 355 days
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Like ours, such a calendar is not perfectly synchronized with the solar year. So just like we have to add an intercalary day every four years on February 29th, the
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Jews had to do something similar. Because their year is about 11 days off from the solar year, after three years they would have to add an intercalary month to get back in sync with the solar calendar.
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In that case, a leap year can have 383, 384, or 385 days.
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About every three years the Jews have a leap year and occasionally they even have to have two consecutive leap years just to get back on track with the solar calendar.
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The 12th month of the Jewish calendar is Adar but in a leap year they call them Adar 1 and Adar 2 because they actually have some years with 13 months in them.
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Although this is not mentioned explicitly in the scriptures, it is mentioned implicitly in Numbers 9 -11 where the
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Jews keep the Passover on the 14th day of the second month. Similarly, in 2 Chronicles 32, the king had taken counsel and his princes and all the congregation in Jerusalem to keep the
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Passover in the second month. Typically, the unleavened bread is eaten on the 14th day of the first month but if an intercalary month was inserted at the beginning of the year,
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Nisan would that year be the second month. Additionally, in 1 Kings 12 .32,
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it says Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month on the 15th day of the month like unto the feast that is in Judah.
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Normally, that feast day would have been on the 15th day of the seventh month but if an intercalary month was inserted beforehand, that would move the feast day to the eighth month.
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There is no record of establishing a formal practice of intercalation but we can infer from the scriptures that intercalation was not only necessary because their calendar is lunar -solar but also practiced because we see the odd one -month shifts in key festivals taking place validly one month later than the law would normally require.
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The practical implication for our discussion is that every three -and -a -half -year period in the Jewish calendar will have at least one leap year to make the three -and -a -half -year period equal 1260 total days in length as you would expect.
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But some three -and -a -half -year periods would actually necessarily have two leap years and for those special periods, three -and -a -half years is not 1260 days but 1290.
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We have just such a period in view in Daniel chapter 12 where we are told that time, times, and a half -time is 1290 days.
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Clearly, there are two intercalary months in that three -and -a -half -year period which is why it is 1290 days instead of the normal 1260.
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Now the practice of intercalation is absolutely critical to our understanding of the 2300 days and the 1290 days and the 1335 days.
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But before we get to that, we want to first acknowledge that some of our historicist brethren have interpreted these all as prophetic days of years in accordance with the day -for -a -year principle of prophecy in Numbers 14 .34
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and in Ezekiel 4 .6. Numbers 14 .34 says, After the number of the days in which ye search the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.
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And Ezekiel 4 .6 says, And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days.
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I have appointed thee a day for each year. Now we certainly understand the desire to apply the day -for -a -year principle here in Daniel where we have the largely mysterious prophecies of 2300 days, 1290 days, and 1335, especially in light of the fact that eschatologists from millennia have struggled to find the starting and ending points.
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Lacking a fixed point in time when the days end, the temptation is to relegate them to the category of prophetic days of years and look for a fulfillment of 2300 years, 1290 years, and 1335 years.
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The famous 1844 debacle of the Seventh -day Adventists is the fruit of such an assumption.
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They believe that 2300 years began with the decree of Artaxerxes in 457 BC, and 2300 years later, the
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Seventh -day Adventists were waiting with their rapture robes to be taken up into the air in 1844 AD. It didn't happen, and they had to come up with all sorts of interesting reasons to explain why the 2300 years were actually fulfilled, but that we must wait even longer for the rapture to occur.
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I once heard a Seventh -day Adventist evangelist explain that it was because the angels are searching the Book of Life to make sure not one sin makes it into heaven, because if one sin is allowed in, then
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Satan will be able to get in too, and the angels are very afraid of Satan, and that's why they're inspecting the
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Book of Life, and they've been doing so since the 2300 years were over. Such are the lengths that some have gone to explain away the 2300 days as if they were years that we can't seem to track down.
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But we believe the text here has made it abundantly clear in multiple ways that the days we have in view are literal days.
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First, the text actually says 2300 evenings and mornings rather than 2300 days, as it is translated in the
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King James. And you cannot get a better reference to literal solar days than the use of the same terminology that the
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Lord uses at creation when He created the world in six literal solar days, announcing each day as an evening and a morning.
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That is our first textual cue that we are talking about literal solar days here and not prophetic days of years.
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Our second clue is from the text that shows that the 1290 days is part of the 2300 because the 2300 and the 1290 days have a common ending point, as we discussed earlier.
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The 2300 days end when the sanctuary is cleansed, and the 1290 days end when the desolation of the sanctuary and the temple is ended, and the sacrifices are restored, and the abominable desolation is removed.
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And importantly, the only reason you would need to take an intercalary month into account in your dating system is if you were talking about literal solar days in the lunar -solar calendar.
30:34
When prophetic days of years are in mind, you don't need to take into account the intercalary months since prophetic days of years would obviously be based on the solar year and the solar year obviously is already in sync with itself.
30:47
But if you're talking about literal days, you have to take the intercalary months into account, as the
30:52
Lord did in Daniel 12 .11. And since the 1335 days are simply a 45 -day continuation of the 1290, those extra 45 days must be literal days as well.
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That is our second textual cue. The third textual cue is that the 2300 days and the 1290 days all take place within the 70th week and that 70th week is already a week of prophetic days of years.
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In other words, the 70th week is composed of 7 days of years and since the 2300 literal days all occur within the 70th week, we obviously cannot fit 2300 literal years into 7 literal years.
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And when days occur within a week of prophetic days of years, you do not need to expand those days into years as well.
31:37
Because the 2300 literal days occur within the prophetic week of the 70th week and the 1290 literal days are part of the 2300 evenings and mornings and the 1335 are an extension of the 1290, we are talking about literal days for the 2300, the 1290, and the 1335.
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So that's our summary on intercalation and why we believe the 2300, the 1290, and the 1335 are all literal days.
32:12
Now, we're going to come back to that and it's very important, but let's talk now about the binding of Isaac or the
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Akedah. It is depicted in Genesis 22 verses 1 to 19 where Isaac carries the wood to the top of Mount Moriah.
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Abraham builds a makeshift altar, binds Isaac, Isaac lays him upon the wood of the altar and is prepared to offer
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Isaac as a burnt sacrifice when the Lord intervenes and provides a ram instead.
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In Jewish tradition, the Akedah factors rather significantly into Passover, the 14th of the first month of Nisan, and Rosh Hashanah, which occurs on the first day of the seventh month of Tishri.
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According to Giza Vermes, in his 1973 work Scripture and Tradition in Judaism, he explains that in the first century there existed a division within the
32:59
Jewish community about whether the Akedah should be commemorated during the Passover or during Rosh Hashanah.
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He says, That's from Giza Vermes' Scripture and Tradition, page 215.
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Scholars have until very recently assumed that the Akedah commemorations at these festivals were developments of the first -century
33:35
Judaism after the rise of Christianity. But in 1995, a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, fragment 4q225, was finally translated, showing that the
33:46
Akedah was not a first -century development after all, but rather had been an integral part of the post -exilic worship of the
33:51
Jews in the last centuries before Christ. And what is more, it turned out the Akedah had been more closely aligned with the concept of creation and atonement than with the
34:00
Passover, and according to the Jewish calendar, Rosh Hashanah is the day of creation and Yom Kippur is the day of atonement, immediately following Rosh Hashanah, and both occur in the seventh month.
34:11
Most notably, what was absent in the Dead Sea Scrolls was any alignment with the celebration of Akedah or commemoration of the
34:17
Akedah in the first month of the Hebrew calendar. What we find is that it was actually more closely aligned with Rosh Hashanah, and that places the
34:25
Akedah commemoration in the seventh month and not in the first. Additionally, the
34:31
Akedah is commemorated in terms of the ashes of Isaac, with the understanding that Isaac really had not been sacrificed and burned, but that God had reckoned the ashes of the substitutionary ram as if they were the ashes of Isaac, and extended mercy and judgment on account of Isaac's sacrifice, and thus the ashes of the ram are regarded as Isaac's ashes.
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Again, this is Virmes from Scripture and Tradition in Judaism. Page 205, he says,
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The rabbis argue that even if God had not provided a ram to be offered in his place,
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Isaac gladly would have given his life, so the value and the merit truly belonged to him. Though he did not die,
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Scripture credits Isaac with having died and his ashes having lain upon the altar. The expression, the ashes of Isaac, is often used as in,
35:20
God regards the ashes of Isaac as though they were piled upon the altar. Okay, so we have tried the patience of our listeners long enough.
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What on earth does this have to do with Daniel and the 70th week? What on earth could be so important about an ancient
35:38
Jewish tradition of commemorating the binding of Isaac? Well, that's a great question.
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We understand from Gabriel that the final week is a seven -year confirmation of a covenant, and within that seven -year period, there is a 2 ,300 -day period when the people and the sanctuary are trampled, and within that 2 ,300 -day period, there is a 1 ,290 -day period that includes the end of sacrifices and the abomination of desolation.
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So to find the beginning of the 2 ,300 days, we need to find the point at which the people and the sanctuary began to be trampled.
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To that end, we have a record of the event, and from the description of the event, we can determine its exact date.
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As we discussed in our previous episode, Jason usurped the high priesthood from Onias III in 175
36:24
BC when he bribed Antiochus IV for the office. Then Menelaus outbid
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Jason for the office of high priest, but was unable to make the payments and started selling off the holy vessels of the temple.
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Onias III raised an objection, for which he was murdered in 171 BC. After this,
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Menelaus and his brother Lysimachus started to steal the holy vessels of the temple, and that made the people angry.
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When the Jews objected, Lysimachus armed about 3 ,000 men and made an assault on the temple to put down the rebellion and to raid the temple treasury.
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This would constitute the first armed conflict involving the Jews and the sanctuary during the 70th week, and would therefore mark the beginning of the 2 ,300 days.
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The event is recorded for us in 2 Maccabees 4, 39 -42, and as I read through this,
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I want to ask the listeners to pay special attention to how the Jews defended themselves against the attack. Apart from the rudimentary objects they had at their immediate disposal in the temple, the
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Jews were essentially defenseless. So, again, this is 2 Maccabees 4, 39 -42.
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When many acts of sacrilege had been committed in the city by Lysimachus, with the connivance of Menelaus, and when report of them had spread abroad, the populace gathered against Lysimachus, because many of the gold vessels had already been stolen.
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And since the crowds were becoming aroused and filled with anger, Lysimachus armed about 3 ,000 men and launched an unjust attack, under the leadership of a certain
37:57
Aaronus, a man advanced in years and no less advanced in folly. But when the
38:02
Jews became aware of Lysimachus' attack, some picked up stones, some blocks of wood, and others took handfuls of the ashes that were lying about, and threw them in wild confusion at Lysimachus and his men.
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As a result, they wounded many of them and killed some, and put them all to flight, and the temple robber himself they killed close by the treasury.
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Again, that's 2 Maccabees 4, 39 -42. It was because of this armed assault on the temple treasury, and the
38:29
Jewish response to it, that many of the Jews were put to death. This was the beginning of the trampling of the sanctuary and the host, that is, the people.
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Notice that the Jews defended themselves with stones, blocks of wood, and handfuls of ash that were lying about.
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The original Greek actually makes reference to thick trees rather than blocks of wood, but you get the idea.
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Now, some commentaries on 2 Maccabees read this as if the altar itself was under attack, so the
38:56
Jews grabbed wood and ash from the altar and started throwing them at the attackers. For example,
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Daniel Schwartz, in his commentary on 2 Maccabees, says the explanation on the use of wood and ash as defensive weapons, quote, would seem to be not only the author's desire to depict the
39:13
Jews as unarmed, but also his desire to suggest to us that the wood and ashes were from the altar, itself being mobilized, as it were, to defend its sanctity against the crimes of Menelaus and his stand -in, that is,
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Lysimachus. That's from Daniel Schwartz, 2 Maccabees, page 242.
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But keep two things in mind. First, it was not the altar and the sanctuary that was under attack, but the treasury, which is located in the outer court of the women.
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And second, these Jews were objecting to Menelaus and Lysimachus' profanation of the holy articles of the temple.
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And according to the Scriptures, anything that touches the altar is itself holy, that's Exodus 29, 37.
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Just read how the ashes of the altar were treated in Scripture, that is, Leviticus 6, 10 -11.
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And I suggest that nobody with a zeal for the holiness of the altar would have simply grabbed ashes and wood from it and thrown it around.
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People who were zealous for the holiness of the temple vessels would have been equally as zealous for anything touching the altar, including the wood and ashes on the altar.
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Besides, the explanation of Schwartz does not account for the presence of stones that could be used as defensive weapons.
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And the Jews who were zealous for the holy articles would not have started dismantling and breaking up the altar itself either.
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That is simply unthinkable, given their zeal for the holy articles. So it seems to me that there is only one possible occasion when there would be an abundant supply of stones, pieces of wood, and ashes that could be used for self -defense without violating the sanctity of the altar.
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And that would be during an Akedah commemoration in the Court of the Women, where the temple treasury was located and where the altercation indeed had taken place.
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That commemoration would have taken place using a makeshift altar of stones, with wood and ashes in order to commemorate
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Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son and Isaac's willingness to go along with it in accordance with Genesis 22.
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The articles of ash, wood, and stone were all of symbolic value in the commemoration of the binding of Isaac, but none would have been considered so holy that they couldn't be used as defensive weapons.
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And that would mean the assault on the temple by Lysimachus and his men would have taken place on the one day of the year that the
41:32
Jews were celebrating the Akedah, or the binding of Isaac, when there would have been an abundance of wood, stone, and ash to use as self -defense weapons.
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And that day is Rosh Hashanah, or the first day of Tishri, the seventh month of the
41:47
Jewish calendar. Now what on earth does that have to do with Daniel in the 2 ,300 days of Daniel 8 .14?
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Well, it is normally 2 ,270 days from Rosh Hashanah in one year until Hanukkah, the 25th of Kislev, the ninth month, six years later, as long as there are only two intercalary months in that time span.
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But when there is a third intercalary month, as there certainly would be in the time under consideration, since the second half of the 70th week is 1 ,290 days, then the total number of days from Rosh Hashanah in one year to the 25th of Kislev, or Hanukkah, six years later, is 2 ,300 days.
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In other words, by showing that the assault on the temple in 170 BC occurred on Rosh Hashanah, and knowing that the sanctuary was cleansed and the altar rededicated on the 25th of Kislev in 164
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BC, and knowing that there would have been one intercalary month in the first half of the 70th week and two intercalary months in the second half, we have shown that from the time of the first assault until the rededication of the altar was 2 ,300 days, exactly as was prophesied in Daniel 8 .14,
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unto 2 ,300 days then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. We encourage our listeners to verify these numbers for themselves.
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For example, at the time of this podcast, it so happens that we are actually in the middle of a 2 ,300 -day period due to the intercalations that occur in the
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Hebrew calendar. Rosh Hashanah was on September 5, 2013, and Hanukkah will be on December 23, 2019.
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Anyone who has access to a date counter in Excel or some other tool can verify that there are exactly 2 ,300 days from September 5, 2013 to December 23, 2019.
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Now to verify this, we looked at Rosh Hashanah in every year from 1900 until Hanukkah in 2205 and found that in the modern
43:51
Jewish calendar, the length of time between the two dates is something like 2 ,268 days, 2 ,269 days, or 2 ,270, depending on the length of each individual year, or it is sometimes 2 ,298 days, 2 ,299 days, or 2 ,300 if there's an extra intercalary month in that time frame.
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So we want to give our listeners a few dates that they can play around with. We're going to go ahead and give them to you now.
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You can type these in if you like. Type them into your Excel file so you can actually count the days.
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Just tell Excel to subtract the early date from the later date, and it'll tell you exactly how many days there are between.
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So, September 9, 1915 is Rosh Hashanah. December 26, 1921 is
44:37
Hanukkah, six years later, 2 ,300 days. And let's see, the next one we're seeing in our calendar here is
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September 5, 2013 was Rosh Hashanah, and the 25th of Kislev, or December 23, 2019, is 2 ,300 days.
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Let's look at the next occurrence. Rosh Hashanah is on September 7, 2021, and it so happens that Hanukkah will be celebrated on the 25th of December, 2027.
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That's 2 ,300 days. And let's see, another one here you can type in.
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September 8, 2048 is Rosh Hashanah, and December 26, 2054 is Hanukkah. It's 2 ,300 days between those two dates, and we'll give you one more just to play around.
45:25
September 10, 2075 is Rosh Hashanah, and December 27, 2081 is
45:30
Hanukkah. There are 2 ,300 days between those two dates. So, that is the fulfillment of the 2 ,300 evenings and mornings.
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They are literal days, as we showed early in this episode, and they occurred under the
45:43
Greek Empire during the 70th week of Daniel. The 70th week of Daniel was from 171 to 164
45:50
BC, and the 2 ,300 evenings and mornings were from Rosh Hashanah on the first day of Tishri in 170
45:57
BC, until the 25th of Kislev in 164 BC, the first Hanukkah, or what the
46:04
New Testament refers to as the first festival of the dedication. So now, let's move on to the 1 ,290 days.
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The 1 ,290 days are the time, times, and a half. In the case of the 2 ,300 days, we at least had the contextual information that was sufficient to determine a fixed date for the first assault on the people and the sanctuary.
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But in the case of Antiochus IV's decree to forbid lawful Jewish sacrifices, there was not sufficient information.
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Here is the account from 1 Maccabees 1, 41 -51. This is simply a description of Antiochus IV prohibiting sacrifices.
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So, again, 1 Maccabees 1, 41 -51. Many, even from Israel, gladly adopted his religion.
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They sacrificed to idols and profaned the Sabbath. And the king sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah.
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He directed them to follow customs strange to the land, to forbid burnt offerings and sacrifices and drink offerings in the sanctuary, to profane
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Sabbaths and feasts, to defile the sanctuary and the priests, to build altars and sacred precincts and shrines for idols, to sacrifice swine and unclean animals, and to leave their sons uncircumcised.
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They were to make themselves abominable by everything unclean and profane, so that they should forget the law and change all their ordinances.
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And whoever does not obey the command of the king shall die. In such words he wrote to his whole kingdom.
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And he appointed inspectors over all the people, and commanded the cities of Judah to offer sacrifice city by city.
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Again, that's 1 Maccabees 1, 41 -51. This is placed after Antiochus IV's second invasion of Egypt, and historians place it in 167
48:00
BC. We have no other information other than the fact that it was a decree from the king that everyone was to adopt his religion.
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As we discussed all the way back in episode 6, Antiochus was raised as a hostage in Rome under the terms of the
48:13
Treaty of Apamea in 188 BC, and thus he was raised in the shadow of Jupiter Capitalinus, the
48:19
Roman god of forces, and that is why he dedicated the temple of Jerusalem to Jupiter. As we also noted at that time,
48:27
Antiochus dedicated other temples to Jupiter Capitalinus as well, in Athens and in Antioch, as Livius records for us in his
48:35
Perioche, Book 41, chapters 5 -6. And as Josephus reports, once the
48:41
Samaritans saw the temple in Jerusalem dedicated to Jupiter Capitalinus, they requested, and Antiochus agreed, that their temple should be also dedicated to Jupiter Hellenius, that is, the
48:52
Greek Jupiter, that is from Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, Book 12, chapter 5, paragraph 5.
48:59
As Daniel prophesied, In his estate he shall honour the god of forces, and a god whom his fathers knew not he shall honour with gold and silver and with precious stones and pleasant things.
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Thus shall he do in the most strongholds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory. That's Daniel 11, 38 -39.
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According to Josephus, Antiochus IV spoiled the temple and put a stop to the constant practice of offering daily sacrifice of expiation for three years and six months.
49:27
That's Flavius Josephus' Wars of the Jews, Book 1, chapter 1, paragraph 1. Three years and six months would normally be 1 ,260 days, but due to the additional intercalary month that would have been added, this time it was 1 ,290.
49:42
And that's how a three and a half year period, or time, times and a half, can be 1 ,290 days.
49:50
Now with that said, we will speak hypothetically for a moment. If you were Antiochus IV, and you abandoned the worship of Greek gods, and you decided that everyone should abandon his own religion and join you in your worship of Jupiter, what would be a good day on the
50:06
Roman calendar to write such a decree saying that Jupiter was the only god to whom sacrifices should be offered?
50:11
The best day to do that would be on the Ides of June, the celebration of Jupiter Invictus, or Jupiter Victor.
50:20
In this case, Antiochus was declaring that Jupiter was victorious over all other gods, and therefore everyone should cease honoring their gods and honor his.
50:30
We typically think of the Ides as the 15th of each month because of the famous line from Shakespeare, warning of the assassination of Julius Caesar.
50:37
In that case, the Ides of March are the 15th of the month. But the
50:43
Ides actually alternate between the 15th of one month and the 13th of the next. The Ides of March is on the 15th, the
50:49
Ides of April is on the 13th, the Ides of May is on the 15th, and the Ides of June is on the 13th, etc.
50:55
Since both the ancient Roman calendar and the ancient Jewish calendar have their own idiosyncrasies, it is hard to figure out which day is which using our modern calendar.
51:05
There are just too many factors at play, and too many intercalary modifications to both calendars to keep them aligned with the sun and the moon in all the seasons.
51:14
There are just so many months. It can be either 28, 29, 30, or 31 days. Because of these challenges of reconciling the
51:22
Jewish and the Roman calendars, it is hard to tell which day of the Roman calendar is 1 ,290 days prior to the 25th of Kislev in 164
51:30
BC. It can be as early as June 11th and as late as June 16th, but on average, it falls on the 13th of June, which is the
51:39
Ides of June, the feast day of Jupiter Invictus. It appears, therefore, that Antiochus issued a decree to forbid any sacrifices except to Jupiter on the
51:49
Ides of June in 167 BC, which would have been the 13th of June, the feast of Jupiter Invictus.
51:57
So that's the 1 ,290 days. So, what we're going to do now is that we have run out of time, and we're going to have to pick up on this in our next episode.
52:06
But we can show that from Rosh Hashanah in 170
52:11
BC until Hanukkah, the 25th of Kislev in 164
52:17
BC, there would have been 2 ,300 days. We can also show when Antiochus would have issued a decree saying that no other gods were allowed to be worshipped except Jupiter would have been on the
52:28
Ides of June or the 13th of June in 167 BC. We evaluated this against all the potential years that would have had 2 ,300 days from Rosh Hashanah to Hanukkah in a six and a half year period, and found that on average it can be as early as June 11th or as late as June 16th, but on average it falls on June 13th, which would have been the
52:51
Ides of June, the feast of Jupiter Invictus. So there are two of the three periods that we wanted to talk about.
52:58
The 2 ,300 evenings and mornings, the 1 ,290 days, which are also depicted for us as three and a half years.
53:05
And as reported by Josephus, there was a three and a half year period from the prohibition of sacrifices until the rededication of the altar.
53:14
And what we're going to do next week, we will pick up at the 1 ,335 days, and then we'll wrap up our discussion on this period of Daniel.
53:26
And as promised, and I know I've been promising this every week, but it just takes so long to go through all the details.
53:33
We're going to pick up on Jesus' reference to the abomination of desolation in Matthew and Mark.
53:39
And we're going to show that he was appealing to a fulfilled prophecy that everybody would have known about, because everybody would have known about that the abomination of desolation that Daniel foretold was when
53:54
Antiochus IV placed a statue of Jupiter on the altar, and Jesus was warning that when that abomination that Daniel had foretold returned, it would be a harbinger of doom for Judea, and that people should take note of it.
54:10
And when he says, let the reader take note, he's referring to the written record of Daniel who had prophesied this.
54:16
So that's going to conclude this episode today. Thank you for everybody paying attention. I hope it was worth the wait as we walked through the nitty -gritty of intercalation and the
54:25
Akedah, the binding of Isaac. But I hope that everybody will recognize that it was a fruitful endeavor into some interesting details regarding the
54:34
Jewish calendar and Jewish tradition, and especially things that have only recently come to light in 1995, that the commemoration of the ashes of Isaac or the
54:43
Akedah actually predated the first century as evidenced from the
54:48
Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran community that acknowledged that such a celebration was honored and recognized.