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

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Polemical Defense of Justification by Faith Alone

The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone. When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the ear and combating the ear.

We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make, 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.

We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style.

I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing. It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible.

Jesus said, 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.

It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle.

In this episode of Simple Riff from Mondo Radio, 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 Jewish practice of adding an additional month to the calendar every few years, as well as the ancient Jewish practice of commemorating the Akedah or the binding of Isaac or the ashes of Isaac on Rosh Hashanah.

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 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 BC until the rededication of the altar in 164 BC as prophesied in Daniel 8 .14.

Also, by understanding the concept of intercalation, we are able to show why a three and a half year period in Daniel 12 .7 is described as 1 ,290 days in Daniel 12 .11 instead of the 1 ,260 as we might have expected.

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 Ides of June, the festival of Jupiter Invictus in 167 BC, 1 ,290 days prior to the rededication of the temple.

For more, here's Tim.

Okay, thank you Tim for that introduction. We're glad to be back and we appreciate the folks who are listening and the emails we get. 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. 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.

The 70th week is 7 years long and within that 7 years there is a period of 2 ,300 days according to Daniel 8 .14. And within that 2 ,300 day period there is a 1 ,290 day period according to Daniel 12 .11 that is also described as time, times, and a half or three and a half years according to Daniel 12 .7.

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.

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. 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 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. 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?

Sure. This email comes in to us from Tony Brown. Tony writes, Hi guys. 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.

Stands to reason that quite a few would have already been fulfilled, so I've been listening intently to the Imperative series. Started at part 6 and now I'm wondering about the frequent references to the apocryphal books, notably 1st and 2nd Maccabees.

How are they reliable? I know that many of these books are confirmed by the Catholic Church, but I thought the true church doesn't acknowledge them as accurate or reliable. Is the unreliability only in regards to theological matters and OK for historical records or events?

Confused on this? I really look forward to a future episode laying out your overall eschatological position. I find myself pre-mill of sort, but for the most part undecided on exactly what I believe.

I think this podcast can help me nail down a few things. Blessings, dear brothers, 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 .radio at gmail .com.

And I'm just going to hand this back over to Tim, to you, Tim, so that you can answer it.

OK, 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. 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 Jesus said and what John said, since they both built their eschatological framework around the Danielic timeline.

We really can't understand Jesus and John's eschatology without understanding Daniel. 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.

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, because it is during the period of the feet that God sets up a heavenly kingdom, which shall not be left to other people.

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.

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 3rd century. And we'll get to those in this series eventually.

We plan to show that all the seals, 6 of the trumpets and 6 of the bowl judgments are already behind us and have been gradually occurring since the period of the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's statue. 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.

Now before going any further, I'll state for the record, since this is one of the questions that Tony asked, I am a historicist, but unlike other historicists, I believe Antichrist rose up much earlier than others have claimed.

Some would say 476 A .D. with the fall of the Roman Empire. Some would say 800 A .D. when Charlemagne was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III. I placed it much earlier than that for reasons we discussed early in this series, and the evidence for a 13-way division of the Roman Empire in the scriptures and in the historical record.

I placed the rise of the little horn of Daniel 7 in the 360s A .D. with Pope Damasus I, and the uprooting of the three of the thirteen dioceses of the Roman Empire, namely Egypt, Italy, and Oriens, at the time of the Council of Constantinople in 381 A .D., and the subsequent Council of Rome in 382 A .D.

That is when the doctrine of the three Petrine Seas of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch was established, by which Roman Catholicism still today claims universal apostolic authority over the entire Church of Christ, claiming that Peter had set up the church at Antioch, sent his disciple 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 Petrine Seas. And that time period, in the latter part of the 4th century, is also the time of the emergence of the characteristically Roman Catholic errors, like the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, Mary's sinlessness, Mary's perpetual virginity, the veneration of relics, the use of votive candles, transubstantiation, the celibate priesthood, the sacrifice of the Mass, intercession of saints, prayers for the dead, and baptismal regeneration, among others.

And then, with the Little Horn having arisen and taken three of the thirteen dioceses of the Roman Empire, leaving ten, the Roman Catholic Church then took over as the successor to the 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 heavenly one Christ had 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 Roman Empire, you'll have some semblance of how we'll be looking at Revelation chapter 12, and we'll get to that eventually.

We covered some of that in the first six episodes, but for now we must focus on Daniel to establish the timeline. 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 Antichrist rise much earlier.

But, to differentiate myself from allegations of preterism, I plan to show from the scriptures, and in particular from Daniel's timeline, that there is simply no way Antichrist could arise prior to the destruction of Jerusalem.

And that rules out Nero as the Antichrist of prophecy. And to wrap up this quick summary, I am pre-mill because I believe the millennium is a literal 1000 years, but it cannot begin until after Antichrist and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire when Jesus returns to smite the nations and set up his earthly kingdom, according to Revelation 19.

And that clearly has not happened yet. 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. 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.

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 2000 years of traditional interpretation of Daniel 9 as a messianic prophecy. So, kudos and thanks to those who have persevered to this point. Now, the rest of the question is quite interesting about the Maccabees, so let's address that quickly.

There are actually four books of the Maccabees, two of which ended up in the Roman Catholic Bible. And even early Roman Catholics did not believe that they were scriptural. For example, even Pope Gregory the Great, in his Discourse on the Book of Job, states explicitly that the books of Maccabees are not received as canonical.

Just look up Moralia in Job, Volume 2, Chapter 19, Paragraph 32. And Pope Gregory the 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 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.

They are as authoritative as yesterday's newspaper because they simply document certain events. 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 Danielic timeline because they recorded the fulfillment of what Gabriel had prophesied.

So yes, these first two books of the Maccabees are now considered inspired Scripture by the Roman Catholic Church, formerly canonized as Scripture at the 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 I appreciate Tony's question and I want to make sure I answer it clearly. I do not believe the books of the 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.

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. The four-way division of the Greek Empire after Alexander, the reign of Antiochus IV, the destruction of Jerusalem under the Roman Empire, and the final thirteen-way division of the Roman Empire.

All of these events were prophesied in Scripture, but their fulfillment is not documented in the Scriptures. So how do we figure out how Gabriel's prophecy of a four-way division of the Greek Empire actually occurred?

Well, we have to examine the writings of contemporary historians or those of other writers from the succeeding centuries who knew about it. We examine Diodorus Siculus and his Library of History, Marcus Junianus Justinus and his Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, Plutarch and his Life of Demetrius, Appian's History of the Syrian Wars, Memnon and his History of Heraclea, and many others.

How do we understand Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, the destruction of which is not actually reported in the Scriptures? We consult Josephus and his Wars of the Jews and the Histories of Tacitus.

How do we understand the division of the Roman Empire into thirteen dioceses at the end of the 4th century? We have to consult the latter Cullus Veronensis, a Roman administrative document from the early 4th century, and the Notitia Dignitatum, a Roman administrative document from the latter part of the 4th century.

Now, none of these documents are inspired or scriptural. They are just written historical documents that give us insight into the fulfillment of scriptural prophecies of the division of the 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. And by far the best we have is the writings of the Maccabees and their successors immediately following the events.

If, hypothetically, the Roman Catholic Church decided to add Diodorus Siculus' Library of History to its 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.

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.

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. 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 BC.

Antiochus IV confirmed, or literally strengthened, a covenant for one week, or seven years, regarding the Jews adopting the Greek way of life. The strengthening of that covenant resulted in the death of Onias III, the high priest.

We also showed last week that three and a half years after confirming the covenant, Antiochus IV outlawed legitimate sacrifices. Then after that, he set up a statue of Jupiter on the altar. And three and a half years after prohibiting sacrifices, the Jews took the temple back, cleansed the sanctuary, and rebuilt and rededicated the altar according to the Law of Moses.

The cleansing of the sanctuary and the rededication of the altar would have included anointing the altar, which the Scripture says is most holy. Therefore, the 70th week concluded with the anointing of the Most Holy.

Thus, as we showed, Antiochus IV prospered till the indignation be accomplished, as the angelic narrator said in Daniel 11 .36. 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, 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, 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.

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 Lord promised that when they finally purified the altar, according to Ezekiel's instructions, quote, I will accept you, saith the 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. 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, Jesus Christ, made a seven-year covenant and put an end to sacrifices.

But the scriptures actually portray the antagonist, Antiochus IV, as confirming the covenant and prohibiting sacrifices. This is confirmed for us in Daniel 11 .22 -23, which says that the vile person of Daniel 11 .21 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.

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. 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.

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. But the text is not messianic. The 70 weeks of Daniel did not foresee the coming of the 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, Cyrus the king of Persia, 62 sevens ended with the murder of the anointed high priest, Onias III, and one week ended with the cleansing of the sanctuary and the rededication and anointing of the altar, which is most holy.

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.

Such statements, depending on context, can be about Christ, and indeed many such references in the 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.

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, and he also addresses the second half of the week when he mentions time times and a half in Daniel 12 .7, and the 1 ,290 days in Daniel 12 .11, and then makes reference to another 45 days beyond the 70th week when he says, Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the 1 ,305 and 30 days in Daniel 12 .12.

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 and 14.

Time times and a half, when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished, 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, that's Daniel 12 .11.

And the 1 ,335 days, because it says in Daniel 12 .12, 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.

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. 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.

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. 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.

To give our listeners a quick backdrop for our discussion today, we're going to introduce a couple of new concepts to our conversation. 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.

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 Isaac on a makeshift altar.

The concepts will be determinative in our exploration of the Jewish calendar and their annual celebrations during the Maccabean era that we are discussing, particularly from the years from 171 to 164 BC, the 70th week of Daniel.

So, let's talk about intercalation first. 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.

Months can be 29 to 30 days long, and thus a normal year can have 353, 354, or 355 days. 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 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. In that case, a leap year can have 383, 384, or 385 days.

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. 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.

Although this is not mentioned explicitly in the scriptures, it is mentioned implicitly in Numbers 9 -11, where the 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 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, Nisan would that year be the second month. Additionally, in 1 Kings 12 -32, it says Jeroboam ordained a feast in the 8th month on the 15th day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah.

Normally that feast day would have been on the 15th day of the 7th month, but if an intercalary month was inserted beforehand, that would move the feast day to the 8th month. 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.

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 1 ,260 total days in length, as you would expect.

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 1 ,260 days, but 1 ,290. We have just such a period in view in Daniel 12, where we are told that time, times, and a half-time is 1 ,290 days.

Clearly there are two intercalary months in that three-and-a-half-year period, which is why it is 1 ,290 days instead of the normal 1 ,260. Now the practice of intercalation is absolutely critical to our understanding of the 2 ,300 days and the 1 ,290 days, and the 1 ,335 days.

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 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.

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. 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 2 ,300 days, 1 ,290 days, and 1 ,335, especially in light of the fact that eschatologists from millennia have struggled to find the starting and ending points.

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 2 ,300 years, 1 ,290 years, and 1 ,335 years.

The famous 1844 debacle of the Seventh-day Adventists is the fruit of such an assumption. They believe that 2 ,300 years began with the decree of Artaxerxes in 457 BC, and 2 ,300 years later, the 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 2 ,300 years were actually fulfilled, but that we must wait even longer for the rapture to occur. 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 Satan will be able to get in too, and the angels are very afraid of Satan, and that's why they're inspecting the Book of Life, and they've been doing so since the 2 ,300 years were over.

Such are the lengths that some have gone to explain away the 2 ,300 days as if they were years that we can't seem to track down. But we believe the text here has made it abundantly clear in multiple ways that the days we have in view are literal days.

First, the text actually says 2 ,300 evenings and mornings rather than 2 ,300 days, as it is translated in the King James. And you cannot get a better reference to literal solar days than the use of the same terminology that the Lord uses at creation when He created the world in six literal solar days, announcing each day as an evening and a morning.

That is our first textual cue, that we are talking about literal solar days here and not prophetic days of years. Our second clue is from the text that shows that the 1 ,290 days is part of the 2 ,300, because the 2 ,300 and the 1 ,290 days have a common ending point, as we discussed earlier.

The 2 ,300 days end when the sanctuary is cleansed, and the 1 ,290 days end when the desolation of the sanctuary and the temple is ended, and the sacrifices are restored, and the abominable desolation is removed.

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. 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.

But if you're talking about literal days, you have to take the intercalary months into account, as the Lord did in Daniel 12 .11. And since the 1 ,335 days are simply a 45-day continuation of the 1 ,290, those extra 45 days must be literal days as well.

That is our second textual cue. The third textual cue is that the 2 ,300 days and the 1 ,290 days all take place within the 70th week, and that 70th week is already a week of prophetic days of years. In other words, the 70th week is composed of seven days of years, and since the 2 ,300 literal days all occur within the 70th week, we obviously cannot fit 2 ,300 literal years into seven literal years.

And when days occur within a week of prophetic days of years, you do not need to expand those days into years as well. Because the 2 ,300 literal days occur within the prophetic week of the 70th week, and the 1 ,290 literal days are part of the 2 ,300 evenings and mornings, and the 1 ,335 are an extension of the 1 ,290, we are talking about literal days for the 2 ,300, the 1 ,290, and the 1 ,335.

So, that's our summary on intercalation, and why we believe the 2 ,300, the 1 ,290, and the 1 ,335 are all literal days. 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 Akedah.

It is depicted in Genesis 22, verses 1 to 19, where Isaac carries the wood to the top of Mount Moriah. Abraham builds a makeshift altar, binds Isaac, lays him upon the wood of the altar, and is prepared to offer Isaac as a burnt sacrifice, when the Lord intervenes and provides a ram instead.

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. 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 Jewish community about whether the Akedah should be commemorated during the Passover or during Rosh Hashanah.

He says,.

That's from Giza Vermes' Scripture and Tradition, page 215. Scholars have until very recently assumed that the Akedah commemorations at these festivals were developments of the first-century Judaism after the rise of Christianity.

But in 1995, a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, fragment 4q225, was finally translated, showing that the Akedah was not a first-century development after all, but rather had been an integral part of the post-exilic worship of the 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 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.

Most notably, what was absent in the Dead Sea Scrolls was any alignment with the celebration of Akedah or commemoration of the 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 Akedah commemoration in the seventh month and not in the first.

Additionally, the Akedah is commemorated in terms of the ashes of Isaac, with the understanding that Isaac really had not been sacrificed and burnt, 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.

Again, this is Vermes from Scripture and Tradition in Judaism. Page 205, he says,. The rabbis argue that even if God had not provided a ram to be offered in his place, Isaac gladly would have given his life, so the value and the merit truly belong to him.

Though he did not die, 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, God regards the ashes of Isaac as though they were piled upon the altar.

The First Assault on the Temple and the 2,300 Evenings and Mornings

Okay, so we have tried the patience of our listeners long enough. What on earth does this have to do with Daniel and the 70th week? What on earth could be so important about an ancient Jewish tradition of commemorating the binding of Isaac?