Spend any amount of time on the Internet regarding Daniel’s 70-Weeks Prophecy and you will quickly find out nobody agrees completely on how this prophecy adds up or intersects with the dates of Nehemiah’s Decree, Palm Sunday, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of Christ Jesus.  I have been following the interpretations for this prophecy on the Internet for close to a decade and only in the past few years have an increasingly larger number of people started to latch onto interpreting the 70-Week Prophecy in the fashion that I have come to believe many more years ago after much research and study.  Sir Robert Anderson and Dr. Harold Hoehner’s interpretations are surely valid and commendable attempts but seemingly fall short of a few strict requirements to satisfy virtually all critics.  Others have improved upon their work to step even closer to a full and accurate explanation of the prophecy.  I offer yet another improvement or explanation to better solve the ambiguity because once this prophecy is solved, the timing and method of calculation can be used to unravel Daniel’s 2300 ‘Day’ prophecy regarding the rebuilding and reconsecration for the 3rd Temple in Jerusalem which I will save for another future post on this blog.  In future posts, this prophetic calculation will be used to date the Birth and Immaculate Conception of Jesus Christ, the birth date of John the Baptist and even the birth date of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Crazy?  Keep reading.

Daniel 9:24-27 – The Seventy ‘Sevens’

“24 Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place. 25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

The Prophetic 360-Day Year

Before God gave Moses the original Hebrew lunar calendar prior to the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt (Exodus 12), the Bible routinely used a 360-day year.  Even as calendar corrections and errors were slowly introduced by the Hebrews among many others, ancient Biblical prophecy was still presumed to be given in a 360-day year.  This is very important.

360-Day to 365.2422-Day Conversion

To properly interpret Daniel’s 70-Week Prophecy, you have to reckon the exact number of days in the prophecy in order to convert the prophetic days into astronomical days.  Despite the precision of modern calendars, they continually fall out of sync compared to the average astronomical timing of the Earth’s orbit around the sun.  Consequently, atomic clocks are too accurate compared to astronomical timing.   For example, another ‘leap second’ was recently added on June 30th, 2015 forming a 61 second minute to our calendar because the Earth is technically slowing down ever so slightly in its orbit around the sun.  Too many interpreters of the 70-week prophecy rely on counting calendar days between 2 dates that are so far apart, spanning far beyond anyone calendar’s length and rendering them all inaccurate reckonings for this exercise.  After many attempts myself to use various calendars, I am now convinced that only astronomical timing can be used to solve the timing of Daniel’s prophecies since God’s timing is based on His celestial creation, not the timing of our man-made calendars.  That is not to say specific Gregorian dates are incorrect but instead, long cycles of time measured between 2 dates, incrementing a specific number of days, is not an accurate measurement of days counted between multiple calendars.  The best measurement we have of the astronomical timing of the Earth’s movement around the sun is the tropical year. The tropical year is the period of time for the ecliptic longitude of the Sun to increase by 360 degrees. Since the Sun’s ecliptic longitude is measured with respect to the equinox, the tropical year comprises a complete cycle of the seasons; because of the economic importance of the seasons, the tropical year is the basis of most calendars. The tropical year is often defined as the time between southern solstices, or between northward equinoxes. Because of the Earth’s axial precession, this year is about 20 minutes shorter than the sidereal year. The mean tropical year is approximately 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds (= 365.24219 days).

Known Errors in the Hebrew Calendar

After reading many commentaries on the history of the Hebrew calendar, there are many notable references found on the Internet that admit to multiple, unspecified errors, changes or corrections to land certain celebrations on certain days of the week spread out over a very long period of time.  The Hebrew Calendar is the one calendar that backward dates to Adam and Eve from Moses.  For instance, one reference to the estimated start date of the Hebrew calendar mentions that year 1 AM counts only a few ‘days’ during the Week of Creation between the creation of Adam in the garden and the end of the Week of Creation.  This amount of time cannot be verified clearly if it is a true solar year or not, very doubtful.  Year 2 AM starts at the beginning of the week following the Week of Creation according to the same source.  Also, the Hebrew Calendar was changed to a lunisolar calendar [365.25-day year], which was inaccurate in ancient times for many reasons over a long period of time before adding intercalating months (i.e. leap months) to certain years with certain guidelines that were ultimately exercised at the discretion of the Sanhedrin. To further the confusion, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., the Sanhedrin that managed the Hebrew calendar was dispersed for a considerable time, causing confusion in the Jewish synagogs and Christian churches on when to calculate and celebrate Passover and Easter each year.  This started a new enterprise by the Christian church to calculate Easter on its own as before relied solely on the Jewish Temple Sanhedrin to calculate for them.  The Christian method that came to be, incorporated a few differences that over time likely fell out of sync with the old, Jewish method used in Jesus’ day.  The modern Jewish calendar has improved its precision as did the Gregorian calendar with reckoning time but to use the modern Jewish calendar to backdate accurately, particularly past 70 A.D., seems to prove fallible. Using only the Gregorian calendar to date Biblical events allows the comparison of more modern or future dates to be more understandable.  Alternatively, using a Gregorian to modern Hebrew calendar converter doesn’t land on the same Gregorian calendar date as counting Gregorian days which is also a fundamental issue.  By many calendar experts, 1 Nisan could have fallen on several Gregorian dates within a 56-day, March/April span that we know about currently.  To settle this topic, there is only one date with the proper calculations applied below that intersects with an unmistakable event in the Bible.  My belief is that the time frame of the prophecy from God is infallible, not the Hebrew calendar changed by man many times.  The Dead Sea scrolls prove that the book of Daniel did not change over considerable time since its inception but we do know the Hebrew calendar has been changed since its inception.  In short, calendars are great for plotting dates after astronomical calculations are performed but do not work as well when counting days on a calendar between two dates beyond the lifecycle of any calendar because of ‘leap’ time that has not been accounted for yet in that time on a calendar, generally speaking.

http://www.yaiy.org/literature/biblicalvsjewishcalendar.html

Picking the Right Start Date – Nehemiah’s Decree

From the Daniel prophecy in verse 25, “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem…” refers to a decree to rebuild Jerusalem.  In Nehemiah 2:1-5, Artaxerxes announces to Nehemiah that he can go back to rebuild Jerusalem, “1 In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, 2 so the king asked me, “Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.  I was very much afraid, 3 but I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” 4 The king said to me, “What is it you want?” Then I prayed to the God of heaven, 5 and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it.” In Exodus 12:18, “18 In the first month [Nisan 1 – New Moon] you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day [Passover – Full Moon] until the evening of the twenty-first day.”

There were four decrees made to restore Jerusalem in this period, only the edict given to Nehemiah by Artaxerxes Longinus, made on the ‘new moon’ which was 1 Nisan 3317 or in 444 BC authorized the rebuilding of the walls and gates of Jerusalem.  It allowed Jerusalem to be a fully functional sovereign city-state once again.  1 Nisan was a significant date in its own right as it marks the Biblical ‘New Years’ Day, the start of the month of the Exodus from Egypt and the beginning of Jewish National History.  The significance of Nisan 1 as to March 5, 444 BC would also make a strong case for why that date is also the right start date.  The Biblical New Year begins at the appearance of the first ‘new moon’ of Spring, that is when the waxing crescent of the moon is first sighted immediately following the new moon.  Biblically, this new moon is called Rosh Chodashim as commanded in Exodus 12:2 (http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Holidays/Spring_Holidays/Rosh_Chodashim/rosh_chodashim.html).  We also know that Nehemiah’s brother Hanani (Nehemiah 1:2-3; 7:2) brought disturbing news about the terrible conditions of the undefended Jewish people in Jerusalem.  Realizing the great urgency, Nehemiah was greatly distressed and sought God’s will through fasting and prayer to determine what steps he should take to help rectify the deplorable conditions of his countrymen.  It is also possible to narrow down to a specific day in Nisan due to Nehemiah’s sadness which can be additionally explained by him knowing the significance of the present date of Nehemiah 2:1-10, 1 Nisan, which celebrates the month of the Exodus from Egypt, while he is still similarly in captivity by the Persians.  1 Nisan would have had to start at nightfall on March 4, 444 BC so the exchange detailed in Nehemiah 2 must have happened after nightfall as if they were celebrating with wine as mentioned.  March 5 in the Gregorian calendar is the equivalent to the Jewish March 4th (nightfall) to March 5th (nightfall).

New Moon to 1 Nisan

Among other dates, many historians have recorded that 1 Nisan 3317 in the year of 444 BC was March 5, 444 BC.  Using online moon phase charts for the year of 444 BC, there was a new moon on March 2 at 19:29 UTC or 21:29 IST, which would be Jewish March 2nd-3rd, Gregorian dated.  The Jews did not mark 1 Nisan until at least 2 verifiable witnesses reported to the Sanhedrin the first waxing crescent or sliver of light across the edge of the new moon at nightfall.  This could take at least 20 or more hours after the new moon’s astronomical start.  If viewing conditions were not ideal, it was possible to take an additional night to make the visible observation.  Also, Jewish custom marked a new day at sundown by observing on a relatively clear night the high luminance of no less than 3 medium-sized stars in the dusk sky after sunset.  Other Jewish customs added 72 minutes to when the sun completely fell behind the horizon to mark official nightfall.  Looking at current sunset times in Jerusalem on any March 4th evening, the sunset was at 5:39 pm.  Adding 72 minutes yields a nightfall time of 6:51 pm.  Using Stellarium software, setting the date and time window to the evening of March 3, 444 BC at 6:51 pm local time in Jerusalem shows that the new, waxing moon, had already set minutes before over the horizon and was not viewable at the right time after nightfall.

By simply changing the date to the following night, March 4, 444 BC also at 6:51 pm, you can definitely see the moon in the western sky approximately 1 hour before it sets.  Stellarium does not show the phases of the moon currently but does show its position and motion.

If Nehemiah’s waxing crescent moon was not visible until the evening of March 4 after nightfall when the sky was dark enough and the moon appeared above the horizon, then 1 Nisan could be declared.  There is no possible way to independently verify this today without Stellarium software but given the timing of the new moon, the waxing crescent and the historical recordings of March 5, 444 BC as 1 Nisan, it is most certainly within the realm of very likely possibilities.  The Bible passages referencing the month of Nisan’s start of the Nehemiah decree don’t specifically call out 1 Nisan as the start date as any date that month could be the prophecy start date; however, when you look at the calculations, only 1 date in Nisan actually works with the obvious end date of the 69 ‘weeks’.

Also, modern computer generated Hebrew calendars erroneously insert an intercalary month (i.e. leap month), Adar 1, in year AM 3317 as it was not a Jewish leap year due to a rounding discrepancy.  Jewish leap years are years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 19.  Divide Hebrew year 3317 by 19 and if the remainder is 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17 or 0 immediately following the decimal, then Adair 1 would be inserted.  However, 3317/19=174.5.  In the calendar below, the month of Nisan was realigned with March due to a superfluous intercalary month. By historical and computer simulation accounts, the new moon was not observed on Gregorian Wednesday, March 4th (i.e. after nightfall, Jewish March 3rd) marked by the “X”, as explained above because the moon had already set before nightfall that day, but in fact was observed on Gregorian March 5th (i.e. after nightfall, Jewish March 4th).  1 Nisan 3317 and March 5, 444 B.C now align on a Gregorian Thursday perfectly has historians have said.

http://astropixels.com/ephemeris/phasescat/phases-0499.html (Year 444 BC is -443 on the chart)

Seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens’ or 69 ‘sevens’ = Nehemiah Decree to Palm Sunday

Also from the same Daniel passage in verse 25, “…there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’” which is the first grouping of sevens mentioned, accounting for 69-sevens of the 70 sevens between the events to “…rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler”.  Recalling the story of Palm Sunday, Jesus was anointed with oil by Mary of Bethany and proclaimed as the ruler, King of the Jews, right before riding a donkey in a great procession into Jerusalem on top of palm leaves exactly like a newly crowned Hebrew King of old before Israel was taken into captivity by the Babylonians approximately 500 years earlier.

Calculations

• 69 weeks X ‘sevens’ = 483 Prophetic Years
• 483 X 360-day Year = 173,880 days
• 173,880 = 476 calendar years, 21 calendar days (http://www.easysurf.cc/ndate2.htm)
• 173,880/365.2421904 = 476 tropical years, 24.7 tropical days
• March 2, 444 BC 21:29 IST = Astronomical New Moon
• March 4, 444 BC 18:51 IST = Observed Waxing Crescent Moon (at nightfall)
• March 4th (nightfall) – 5th (nightfall), 444 BC = Nehemiah Decree, 1 Nisan
• March 29, 33 AD = Palm Sunday
• April 3, 33 AD = Full Moon (Lunar Eclipse), Passion of Christ
• March 5, 444 BC -> March 29, 33 AD = 173,880 astronomical days = 476 years, 24 days

http://astropixels.com/ephemeris/phasescat/phases-0499.html

http://www.stargazing.net/david/moon/index29days.html

Don’t forget about the 0.7 tropical days, right?

The precise span of time for the 69 ‘sevens’ is 476 tropical years, 24 days, 17 hours, 13 minutes and 17.18 seconds.  To be more precise, since 1 Nisan started after nightfall on March 4, 444 BC at 6:51 pm IST in Jerusalem with the waxing crescent moon viewable that night used as the actual start date and time of the Nehemiah Decree, add 476 years and 24 days to March 4, 444 BC to land on March 28, 33 AD at 6:51 pm, the Saturday night before Palm Sunday but still technically the same Jewish date as Palm Sunday.  Keep in mind that Persepolis, the palace of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, was located in present-day central Iran.  The modern time zone in Iran is 1.5 hrs ahead of Israel.  The precise prophetic event start time is the intersection of the viewable waxing crescent new moon in the Jerusalem night sky AND the observed ‘nightfall’ of the first 3 viewable stars, which not only started a new day, a new month, and a new year but also the 70-Week Prophecy!

This means that the same astronomical nightfall event witnessed in Persepolis about an hour before it was witnessed in Jerusalem at nightfall, officially starting the prophecy timeframe, unknowingly gave Nehemiah and the King an extra hour to start the Nehemiah decree story as written in the Book of Nehemiah, miraculously and purposely coinciding the actual decree in Persia with when the astronomical event occurred and was witnessed in Jerusalem at nightfall!  How AMAZING is that?

For the sake of calculations, all times are given in Israel Standard Time i.e. IST.  Therefore, by adding 17 hours to this time, we arrive at 11:51 am on March 29, 33 AD.  Also, by adding 13 minutes to this time, we arrive at 12:04 pm or 12:05 pm depending on if 17.18 seconds rolled over the additional minute or not.  The timing is acceptable as a normal daytime activity.  It would not be believable if the timing worked out for Jesus to enter Jerusalem at 4 am, right, especially on the wrong day of the week?  It would also not make sense if Nehemiah or the King was drinking wine at 9 am in the morning either in 444 BC.  Also as additional evidence of the daily timing being a perfect fit, Nehemiah was having wine with the King of Persia on a special occasion, coincidently, the Jewish New Years.  Peter in Acts 2 clearly points out that they did not drink wine in the morning being 9 am to not be mistaken for a drunk.  Considering a reasonable person could drink wine in the afternoon or evening without looking like a drunk and the new year would not start until after nightfall, it is safe to assume Nehemiah’s decree happened in the evening after nightfall in Persia when wine would easily have been present without being out of place.

• 69 ‘sevens’ = 476 tropical years, 24 days, 17 hours, 13 mins, 17.18 seconds
• March 4, 444 BC 6:52 pm IST (1 Nisan) -> March 29, 33 AD 12:05 pm IST (Sun at 180 degree Meridian above on Palm Sunday)

The 70th ‘seven’ is the literal 7-day Holy Week

In Daniel 9:26-27 – “26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death…” 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering.”  This part of the passage clearly distinguishes a separate ‘seven’ from the previous 69 sevens counted separately earlier in the passage as if the span was to be treated or reckoned differently in some way.  Therefore, treating the 70th ‘seven’ as a literal week brings into focus the passage, after the “seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens,’” which lands directly on Palm Sunday thus ending the 69 sevens. During the 70th seven, “the Anointed One will be put to death…” and “In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to the sacrifice and offering.” This is consistent with the Crucifixion happening between Palm Sunday and Resurrection Sunday, a normal week apart.

• Sunday March 29, 33 AD – Palm Sunday (end of 69th ‘seven’)
• Thursday April 2, 33 AD – Last Supper, Passover Feast begins after nightfall
• Friday April 3, 33 AD – Crucifixion & Passover with Lunar Eclipse (blood red from Israel)
• Saturday April 4, 33 AD – Sabbath, the day set aside from Week of Creation for this event
• Sunday April 5, 33 AD – Resurrection Sunday (end of 70th ‘seven’)

Some other 70-Week Prophecy interpretations land perfectly on Palm Sunday at the end of the 69th ‘seven’ but then skip over the most important event in history contained within the Passion Week started by Palm Sunday.  They jump right over approximately 2000 unanswered years thus far to the week of ‘Tribulation’.  There could possibly be a dual interpretation for the 70th ‘seven’ or prophetic week but if 69 weeks of prophetic years lands on the beginning of Passion Week, it stands to reason that the last week of the prophecy being the most important seven of the 70 has something to do with Palm Sunday and the events that immediately followed that week, not the Tribulation thousands of years in the future.  The 70-Week prophecy gives a very specific time frame that has to be decoded.  Clearly, the same passage speaks to other events that follow the Passion of Christ within the century.  The timing of the second coming of Christ and the Tribulation relate more closely to Daniel’s 2300 ‘Evening and Day’ Prophecy.

Why April 3, 33 AD to date the Crucifixion?

John 19:31 – “Then the Jews, since it was the day of Sabbath preparation (that is, Sabbath eve), and so the bodies wouldn’t stay on the crosses over the Sabbath (it was a high holy day that year), petitioned Pilate that their legs be broken to speed death, and the bodies taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man crucified with Jesus, and then the other. When they got to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they didn’t break his legs. One of the soldiers stabbed him in the side with his spear. Blood and water gushed out.”

Pontius Pilate served as the prefect of Judaea from 26-36 A.D. which definitively bounds the possible crucifixion dates within this 10-year span.  Many scholars, including Sir Isaac Newton, narrowed several possible crucifixion dates down to two, one is April 3, 33 AD, which is the only date of the two during a lunar eclipse (confirmed by lunar eclipse charts but ironically not by Newton) and where Passover was the day before the Sabbath, both described in Scripture (i.e. Acts 2:14) on the Day of Pentecost, May 24, 33 AD.

The Day of Pentecost, Recap of the Signs and Wonders that occurred with the Crucifixion

The Apostles confirmed the marvelous signs that the OT Prophet Joel foretold that would happen during Passover just over 50 days prior because many in this crowd had actually witnessed these amazing forces of nature during the Crucifixion as well as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on that Day of Pentecost. “I’ll set wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below [during the crucifixion], Blood and fire and billowing smoke [i.e. earthquakes and volcanic eruptions from the quakes nearby], the sun turning black [i.e. a miraculous solar eclipse] and the moon blood-red [i.e. lunar eclipse], Before the Day of the Lord [i.e. Resurrection Sunday] arrives, the Day tremendous and marvelous…”

References