Dear B-Hebrew Haburim: This is the (in)famous “70 sevens” text, broken up into the full 70, and two smaller periods of 7 and 62. Usually the two smaller periods are read sequentially.
Are there any linguistic reasons not to read those two shorter periods as concurrent, with the one ending much sooner than the other? It seems to me that there are strong historical reasons to accept that the two periods are concurrent. The command for people to return to Judea in the first year of Cyrus merely commanded that the temple be rebuilt, Ezra 1:2–4. Other than the temple itself and a few buildings for support services, Jerusalem the city was not rebuilt. The command to rebuild Jerusalem itself (Daniel 9:25) was given to Nehemiah, chapter 2:5–9. Seeing as Nehemiah was a slightly older contemporary of Ezra, that makes that command about 417 BC. 49 years later was the birth of Alexander the Great, the “anointed leader”. If we take the 15th year of Tiberius as including his co-rule years, then the “Anointed” being cut off would have been after 62x7 years, or after about 17 AD. Then the final seven years, a time of war and destruction, midway through which the temple sacrifices came to an end, started in 66 AD and ended in 73 AD. How many presently accepted dates will be messed up by saying that Tiberius’ reign includes his years of co-rule? Enough to get secular recorded history more in line with this prophecy? I know that the dates given in our history books are not accurate, only approximate, so I won’t argue them here, nor will I take the bait should others want to argue them. The question I have here: is there any linguistic reason not to read those two shorter periods as starting at the same time? Not sequential as is often popularly taught? Karl W. Randolph. _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
