A REJOINDER TO ROY GANE ON
DANIEL 8 & 9
^åÇê¨=oÉáë=
r. Roy Gane, my former professor at Andrews University with
whom I have constructive dialogue in private has published
two articles about Daniel 8 and 9 on Spectrum Magazine and
Adventist Today blogs.1 These two articles respond to two articles I published on Adventist Today recently dealing with issues with
Daniel.2
In them, Gane has articulated the traditional Adventist position on
Daniel 8 and 9. Below I address some of the arguments presented.
Most of the following arguments have been presented in my previous
articles but they are revisited here in relation to Gane’s recent responses.
This response starts with Gane’s article on Daniel 8, titled “From
Contamination to Purification” published on Spectrum Magazine
blog, which was intended as a response to my article “The Identity of
the Little Horn in Daniel 8”. Most of my response here is based on
exegetical and methodological issues I see with Gane’s approach.
The approach taken here follows two foundational exegetical principles when approaching Daniel: (1) a “close reading” method, which
stays close to text as it was most likely understood in its immediate
literary context (which may draw on non-canonical witness of such
understanding); (2) a “low presuppositional threshold” (my terminology) which keeps external ideas of what the text should mean to a
minimum.
D
COMMENTS ON DANIEL 8
1. Historical Context of Judgment: Identification of the „Little
Horn‰ in Daniel 8
Gane: “Daniel 8:9-12 predict a third empire. Information in this subunit
includes (1) description of the symbol: a “horn from littleness” (literally in
Hebrew), commonly translated “little horn,” that grows, (2) directions of
expansion: south, east, and “toward the glorious land” (v. 9), i.e., the land
of Israel (cf. 11:16, 41, 45), indicating that it comes from the northwest,
and (3) indication of greatness: it becomes “exceedingly [Hebrew yeter ]
great,” as compared with Medo-Persia, which simply “became great”
(Daniel 8:4) and Greece, which “became exceedingly [ ’ad me’od ] great”
(v. 8).”
Reis: Several of the assumptions in this paragraph are open to question:
1. The so-called “rise of a third empire” which effectively replaces
Greece (literally named in the text) with Rome (assumed by Gane) is
not an immediate conclusion of the vision proper, unless one brings
this presupposition into the text.
2. A close reading of the vision indicates that the “little horn” comes
out of “one of them” (8:9)––universally taken as a horn which bifurcates out of one of the previous “four horns” which had previously
grown into the four winds of heaven. This is consistent with the vision
of Daniel 7 where each new empire appears as a new animal and its
kings appearing as horns from said animal. This consistency can also
be seen in Daniel 8’s two animals, each representing a distinct empire
(unless it is clearly stated by the author) from which horns/kings rise.
This reading is confirmed by Gabriel’s interpretation of the vision
which indicates that this “little horn” symbolizes a “king of evil countenance [melech ‘az-panim]” which rises during the “posterity” (aharît,
8:23; 11:4; cf. “latter part”, NRSV) of one of the four Greek kingdoms
which came after the first horn, universally understood as Alexander,
the Great. This “posterity” or “latter part” is unanimously taken by
scholars as the Seleucid branch from which Antiochus rises in approximately 400 years after the vision. That the Jews thus understood the
origin of the “little horn” as a Greek power is also confirmed by first
century Jewish historian Josephus who states: “and that from among
them there should arise a certain king that should overcome our nation and their laws, and should take away our political government,
and should spoil the temple, and forbid the sacrifices to be offered for
three years’ time. And indeed it so came to pass, that our nation suffered these things under Antiochus Epiphanes, according to Daniel’s
vision, and what he wrote many years before they came to pass” (Antiquities of the Jews, 10:272, 275).3
The proceedings of the SDA 1919 Bible Conference reveals that the
understanding that Antiochus fulfilled Daniel 8 at least in part was
accepted by many Adventist scholars at the time, including Ellen
White.4
3. The second problem with Gane’s statement on the nature of this
“little horn” has to do with his conclusion it “becomes “exceedingly [Hebrew yeter ] great”. The main issue here is that the choice Hebrew adverb of intensity is always me’od and not (if ever) yeter as Gane takes
it. As such, me’od is only used to describe the size of the goat (8:8) and
never that of the “little horn” or the ram. Compare the use of me’od in
Genesis: the recently created earth is tov me’od, “very good” (Gen
1:31); the waters of the flood rise me’od me’od “exceedingly, mightily”
over the whole earth (Gen 7:18); the people of Israel grew bime’od
me’od ”exceedingly” in Egypt (Exod 1:7). The natural conclusion in
the passage is that the male goat is the greatest power in Daniel 8 and
Alexander, the Great, represents the “height of its power” (v. 8).
This initial problem gives rise to Gane’s third assumption when he
writes: “Therefore, the empire represented by the “little horn” is at
André Reis, PhD, has a B.A. in Theology from the Adventist University of São Paulo, Brazil and a Ph.D. in New Testament from Avondale
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College. His doctoral thesis will be published as Echoes of the Most Holy: The Day of Atonement in the Book of Revelation.
least greater than Medo-Persia and may be greater than Greece…” But
here again, the Hebrew construction “and the little horn wattigdal
yeter” does not allow this sweeping conclusion because yeter on its own
as used in Daniel 8 is not a true Hebrew adverb of intensity as Gane
wants. In most cases in the OT, yeter is used as “remainder, rest” (68
out of 95 times). The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament defines yeter as belonging to the ytr root nouns and denotes “left over,
rest.”5 Surprisingly, the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon only defines yeter as “exceedingly” in Dan 8:9, which hardly lends
broad, unassailable support to this translation.
Gane cites the use of yeter in Ps 31:23 [24 in the Hebrew] to support his reading of “exceedingly” in Dan 8:9. However, the expression
there is al-yeter, where the preposition al “to”, modifies yeter adverbially = “to the remainder = fully”. This is based on the most common
and conservative meaning of yeter as “remainder, rest”. Thus, even as
an adverb, the expression al-yeter does not immediately carry the
meaning of “exceedingly” or even “abundantly” but should more conservatively be taken as “fully” = “he will repay in full” the wicked. One
certainly should not conclude that God will repay the wicked “excessively” or more than deserved, but rather, al-yeter, to the “right measure”!
The second example Gane cites is from Isa 56:12: “And tomorrow
will be like today, great beyond measure [yeter me’od].” But again, in
this case, the true Hebrew adverb of intensity me’od = “exceedingly,
excessively” modifies yeter, not the other way around as Gane takes it.
Thus, the meaning in the Isaiah passage alongside me’od is similar to
that of Ps 31 = “fully”. This is like the expression “very much”
where me’od stands for “very” and yeter for “much”. It remains possible that yeter is used adverbially as “greatly” in Dan 8:9, but in light
of the presence of me’od in the passage, there’s no justification for taking yeter to mean “more than” as Gane implies or to function as an
adverb of even greater intensity than me’od.
Some Bible versions render Dan 8:9 similarly; NJPS: “From one of
them emerged a small horn, which extended itself greatly toward the
south, toward the east, and toward the beautiful land”; NIV: “but grew
in power to the south…”; GNT: whose power extended toward the
south;” YLT: “and it exerteth itself greatly toward the south” (all italics
supplied). Even if we translated the expression as “grew greatly” (unsupported), the fact is that a horn can never be greater or stronger than
the animal that carries it. If the “little horn” was to be greater than the
male goat and ram combined, it should logically have appeared as another animal altogether, which is not the case.
Alternatively, the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament translates yeter with the meaning of “pre-eminence” in Gen 49:3: “you are
… pre-eminent [yeter] in pride and pre-eminent [yeter] in power; unstable as water you shall not have pre-eminence [yatar]”6 (cf. “excelling
in rank” NRSV). Further, if we take yeter in Dan 8:9 at its most basic
meaning of “remainder”, Dan 8:9 could be read “the little horn grew
the remainder of its size = to maturity” or “fully” (as in Ps 31), although the preposition al could have further strengthened this reading.
It appears then that wattigdal-yeter, when rendered as “grew in preeminence” along with the geographical markers in the verse emphasizes where the “little horn” became most active or pre-eminent: east
and south and Palestine, and not how “great” it was there. Thus, the
translation “grew exceedingly great” must be surrendered and changed
to either “the little horn grew in pre-eminence,”7 or, if we use the usual
meaning of yeter as “remainder”, it could be rendered: “the little horn
grew the remainder [of its size]”, that is, reached maturity” or “grew
to its fullness” although it was not “greater than” the first horn or the
ram.
And history does show that Antiochus did take “pre-eminence” over
the east and south and Palestine even reaching further south to Egypt,
albeit less successfully. But he did fail to “grow in pre-eminence”
against the north and west.
Thus, considering the range of meaning of yeter in the OT, the
meaning “exceedingly” in Dan 8:9 is simply not a common use or a
first-choice translation as Gane assumes. Along with the lack of the
important Hebrew intensifier me’od this opens preferable alternatives.
And yet, this narrow and nearly unsupported translation of yeter becomes foundational to Gane’s view. This fact is yet more evidence that
the SDA view is not based on the most natural reading of the text but
on often on the most unnatural one.
This reading is in fact supported by Gabriel’s interpretation of the
vision, in which he indicates that this sixth Greek king did not have
the same power as the first king, Alexander. This can be deduced from
Dan 8:24: “He shall grow, but not with his power”. Some Bible versions consider this as a reference to the “little horn”/sixth king’s own
power (cf. KJV: “his power shall be mighty, but not by his own
power”; ASV: “but not with his own power”; NRSV: “He shall grow
strong in power”). However, the phrase “but not with his power [welô
bekohô]” in 8:24 is an exact copy of 8:22: “four kingdoms shall arise
from the nation, but not with his power [welô bekohô]” (cf. NIV: “will
not have the same power).” This expression in the 3rd person, masculine, singular is a clear reference to the power of the “great horn”
(8:21) or first king and not to the power of the four kings (referred to
as “kingdoms,” 3rd person, feminine, plural). Likewise, in Dan 8:22
this same expression does not refer to the “little horn”/sixth king’s own
power but rather points the reader again to the power of the “great
horn”/first king. Consequently, welô bekohô in 8:24 means that the
“little horn”/sixth king, similarly to the four preceding kings, does not
have the same power “great horn”/first king. This must be so because
there is no syntactical reason to translate the same exact expression
differently in such proximity when dealing with related kings coming
in a sequence out of the same animal, the male goat. Daniel must have
the same meaning in mind in the entire passage and this is how the
original readers would have understood it. Moreover, it makes little
sense to translate the expression as “but not with his own power” and
then describing precisely what he did with his own power.
In sum, Gane’s conclusion that the “little horn” is “exceedingly
great” and thus greater than Medo-Persian and Greece combined is
untenable on at least three counts:
(1) syntactically because of the lack of the Hebrew adverb of intensity me’od in the description of the “little horn”;
(2) contextually, since there’s nothing in the passage that indicates
that the little horn was actually “greater” than its predecessors MedoPersia and Greece combined; and
(3) by Gabriel’s own interpretation of the power of the “little horn”
as inferior to that of Alexander which rules out a Roman little horn.
This analysis demonstrates how Rome can only be found in Daniel
8 if one brings this exogenous presupposition to the text, while ignoring what the text says rather clearly about Greek kings.
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2. Historical Context of Judgment: Vertical Phase of „Little Horn‰
as Church of Rome
3. Justifying GodÊs Sanctuary in Heaven = Vindicating His Character
Gane: “First, the “2,300 evenings and mornings” cannot be 2,300 literal
days, which would amount to about 6.3 literal years, because this period
covers far too much history for that. Second, the justifying of the sanctuary
comes after the problems caused by the Roman church, so the sanctuary
cannot be the Jerusalem temple that the pagan Romans destroyed in 70
AD. It can only be God’s temple in heaven (e.g., Heb. 8-9; Rev. 11:19;
15:5). Third, as the solution to the problems caused by the Roman church,
justifying the heavenly sanctuary is the functional equivalent of the judgment in heaven described in Daniel 7:9-14 and referred to in Revelation
14:7. This is reinforced by the fact that the Hebrew verb from the root tsd-q that is translated “will be justified” in Daniel 8:14 is a legal term
(e.g., Deut. 25:1; 1 Kgs. 8:32).”
Gane: “Now we come to the heart of the contribution of Daniel 8 to our
understanding of the end-time judgment, which is part of the “eternal
gospel” (Rev. 14:6-7). This judgment justifies God’s sanctuary in heaven,
his headquarters where he is enthroned (Ps. 11:4; Rev. 4), which represents his administration, character, and “name”/reputation (cf. Deut.
12:5, 11; Ezek. 20:9) … That is, it justifies/vindicates his character of
love, which is represented by his sanctuary in 8:14. … Supporting this
interpretation is the background provided at the Old Testament sanctuary
by the annual Day of Atonement, which ritually enacted the justifying of
God’s character by purifying it from symbolic contamination that had accumulated there, which was caused by loyal and disloyal Israelites (Lev.
16).”
Reis: Gane’s conclusions above are a casebook example of a tautological, circular argument: he first assumes that his predetermined conclusions are correct which leads him to reread the text based on those
assumptions. It goes something like this; first, he assumes that the
2,300 must be years because “this period covers far too much history”
which, circularly, require 2,300 years, and therefore this period cannot
be 2,300 “evenings-mornings”, either 6.3 years or 1,150 days.
Second, because he assumes that thousands of years are required
and that it is the medieval Roman church that attacks the temple, it
cannot be the temple in Jerusalem destroyed in 70 AD but must be
the “heavenly sanctuary” which reaches to the desired time period.
This assumption then leads him to read the judgment in Daniel 7 as
occurring “in heaven” following the period of supremacy of the medieval church.
This is the same circular reasoning that virtually bulldozes the entire
book of Daniel with Rome and then looks for evidence in the text to
buttress the Roman theory. Thus, because Daniel 8 deals with Rome
and not Greece, the Roman “little horn” must come out of one the
“winds” and not one of the horns.
However, there is a superior––and yet simpler––reading to the one
Gane proposes: simply take a conservative approach to the text. By
“conservative” I mean, stay close to the author’s as well as the audience’s reality. A Greek power, a “little horn” attacks the “holy people”
and their sanctuary and makes the tamîd = “daily sacrifices” to cease
for a period of time (2,300 evenings-mornings = 1,150 literal days =
1,290 days in Dan 12 or “half a week” in Daniel 9). After this period
ends, the desecrations are removed and the sanctuary is cleansed and
restored. The closest fulfillment of this prophecy is irrefutably the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes who desecrated the temple in the 2nd
century BCE.
This same period of oppression is used typologically in Revelation
12 and 13 as 1,260 days and 3 ½ years (42 months) to symbolize the
persecution of the saints under a similar beastly/satanic power. The
implication here is also that a period of persecution would not last
forever but would end by divine intervention.
Daniel 8:14––and the entire chapter for that matter––is one of the
clearest in Daniel to understand and yet we have managed to distort
it almost beyond recognition. To what end? To stubbornly hold on to
an untenable Millerite interpretation.
Reis: This section is simply based on the problematic arguments from
the previous section to justify a future cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary in heaven in 1844.
First, the idea that God was “vindicated” on the Day of Atonement
is peculiarly Adventist with perfectionistic overtones (i.e., Last Generation Theology) and has no support in the text of Leviticus 16. There’s
nothing in Lev 16 that implies that it is God who was justified by the
Day of Atonement’s rituals; to the contrary, that day was a day of
penitence and cleansing for the people of Israel in which the totality of
their sins was removed from the sanctuary thus rendering the people
“clean”: “For on this day atonement shall be made for you, to cleanse
you; from all your sins you shall be clean before the Lord” (Lev 16:30).
Second, the only “purification” of the heavenly sanctuary occurred
in the past for the author of Hebrews who described Jesus as having
“entered” (Greek aorist) into the heavenly Most Holy Place with superior blood, a metaphorical entrance which indicates that Jesus’s sacrifice and subsequent entrance into heaven were fully accepted by God
on behalf of mankind: “We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor
of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered, having
become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek”
(Heb 6:19–20). As Gane convincingly demonstrated in an article in
the Andrews University Seminary Studies, the expression “behind the
curtain” in Heb 6:19 indicates the veil of the heavenly Most Holy
Place behind which Jesus entered.8 Further, in Heb 9:12, Jesus “entered once for all into the Holy Place [ta hagia], not with the blood of
goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption”; “holy place” here stands in parallel with the curtain of the
Most Holy Place in Heb 6:19. Here again––in consonance with the
Pentateuch––it is not God who is vindicated but his people who are
justified by Jesus’s Day of Atonement death and continuous highpriestly ministry.
3. Was Antiochus IV Epiphanes the „Little Horn‰?
Gane: “First, Antiochus was only one king of the Seleucid dynasty, so he
was part of one of the four Hellenistic “horns”/kingdoms in Daniel 8:8,
22; he did not supersede them by establishing an empire that was distinct
from the Greek empire. Second, Antiochus was Greek, so he came from
the third kingdom predicted in Daniel 2 and 7, but in Daniel 7 the “little
horn” comes from the fourth kingdom (vv. 7-8, 19-20), which is Rome.
… Third, Antiochus IV was not nearly as great as his father, Antiochus
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III the Great, and his success bears no comparison with that of Cyrus, the
Persian conqueror (v. 4), or Alexander the Great (v. 8). … Fourth, the
duration of Antiochus’s persecution of the Jews was 1,080 days, which was
not close to the length of any of the prophetic time periods in the book of
Daniel. … Fifth, Jesus predicted future fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy
that the “little horn” power would set up the “abomination of desolation,”
a blasphemous or idolatrous object or practice (Matt. 24:15-16; see Dan.
8:12-13; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11).”
Reis: The first three statements about the magnitude of Antiochus’s
power are all based on the erroneous assumption that the “little horn”
had to be greater than Medo-Persia and Greece combined, which I
refuted above.
The fourth point is based on two questionable assumptions: (1) the
career of the “little horn” is thousands of years based on the day-year
principle and not “2,300 evenings-mornings”; (2) this period must be
absolutely exact, fulfilled in atomic clock fashion with no possible
chronological deviation.
The first assumption can be refuted by observing that nowhere in
Scripture do we see such a day-year principle being established or used
as intended by Adventist exegetes. The closest we come to this idea of
a day for a year is the sabbatical cycle (cf. Lev 25:3–4), a period of
seven years with a rest on the seventh. Two further examples in Ezek
4:6 and Num 14:34 deal either with literal periods of years or days
standing for literal days or years, no symbolic period is used in these
passages. Other than those examples, we can’t simply assume that any
and every prophetic time period must be understood this way (see my
piece “The Problem with the Day-Year Principle,” on Adventist Today).
The second assumption is also questionable since the period of the
desecrations of the “little horn” against the temple is not rigid but is
given as several different time periods in Daniel: 2,300 eveningsmornings (=1,150 days), “half of the week” (Dan 9:27) and 1,290
days (Dan 12:11). The reason for this is not that hard to understand:
prophecies deal with human beings and there is always a free-will element in all prophecies. For example, in Ezekiel 26 we read a prophecy
that was not fulfilled as predicted (cf. Ezek 29). So, the period of Antiochus’s removal of the tamîd, the daily sacrifices of the temple in
Jerusalem given by Gane as 1,080 days––when taken with the preponderance of the evidence––is strikingly close to a fulfilment of these
diverse time periods. Certainly, such a small variation in its duration
constitutes insufficient justification to turn 2,300 evenings-mornings
into 2,300 years, thus catapulting the fulfilment millennia in the future from the prophet’s time.
Gane’s fifth point is based on a common misconception about the
use by Jesus of Daniel in Matthew 24:15–16 will be discussed in the
following section on Daniel 9.
A conclusion that rises from this discussions on Daniel 8 is that
there’s always a more conservative, close reading approach to the biblical text which is preferred to the numerological and counter-exegetical approach Adventists have advocated.
COMMENTS ON DANIEL 9
1. Who decreed that Jerusalem should be rebuilt according to
Isaiah 44:28?
Gane: “Isaiah 44:28 does not predict a decree of Cyrus to restore and rebuild Jerusalem in fulfillment of Daniel 9:25. Cyrus did play an important role in God’s plan, as Isaiah 45:13 prophesied without mentioning a decree by Cyrus. The process of building began with Cyrus (Ezra
1:1-4; 6:3-5), continued with Darius I (6:6-12), and culminated with
the decree of Artaxerxes, as indicated by Ezra 6:14.”
Reis: Gane builds his argument––as often is the case with the SDA
position––on a so-called “ambiguity of antecedents” in Isaiah 44. In
other words, who is the subject of the actions predicted: “even saying
[God? Cyrus?] to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple,
Thy foundation shall be laid”? The fact is that an appeal to the Hebrew in this case does not help Gane’s case, since the morphology of
“even saying” in v. 28 does not point unequivocally to God as the
originator of these orders. While every divine “who says” in Isaiah
44:26–28 is the participle haomer = “the one saying”, the actions of v.
28b are introduced by the infinitive w’lemor “and to say” which breaks
the pattern. As Shalom Paul explains in his commentary, “the waw
appended to w’lemor is ‘explanatory’” meaning “that is, to say to Jerusalem…”9 This serves to explain what God’s “purpose” for Cyrus is =
“to say to Jerusalem: ‘She shall be rebuilt and to the temple, ‘You will
be founded again.’” This makes sense since God had already spoken
of the rebuilding of Jerusalem in v. 27 and now he introduces the
person who will actually take this purpose to fruition: Cyrus. Otherwise, what is the purpose of introjecting Cyrus in the discourse?
Thus, there’s no reason to conclude with Gane’s argument that the
infinitive “to say” (w’lemor) “simply extends the saying action expressed by the participle at the beginning of the verse, where it is the
Lord who speaks.” In fact, in order to “extend” the initial participle,
another participle haomer would have made God the subject of the
speech unequivocally but Isaiah uses another verbal tense, which is
significant as the only infinitive of this passage. In v. 24 for example,
each of the five divine actions is a participle; in v. 26, God’s “saying”
to Jerusalem is again the participle haomer. Further, the fact that God
is the subject of each of the preceding “who says” actions does not in
any way preclude that he could now describe what Cyrus says. Gane
only concludes this because his assumption that Cyrus did not fulfill
this prediction causes him to adapt the text according to his preferred
result.
Nevertheless, however, the syntactical argument certainly does not
settle the issue and while Gane’s reading is not impossible, it is not
plausible. We should not be so caught up in the ambiguities in the
grammar and ignore the overall thrust of the passage. The main question for us is: How likely would it be for Isaiah to mention „Cyrus‰
and „rebuild city and temple‰ in virtually the same breath but ultimately mean that Cyrus would in fact not fulfill this prophecy?
GaneÊs reading strains credulity.
Isaiah’s clear intention that it was Cyrus who would do precisely
that is borne out by the fact that that is precisely what Cyrus he did:
he ordered that Jerusalem and the temple be rebuilt. While the decree
described in Scripture mentions only the temple: “Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the
kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at
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Jerusalem in Judah” (Ezra 1:1), Jewish historian Josephus appears to
have access to the entire decree, which reads in part: “I have given
leave to as many of the Jews that dwell in my country as please to
return to their own country, and to rebuild their city, and to build the
temple of God at Jerusalem, on the same place where it was before”
(Antiquities of the Jews 11:12).10
The only reason to conclude that Cyrus would not fulfill this prophecy is because of an assumption that he could not do so based on modern-day chronological concerns, as seems to be the case with Gane’s
interpretation. This retroactive calculation process assumes that a certain future event fulfilled Daniel’s prophecy and then traces its prediction back in time––in this case, the death of Christ assumed to be
in 31 AD––490 years back from the date of the initial “fulfillment”.
That is precisely what happens with Gane’s reading: his Adventist
chronological presuppositions require him to reread Isaiah with the
lenses of Artaxerxes’ decree and not that of Cyrus.
In essence, Gane’s position requires that Isaiah’s prophecy fail in
order to fit his preferred fulfillment of Daniel 9 by Artaxerxes.
2. Is the dabar, „word‰ in Daniel 9:23 the same as the dabar in
verse 25?
Gane: “Reis argues that the “word”/decree of Cyrus had already gone out
and therefore fulfilled the prediction of Daniel 9:25: …However, simple
discourse analysis shows that in verse 23, the “word” that went out is the
message in verses 24-27 that Gabriel brought to Dani in the first year of
Darius the Mede (verse 1, not yet Cyrus in Babylon; see 6:28 [Hebrew
verse 29]; 10:1) and told him to consider. Included within this overall
message is the future “going out” (noun motsa’; not a past tense verb for
“went out”) of another “word”: decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem”
Reis: In critiquing my taking of “going out” as a past event (a plausible
reading) Gane argues for his taking “going out” as a future event. Nevertheless, the expression “from the going out of a dabar” is non-temporal, meaning that by itself, it does not indicate a past or future event;
it simply indicates the event from which the 70 weeks should be
counted. Even though in my AT article I followed the New Revised
Standard Version to mean that it probably meant a decree that had
already been issued (past) in answer to Daniel’s prayer, it could as well
be in the future.
What is not plausible is to read this “decree” as something far removed from Daniel’s own time and comprehension––as Gane wants
it by seeing Artaxerxes’s “decree” in 457 BCE as the terminus ad quo
(starting point). But not only does Artaxerxes’s decree fail the basic
test as the decree which would rebuild Jerusalem in Daniel 9 (the temple had been finished 70 years earlier and Jerusalem was already in the
process of rebuilding under Cyrus decree), but Daniel had already
been dead for about eighty years and could not have “known or understood” that his prayer had been answered. For all intents and purposes, Artaxerxes’ decree would have meant to Daniel a failure of the
prophecy of the end 70 years of captivity by adding another 80 years
to it––precisely the opposite of what Daniel prayed for.
Whether the dabar occurred in the past of the vision or in its immediate future really not decisive on this issue. What really matters is
the fact that Cyrus’s decree fulfills Jeremiah’s, Isaiah’s and Daniel’s
prophecies of the restoration of Judah while the decree of Artaxerxes
does not.
3. What does „to restore and build Jerusalem‰ (Daniel 9:25)
mean?
Gane: “As a modern reader of an English translation, Reis assumes that
restoration of a city refers to rebuilding houses and other buildings, which
was begun at Jerusalem under Cyrus. However, the verb translated “restore” is the Hiphil (causative) of shub. When this verb takes a city as its
direct object, as in Daniel 9:25, it refers to restoration of its ownership to
a political entity that previously possessed it (1 Kgs 20:34; 2 Kgs 14:22).
… It was the decree of Artaxerxes I (Ezra 7:11-26) in the seventh year of
this king’s reign (verses 7-8; 458-457 B.C.) that returned the ownership
of Jerusalem back to the Jews by giving them autonomous (within the Persian empire) civil control of the city so that they could govern it by their
own laws and with their own judicial system.”
Reis: Here again, there are several issues with Gane’s assumptions.
First, there’s little, if any, justification for taking the verb shub with
the narrow sense of the “establishment of a autonomous civil control”
in Daniel 9 as Gane argues. The verb shub is one of the most frequently used terms in the Hebrew Bible (ranked 12th in occurrence),
appearing 1,050 times in its verbal and deverbal noun forms.11 Its
basic semantic meaning as given by the Theological Dictionary of the
Old Testament is “to move in an opposite direction from that toward
which one previously moved.”12 As such, it often occurs in contexts of
“repentance” and spiritual-covenantal restoration. The two examples
given by Gane from the books of Kings do not unequivocally point to
Gane’s narrow meaning of shub as “restoration of civil control” but
can just as well fit the overall OT notion of simply “returning” something to a previous status or to someone else. Gane is simply seeing a
“preferred” reading of shub in Kings to justify his “preferred” reading
of shub in Daniel.
But a far better background for the meaning of shub in Daniel is the
book of Jeremiah, which Daniel reveals in chapter 9 he was just reading! The term shub appears 106 times in Jeremiah and in roughly 80%
of those cases it carries the meaning of spiritual restoration as in Jer
3:12: “Return [shubah], faithless Israel, says the LORD” (cf. 3:14,
22).13 Moreover, in Jeremiah there’s no distinction between the restoration of Jerusalem and that of the people, since Jerusalem is often
found in passages of repentance as in Jer 18:11: “Now, therefore, say
to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the
LORD: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a
plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend
your ways and your doings.”
Therefore, it seems more than coincidental that the context in
which shub appears in Daniel is exactly the same meaning as Jeremiah’s “repentance” passages which Daniel had been reading! In fact,
Daniel’s prayer in chapter 9 has many thematic parallels with Jeremiah
(especially Jer 11) where shub appears with the meaning of returning
to God. Significantly, in Jer 4:1, “If you return [tashub], O Israel, says
the Lord, if you return [tashub] to me” the verb shub appears in the
same verbal form in Dan 9:25b: “and for sixty-two weeks it will be
restored [tashub].” The verb shub is also central to God’s promise of
deliverance from the Chaldeans: he would bring Judah “back [wahashibotim] to this land” “for they shall return [yashubu] to me with their
whole heart” (Jer 24:6–7).
The phrase “to restore” in Dan 9:25a is the causative (Hiphil) of
shub = lehashib. According to the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament “the notion of physical movement frequently attested in the
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hiphil can have significant theological implications especially when referring to the return from exile (e.g., Jer. 12:15).”14 Thus, both notions of “repentance” and “physical movement” present in shub are
present in Daniel 9. The chapter is introduced by the prophet’s intercession for his wayward people now in captivity whose time to “move
out” and return to God had arrived and with them, the city of Jerusalem would change hands, from the Persians to the Jews. Thereby, a
process of spiritual “return” would be initiated and continued for several “weeks”.
Thus, the use of the theologically-charged verb shub by Daniel in a
context of repentance and return to God as well as the restoration and
return of Jerusalem as God’s holy city based on its extensive use in
Jeremiah is a much stronger regulating theme in the passage than
simply the narrow meaning of “civil control” of Jerusalem based on
questionable meanings in the book of Kings. Daniel’s prayer on behalf
of the Hebrews’ “return” is answered by Gabriel’s prophecy that Jerusalem would in fact be “returned” to the people as a sign of God’s
renewed covenant with them and all that would be accomplished by
Cyrus, as prophesied by Isaiah.
In sum, to insist on a merely political or administrative meaning
for shub in Daniel 9 cheapens the profound theological connotation
of spiritual return and restoration of Judah and Jerusalem present
in the prophecy.
And again, even if we were to take Gane’s narrow meaning of shub
in the narrow “political governance” sense, it would be incomprehensible to deny that it was Cyrus’s decree ––not Artaxerxes’ decree––
which originally restored Jerusalem to the Jewish control in 538 BCE.
Another major obstacle for Gane’s position is that the starting point
of the “restoration and rebuilding” was the “going out” of the decree
itself, not when it would be “finalized”, supposedly during Artaxerxes.
This is especially significant considering that the order to “restore” is
concomitant with the order to “rebuild”, both of which are accomplished by Cyrus’s decree. Gane’s position, on the other hand, requires
us to separate these two aspects and ignore that under Cyrus decree
there had already been ongoing reconstruction of Jerusalem and total
restoration of the temple by the time of the prophet Haggai (520
BCE).
Obviously, the process of a “covenantal return” = shub of the Jews
to God as described in Jeremiah and Daniel 9 would not be accomplished overnight. They had been in Babylon for almost 70 years and
had lost sight of God’s purposes for them. It took several attempts and
appeals by prophet Haggai as well as Ezra and Nehemiah to wrestle
the Jews out of the “comfort” of Babylon. From the issuance of Cyrus’s decree, there would be a long period when Jerusalem would
slowly return to God’s plan for her and his people, which included
rebuilding the city, rebuilding the temple and the return of the Hebrew cult by the anointing of its Most Holy Place (9:24). This period
is given as 62 weeks which could have been shortened depending on
the people’s ability to abide by the covenant.
With the above in mind, it seems clear that Gane prefers a very narrow meaning of shub in order to make Artaxerxes’ decree “fit” as the
one intended by Gabriel in Daniel 9. But this argument is based on
circular reasoning of rereading Daniel 9 with the lenses of Adventist
presuppositions.
4. Messiah („Anointed One‰) to come after 7 weeks or 69 weeks?
Gane: “The Hebrew words for “and sixty-two weeks” immediately follow
the words for “seven weeks.” These two sequential time periods follow the
words “from…until…,” which call for an indication of time that terminates at the coming of “an anointed one, a leader.” This correlates with
verse 26, where “an/the anointed one” is “cut off” after the 62 weeks, not
after the seven weeks.”
Reis: The mere fact that “seven weeks” are immediately followed by
“sixty-two weeks” in the original Hebrew does not at all mean that
they should be taken together as a single period of 69 weeks. There
are significant syntactical and contextual reasons why they should not
be thus taken, as we will see below.
Several Bible translations have taken the following rendering of Dan
9:25: “Know therefore and understand: from the time that of a word
to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an anointed prince,
there shall be seven weeks; and for sixty-two weeks it shall be restored;
it will be rebuilt with streets and moat, but in difficult times” (cf.
NRSV, ESV, RSV, NJPS). Compare this with the KJV on which the
SDA position is built: “from the going forth of the commandment to
restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be
seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks.”
The translation presented above has significant advantages over the
KJV. First, it explains why there are two distinct periods in the vision,
7 weeks and 62 weeks marking distinct events. Adventist exegetes have
passed over this important question without nary a thought: Why
would Daniel split the 69 weeks into 7+62 if not for very specific reasons?
Explanations have been offered such as taking the initial 7 weeks as
the time of the “rebuilding” of Jerusalem but this is not convincing
since Jerusalem was not rebuilt in 7 weeks and because the sixty-two
weeks are the natural antecedent of “restore and rebuild”.
Second, Gane makes no effort to explain why one should take the
word tashub = “it will be restored” as the beginning of another clause
and not as the end of “and for sixty-two weeks”. Gane’s rather outdated analysis is not in dialogue with scholarship on this matter.
Scholars have pointed out how tashub = “it will be restored” does not
initiate a new clause but is rather an internal (final) element of the
clause initiated by the phrase “and for sixty-two weeks”. This is so because a waw (ו, “and”, “will”)15 initiates each major clause in Dan
9:24–27 (indicated in red in the Hebrew text below) and when the
main verb does not start a clause, it does not carry a waw.16 This has
a bearing on how one interprets the 70 “sevens”.
As explained by McComiskey, if this pattern is not observed in v.
25, and the “seven sevens” go with “sixty-two sevens” forming a single
period of 69 weeks until “an anointed, a prince”, a waw should go
before täxûB (“it will be restored”) as in wetäxûB in order to start a new
clause, but this is missing in the text. Consequently, it is the conjunctive waw that goes before “sixty-two sevens” (wexäBu/îm xxixîm ûxenayim)
that initiates the next clause making it an accusative of time or duration = “and for sixty-two sevens, it shall be “turned back”.17 This is
one of the reasons why the Masoretes added an atnach (semicolon)
after the initial “seven sevens” creating a short break between the two
clauses.
In his commentary on Daniel, John J. Collins states: “There can be
no doubt that the MT punctuation is correct”18 and the reason is
grammatical and syntactical, rather than anti-messianic as some suggest. This reading is also confirmed by Dan 9:26 which indicates that
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the “sixty-two sevens” are a distinct period related to the cutting off
of a second “anointed.”
The implication of this rendering of the passage is that two and not
a single anointed rise in the period of 70 weeks = “an anointed, a
prince” appears after the initial “seven sevens” and another “anointed”
(not “prince”) is “cut off” at the end of the following “sixty-two sevens”. This maintains consistency in the pattern of division of the 70
weeks: 7 + 62 + 1 (= ½ + ½), each period being connected to a distinct
actor/event. This could also explain why the two maschiachim
“anointed ones” do not have the definite article both times: there are
two.19 (The analysis of the original of Daniel 9 at the Appendix highlights the inconsistencies of the messianic view.)
Because Daniel 9 deals with the restoration of the temple and the
anointing of its Most Holy Place (v. 24), the two “anointed ones” are
most likely two high priests which mark the period between the end
of the Babylonian exile and the beginning of the desecration of the
temple under the evil “little horn” (8:13–14) = the “coming king” of
9:26–27 (cf. Lev 4:3). These high priests could be Joshua, the first
high priest after the Babylon exile and a leader after the exile (515–
490 BCE) and Onias III, the high priest killed at the outset of the
desecrations predicted in Dan 8:13–14 and 9:26–27.
This evil “prince”= “little horn” of Daniel 9 is universally understood as the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175 BCE), who
rose “in the posterity of the [Greek] kingdoms” (8:23; 11:4), made a
covenant with unfaithful Jews for one “week” and “for half of the
week” (= 2,300 evenings-mornings = 1,150 days roughly) removes the
tamîd sacrifices and sets up the “abomination of the desolation” in the
temple (cf. 1 Maccabees 1). In this case, the pattern of epochs based
on 7 is not rigid but carries a symbolic, spiritual meaning. As John
Goldingay astutely observes, Daniel 9 does not deal with “chronology
but chronography: a stylized scheme of history used to interpret historical data.”20 Similarly, Thomas McComiskey writes: “The numerical concepts of seven and seventy are understood to have a symbolic
significance … the concept of totality or fullness.”21
How could high priest Joshua fit the prediction of the mashiach
nagîd the „anointed prince‰ of Daniel 9?
In their volume in the Anchor Bible Commentary series on Haggai,
the Meyers put the birth of high priest Joshua at around 570 BCE and
the dedication of the temple of Zerubbabel in 515 BCE (possibly 516)
at which time high priest Joshua, son of Jehozadak would have begun
his official tenure (cf. Ezra 3:2, 8; 5:2).22 The end of this high priestly
tenure given as 490 BCE is approximate considering his age (around
80).23
But more important than quibbling about precise dates––rarely a
real theological concern in Scripture––is the fact that Joshua and
Zerubbabel were inspired by Haggai to take up the reconstruction of
the temple which failed under Sheshbazzar (cf. Ezra 5:1–2). These
nagidim or “officials” are the recipients of the visions of Haggai and
high priest Joshua is one of the main characters in the book of Zechariah; Joshua’s role in the restoration of the community receives an
entire chapter treatment there (Zech 3). More importantly, Zechariah
is told make a crown for high priest Joshua so that he would “bear
royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne” and rebuild the temple ( Zech 6:11). Thus, Joshua’s priestly-royal role in leading the people out of Babylon back to Jerusalem could be encapsulated in the
expression mashiach nagîd “anointed prince” in Dan 9:25, especially
because the high priest was also called mashiach (Lev 4:3, 5) as well as
nagîd in the post-exilic book of Chronicles (2 Chron 35:8). In Jeremiah’s time, priest Pashur, is also called nagîd over the sanctuary (Jer
20:1). In fact, the word nagîd appears 21 times in the books of 1 and
2 Chronicles, far more than in other books of the OT and in connection to the temple officers indicating its common usage for leaders of
the Jews in the post-exilic period (cf. 2 Chron 31:12, 13).
Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars have explored
several strands of expectations of a priestly messiah in the community
of Qumran, which held the book of Daniel as central to their selfunderstanding. The manuscript 11QMelchizedek for example is highly
significant for the understanding of this high priestly messiah in the
book of Hebrews. VanderKam concluded that in the messianic texts
at Qumran “there was a dual messianism, with one messiah being
priestly and the other Davidic.”24 Having surveyed several Qumran
texts which point to the expectation of a messianic priest, Eric Mason
concludes that the texts “clearly demonstrate an expectation of a
priestly, eschatological messianic figure” and a “king and priest.”25
In regards to Joshua as a type of Christ, one need go no farther to
find this high priestly-royal messiah than the book of Hebrews, which
portrays Jesus repeatedly as “high priest” (Heb 4:14, 15; 5:1, 5 ff.).
According to F. C. Synge, “It is one of the major themes of Hebrews
that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of both Jesus the son of Nun and
Jesus the son of Jehozadak.”26 Church fathers since the second century
AD have noticed how Joshua’s priestly-royal was a type of Jesus.27
(Joshua typology is extensively explored by Richard Ounsworth in his
book Joshua Typology in the New Testament).
Thus, high priest Joshua is the most likely “anointed prince” who
restored the Jewish temple as the fulfillment of Daniel’s post-exilic
prophecy in chapter 9 and thereby, stood as a type of Jesus, the heavenly “high priest” and royal Davidic Messiah (Heb 1:5–2:28; 7:14,
28; cf. Ps 110).28
5. Who „shall make a strong covenant with many for one week⁄‰
(Daniel 9:27)?
Gane: “What sense would it make for this destructive prince (not to be
confused with “an anointed one, a prince,” in verse 25) to make strong a
(pre-existing) covenant for (the benefit of) the many for one week (following the Hebrew meaning)? The context indicates that the actual antecedent of “he” is someone else.”
Reis: In Daniel 9:27 we read:
“He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for
half of the week he shall make sacrifice and offering cease; and in
their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed
end is poured out upon the desolator” (NRSV)
In my Adventist Today piece, I argued that the actor who makes
this covenant for one week is the evil prince who rises after the
“anointed one” of v. 26 had already been cut off. The anointed one’s
“cutting off” = death ( = “destruction”, cf. Dan 11:22) then opens the
way for the coming prince and his people who destroy the city and the
temple. There’s little if any justification to take the “anointed one”
from v. 26 as the one who makes this “covenant” with many in v. 27
if the sequence of events can be properly understood in context.
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And is it mere coincidence that Daniel 11––which expands on the
actions of the evil prince of Daniel 9––follows basically the same sequence? Daniel 11 reveals that after “the prince of the covenant” is
destroyed by the armies of the evil prince, he would make an “alliance”
with those who remain. We read: “Armies shall be utterly swept away
and broken before him, and the prince of the covenant [nagîd berit]
as well. And after an alliance is made with him, he shall act deceitfully
and become strong with a small party” (11:22–23). Who is this
“prince of the covenant” [nagîd berit] who is destroyed by this “evil
prince” if not the same “anointed one” who is “cut off” in Daniel 9:26?
The expression “prince of the covenant” alongside “anointed prince”
in connection with the overthrow of the sanctuary in Jerusalem points
unequivocally to a priestly figure as the “anointed ones” in both passages.
Further, it is this coming prince in Dan 9:26 who makes the sacrifice and offering cease “for half of the week”––and not “in the middle
of the week” and the tendentious KJV makes it. As seen above, Dan
9:27 reads:
9:27a
9:27b
wᵉhig̱bı ̂r
bᵉrı ̂ṯ lārabbı ̂m
he will make strong covenant with many
waḥᵃṣı ̂ haššāḇûaʿ
yašbı ̂ṯ
and for half of the week he will make cease
šāḇûaʿ ʾeḥāḏ
for one week
zeḇaḥ ûminḥāh
sacrifice and offering
Both periods, “for one week” and “for half of [the same] week” are
not introduced by prepositions and therefore form what the lexicons
call an “accusative of time or duration.” The expression as translated
by the KJV and used widely by SDAs “in the middle” would require
another Hebrew construction altogether, initiated by the preposition
b = “in the” or “on the”. As explained by Theophile Meek: “The Hebrew accusative of time would seem to indicate duration of time only.
… … The sense of motion in time is always present. … To express
point of time one has to use the preposition b, bayyom hazzêh = “on
this (particular) day.”29 As such, there is no textual justification to
translate one period as a duration and not the other, unless, again, one
brings such presupposition into the text.
At this juncture, a major inconsistency and Gane’s position is exposed. What is the reason why he renders the accusative of duration
in 9:27a differently from 9:27b? Likewise, why does Gane fail to render the accusative of time in 9:25 correctly = “and for sixty-two
weeks”? This is certainly the result of reading modern assumptions
back into the biblical text.
Not coincidentally, the removal of sacrifice and offering in 9:27 by
the “coming prince” is equivalent to the removal of the sacrifices by
the little horn in Daniel 8 = “it took the regular burnt offering away
from him and overthrew the place of his sanctuary” (8:11). Further,
the period of the removal given as “for half of the week” in Dan 9:27
is the same period given as 2,300 evenings-mornings in Daniel 8:14
(= 1,150 days of two daily sacrifices each) which in turn is given as
1,290 days in Daniel 12: “From the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that desolates is set up, there
shall be one thousand two hundred ninety days.”
The fact remains that the striking thematic parallel between these
actors/actions and time periods does not readily allow the reader to
take the knife to the text and sever these clear intentions by the author
of Daniel. There’s simply no textual justification to take these actions
as done by any other actor other than the Greek “coming prince” =
“little horn”, unless one forces certain presuppositions on the text.
Gane’s objection that the covenant would have to already exist to
be “confirmed” due to the lack of karat (“to cut” a covenant) is not
convincing. First, the making of a berit is not always accompanied by
the verb karat as in Jer 34:10 where a berit is ba’u = “gone into”.30
Second, the word which Gane renders as “confirm” stems from gabar
(wᵉhig̱bı ̂r bᵉrı ̂ṯ) which means literally “strong, mighty” so that the emphasis is on the type of covenant, not necessarily how it is entered into.
In other words, it’s a strong covenant, not necessarily a pre-existing
one! The synoptic view at the end of this article indicates the strong
thematic and verbal parallels between Dan 8, 9 and 11.
Gane: “Fifth, Jesus predicted future fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy that
the “little horn” power would set up the “abomination of desolation,” a
blasphemous or idolatrous object or practice (Matt. 24:15-16; see Dan.
8:12-13; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11).”
Reis: Proponents of the Roman interpretation of Daniel 8 and 9 often
resort to Jesus’ use of Daniel in Matt 24 :15 as a “silver bullet” against
preterist views of Daniel. They argue that Jesus is providing the “key”
to understanding Daniel by placing its “future” fulfillment under
Rome from which the medieval papacy grew as the “little horn” of
Daniel 7.
Matt 24:15 says: “So when you see the desolating sacrilege standing
in the holy place, as was spoken of by the prophet Daniel (let the
reader understand), 16 then those in Judea must flee to the mountains”
(NRSV; cf. Mark 13:14). The parallel passage in Luke 21:20–22 indicates that this “desolating sacrilege” referred to the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.
21
Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside
the city must leave it, and those out in the country must not enter it.”
The question we should address is whether Jesus intended that Daniel’s “abomination of desolation” was fulfilled primarily in the future
destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. But such hasty conclusion
would require us to nullify the clear prediction of a Greek attack
against Jerusalem. What did Jesus mean by quoting Daniel?
Several observations can be made about the function of this reference in context. First, it is rather clear that this brief reference to the
“abomination of desolation” in Jerusalem by Jesus functioned as a
“sign” for the Christians to flee Jerusalem. Second, the concept of a
“flight” from Jerusalem is nowhere to be found in Daniel so Jesus’
application of Daniel to the destruction of Jerusalem is only partial.
Third, the setting up of the “abomination of desolation” in the temple
in Daniel is always followed by the removal of said abomination and
the temple’s subsequent re-consecration from the abomination of the
desolation (cf. Dan 8:14: “the sanctuary will be cleansed”). Such
cleansing and re-consecration of the sanctuary is actually the terminus
ad quem of the “abomination of the desolation” in Daniel = the temple
would eventually be purified and restored (nitsdaq) from said “abomination”, its Most Holy Place would be cleansed (8:14) and anointed
(9:25). This did not occur with the temple which the Romans destroyed in 70 AD since that temple lies in ruins to this day.
The conclusion that arises from this brief analysis is that Jesus used
the prior setting up of the “abomination of the desolation” by the
Greeks in the temple as a template for what the Romans would do and
as a partial sign for the Christians to leave Jerusalem. Thus the fulfilment of Daniel’s “abomination of desolation” during the Greek control of the Jewish temple (2nd century BCE) is used by Jesus as a
8
typological echo of a future attack against the temple in Jerusalem in
70 AD. This conclusion works quite well within the contextual moorings and is far more conservative conclusion (= low presuppositional
threshold) than simply dismissing the mountain of evidence that Daniel 8 was fulfilled during the Greek hegemony over Israel.
Conversely, the Roman view presents the reader with a rereading of
Daniel against its literal description of a Greek attack against Jerusalem, the temple and its people. Scholars are universally agreed as does
Jewish history of interpretation––excepting Adventists––that the desecrations by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes against the
Jews and the temple and his oppression of Jewish religion constitute a
striking fulfillment of Daniel 8’s prophecy.
The problem with the Roman view is that replacing Greece in Daniel 8 with first century Rome when Daniel says “Greece” literally
would nullify the author’s intention in favor of a later, a posteriori (after the fact) modern-day presupposition. The Greek attack against Jerusalem and the temple in the 2nd century BCE proves to be such a
close prophetic match that a far stronger contextual, literary and historical reason would be needed to replace it with another fulfillment.
This Roman “alternative” has failed to convince scholars across the
board but remains alive in Adventism. Why, if not for Ellen White’s
approval of this interpretation?
In Matthew 24, “holy place” clearly refers to the temple which Jesus
had just predicted would be destroyed (v. 2). Building on Matthew’s
allusion to the temple’s destruction, Luke 21:20 further clarifies that
this “abomination of desolation” against the “holy place” is equivalent
to Jerusalem’s own “desolation” (eremosis), when it would be “surrounded by armies”, universally understood as the siege by the Roman
in 70 AD. The verbal parallel between the synoptics is undeniable in
the use of the same word for “desolation” = eremosis in both Matthew
and Luke. Further, the phrase “let the reader understand” found in
Matthew and Mark implies foreknowledge of what the Daniel reference means. It is thus highly significant that this reference to Daniel
by Jesus comes on the heels of the celebration by the Jews of the deliverance from Antiochus’s desolation and the re-dedication of the
temple in 165 BCE, which took place yearly during the Feast of Lights
(enkainia = Hanukkah) celebrated by Jesus and the disciples in the
previous December (cf. John 10). Jesus’s reference to Daniel occurred
in March of the following year, shortly before his death on Friday,
April 3, 33 AD.31 Considering the significance of the Greek attack for
the Jews, it is unreasonable to simply replace Greece by Rome in Daniel 8 as a “primary” fulfillment.
Thus, the answer to the “synoptic problem” with Daniel maybe in
the way fulfilled prophecy can become future typology. The interplay
between prophecy and typology (foreshadowing) is highlighted by the
erroneous idea proposed by some SDA’s that a past, partial fulfillment
of prophecy can be an echo of its future, actual fulfillment. According
to this view, Antiochus’ past aggressions could have “echoed” the actual goal of the prophecy which was the future Roman attack against
the temple and beyond. But this creates an anachronistic allusive directionality because of history’s forward linearity. By definition, an
“echo” is a softer reverberation from a louder sound lying in the past;
in this case, the actual prophetic fulfillment would be the initial
“Bang!” which then sounds softer in future “echoes” = typology.
Thus, a more convincing understanding of the interplay between
classical prophecy––such as Daniel 8 & 9––and typology in my view
is that classical prophecy always has a single fulfillment and application (the initial “Bang!”) which can then be “recycled” as a future
“typological echo” (my terminology), even in the form of an “eschatological echo”. Such future “typological echo” is not the primary or
even a new partial “fulfillment” as Ford argued. I believe the approach
based on the interplay between prophecy and typology is more on target because it allows for a greater respect towards authorial intention
of the OT while observing continuities as well as discontinuities between biblical prophecy and typology.
Although often touted by SDAs as a future primary fulfillment of
Daniel in Rome in its much later papal phase, there are also important
discontinuities between Daniel and the synoptic allusion, the most
prominent being that the temple attacked by the Romans in 70 AD
was never “cleansed” as Daniel 8:14 clearly requires, while the temple
attacked by Antiochus was indeed “cleansed”, and miraculously so.
For this important reason, the Roman attack against Jerusalem in 70
AD fails as the actual, primary fulfillment of Daniel in a crucial sense:
its failed cleansing and failed “anointing” of its Most Holy Place (Dan
9:24). The desolations by the Romans thus constitute a “partial typological echo” of a past fulfillment because it fails to match the restoration of the temple required in Daniel. Similar to this partial typological echo is Jesus’s allusion alongside Daniel to the “days of Noah”
(Matt 24:37), an event fulfilled in the past which carries typological
echoes for the eschaton. These echoes are also partial because we don’t
expect that the “marrying” and frolicking of the antediluvians mirrored eschatologically will lead to the destruction of the world by “water” or that an ark with animals will be involved! In sum, Jesus’ reference to Daniel’s “abomination of desolation”––clearly fulfilled during
the Greek attack against the temple in the 2nd century BCE––in Matt
24:15 is an example of such “typological echo” which served as a sign
for the Christians to leave Jerusalem and nothing else.
The proposition that fulfilled prophecy can resurface as a “typological echo” is, of course, embryonic and further probing is necessary,
but I believe it is more compelling than appealing to a primary “fulfillment” of Daniel which removes the text from its original authorial
intention and contextual moorings and neuters its meaning to its target audience: oppressed Jews in 6th century BCE Babylon.
For these reasons, it is a stretch to take Jesus’s laconic reference to
the “abomination of the desolation” in Jerusalem as a pesher (key) to
understanding the entire book of Daniel. The synoptic reference is
best understood as a midrash of Daniel forming a “signs” oracle: the
placing of this “abomination of the desolation” in the holy place in
Jerusalem serves as a sign for those in Judea to take flight. Antiochus’s
primary fulfillment of Daniel in the second century BCE became a
template for another such “abominable” attacks on the Jewish religion
and temple. (Pilate got close when he put Roman standards in Jerusalem in the late 20’s AD). The sign itself is secondary to the main event,
the subversion of Jerusalem. Consequently, it’s hard to see how such
sign would be applicable in the end-times simply because the temple
in Jerusalem has been in ruins for millennia. However––as a tip of the
hat to the SDA understanding––the abuses of the medieval Papacy,
rather than being the primary fulfillment of Daniel––a conclusion
which is astronomically expensive exegetically speaking––could rather
qualify as “typological echoes” of the assault against God’s people and
truth fulfilled in the past. This is a corollary of the view that the eschaton has been inaugurated in the resurrection (the consensus view
of NT scholarship) and we now await for its consummation.
In an online discussion, an Adventist professor at Andrews University suggested that my view is akin to as “hair-splitting exegesis” since
the cleansing of the temple is “not required” at the time of the event.
9
He then converts the predicted literal cleansing of the temple to a spiritualized one of the “heavenly sanctuary”. But this interpretive leap
has no support in the text but rather exposes a circular argument of
rereading the text because it doesn’t fit within a predetermined result.
Jumping ship to “papal Rome” when confronted with the partial fulfillment is simply not convincing since Jesus sees the abomination occurring in the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD and not in “papal” Rome,
centuries in the future. To this proposition of future “typological echoes”, he asked the important question: “You are not seriously arguing
that the fall of Jerusalem is the major event, and the Second Coming
the minor, are you?” Of course not, because no classical prophecy’s
past fulfillment can be taken as a “typological echo” of the Second
Coming per se. A better explanation is to see Jesus’s apocalyptic discourse in Matt 24 as a case of hybrid classical-eschatological prophecy.
Thus, the prediction that the end would be ushered in shortly after
the fall of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD got partially fulfilled:
the fall of Jerusalem did happen while the end-time predicted shortly
thereafter did not. Because of that partial fulfillment, the eschatological part remains “latent” to be fulfilled in the future.
Likewise, the attack by the “little horn” = “coming prince” of Daniel
8 & 9 fulfilled in the Greek desecrations of the Jewish temple and
people in the 2nd century BCE and their subsequent deliverance become types of all future attacks against God’s worship and His people,
including, but not limited to, the persecution of the saints by the Papacy in the middle ages, as well as ongoing modern-day persecution
of the saints all over the world. God’s promise through Daniel is that,
similarly to the Jewish people of old, the oppression of his people by
satanic powers may succeed for a time but will not last indefinitely.
As should be evident to biblical exegetes, the fulfillment of eschatological prophecy is fluid, without clear temporal markers. This is what
scholars call the perpetual tension between the “now” and the “not
yet”: we’re always moving closer to the end but time itself keeps moving it farther away from us because we simply have no time referent
of its consummation (in an upcoming publication, I call this the “cosmic fermata” initiated by the resurrection). This fluidity of eschatological time can be seen in Jesus’ statement that the time of the “tribulation” would be “shortened” (Matt 24:22), as if its duration got
changed on behalf of the saints. At the same time, the promised end
in the first century still languishes more than 2,000 years later.
In sum, Christ’s laconic reference to a Roman desecration of the
temple and Jerusalem in Matthew 24 is simply not enough to change
the original meaning of Daniel’s “abomination of desolation” in its
historical context because the Roman destruction of the temple in 70
AD fails as a fulfilment of Daniel as it concerns the purification and
rededication of the temple in question predicted in Dan 8:14. The
best explanation for Jesus’s use of Daniel in Matthew 24 in my view
is that the prophecy fulfilled in the past was used by Jesus as a future
“typological echo” to describe similar events in Jerusalem and the temple under the Romans merely as a sign to Christians living in Jerusalem to flee.
Gane: “The most natural interpretation of the Hebrew text of Daniel
9:24-27 identifies the time when the Messiah would come: 69 (7 + 62)
weeks of years = 483 years after 457 B.C. With no zero year between B.C.
and A.D. time, the 483 years would reach to 27 A.D. At that time, Jesus
became the “anointed one”/Messiah…”
Reis: Each of the chronological details above faces insurmountable
objections on exegetical and historical grounds. The problems with
Artaxexes’ decree have been explored earlier. Further, the starting
point for the beginning of Jesus’s ministry as the 15th year of Tiberius
is unanimously given by Roman historians as 28–29 AD. Consequently, the year 31 AD argued by Adventists as the year of Christ’s
crucifixion is untenable.
First, because it is based on the erroneous translation “in the middle
of the week” of Daniel 9:27 instead of “and for half of the week” as
required by the Hebrew.
Second, the date 31 AD is not defensible from the point of view of
the Jewish lunar calendar; the full moon of Passover that year fell either on a Monday or on a Tuesday evening and could have never been
on Friday as revealed in the Gospels. In my unpublished article “The
Chronology of the Crucifixion” I demonstrate in detail why 31 AD
simply could not have been the year of the crucifixion and explain
why April 3, 33 AD––a date which fits all the chronological, textual
and astronomical data––is most likely the date of the crucifixion.32
Needless to say, this removes 31 AD as the chronological “anchor
point” for arriving at 1844 and presents an insurmountable challenge
to the erroneous chronological scheme concocted by the Millerites
and continued to be defended in Adventist academia today.
CONCLUSION
Many other arguments could be offered to refute Gane’s interpretations but this discussion offers quite a bit to interested readers. In
sum, Dr. Gane articulates well the traditional Adventist position. But
his conclusions can be “the most natural interpretation” of Daniel
only if one accepts the external exegetical and chronological assumptions that he brings to the text, the strongest being that Ellen White’s
statements on Daniel––which merely repeated Miller’s numerological
interpretations––are the final interpreter of Scripture. As explored
here, Gane’s interpretations are actually the least natural interpretation
of Daniel 8 and 9.
The fact remains that the history of interpretation of Daniel in the
Seventh-day Adventist church in the last century can be described as
an effort to validate Ellen White’s statement in 1905 that: “Not one
pin is to be removed from that which the Lord has established” in
regards to 1844 and the sanctuary doctrine and Gane’s approach is
emblematic of that effort.33 No biblical scholar who does not see Ellen
White as the final interpreter of Scripture would agree with Gane.
But contrary to Ellen White’s defense of a frozen-in-time understanding of Daniel, Adventist scholarship must continue grappling
with the text to avoid untenable interpretations caused by massive external presuppositions which do not advance biblical understanding
to new generations of Adventists. ¢
10
APPENDIX
Transliteration and Literal Translation of Daniel 9:24–27
24
šāḇuʿı ̂m šiḇʿı ̂m neḥtaḵ
ʿal-ʿammᵉḵā wᵉʿal-ʿı ̂r qoḏšeḵā
lᵉḵallēʾ happešaʿ
Seventy weeks
for your people and for your holy city
to finish the transgression to put an end to sin
are decreed
ûlᵉḵappēr ʿāwōn
ûlᵉhāḇı ̂ʾ ṣeḏeq ʿōlāmı ̂m wᵉlaḥtōm ḥāzôn wᵉnāḇı ̂ʾ wᵉlimšōaḥ qōḏeš qāḏāšı ̂m
and to atone for iniquity and to bring righteousness eternal and to seal vision
25
ûlaḥtōm ḥaṭṭāʾôṯ
wᵉṯēḏaʿ wᵉṯaśkēl min-mōṣāʾ
and prophet and to anoint
a holy of holies
lᵉhāšı ̂ḇ wᵉliḇnôṯ yᵉrûšālaim ʿaḏ-māšı ̂aḥ nāg̱ı ̂ḏ šāḇuʿı ̂m šiḇʿāh
◌֑
ḏāḇār
to restore and rebuild Jerusalem
wᵉšāḇuʿı ̂m šiššı ̂m ûšᵉnayim tāšûḇ
Missing we to initiate a new clause, according to the view of „one Messiah‰.
and for sevens sixty-two
wᵉniḇnᵉṯāh
until an anointed prince there will be seven sevens
Correct translation.
it will be restored/returned
rᵉḥôḇ wᵉḥārûṣ ûḇᵉṣôq hāʿittı ̂m
it will be rebuilt with street and moat but in difficult times
26
wᵉʾaḥᵃrê haššāḇuʿı ̂m šiššı ̂m ûšᵉnayim yikkārēṯ māšı ̂aḥ
and after
the sevens
sixty-two
wᵉhāʿı ̂r wᵉhaqqōḏeš yašḥı ̂ṯ
and the city and the holy
wᵉqiṣṣô
wᵉʾên lô
will be cut off an anointed and will have nothing [will not be]
ʿam nāg̱ı ̂ḏ habbāʾ
he will destroy the people of the prince who is to come
ḇaššeṭep̱
and his end [will be] in a flood
wᵉʿaḏ qēṣ
milḥāmāh neḥᵉreṣeṯ šōmēmôṯ
and until the end of a war
27
atnach
know and understand: from the going out of word
wᵉhig̱bı ̂r
desolations are decreed
bᵉrı ̂ṯ lārabbı ̂m
šāḇûaʿ ʾeḥāḏ
he will make a strong covenant with many for one week
waḥᵃṣı ̂ haššāḇûaʿ yašbı ̂ṯ
and for half of the week
zeḇaḥ ûminḥāh
will make stop sacrifice and offering
wᵉʿal kᵉnap̱
šiqqûṣı ̂m mᵉšōmēm
and on the wing [or “corner of the altar”, NJPS] an abomination that makes desolate
wᵉʿaḏ-kālāh wᵉneḥᵉrāṣāh
tittaḵ ʿal-šōmēm
and until the decreed destruction is completed [and] poured upon the thing that makes desolate
Pronunciation guide: The x should be read as “sh”; ṣ as “tz”; w as “v”; q as “k”; i,î as “ee; g as in “gate” and e as a short “uh”.
11
Synoptic View of the „Coming Prince‰ of Daniel 9 and the „Little Horn‰ of Daniel 8
Dan 9:26
9:26
9:27
Daniel 8:13–14; 23–25
nagîd habba
“the coming prince”
nagîd habba
“the coming prince”=“desolator”
little horn
“king of bold countenance”
“[the coming prince] will make a
covenant with many for one week”
“By his cunning he shall make deceit
prosper under his hand, and in his
own mind he shall be great”
“and shall succeed in what he does”
(cf. “alliance” in Dan 11:23)
“and for half a week”
“until 2,300 evenings and mornings…
= 1,150 days]
“the people of the coming prince
mashiach
“an anointed prince
“after 62 weeks…
“shall cause fearful destruction
… He shall destroy [wᵉhišḥı ̂ṯ] the powerful and the people of the holy ones”
“will destroy [yašḥı ̂ṯ] city”
… an anointed one will be
cut off and shall have nothing”
“and the sanctuary”
[wᵉhaqqōḏeš]
“he shall make sacrifice and offering cease” [zeḇaḥ ûminḥāh]
[ein lô]
“and to the end there shall be war.
Desolations are decreed” [šōmēmôṯ]
“his end shall come with a flood”
[šāṭap̱ ]
“and in their place shall be an
abomination that desolates”
[šiqqûṣı ̂m mᵉšōmēm]
“until the decreed end is poured
out upon the desolator” [ʿal-šōmēm]
“it took the regular burnt offering
[tamîd], away from him and overthrew
the place of his sanctuary [qōḏeš]”
“…the transgression that makes desolate” [happeša šōmēm]
“the transgression that makes desolate” [happeša šōmēm]
“But he shall be broken, and not by
human hands”
(cf. Daniel 11:40 = šāṭap̱ )
References:
1
Dr. Roy Gane’s articles can be found here: “From Contamination to Purification“; “Response to “Cyrus’ or Artaxerxes’ Decree? Issues in
Dating the 70-Week Prophecy.”
2
My articles can be found here: “The Identity of the “Little Horn” in Daniel 8“; “Cyrus’ or Artaxerxes’ Decree? Issues in Dating the 70Week Prophecy.”
3
Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 285.
4
See Matthew J. Korpman, “Antiochus Epiphanes in 1919: Ellen White, Daniel, and the Books of the Maccabees,” Adventist Today, vol.
28/2 (Spring 2020): 30–33.
5
Kronholm, “”י ַָתר, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, 6:482–491.
6
John E. Hartley, “936 י ַָתר,” ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 420.
7
Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon , s.v., “”י ֶֶתר.
8
Roy Gane, “Re-Opening Katapetasma (“Veil”) In Hebrews 6:19,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 38 (2000): 5–8.
9
Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, Eerdmans Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012), 249.
12
10
Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 286–287.
Cf. Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, 14:472.
12
Ibid., 14:464.
13
There are around 20 cases in Jeremiah of shub meaning “going back”.
14
Fabry, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, 14:480.
15
A conjunctive waw acts as the conjunction “and” as in wᵉʾaḥᵃrê “and after” (v. 26), while a consecutive waw is used with verbs and changes
11
the verbs tense as in wᵉniḇnᵉṯāh, “it will be rebuilt”.
16
Thomas McComiskey, “The ‘Seventy Weeks’ of Daniel against the Background of Ancient Near Eastern Literature,” Westminster Theological Journal 47:1 (Spring 1985): 22–25; cf. Ronald J. Williams and John C. Beckman, Hebrew Syntax (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2007), 21.
17
Cf. Robert Chisholm, Jr., Handbook on the Prophets (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 202), 313, calls this an “temporal adverbial
phrase”. On the 69-weeks of the messianic view, he writes: “Some combine the numbers and understand the text to mean, “until an anointed
one, a ruler [arrives], [there will be a period of ] sixty-nine weeks.” However, this would be an odd way of expressing the number sixty-nine.
Elsewhere, numbers in the sixty range are expressed by combining “sixty” with the other number. For example, sixty-two is literally “two and
sixty” (Dan. 5:31) or “sixty and two” (Dan. 9:25–26), sixty-five is “sixty and five” (Isa. 7:8), sixty-six is “sixty and six” (Gen. 46:26; Lev.
12:5), and sixty-eight is “sixty and eight” (1 Chron. 16:38).”
18
John J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 355; cf. McComiskey, “The Seventy
Weeks of Daniel,” 25: “Thus, the Masoretic tradition is in full accord with Hebrew grammar and syntax in every respect.”
19
Jacques Doukhan, “The Seventy Weeks of Dan 9: An Exegetical Study,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 17/1 (1979): 21, states that
the indefinite is because this “Messiah” is the Messiah par excellence, but his can hardly be drawn from an indefinite article when the opposite
is actually true: a definite article would indicate that this was the maschiach with a specific eschatological mandate, as Doukhan argues.
20
John E. Goldingay, Daniel, vol. 30, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1989), 257.
21
McComiskey, “The Seventy Weeks of Daniel,” 41.
22
Carol L. Meyers and Eric M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Bible
25B (New York: Doubleday, 1987): xxxi. They state: “The Chronicler (1 Chron 5:40-41 [RSV 6:14-15]) reports that Joshua was of the
lineage of Seraiah, who was chief priest in Jerusalem at the time of the destruction. Seraiah was put to death by Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah,
and his son Jehozadak was carried off to Babylon where Joshua (Jeshua in Ezra and Nehemiah) appears to have been born. The earliest
possible birthdate for Jehozadak can be reckoned at 595 B.C.E. (see 1 Chron 5:41 [RSV 6:15]; cf. 1 Esdr 5:5). Joshua’s birth is estimated on
the basis of that datum, so that when he returned with Zerubbabel (1 Esdr 5:5-6) in the second year of Darius I—i.e., 520 B.C.E.—he would
have been a man of about fifty. In order to explain the involvement of Sheshbazzar in the first return (538), we have conjectured (see above,
Note to “Zerubbabel ben-Shealtiel”) that Zerubbabel was somewhat younger than Joshua. Consequently he would have been about thirtyfive in 520. Cross (1975:17) prefers to make the two leaders exact contemporaries” (p. 16). See also Andrew E. Hill, Haggai, Zechariah &
Malachi, Tyndale Old Testament Commentary, vol. 28 (Nottingham: Intervarsity Press, 2012), 34: “Zerubbabel, the new Persian-appointed
governor, and the priest Joshua were inspired by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to mobilize the Hebrew community in 520 BC in
another attempt to rebuild the Jerusalem temple (Ezra 5:11–12)”.
23
See James C. Vanderkam, From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests After the Exile (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2004),15–16.
24
James C. VanderKam, “Messianism in the Scrolls,” in The Community of the Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dome Symposium on the Dead
Sea Scrolls, eds. E. Ulrich and J. Vanderkam (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 211–34.
25
Eric F. Mason, You Are a Priest Forever: Second Temple Jewish Messianism and the Priestly Christology of the Epistle of Hebrews, Studies on
the Texts of the Desert of Judah 74 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 111.
26
F. C. Synge, Hebrews and the Scriptures (London: SPCK, 1959), 19–21; Brian J. Whitfield, Joshua Traditions and the Argument of Hebrews
3–4 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 41–42.
27
See Zev Faber, Images of Joshua in the Bible and Their Reception (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 308, 331.
28
The overarching influence of the Davidic Psalm 110 is notorious on the book of Hebrews. See Jared Compton, Psalm 100 and the Logic of
Hebrews (London: T&T Clark, 2015).
29
Theophile J. Meek, “The Hebrew Accusative of Time and Place,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 60 (1940): 224–225.
30
Cf. Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1977), 136.
31
See my article “The Chronology of the Crucifixion” for an analysis of this date.
32
Cf. Geoffrey D. Dunn, “Probabimus venisse eum iam: Tertullian The Fulfilment of Daniels Prophetic Time-Frame in Tertullian’s Adversus
Iudaeos,” Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 7 (2003): 153, fn 76: “Dio LVIII 27,1-LVIII 28,5, stated that Tiberius had been emperor for 22
years 7 months 7 days (taking into account that Dio believed Tiberius died on 26 March, AD 14); Tac., ann. IV 1, placed the 9th year of
Tiberius in AD 23 and at VI 51 he wrote that Tiberius ruled for nearly 23 years; Suet., Tiberius, 73, gave him a reign of nearly 23 years; Jos.,
bell. II 9,5 § 180, gave Tiberius 22 years 6 months 3 days; Jos., ant. XVIII 6,5 § 177, mentioned that Tiberius was emperor for 22 years
while at XVIII 6,10 § 224 he mentioned 22 years 5 months 3 days. All this argues for beginning Tiberius’ reign in AD 14.”
33
Manuscript Release 760.
13
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Ndikho Mtshiselwa
University of South Africa
David Deavel
University of St. Thomas, Houston
Jason S DeRouchie
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Bernd Janowski
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
