Daniel 9:24 - 27 and Antiochus Epiphanes

[Stephan Huller]

Looking at Jerome's Commentary I think I have discovered something else. Irenaeus's perplexing statement in the Demonstratio can now be explained regarding Jesus being 'almost fifty' at the time of his crucifixion. For Apollonaris of Laodicea demonstrates that the idea (as I have suggested all along) is a consequence of an interest in the number forty nine. For Jerome cites Apollinaris as developing a chronology from Daniel 9:24 - 27 where the seven weeks is counted from the birth of Jesus:

"To the period of four hundred and ninety years the wicked deeds are to be confined (690) as well as all the crimes which shall ensue from those deeds. After these shall come the times of blessing, and the world is to be reconciled unto God at the advent of Christ, His Son. For from the coming forth of the Word, when Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, to the forty-ninth year, that is, the end of the seven weeks, [God] waited for Israel to repent. Thereafter, indeed, from the eighth year of Claudius Caesar [i.e., 48 A.D.] onward, the Romans took up arms against the Jews. For it was in His thirtieth year, according to the Evangelist Luke, that the Lord incarnate began His preaching of the Gospel (Luke 1) [sic!].

In case the reader won't take my interpretation at face value here it is in print "Apollinaris makes the seventy weeks begin with the birth of Christ." http://books.google.com/books?id=udM3AQ ... 22&f=false

What people have not recognized is that Apollonaris is only taking over a much older idea that can be traced back to Irenaeus (Demonstratio) that Jesus was 'almost fifty' when crucified. The same age of Claudius is specified for the crucifixion which is bizarre because it assumes that Pilate was governor of Judea for over twenty years. But more importantly now we can see that the apparent consequence of this interpretation - i.e. that Jesus lived to forty-nine - is in turn an adaptation of a much older understanding which calculated the 'seven weeks' from the crucifixion to 70 CE and the destruction.

In other words, Tertullian's Against the Jews is developed from a much older text (probably written by Justin Martyr) which in turn was edited by Irenaeus in which Justin's original bizarre inverting of the 'sixty two weeks' and 'seven weeks' so that 'sixty two weeks' culminates in Jesus's crucifixion and 'seven weeks' separated the crucifixion and the destruction - is now configured so that the sixty two arrives at Jesus's birth and the seven weeks now counts the crucifixion of Jesus in 48 CE. Clearly then Irenaeus calculated the remaining 'three weeks' as spanning 48 CE to 69 CE (= 21 years or 3 x 7) although this is not explicit.

Apollinaris on the other hand reestablishes the original order in Daniel - i.e. 'seven sevens' is Jesus birth to Jesus crucifixion and the sixty two and the rest culminate in the end of the world in the fifth century!

I think the rest of the systems noted by Jerome develop out of Irenaeus's reformulation of Justin in one way or the other. Africanus restored the original order of Daniel's prophesy and said that Jesus's birth is calculated 'seven weeks' plus 'sixty two weeks' after the first year of Darius.

Eusebius calculates the 'seven' and the sixty two to the beginning of Herod's reign - "Any reader who is interested may look up this passage in the Chronicle of this same Eusebius, for I translated it into Latin many years ago. But as for his statement that the number of years to be reckoned from the completion of the temple to the tenth year of the Emperor Augustus, that is, when Hyrcanus was slain and Herod obtained Judaea, amounts to a total of seven plus sixty-two weeks, or four hundred eighty-three years, we may check it in the following fashion" - and then tries to make the whole system end with the destruction of the temple in the 490 year through some tricks that Jerome can't sanction.

The important thing to take away from this is that we have yet another proof I think that Tertullian is using a copy of Against the Jews - as noted originally written by Jerome but tampered with in the late second century by Irenaeus. We have already noted in a previous thread that there is a reference here to Septimius Severus's dividing of Syria in Adv Iud which also appears in Justin's Dialogue. Now we layer on top of this Irenaeus's interest in the birth of Jesus properly forming the 'first bracket' of the seven weeks rather than the texts original idea - viz. the crucifixion to the destruction i.e. 70 CE.

What this shows again that before Irenaeus came on the scene - i.e. in the writings of Justin - Jesus was crucified forty nine years before the destruction - i.e. 21 CE - in agreement with the official records of the Roman Empire (= Acta Pilati). A very significant development! So now at last we can say that in deed there was an 'original Christian tradition' before Irenaeus which dated Jesus to the Jubilee before the destruction of Jerusalem which was itself also a Jubilee!

[Stephan Huller]

To break it down further:

1. Justin (proto-Against the Jews)

62 weeks = 1 year Darius to the Passion (423 BCE - 21 CE)
7 weeks = 21 CE to 70 CE
1 week after

2. Irenaeus (indirectly evidenced in the Demonstratio and confirmed by Apollinaris's system)

62 weeks = Darius to the birth of Jesus (1 BCE)
7 weeks = birth of Jesus to crucifixion (= 48 CE)
1 week = 55 CE (Nero and the start of the revolt?)

3, Tertullian's edition of Justin's Against the Jews

retains the 62 weeks, 7 weeks, 1 week formula but with obvious (and sloppy) rewriting to reflect various Irenaean interests (i.e. virgin birth, 15th of Tiberius etc).

[Stephan Huller]

I just noticed this important detail. It isn't fair to say that Tertullian 'inverts' the seven sevens and the sixty two sevens 'as they appear in Daniel.' He cites a version of Daniel chapter 9 which omits reference to the seven sevens. Here is the whole section in Latin:

In primo anno sub Dario filio Assueri a semine Medorum qui regnavit super regnum Chaldaeorum ego Daniel intellexi in libris numerum annorum. Et adhuc me loquente in oratione ecce vir Gabriel quem vidi in visione in principio volans et tetigit me quasi hora sacrificii vespertini et intellegere fecit me et locutus est mecum et dixit: Daniel, nunc exivi imbuere te intellegentia, in principio obsecrationis tuae exivit sermo. [5] Et ego veni ut adnuntiem tibi, quia vir desideriorum tu es, et cogita in verbo et intellege in visione: septuaginta ebdomades breviatae sunt super plebem tuam et super civitatem sanctam, quoadusque inveteretur delictum et signentur peccata et exorentur iniustitiae et inducatur iustitia aeterna et [ut] signetur visio et prophetes et unguatur sanctus sanctorum. Et scies et percipies et intelleges: a profectione sermonis in integrando et aedificando Hierusalem usque ad Christum ducem ebdomades <septem et dimidia et ebdomades> sexaginta et duae et dimidia; et convertet et aedificabitur in latitudinem et convallationem et innovabuntur tempora. [6] Et post ebdomadas has sexaginta et duas <et dimidiam> exterminabitur unctio et non erit, et civitatem et sanctum exterminabit cum duce adveniente, et concidentur quomodo in cataclysmo usque in finem belli quod concidetur usque ad interitum. Et confirmabit testamentum in multis; ebdomada una et dimidia ebdomadis auferetur meum sacrificium et libatio, et in sancto exsecratio vastationis, et usque ad finem temporis consummatio dabitur super hanc vastationem

And now the line by line English translation of Tertullian (or the editor's) text which lacks the reference to the 'seven sevens':

And thou shalt know, and thoroughly see, and understand, from the going forth of a word for restoring and rebuilding Jerusalem unto the Christ, the Leader, hebdomads sixty two and an half:

a profectione sermonis in integrando et aedificando Hierusalem usque ad Christum ducem ebdomades sexaginta et duae et dimidia

and it shall convert, and shall be built into height and entrenchment, and the times shall be renewed:

et convertet et aedificabitur in latitudinem et convallationem et innovabuntur tempora.

and after these sixty two hebdomads shall the anointing be exterminated, and shall not be;

Et post ebdomadas has sexaginta et duas exterminabitur unctio et non erit

and the city and the holy place shall he exterminate together with the Leader, who is making His advent;

et civitatem et sanctum exterminabit cum duce adveniente,

and they shall be cut short as in a deluge, until (the) end of a war, which shall be cut short unto ruin.

et concidentur quomodo in cataclysmo usque in finem belli quod concidetur usque ad interitum.

And he shall confirm a testament in many.

Et confirmabit testamentum in multis

In one hebdomad and the half of the hebdomad shall be taken away my sacrifice and libation, and in the holy place the execration of devastation, until the end of (the) time consummation shall be given with regard to this devastation

ebdomada una et dimidia ebdomadis auferetur meum sacrificium et libatio, et in sancto exsecratio vastationis, et usque ad finem temporis consummatio dabitur super hanc vastationem

As such it is not so much that Tertullian (or his source) 'inverted' the 'sixty two' and the 'seven' sevens as much as he followed a different version of the original text of unknown provenance.

[Stephan Huller]

Compare the standard recension:

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. 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.

And thou shalt know, and thoroughly see, and understand, from the going forth of a word for restoring and rebuilding Jerusalem unto the Christ, the Leader, hebdomads sixty two sevens and an half: and it shall convert, and shall be built into height and entrenchment, and the times shall be renewed: and after these sixty two hebdomads shall the anointing be exterminated, and shall not be; and the city and the holy place shall he exterminate together with the Leader, who is making His advent; and they shall be cut short as in a deluge, until (the) end of a war, which shall be cut short unto ruin. And he shall confirm a testament in many. In one hebdomad and the half of the hebdomad shall be taken away my sacrifice and libation, and in the holy place the execration of devastation, until the end of time consummation shall be given with regard to this devastation.”

I wonder whether the last line is a corrupt reading of:

And he shall confirm a testament in many in one hebdomad .And [in] the half of the hebdomad shall be taken away my sacrifice and libation, and in the holy place the execration of devastation, until the end of time consummation shall be given with regard to this devastation

[Stephan Huller]

The 'inverted ordering' of the seventy weeks was by no means limited to Tertullian. Peter the Venerable (11th century) has the very same formula only noting that by so doing 'the Christ is cut off' in the very year of the Passion (= 21 CE). We read:

What will you say about such a clear foreshadowing of the Passion and death of Christ? In fact, does the death of Christ appear more clearly as the evangelist reports it than as the prophet proclaims it? He said, “After sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain" (Dan 9:26) O wretched deafness of the perfidious, O detestable blindness of the impious! Why do you not scatter at so thunderous a sound of the prophetic voice? Why do you not open your eyes at such a brilliant light of the angelic sun? Do you hear the angel speaking, do you see the prophet writing: “After sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain”?56 What will you do? What will you say? Behold, both the angel said and the prophet wrote that after sixty-two weeks Christ had to be slain, so that no unrestrained opportunity (excursus) to wander is given to you through seventy weeks of years, that is, through four hundred and ninety years. Now, after sixty-two weeks have passed, how many of the seventy weeks remain? Just eight. Therefore, the prophetic voice urges you to confess that within those eight weeks Christ suffered, and Christ was slain.

The author however begins by citing Tertullian's calculations and notes that they differ in one small detail - i.e. Tertullian has 'sixty two and a half' rather than the received text 'sixty two':

But according to the calculations of the authority (= Tertullian) already named, half a week from those eight weeks had already been completed on the very day of Christ's birth. Therefore, seven and one-half weeks remain. Four weeks will be completed from their declaration, taken from the beginning of this same birth of Christ, once five and one-half years have been added to the fifth week—that is, once thirty-three and one half years have been added representing Christ's age at the time of his Passion.57 Therefore, there remain one and one-half years from this fifth week, once Christ's Passion has been accomplished. Once one and one-half years are added to the two weeks that remain from the seven weeks described above, there will be fifteen and one-half years left. When the one-half week, containing three and one-half years, that remained of the seven weeks is added to these fifteen and one-half years, there will be nineteen years left. From this it is clear that the [total] number of these seven and one-half weeks has been completed and that Christ suffered within these same weeks, with nineteen years following after his Passion. If, then, we count these seven and one-half weeks within which we have proved that Christ suffered, which we said have their beginning on the day of Christ's birth, if, I say, we count these seven and one-half weeks along with the sixty-two and one-half others that preceded the birth of Christ, then the sum of the seventy weeks predicted by the angel Gabriel or the prophet Daniel will be completed. http://books.google.com/books?id=-TmKvb ... 22&f=false

The point of course is that even though the existing text of Tertullian's text confuses the issue it is clear that Peter knows what Jerome reports - namely that the 'sixty two weeks' when 'the Christ is slain' naturally (and originally) fit with the Passion, not the birth of Christ as Irenaeus insists (and manipulated the original text undoubtedly).

So again:

62 weeks = Darius to the Passion (423 BCE - 21 CE)
7 weeks = the destruction of Jerusalem (21 - 70 CE)
1 week = the end of the Jewish religion (70 - 77 CE)

[Stephan Huller]

The question for me out of all of this is how could the year of Jesus's crucifixion - the central event in the Christian universe - have been summarily changed in the late second century? Let's consider the evidence again:

1. the official Roman records preserve the idea that Jesus was crucified in 21 CE
2. the Acts of Pilate (which survived in both anti-Christian and Christianized forms) identified the correct year as 21 CE
3. the original anti-Jewish work behind Tertullian's Against the Jews (probably written by Justin) understands 21 CE as the year 'Christ was slain/cut off' (Daniel 9:26) and develops a chronology where this event is exactly connected to 21 CE (i.e. '62 weeks' after the first year of Darius II and 'seven weeks' or 49 years before the destruction of Jerusalem)
4. Irenaeus developed a counter interpretation which still preserves the unique 'order inversion' of Justin's chronology (i.e. 62 weeks then 7 weeks) but which connected the date with Jesus's alleged birth, the 'forty nine' being now the year 'Christ is slain' (i.e. 62 weeks + 7 weeks). There is clear signs that Justin's lost text was edited with an agenda to make this Irenaean conception 'fit' the original arguments there.
5. all Christians drool at the possibility of making Daniel's allusion to the 'slain messiah' fit with the crucifixion. It would suddenly 'prove' their entire faith. However they are prevented from doing so because of subsequent manipulations to doctrine and textual traditions. It's like watching the behavior of a dog that's been neutered in springtime.
6. someone changed 'the fifteenth of Tybi' to 'the fifteenth of Tiberius' in order to establish another year besides 21 CE in the gospel of Luke. The first person to witness the existence of 'Luke' is Irenaeus and he is also the first person to counter the Marcionites by identifying 'the fifteenth of Tiberius' as the correct beginning of 'their' (i.e. Luke's) gospel.
7. the reference to the Marcionites being linked to the rising of the Dog-star (Adv Marc 1.19) necessarily confirms that 'the fifteenth of Tybi' was their reading as well as the Basilideans. In other words, the heretical tradition agreed against the late second century orthodox reading 'the fifteenth of Tiberius.'
8. someone deliberately corrupted Josephus's testimony regarding the beginning of Pilate's reign in Judea so as to obscure the fact that there was this original identification of the crucifixion taking place in 21 CE. The obvious candidate here is Eusebius as he explicitly mentions the Acta Pilati tradition and is the likely candidate with respect to the Testamonium Flavianum which is inserted into the very same section of Josephus (i.e. which reflects the Lukan claims about 'the fifteenth of Tiberius'). This must be implicitly assumed by Schwartz and his supporters.

All of this leads to the question if 'the fifteenth of Tybi' was originally the only marker for Jesus's 'descent' (presumably from heaven) how can anyone claim that the gospel had its feet firmly planted in 'history' when Irenaeus could just come along and 'shift' the beginning of the gospel by eight or nine years as well as transform his original year long (or 18 month) ministry to 19 years! I think historicists live in a fantasy world. They don't even know what the evidence actually is about the earliest interpretations of the gospel and how they line up squarely with a 'fantastic' event rather than something grounded in 'ordinary reality.'

[MrMacSon]

.
1. the official Roman records preserve the idea that Jesus was crucified in 21 CE

which official Roman records?

[Stephan Huller]

The records accessed by Maximin Daia who was the head of state in 311 CE. The fact that Eusebius says they were forgeries does not mean they were forgeries nor can the be taken as anything other than 'official Roman documents' given that Maximin Daia was the head of state.

http://books.google.com/books?id=GSh4dX ... 22&f=false

[Stephan Huller]

Perhaps we can take this even one step further. Could it be that the 'Acta Pilati' promulgated in the early fourth century was identical with or related to the text that was known from Justin and Tertullian? We read:

Justin and Tertullian, in speaking of the Acts of Pilate, refer to an official document, not to a history. The fact is that the title Acts of Pilate is a misnomer, and calculated to mislead. http://books.google.com/books?id=NVcOAQ ... 22&f=false

From Peter Kirby's page on the subject:

J. Quasten writes (Patrology, v. 1, pp. 115-116):


The tendency to minimize the guilt of Pilate which is found in the Gospel According to Peter shows the keen interest with which ancient Christianity regarded his person. The prominent position occupied by Pontius Pilate in early Christian thought is further evidenced by the Gospel of Nicodemus. Into this narrative have been incorporated the so-called Acts of Pilate, a supposed official report of the procurator concerning Jesus. Some Acts of Pilate, it seems, were known as early as the second century. Justin Martyr remarks in his first Apology (35) after he has mentioned the passion and crucifixion of Jesus: 'And that these things happened you can ascertain from the Acts of Pontius Pilate.' A similar statement occurs in chapter 48. Tertullian refers twice to a report made by Pilate to Tiberius. According to him, Pontius Pilate informed the Emperor of the unjust sentence of death which he had pronounced against an innocent and divine person; the Emperor was so moved by his report of the miracles of Christ and his resurrection, that he proposed the reception of Christ among the gods of Rome. But the Senate refused (Apologeticum 5). In another place Tertullian says that the 'whole story of Christ was reported to Caesar—at that time it was Tiberius—by Pilate, himself in his secret heart already a Christian' (Apol. 21, 24). We see here the tendency at work to use the Roman procurator as a witness for the history of the death and resurrection of Christa nd the truth of Christianity.

The Gospel of Nicodemus preserves a document known as the Acta Pilati in chapters 1 to 11, with an addition in chapters 12 to 16, while chapters 17 to 27 are called the "Decensus Christi ad Inferos." Quasten writes, "The whole work, which in a later Latin manuscript is called the Evangelium Nicodemi, must have been composed at the beginning of the fifth century, but it seems to be more or less a compilation of older material." (Patrology, vol. 1, p. 116) It is possible that the material in the Gospel of Nicodemus was written to refute pagan Acts of Pilate created in 311, mentioned by Eusebius:


Having forged, to be sure, Memoirs of Pilate and Our Saviour, full of every kind of blasphemy against Christ, with the approval of their chief they sent them round to every part of his dominions, with edicts that they should be exhibited openly for everyone to see in every place, both town and country, and that the primary teachers should give them to the children, instead of lessons, for study and committal to memory. (H. E. 9.5.1)

F. F. Bruce writes (The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?):


We should especially like to know if Pilate sent home to Rome any report of the trial and execution of Jesus, and, if so, what it contained. But it is not certain that he must have done so; and if he did, it has disappeared beyond trace.

Certainly some ancient writers believed that Pilate did send in such a report, but there is no evidence that any of them had any real knowledge of it. About AD 150 Justin Martyr, addressing his Defence of Christianity to the Emperor Antoninius Pius, referred him to Pilate's report, which Justin supposed must be preserved in the imperial archives. 'But the words, "They pierced my hands and my feet," ' he says, 'are a description of the nails that were fixed in His hands and His feet on the cross; and after He was crucified, those who crucified Him cast lots for His garments, and divided them among themselves; and that these things were so, you may learn from the "Acts" which were recorded under Pontius Pilate." Later he says: 'That He performed these miracles you may easily be satisfied from the "Acts" of Pontius Pilate."

Then Tertullian, the great jurist-theologian of Carthage, addressing his Defence of Christianity to the man authorities in the province of Africa about AD 197, says: 'Tiberius, in whose time the Christian name first made its appearance in the world, laid before the Senate tidings from Syria Palestina which had revealed to him the truth of the divinity there manifested, and supported the motion by his own vote to begin with. The Senate rejected it because it had not itself given its approval. Caesar held to his own opinion and threatened danger to the accusers of the Christians."

It would no doubt be pleasant if we could believe this story of Tertullian, which he manifestly believed to be true but a story so inherently improbable and inconsistent with what we know of Tiberius, related nearly 170 years after the event, does not commend itself to a historian's judgment.

When the influence of Christianity was increasing rapidly in the Empire, one of the last pagan emperors, Maximin II, two years before the Edict of Milan, attempted to bring Christianity into disrepute by publishing what he alleged to be the true 'Acts of Pilate', representing the origins of Christianity in an unsavoury guise. These 'Acts', which were full of outrageous assertions about Jesus, had to be read and memorized by schoolchildren. They were manifestly forged, as Eusebius historian pointed out at the time;' among other things, their dating was quite wrong, as they placed the death of Jesus in the seventh year of Tiberius (AD 20), whereas the testimony of Josephus' is plain that Pilate not become procurator of Judaea till Tiberius' Twelfth year (not to mention the evidence of Luke iii. 1, according to which John the Baptist began to preach in fifteenth year of Tiberius). We do not know in detail these alleged 'Acts' contained, as they were naturally suppressed on Constantine's accession to power; but we may surmise that they had some affinity with Toledoth Yeshu, an anti-Christian compilation popular in some Jewish circles in mediaeval time.'

Later in the fourth century another forged set of 'Acts of Pilate' appeared, this time from the Christian side, and as devoid of genuineness as Maximin's, to which they were perhaps intended as a counterblast. They are still extant, and consist of alleged memorials the trial, passion, and resurrection of Christ, recorded by Nicodemus and deposited with Pilate. (They are also own as the 'Gospel of Nicodemus'.) A translation of them is given in M. R. James' Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 94 ff., and they have a literary interest of their own, which does not concern us here.

J. Quasten writes: "The oldest piece of Christian Pilate literature seems to be 'The Report of Pilate to the Emperor Claudius', which is inserted in Greek into the late Acts of Peter and Paul and is given in Latin translation as an appendix of the Evangelium Nicodemi. It is probable that this report is identical with that mentioned by Tertullian. If that is true, it must have been composed before the year 197 A.D., the time of Tertullian's Apologeticum." (Patrology, vol. 1, p. 116)

[Stephan Huller]

The point I am trying to make here is that EVEN IF this 'Acts of Pilate' was a fraud, it would reflect the belief that Jesus was crucified on 21 CE because - as we have seen - Justin already believed that. I don't think it necessarily was a fake. But certainly Maximin Daia taking a document related to or identical with that used with by the earliest Church Fathers demonstrating that the 'fifteenth of Tiberius' was not the original date of Jesus's ministry and - more significantly - that Jesus had already been crucified eight or nine years earlier, would prove beyond a doubt that the documents of 'the official Church' did not preserve the 'immaculate word of God.' It was corrupt or had been corrupted.