to spin,
Bernard, we have seen from Leviticus through to Qumran texts the notion of weeks of years is well represented in Hebrew literature. Daniel is accommodated on that continuum.
But it is not represented before 'Daniel' except in one verse of Leviticus which explained thoroughly what a Sabbath of years means.
The notion of sevens (and forcibly including seventies) is simply speculative, without any justification in the literature,
Why need justification in the preceding literature? "Daniel" was innovative in many ways, and necessity is a cause for invention: "Daniel" looked for something which would make 167 BCE very special and he found one with the seventy
שבע.
offers no simple reduction from the vision into real world terms and yet is transparently accounted for as "weeks", which can be used both for days and years.
That's right, "Daniel" did not indicate "weeks of days" or "weeks of years" in Dan 9 for a simple reason: his "weeks" were not meant to be understood as such.
The cohesion I talked about in 9:25-27 involves "weeks", the same thing in 25, 26 and 27.
I do not see why "Daniel", who was rather tricky, should display that coherence. His audience would know the "week"
שבוע in 9:27 was a period of seven days because they lived through it. And they knew also that the "weeks" in Dan 9:24, 25 & 26 could not be either of years or of days or seventy, enticing them to look for an explanation, that the secret author would, nudge, nudge, suggest. And one of the literate ones would find it (counting the years (starting at 1) from Cyrus' decree up to all occurrences of
שבע ("seven") in the numbers add up to 70).
You instead offer "(7) sevens", "(62) sevens", and 1 week. That doesn't work.
Why not: by the way "week" in Dan 9:27 is spelled
שבוע which is different of the singular of
שבעים (
שבע). So there is no inconsistency: two different words, two different meanings.
And in Dan 10:2-3, the "three weeks of days" could be more closely & accurately translated as "three sevens days" as shown here:
http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInte ... /dan10.pdf
A recapitulation: in the Hebrew part of 'Daniel', "week(s)/sevens" appears only in 7 consecutive verses (9:24-10:3).
If we allow
שבעים (singular form
שבע) to mean "sevens" (9:24,25,26; 10:2,3) and
שבוע (plural form
שבועות) to mean "week", then we have full coherence.
שבעים is different of
שבוע in spelling & pronunciation. It cannot be any confusion.
I cannot figure out what is your aversion for that: after the 69th "week" comes the 70th "week". If I write I will visit China after this year, do I need to mention that will be in 2018?
After the 69th "week" has to be the 70th "week" (which is within the seventy "weeks" (Dan 9:24) as the last "week" of them).
You have an aversion to the issue, ignoring the one week in your seventy scheme and the incoherence of your offering an unindicated "whatever" between the 69 weeks and the one week.
I don't have any aversion. I don't see any problem here. Yes I am offering a week of days which fit into my last year, that is the one mentioned in Dan 9:24.
This unindicated single week requires you to force אחרי to exclude the possibility that it can have stuff at the end, ie be inclusive, rather than exclusive as you insist.
אחרי is a preposition meaning "after". You have not proven this Hebrew word means also "towards the end of (the sixty-two "weeks)".
There is no stated week between the sixty-nine and the one. You just need there to be one. An unstated week is no week at all in Daniel's scheme of things.
After the 69th "week", we are in the 70th week. That's it. No need for "Daniel" to say (what I bolded), "And after the sixty-two "weeks",
that is in the 70th "week", an anointed one shall be cut off ..."
You didn't respond: how long has your house been built?
50 years ago.
Moed doesn't mean "a yearly feast". It indicates them 2 Chr 8:13, sabbaths, new moons and moedim. 3.5 days (half a week) = 3.5 years (indicated by moedim).
From 2 Chr 8:12-13 RSV
"Then Solomon offered up burnt offerings to the LORD upon the altar of the LORD which he had built before the vestibule, as the duty of each day required, offering according to the commandment of Moses for the sabbaths, the new moons, and the three annual feasts--the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and the feast of tabernacles." how can you deduct that?
Solomon is offering burnt offerings for each of the mentioned
"sabbaths, the new moons, and the three annual feasts ['moed']
"
And here, there are 3 moedim per year, but you claim that one moedim represents one year.
I enjoy your efforts to force "cut off" to mean "separated" in 9:26, but there are no contextual indicators to allow you to metaphorize the verb
"Cut off" means "cut off". Having it meaning "killed" is also metaphorization of the verb. I agree that cut off from the living means killed, but cut off from people means separated. Of course none of these two options are specified in Dan 9:26 but what is added to it, usually translated as
"and shall have nothing" (NRSV) suggests the second option (separated).
No, it is not. It generally needs to be quantified to be a duration, eg one, 365, several. "Those days" is a generic point in time, like July or 1066 or the middle ages or "in my prime".
They may be not quantified, but the days in
"after those days" (Jer 31:33) are at least two days.
And they are not generic:
"those days" are mentioned & implied as a (long) duration in Jer 31:29, and preceding a new covenant.
1 Macc 1:11, 13, "let us go and make a covenant with the gentiles...." Many were misled. They "went to the king who authorized them". Covenant made.
That covenant was with Jason & friends in 175/174 BCE, who implemented it (the gymnasium, etc.), which does not fit your timeline. Menelaus, 3-4 years later is not said to have made that covenant any stronger.
Talking about firing blanks! Collins, indeed! Whatever made you think that it meant seven years? Why have I been talking about 3.5 moedim = 3.5 days (=years)? Perhaps you meant 3.5 years? If a moed indicates a year and we have 3.5 moedim...
Yes, I made a mistake in a previous post. I should have said 3.5 years instead of 7 years.
According to Collins & myself, the "moedim, moedims and a half" was written in Dan 7:25, some 10 years before the "saints" were not in the hands of Antiochus anymore. That would make these "moedim, moedims and a half" not equal to 3.5 years. That was my point.
There is a huge mismatch of 3.5 years against 10 years. In other words, here is a demonstration that "moedim, moedims and a half" cannot mean 3.5 years.
They were using the same language, which gives them a head start from those who couldn't.
The masorete put his atnach here, but later, the Rabbi did not use that to put his stop. Even if they both knew Hebrew, they did not agree.
How long is it going to take till you twig to the fact that ultra-accuracy is irrelevant to Hebrew historiography? Remember the Seder Olam? All I need do is to stand out of the wind and watch you piss into it. You aren't doing anything useful with such an approach. Are the writers who show no knowledge of history beyond a few generations before their own times likely to mean anything more with seven weeks and sixty-two weeks than a shortish time and a longish time?
I already explained that the Seder Olam wanted the 490 years to point to about 135 CE.
Also, a bit later, Africanus used tricks to get to 30 CE with the 490 years.
"Daniel", very likely, also wanted to point to a particular year (167 BCE) with his seventy "weeks/sevens".
As I explained in a previous posting, 69 is not a God's number but 7 is, and 62 is the age of (the fictional) Darius the Mede when conquering Babylon. So the 69 is made up of two numbers which are not random but seem parts of a God's plan.
(Darius the Mede originated with the author of Dan 1-7 (minus a few interpolations). That author was history challenged for sure, but that does not appear to be the case for the author of Dan 8-12. However the 2nd author felt he had to also mention that Darius the Mede for sake of homogenization)
Each one of them used an artifice to get to the targeted year. The artifices had to be different, of course.
A 117 years error in 'Daniel' is not realistic, even in the days of "Daniel". I cannot imagine the educated Jews then were totally clueless about the duration of the Persian era, more so for the relative dating of the king (Cyrus) who allegedly allowed for the rebuilding of their dear temple in his first year (2Ch 36:22, Ezra 1:1) .
I indicated how that could have been recorded from father to son in educated aristocratic families, for about 12 generations, imitating the dating of the patriarchs in 'Genesis' and of the kings of the Davidic dynasty in '1 & 2 Kings'.
The vision comes to an end in 12:3. Gabriel's discourse ends with a comment to Daniel in 12:4. That break. This is followed by a change of subject: two figures appear, not related to the vision of the kings of the north and south. One says literally, "to what end [timewise] the wonders?" The response harks back to 7:25.
Yes, but my point was about
"... Yet he shall come to his end, with no one to help him. At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book." (NRSV 11:45-12:1). It shows that the deliverance of the Jews will be coming (through Michael) at the same time than Antiochus' end, and not before (same idea in Dan 9:27).
Let's examine what follows:
"Then I Daniel looked, and behold, two others stood, one on this bank of the stream and one on that bank of the stream.
And I said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, "How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?"
The man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven; and I heard him swear by him who lives for ever that it would be for a time, two times, and half a time; and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be accomplished." (RSV 12:5-7)
It is clear that the duration starts when (fictional) Daniel hears the words of the two and the demigod (that is in the time of Daniel) and ends during or after the time of Antiochus IV, when Daniel will resurrect (at the end, 12:4, 13). That's quite a few centuries. So
"a time, two times, and half a time" would be that long and certainly not equivalent to 3.5 years.
As I said before, that phrase in Dan 7:25 & 12:7 is an undefined amount of time.
On internet with the christian nitwits and the Wikipedia ignoranti. I'm not offering anything that needs peergroup analysis, because it is mainly published stuff. Other than that I'm dealing with the specific fallout from your efforts to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
Who published that stuff? Publication on that matter are usually crap anyway. Publication on paper is not a guarantee of veracity, far from that.
Time and time again you fail to get past basic problems. The text specifically outlines the seventy weeks: seven weeks till the prince the anointed,
The prince anointed appears well before 49 years, that is 19 years only.
sixty-two weeks as the city remains built from the time of Yeshua and Zerubbabel until the anointed one is cut off,
Because of the (niphal) perfect of the verb "build", then after hundred of years (but before the writing of Dan 9), the city would not remain built. That does not make sense. What makes sense is that during these centuries, the city was rebuilt, and after a time (and before the writing of Dan 9), the rebuilding had stopped because of completed.
And the time of Yeshua and Zerubbabel in Jerusalem starts right after Cyrus' decree, not 49 years later.
And the original Hebrew (before the atnach and versification) can be translated as following:
"Know therefore and understand: from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an anointed prince, there shall be seven "weeks" and sixty-two "weeks".
It shall be
built again with plaza and moat, but in a troubled time."
and one week for the covenant of the many. The text provides those three durations adding for a total of seventy weeks. The one week is the focus of interest, while the sixty-nine supply the pseudo-prophetic background to make the listener think that the last week will be fulfilled as the previous 69 have.
Yes, according to 1 Macc. 1:41-50, the (Greek) covenant was made strong by Antiochus (but that action was terminated when Dan 9 was written because of the perfect in the verb) and the Jewish sacrifices ceased (at about the same time). These two actions could have happened easily within 7 days, except the second one was continuing at the time of writing, so the imperfect.
Yes, the last "week" will be fulfilled, as the previous 69 ones. That last "week" is the 70th, because declared after the 69th "week". The fulfillment would include the exile of Jason, Antiochus strengthening his covenant, the cessation of Jewish sacrifices, pagan sacrifices in the temple, massacres of Jews (all of that done within one year or less), and (hopefully!) the stuff in Daniel 9:24.
Adding the seven and the sixty-two year durations together as though they were one duration is just as looney as when christians presented the idea.
I explained on this post that adding the two together is the only way the verse can make sense. Never mind the Christians. I am looking for the historical correctness, not doing anti-Christian propaganda.
The syntactic structure in 9:25 is exactly the same as the one used in 9:27, but you cannot apply the same logic to both, because of your need to add the durations together in the first, when the evidence does not allow you, so you take extreme measures with the waw, the total lack of evidence for adding them together and your explaining away the atnach. Divide and conquer does not work, as I said before, you are a gambler taking extra risk with each explaining away. You are fighting consilience and losing.
Logic in a vision narration?
But the waw can as well link the seven "weeks" with the sixty-two "weeks".
The evidence from the perfect of "build" does not allow you to have a clause starting as such "And for sixty-two years ..."
The atnach was added on not before the 9th century, and certainly not by the original author. And later, the Rabbi who put stops in the text did not agree that atnach started a new clause.
It is totally unaccountable that you would want to remove the 3.5 days (=years) and the 3.5 moedim (=years) durations from the other four in the visions:
What 3.5 days? You probably meant 3.5 "weeks".
I have proved, again and again, that "weeks" in Dan 9:24-26 & "week" in Dan 9:27, cannot mean period(s) of 7 years.
The same thing for moedim not being equal to one year.
they sit between 1150 and 1290 days without strain.
I said, because these so-called prophecies were given with a precise number of days, they had to be written (for updates) after the fact (which "Daniel" did a lot), and after Dan 9 was written.
Your understanding (first "Daniel" guessed 1150 days when it appeared the reconsecration will happen very soon, but because it did not yet, a second guess for 1290 days was added, then a third guess for 1335 days) does not make any sense: why would "Daniel" take the risk of making prophecies so accurately before the facts? What would he gain, except throwing a lot of doubt against the veracity of his book when the targeted events did not happen in time.
So, at the time of writing of Dan 9, these prophecies in days were not written yet and "Daniel" did not know the reconsecration or the death of Antiochus will happen about 3.5 years after the desecration.
There is a clear connection between weeks of days and weeks of years and moedim are yearly feasts. They easily fit into the ranges supplied by the various visions. Moedim do not mean years, but can as yearly feasts stand for years. And it truly doesn't matter if scholars place Daniel little before Jubilees, they are part of a literary continuum that goes back via Ezek 4:5 to Leviticus.
There were more than one moedim (appointed time and feast) within a year and moedims in plural does not mean only two of them.
I do not see where there is a connection between weeks of days and weeks of years.
Ezekiel 4:5 does not equate day with year.
Cordially, Bernard