The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Bernard Muller
Posts: 3964
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:02 pm
Contact:

Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to spin,
As you really don't know the scholarship on the subject and you are continuing to show no interest in finding out, I really don't think you can make any reasonable comments on Yeshua and Zerubbabel in Zechariah. All you are doing is negating what the text says and then doing eisegesis. An internet search for "what happened to Zerubbabel" might point you in the right direction. (You might also think about when the high priest as political head of the Jewish people began during Persian rule.)
Any scholarship going beyond what is written in the OT is just speculation.
And I did not find anything which would be in your favor when I searched for "what happened to Zerubbabel".
The OT texts do not say Jeshua became a prince/ruler or the crown(s) was/were a symbol of his princeship.
Jeshua is always called high priest and the crown(s) is/are "for a memorial in the temple" (whatever that means).
When you try to make claims regarding durations, dates and percentage errors I'd say your still peddling ultra-accuracy.
You are peddling huge inaccuracies in your durations.
So you don't think a central text like Leviticus is a reflection of the cultic mores of the society? Really, do you? Do you need it repeated a number of times to be sure?
One verse about "sabbath of years" (which is fully explained) in Lev 25:8 is not enough for a reflection of the cultic mores of the society. That's not repeated anywhere else in the OT, not even in Numbers & Deuteronomy.
And it's a long way from "sabbath of years" to "week" meaning 7 years.
Englishizing rubbish. First there is sufficient scholarly doubt on whether עטרת is a plural at all and not a defective feminine form. That in itself should make you think twice about pursuing the nonsense about the four guys each receiving a crown. You ignored the fact that prepositions are used differently in Hebrew, so that you cannot use them to assert separate receipt of crowns.
That's new. When I asked you about plural & singular for "crown", you opted plural.
Ya know, Bernard, how many thousand verses have you got to look into to find an example or two of clauses within them not starting with a particle like waw? There are so many, can't you confirm just one complete clause within a verse?
I already said versification is arbitrary (and done in medieval times). And the versificators would naturally put any clause starting with no particle like waw at the beginning of a new verse. So few clauses with particle like waw have to be expected within a verse.
And verses are usually short, so many do not have any other clause than the one starting the verse (and finishing it).

However I looked in the first verses of 'Isaiah' and I found that: in 1:4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15 & 16, there are clause(s) within the verses without a particle like waw.

The definition for clause is "a unit of grammatical organization next below the sentence in rank and in traditional grammar said to consist of a subject and predicate." https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=ssl#q=clause+meaning&*
OK, you have not been clear up to now. Please use the dates in regard to the goalposts: 1) stoppage of the Tamid, 2) the installation of the abomination, 3) the death of Antiochus IV and 4) the rededication of the temple. I hope you can make it clear.
The 1150 days is from the cessation of Jewish sacrifices in the of the temple to its reconsecration.
The 1290 days is indicating when the temple was desecrated again after the cessation of Jewish sacrifices.
The 1335 days is indicating when the temple was reconsecrated again after the cessation of Jewish sacrifices.
The news of Antiochus' death must have come to Jerusalem some time after these 1335 days.

According to 1 Macc. 1 and the 1150 days, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucid_era, the cessation of sacrifices occurred around the 20th of October 167 BCE. That would be about 55 days before the pagan sacrifice on 15th December 167 BCE.
The 1150 days would point to the 15th of December 164 BCE.
The 1290 days would point to approximately the 5th of May 163 BCE.
The 1335 days would correspond to about mid-June in 163 BCE, that is approximately three years and 8 months after the first cessation of the Jewish sacrifices and 6 months after the first reconsecration (15th Dec. 164).

About soldiers reclaiming the temple temporarily after the first reconsecration:
Josephus' Ant., XII, IX, 3a. "At that time [163 B.C.E.] it was that the garrison in the citadel of Jerusalem, with the Jewish renegades, did a great deal of harm to the Jews: for the soldiers that were in that garrison rushed out upon the sudden, and destroyed such as were going to the temple in order to offer their sacrifices, for this citadel adjoined to and overlooked the temple. When these misfortunes had often happened to them, ..."
1Maccabees: 1:33-36 "Then they built up the City of David with a high, massive wall and strong towers, and it became their citadel. There they installed a sinful race, perverse men, who fortified themselves inside it, storing up weapons and provisions, and depositing there the plunder they had collected from Jerusalem. And they became a great threat. The citadel became an ambush against the sanctuary, and a wicked adversary to Israel at all times."

About Dan 12:11 "and from the time of the turning aside of the perpetual sacrifice, and to the giving out of the desolating abomination, are days a thousand, two hundred, and ninety."
I wrote it does not make sense that the end time of these 1290 days would not be indicated. This end time is obviously the "desolating abomination", and that has to be a 2nd one, after the initial desecration.
The word by word translator of the Hebrew also account for that "to" (which I bolded), even if it may be implied:
"and·from·era he-is-taken-awayand·from·era the·continually and·to·to-give-of abomination one-desolating days
thousand two-hundreds and·ninety" http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInte ... /dan12.pdf
The "to" is also omitted in the expression "from point A to Point B) in Gen 26:23, Ex 12:37 & 17:16, Joshua 7:2 and Jer 27:20 (I only checked parts of these 4 books).
"After" is a derived meaning from "hinder part" and you have no real way to assert that it indicates "following the end of" rather than "at the end of". You are trying to force the events at the end of the 69th week into the seventieth week, despite the text specifically telling you not to by saying when the one week was. If you remember that אחרי literally indicates the rear, then you have no problem reading it as "at the end of the 62 weeks". You keep pushing for the English meanings of terms that don't quite fit the Hebrew.
OK, so we would have 2 cases:
1) "And following the end of the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; ..."
In this case, the removal of Onias III (175 BCE) would happen anytime after the sixty-two weeks, possibly years afterwards.
2) "And at the end of the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; ..."
In this case, the removal of Onias III would happen right at the end of the sixty-two weeks.

But you want the seventieth year to start in 171 BCE instead, that's 3-4 years after Onias III's removal.
So the "after" would mean "before" as such:
"And before the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; ..."
Do you know of any instance where אַחַר means "before" rather than "after" (as "afterwards")?

And the contemporaries of "Daniel", because they lived through that period, would know that the removal of Onias III happened years before your so-called covenant of Antiochus IV with Menelaus.
I was explaining the language to you concerning the use of "think". There is no suggestion that Antiochus did not change the times. If you need to see it, 2 Macc 6:7 shows Antiochus imposing the Greek calendar on the Jews. Not only did Antiochus think it, he acted on it
In 2 Macc 6:7 it is a old man from Athens, who, after Antiochus' army 2nd foray in Jerusalem, attempted these changes of times. That certainly would not prevent "Daniel" to write (in Dan 7:25, between the two forays) Antiochus IV thought about changing the times (but not acted on it).
The weeks in 9:25 and the week in 9:27 are dealing with the same time unit, plural and singular.

Still the same subterfuge. you can compare ones with halve or sevens or whatever measures you like:
But the "weeks" in Dan 10:2 & 10:3 really mean weeks. But "weeks" in Dan 9:25-27 cannot mean plain "weeks".
So there is no general rule for the meaning of "week" or "weeks" in 'Daniel'.
Talking about "by day" or "by night" measures nothing, so has nothing to do with the measure of time "half a week".
"half of the week" can be a point of time: the middle of the week.
How do you know when εν does not indicate the usual "in"?
How do you know when εν does not indicate "at"? "in" indicates a point of time, not a duration. That point of time does not need to be instant such as "I'll visit you in mid-week" (the visit can last hours).
So what do you have to say about the perfect in Gen 33:13, "if you overdrive them for one day, the all flocks will die" or 31:41 in which Jacob served Laban for fourteen years or 1 Kgs 16:23 in which Omri reigned six years in Tirzah? All perfects.
So what? the actions are completed (die, served & reigned). In Daniel 9:25, the confirmation/strengthening is completed at the time of the writing of this verse. The action does not have to be instantaneous, just completed.
This is not clear to me. Is the seventieth week that you talk of here, the one in 9:27? If so, the half week which measures the cessation of the Tamid was 168/7 to 164, as I, like most other readers of the passage, see the use of "weeks" to be implying "weeks of years", as you know. That period marks the beginning of the pollution to the rededication.
Yes, in the case that your seventieth week of years beginning in 171. But then, I demonstrated earlier that the "after" in Dan 9:26 would have to be replaced by "before".
I don't agree with your attempt at grammar here. The verb means "prevail or be strong", so we should have "cause to prevail for one week". (This is not a punctiliar action at all.)
Qal perfect is about completed action, not only punctiliar one (as you demonstrated earlier).
You have not been concentrating. I have told you already that the last week started well after Onias was removed from office in 175. It started ~171 when Menelaus outbid Jason for the high priesthood.
You have a big problem here, as I explained already on this post: "after" is not "before".
For the writer it was not finished. That is one of the major implications of the imperfect.
Yes, But as I mentioned before on this thread: the imperfect is used to express the "future", referring not only to an action which is about to be accomplished but one which has not yet begun.
And the example: "We will burn" thy house. There is no reference here on how long is the burning or the duration of the house in the state of being burnt.
The perfect, as the imperfect, are not used to indicate duration, but a completed action (perfect) or an action still going on (imperfect). In "he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease" Antiochus started the action but when the main part of his army was gone from Jerusalem, the cessation continued at the time of writing of the verse.
Anyway, in case of the future, my examples show that any duration is of no concern. The initial future action can even be quasi-instant as for burning of a house.
That you cannot get past the fact that Dan 9:25-27 clearly spells out seventy weeks as 7 + 62 + 1,
That does not mean that after 69 "weeks", we are not in the seventieth "week". And in that seventieth "week" (which for me falls on one year only, which is 167 BCE), a real week of 7 days can be embedded into it.
The sevens argument is based on a misunderstanding of Hebrew orthography: there is no tangible reason for you to think that the writers did not mean "weeks" in its defective form.
The author wrote "weeks" in its defective form in Dan 10:2 & 3. And "weeks" here means series of 7 days. So would that same form found in Dan 24-27 mean the same: NO.
And your week of 7 years does not fit, and the chronological errors it causes are way beyond inaccuracies. For your last week, you have to imply that "after" in Dan 9:25 means "before" to make it fit your theories.
Your seventy sevens is based on the fact you didn't know Hebrew had no digits, so they couldn't count sevens, which is the whole basis of your table.
I knew that all the time. But my table would have been way too big if I had the written words instead of numbers.
Writing all the words out would not help and there is no thought involved in annotations-in-sand conjecture.

I would have highlighted all the occurrences of שבע. These annotation in the sand is like manually/mentally adding a long list of of similar items by splitting the list in parts and then annotating the total for each part, which are added later to make the grand total.
This is just a series of goalpost moves.
I never changed my goal post.
The notion that you put forward with your table would not have made any sense to people listening to the text being read.

Not at first, because it's presented as a puzzle and oracle. But listeners would be very intrigued and ask for explanations. Then one of the literate one (possibly the author, but posing as only the discoverer of the text) would suggest that because the "weeks" of 9:24-26 cannot be about a 7 days period, it may be about "seven", that is שבע (with an irregular plural: the regular form seems to be the clumsy שבעה שבעה as in Gen 7:3). From that, the ball would be rolling and another literate one (or the same) would find the system (which miraculously would bring these seventy "seven" to their time).
Your seventy sevens does not work
They work perfectly.

Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
User avatar
spin
Posts: 2146
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:44 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by spin »

Bernard Muller wrote:to spin,
As you really don't know the scholarship on the subject and you are continuing to show no interest in finding out, I really don't think you can make any reasonable comments on Yeshua and Zerubbabel in Zechariah. All you are doing is negating what the text says and then doing eisegesis. An internet search for "what happened to Zerubbabel" might point you in the right direction. (You might also think about when the high priest as political head of the Jewish people began during Persian rule.)
Any scholarship going beyond what is written in the OT is just speculation.
You wouldn't know what's written: you refuse to read the text. This means that you are free to run around making assertions that ignore the cohesion of the text.
Bernard Muller wrote:And I did not find anything which would be in your favor when I searched for "what happened to Zerubbabel".
It was hoped that you would get some background.
Bernard Muller wrote:The OT texts do not say Jeshua became a prince/ruler or the crown(s) was/were a symbol of his princeship.
Jeshua is always called high priest and the crown(s) is/are "for a memorial in the temple" (whatever that means).
The importance of reading the text is to understand how it hangs together—a linguistic notion called cohesion which involves examining the connectors in a passage. It starts with Yeshua being crowned and ends with the crown(s) put into safe keeping. No mention of anyone else, not even Zerubbabel. There is no hope to inject anyone else. What Yeshua wears as high priest is usually referred to as a turban, not a crown. The latter is the usual word for what kings wear. There is nothing to suggest that it means other than what it usually means. I take a word to mean what it usually means unless circumstances force an alternative. That's how language basically works. So no other candidate; Yeshua is crowned; there is none other to receive rulership.
Bernard Muller wrote:
When you try to make claims regarding durations, dates and percentage errors I'd say your still peddling ultra-accuracy.
You are peddling huge inaccuracies in your durations.
I've never made claims about the accuracy of the durations other than the last week in 9:27. I see no reason to believe that the writers had much perception of time past except for that in recent memory. You however are stuck with a somewhat unexplainable albatross, for when the text appears to be talking about seventy weeks you want to talk about some weird tangential irrelevance.
Bernard Muller wrote:
So you don't think a central text like Leviticus is a reflection of the cultic mores of the society? Really, do you? Do you need it repeated a number of times to be sure?
One verse about "sabbath of years" (which is fully explained) in Lev 25:8 is not enough for a reflection of the cultic mores of the society. That's not repeated anywhere else in the OT, not even in Numbers & Deuteronomy.
And it's a long way from "sabbath of years" to "week" meaning 7 years.
Not really. We're already alerted with Daniel's jump from years to weeks. Lev 23:15 talks of "seven sabbaths", which in the context would equal 49 days or seven weeks. A "sabbath of years" is just seven years, or a week of years. With that in mind, moving from Jeremiah's "seventy years" to Daniel's "seventy weeks", we know that "week" is not being used to talk of "seven days" (which would make a self-defeating prophecy). Visions require a little substitution to analyze them. The jump by Daniel from years to weeks suggests weeks of years. That's an easy sell.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Englishizing rubbish. First there is sufficient scholarly doubt on whether עטרת is a plural at all and not a defective feminine form. That in itself should make you think twice about pursuing the nonsense about the four guys each receiving a crown. You ignored the fact that prepositions are used differently in Hebrew, so that you cannot use them to assert separate receipt of crowns.
That's new. When I asked you about plural & singular for "crown", you opted plural.
How bout that! Or: you live and learn! I'm sure you like the "new" information too. Look here at footnote #72 for three sources. More if needed.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Ya know, Bernard, how many thousand verses have you got to look into to find an example or two of clauses within them not starting with a particle like waw? There are so many, can't you confirm just one complete clause within a verse?
I already said versification is arbitrary (and done in medieval times). And the versificators would naturally put any clause starting with no particle like waw at the beginning of a new verse. So few clauses with particle like waw have to be expected within a verse.
And verses are usually short, so many do not have any other clause than the one starting the verse (and finishing it).

However I looked in the first verses of 'Isaiah' and I found that: in 1:4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15 & 16, there are clause(s) within the verses without a particle like waw.
Sorry, it is not prose like the part of Daniel we're examining, but poetry, which adheres to more arcane rules, then translated in a way to render understandable it in English. I'm not really equipped to deal with Hebrew poetry. Here are some of my notes [1:4: it is one sentence that English translators have divided in two, separating complex subject from what follows. There is only one verb in 1:5. No verb in 1:7 (unless you count a passive participle).] Try some prose. (It's better that at least one of us knows what he's talking about!)
Bernard Muller wrote:The definition for clause is "a unit of grammatical organization next below the sentence in rank and in traditional grammar said to consist of a subject and predicate." https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=ssl#q=clause+meaning&*
OK, you have not been clear up to now. Please use the dates in regard to the goalposts: 1) stoppage of the Tamid, 2) the installation of the abomination, 3) the death of Antiochus IV and 4) the rededication of the temple. I hope you can make it clear.
The 1150 days is from the cessation of Jewish sacrifices in the of the temple to its reconsecration.
The 1290 days is indicating when the temple was desecrated again after the cessation of Jewish sacrifices.
The 1335 days is indicating when the temple was reconsecrated again after the cessation of Jewish sacrifices.
The news of Antiochus' death must have come to Jerusalem some time after these 1335 days.
If I may slightly reword the above for my own clarity,

The 1150 days is from the cessation of Jewish sacrifices in the temple to its reconsecration.
The 1290 days is from the cessation of Jewish sacrifices in the temple to when the temple was desecrated again.
The 1335 days is from the cessation of Jewish sacrifices in the temple to when the temple was reconsecrated again.

If this is correct it seems to be little different from what I've said, ie that the durations begin at the same point and are extended because of exigencies (the specifics of which you claim to know). The only major issue here is that you do not include the 3.5 moedim or 3.5 years or ~1260 days. (You do understand by now that the word for "time" in 12:7 is "moed", a yearly feast, so counting by moedim is counting by years.)

The 1260 days is from the cessation of Jewish sacrifices in the temple to the decreed end poured out on the prince/desolator. (9:27)

Bernard Muller wrote:According to 1 Macc. 1 and the 1150 days, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucid_era, the cessation of sacrifices occurred around the 20th of October 167 BCE. That would be about 55 days before the pagan sacrifice on 15th December 167 BCE.
The 1150 days would point to the 15th of December 164 BCE.
The 1290 days would point to approximately the 5th of May 163 BCE.
The 1335 days would correspond to about mid-June in 163 BCE, that is approximately three years and 8 months after the first cessation of the Jewish sacrifices and 6 months after the first reconsecration (15th Dec. 164).

About soldiers reclaiming the temple temporarily after the first reconsecration:
Josephus' Ant., XII, IX, 3a. "At that time [163 B.C.E.] it was that the garrison in the citadel of Jerusalem, with the Jewish renegades, did a great deal of harm to the Jews: for the soldiers that were in that garrison rushed out upon the sudden, and destroyed such as were going to the temple in order to offer their sacrifices, for this citadel adjoined to and overlooked the temple. When these misfortunes had often happened to them, ..."
1Maccabees: 1:33-36 "Then they built up the City of David with a high, massive wall and strong towers, and it became their citadel. There they installed a sinful race, perverse men, who fortified themselves inside it, storing up weapons and provisions, and depositing there the plunder they had collected from Jerusalem. And they became a great threat. The citadel became an ambush against the sanctuary, and a wicked adversary to Israel at all times."

About Dan 12:11 "and from the time of the turning aside of the perpetual sacrifice, and to the giving out of the desolating abomination, are days a thousand, two hundred, and ninety."
I wrote it does not make sense that the end time of these 1290 days would not be indicated. This end time is obviously the "desolating abomination", and that has to be a 2nd one, after the initial desecration.
The word by word translator of the Hebrew also account for that "to" (which I bolded), even if it may be implied:
"and·from·era he-is-taken-awayand·from·era the·continually and·to·to-give-of abomination one-desolating days
thousand two-hundreds and·ninety" http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInte ... /dan12.pdf
The "to" is also omitted in the expression "from point A to Point B) in Gen 26:23, Ex 12:37 & 17:16, Joshua 7:2 and Jer 27:20 (I only checked parts of these 4 books).
We are dealing with points in time.
Bernard Muller wrote:
"After" is a derived meaning from "hinder part" and you have no real way to assert that it indicates "following the end of" rather than "at the end of". You are trying to force the events at the end of the 69th week into the seventieth week, despite the text specifically telling you not to by saying when the one week was. If you remember that אחרי literally indicates the rear, then you have no problem reading it as "at the end of the 62 weeks". You keep pushing for the English meanings of terms that don't quite fit the Hebrew.
OK, so we would have 2 cases:
1) "And following the end of the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; ..."
In this case, the removal of Onias III (175 BCE) would happen anytime after the sixty-two weeks, possibly years afterwards.
2) "And at the end of the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; ..."
In this case, the removal of Onias III would happen right at the end of the sixty-two weeks.

But you want the seventieth year to start in 171 BCE instead, that's 3-4 years after Onias III's removal.
So the "after" would mean "before" as such:
"And before the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; ..."
Do you know of any instance where אַחַר means "before" rather than "after" (as "afterwards")?
No. "hinder part" is usually part of the end of something—as in "posterior" and "get off it". אחרי could be the cow's bum or the flies that follow. Either way you wouldn't want to be אחרי.
Bernard Muller wrote:And the contemporaries of "Daniel", because they lived through that period, would know that the removal of Onias III happened years before your so-called covenant of Antiochus IV with Menelaus.
Actually Onias III was killed around the time Menelaus came to power, through the latter's conniving with Andronicus.
Bernard Muller wrote:
I was explaining the language to you concerning the use of "think". There is no suggestion that Antiochus did not change the times. If you need to see it, 2 Macc 6:7 shows Antiochus imposing the Greek calendar on the Jews. Not only did Antiochus think it, he acted on it
In 2 Macc 6:7 it is a old man from Athens, who, after Antiochus' army 2nd foray in Jerusalem, attempted these changes of times. That certainly would not prevent "Daniel" to write (in Dan 7:25, between the two forays) Antiochus IV thought about changing the times (but not acted on it).
That's useless pedantry. The Athenian was merely acting on the orders of Antiochus.
Bernard Muller wrote:
The weeks in 9:25 and the week in 9:27 are dealing with the same time unit, plural and singular.

Still the same subterfuge. you can compare ones with halve or sevens or whatever measures you like:
But the "weeks" in Dan 10:2 & 10:3 really mean weeks. But "weeks" in Dan 9:25-27 cannot mean plain "weeks".
So there is no general rule for the meaning of "week" or "weeks" in 'Daniel'.
What happens in visions is not the same as outside them. The framing of the prophecies and visions is supposed to be real world, thus literal. Visions are not.

But you've forgotten the point. You are thinking about the wrong thing in the measuring of time. The quantifying part (the numbers) measures the time in the supplied units (days, weeks, years). We have half a week (it could be one day or six months). The preposition is used with the quantity to mark a measured point in time.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Talking about "by day" or "by night" measures nothing, so has nothing to do with the measure of time "half a week".
"half of the week" can be a point of time: the middle of the week.
Actually that assertion is still false. "Half a week" is always a measure, "halfway through the week" is a point. You need that preposition otherwise there is no way to distinguish between duration and point. It is either duration is without preposition and point is with preposition, or you have no criterion to choose. As we know the preposition added to the duration turns it into a point in all known instances, you need to accept the evidence or be in the position of saying nothing coherent, as you have no criteria from which to base comments.
Bernard Muller wrote:
How do you know when εν does not indicate the usual "in"?
How do you know when εν does not indicate "at"? "in" indicates a point of time, not a duration. That point of time does not need to be instant such as "I'll visit you in mid-week" (the visit can last hours).
Bwe-he-he. Look who's Englishizing again! Look here, A.IV.
Bernard Muller wrote:
So what do you have to say about the perfect in Gen 33:13, "if you overdrive them for one day, the all flocks will die" or 31:41 in which Jacob served Laban for fourteen years or 1 Kgs 16:23 in which Omri reigned six years in Tirzah? All perfects.
So what? the actions are completed (die, served & reigned). In Daniel 9:25, the confirmation/strengthening is completed at the time of the writing of this verse. The action does not have to be instantaneous, just completed.
As I said, the verb means "prevail" or "be strong" and is perfect with a duration. The example is Omri reigning [perfect in Hebrew] six years. Dan 9:27 regards the covenant with the many which the coming prince with make prevail for one week.
Bernard Muller wrote:
This is not clear to me. Is the seventieth week that you talk of here, the one in 9:27? If so, the half week which measures the cessation of the Tamid was 168/7 to 164, as I, like most other readers of the passage, see the use of "weeks" to be implying "weeks of years", as you know. That period marks the beginning of the pollution to the rededication.
Yes, in the case that your seventieth week of years beginning in 171. But then, I demonstrated earlier that the "after" in Dan 9:26 would have to be replaced by "before".
You demonstrated nothing of the sort. You are not paying attention to the actual meaning of אחרי. See above.
Bernard Muller wrote:
I don't agree with your attempt at grammar here. The verb means "prevail or be strong", so we should have "cause to prevail for one week". (This is not a punctiliar action at all.)
Qal perfect is about completed action, not only punctiliar one (as you demonstrated earlier).
As Omri completed six years of reign.
Bernard Muller wrote:
You have not been concentrating. I have told you already that the last week started well after Onias was removed from office in 175. It started ~171 when Menelaus outbid Jason for the high priesthood.
You have a big problem here, as I explained already on this post: "after" is not "before".
No. When you try to talk about language, you should stop before you make mistakes. Joke: How do you know when a lawyer is lying? He moves his lips. How do you know when Bernard makes a language based mistake?....
Bernard Muller wrote:
For the writer it was not finished. That is one of the major implications of the imperfect.
Yes, But as I mentioned before on this thread: the imperfect is used to express the "future", referring not only to an action which is about to be accomplished but one which has not yet begun.
Go back and read the Genesius statement I cited in the previous post.
Bernard Muller wrote:And the example: "We will burn" thy house. There is no reference here on how long is the burning or the duration of the house in the state of being burnt.
The perfect, as the imperfect, are not used to indicate duration, but a completed action (perfect) or an action still going on (imperfect). In "he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease" Antiochus started the action but when the main part of his army was gone from Jerusalem, the cessation continued at the time of writing of the verse.
Anyway, in case of the future, my examples show that any duration is of no concern. The initial future action can even be quasi-instant as for burning of a house.
That you cannot get past the fact that Dan 9:25-27 clearly spells out seventy weeks as 7 + 62 + 1,
That does not mean that after 69 "weeks", we are not in the seventieth "week". And in that seventieth "week" (which for me falls on one year only, which is 167 BCE), a real week of 7 days can be embedded into it.
Let's repeat it again as you haven't understood thus far. אחרי deals with the part further back, the hinder parts, the rump, the rear, the thing that comes at the end. That could be part of the thing or by extension it could be what comes after it. The cow's bum or the flies that follow. Try a biblical example, 2 Sam 2:23: where did the spear come out (אחרי)? I have found no other example of אחרי with a duration than Dan 9:27. The most common way to indicate "after" with a duration is by the inseparable preposition ל, eg after seven days in Gen 7:10 and 1 Chr 9:25.

I've tried to warn you about the complexity of "on the third day" and "after three days". Do you not know the topic? There is a strong debate whether they are in fact represent the same thing in the hypothetical original language. Do you not understand the relevance?
Bernard Muller wrote:
The sevens argument is based on a misunderstanding of Hebrew orthography: there is no tangible reason for you to think that the writers did not mean "weeks" in its defective form.
The author wrote "weeks" in its defective form in Dan 10:2 & 3. And "weeks" here means series of 7 days. So would that same form found in Dan 24-27 mean the same: NO.
And your week of 7 years does not fit, and the chronological errors it causes are way beyond inaccuracies. For your last week, you have to imply that "after" in Dan 9:25 means "before" to make it fit your theories.
In vision versus outside vision. Is "in the first year of Darius the Mede" meant to be taken literally or not? Rule of thumb: it is not part of a vision, so read it literally here. The beast with ten horns literal or not? It's in a vision and it's sus anyway. Don't drag substantive stuff from outside the visions and expect it to have any weight within.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Your seventy sevens is based on the fact you didn't know Hebrew had no digits, so they couldn't count sevens, which is the whole basis of your table.
I knew that all the time. But my table would have been way too big if I had the written words instead of numbers.
That in itself should tell you that the idea is off the wall.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Writing all the words out would not help and there is no thought involved in annotations-in-sand conjecture.

I would have highlighted all the occurrences of שבע. These annotation in the sand is like manually/mentally adding a long list of of similar items by splitting the list in parts and then annotating the total for each part, which are added later to make the grand total.
Your annotations are merely unfalsifiable fantasies you've conjured up. Have you seen anything in antiquity that approaches the complexity and implied size of your table? I've seen complex data inscribed on the walls of temples in Egypt, but not as complex as your little spreadsheet.
Bernard Muller wrote:
This is just a series of goalpost moves.
I never changed my goal post.
You just don't notice it.
Bernard Muller wrote:
The notion that you put forward with your table would not have made any sense to people listening to the text being read.

Not at first, because it's presented as a puzzle and oracle. But listeners would be very intrigued and ask for explanations. Then one of the literate one (possibly the author, but posing as only the discoverer of the text) would suggest that because the "weeks" of 9:24-26 cannot be about a 7 days period, it may be about "seven", that is שבע (with an irregular plural: the regular form seems to be the clumsy שבעה שבעה as in Gen 7:3). From that, the ball would be rolling and another literate one (or the same) would find the system (which miraculously would bring these seventy "seven" to their time).
As the Titanic sunk, imagine what the passengers clung to.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Your seventy sevens does not work
They work perfectly.
You haven't got seventy anything. Thirty-six sevens and thirty-three seventies—a mixed notion that doesn't reflect the text, either in substance or quantity—and your efforts to insinuate an unstated something before the last week in 9:27, when the text talks about seventy weeks, breaking it up as 7 weeks + 62 weeks + the last week in 9:25. That is the simplest reading of the text. You give no response to this. You tacitly seem to acknowledge this reading by trying to invent another seven/seventy (or whatever) between the sixty-ninth week and the last week. You know that you have no response to the seventy weeks that the text overtly outlines, so you have your back to the wall pleading a seventieth something that is not specifically counted between the sixty-ninth and last week. There is nothing perfect here, just someone trying to obfuscate the obvious.
Dysexlia lures • ⅔ of what we see is behind our eyes
Bernard Muller
Posts: 3964
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:02 pm
Contact:

Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to spin,
Bernard Muller wrote:
And I did not find anything which would be in your favor when I searched for "what happened to Zerubbabel".
It was hoped that you would get some background.
Can you direct me on websites, showing on a search for "what happened to Zerubbabel", which are in favor of your theory?
I've never made claims about the accuracy of the durations other than the last week in 9:27
For good causes: your durations are off the roof.
Not really. We're already alerted with Daniel's jump from years to weeks. Lev 23:15 talks of "seven sabbaths", which in the context would equal 49 days or seven weeks. A "sabbath of years" is just seven years, or a week of years. With that in mind, moving from Jeremiah's "seventy years" to Daniel's "seventy weeks", we know that "week" is not being used to talk of "seven days" (which would make a self-defeating prophecy). Visions require a little substitution to analyze them. The jump by Daniel from years to weeks suggests weeks of years. That's an easy sell.
Clear as mud. A nice piece of apologetics. Is that what you call evidence?
How bout that! Or: you live and learn! I'm sure you like the "new" information too. Look here at footnote #72 for three sources. More if needed.
Yes, scholarly diverging speculations. But the author of the book acknowledges that Zerubbabel is the man called Branch (who is destined to receive royal honor if and when he rebuilds the temple).
Sorry, it is not prose like the part of Daniel we're examining, but poetry,
Narrowing the goal posts again?
But the Hebrew has a waw starting the clause "it shall be built again with plaza and moat, but in a troubled time" ונבנתה רחוב וחרוץ ובצוק העתים . That should be translated as "and it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time".
And the whole verse as such: "Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks/sevens and sixty-two weeks/sevens and it shall be built again with plaza and moat, but in a troubled time."
The only major issue here is that you do not include the 3.5 moedim or 3.5 years or ~1260 days. (You do understand by now that the word for "time" in 12:7 is "moed", a yearly feast, so counting by moedim is counting by years.)
מוֹעֵד (time) is never translated as "year" by the KJV in its 223 occurrences in the OT.
In its first occurrence in the OT (Gen 1:14 "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons [מועדים], and for days, and years:", it is clear that מוֹעֵד is not year.
The plural of the word מועדים does not have to mean two מועד . Instead it means most likely many "times".
Essentially, the "for a time, times, and an half" of Dan 12:7 is not a defined duration.
As for all of 'Daniel', it was written before the news of Antiochus' death reached Jerusalem. Dan 12:7 is no exception.
Actually, I think Dan 12:7 was written before the reconsecration of the temple. And Dan 8:13-14 & 12:11-12 were "updates" written after the facts (because the author would not have dared to predict intervals between events in days before the facts).
The 1260 days is from the cessation of Jewish sacrifices in the temple to the decreed end poured out on the prince/desolator. (9:27)
Don't be misleading. That's not a translation of Dan 9:27.
We are dealing with points in time.
Narrowing the goal posts again!
No. "hinder part" is usually part of the end of something—as in "posterior" and "get off it". אחרי could be the cow's bum or the flies that follow. Either way you wouldn't want to be No. "hinder part" is usually part of the end of something—as in "posterior" and "get off it". אחרי could be the cow's bum or the flies that follow. Either way you wouldn't want to be אחרי.
You are being ridiculous. I cannot see any reference of cow's body part (or from any other animals) in Dan 9:26.
The Hebrew for "hinder" is אָחוֹר and is never translated as "after" (in time). Do you have scholarly back up for that very odd interpretation of אחרי in the context of Daniel 9:26?
So, how would you replace the "after" (which shows in all English translations) so anyone will think the events which follow "after" in the text could have happened soon before?
Actually Onias III was killed around the time Menelaus came to power, through the latter's conniving with Andronicus.
But you agreed that "an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing" (RSV) was referring to Onias III being removed from office, 4 years before he was killed.
Now you are suggesting that would refer to Onias' killing. Can you clarify if the phrase, for you, refers to Onias' removal or killing?

That's useless pedantry. The Athenian was merely acting on the orders of Antiochus.
Likely, but my point was that change of times was implemented way after Antiochus thought of it.
What happens in visions is not the same as outside them. The framing of the prophecies and visions is supposed to be real world, thus literal. Visions are not.
I don't think "Daniel", who wrote both the alleged visions and the "real world", would know about that.
But you've forgotten the point. You are thinking about the wrong thing in the measuring of time. The quantifying part (the numbers) measures the time in the supplied units (days, weeks, years). We have half a week (it could be one day or six months). The preposition is used with the quantity to mark a measured point in time.
I do not understand what you mean by that. The preposition, whatever it is, is only implied.
But if "half of the week" would be a duration within the "week" in the same verse 9:27, then there is no indication when that "half of the week" starts. Starting it in the middle of the "week" is arbitrary.
Furthermore that "week" is introduced by a hiphil perfect verb. That would mean the action during the "week" and the action in the embedded "half a the week" would have been completed. But wait, verse 9:27 does not foresee the reconsecration of the temple (which would terminate the actions) before the death of Antiochus.

I also noted that 1 Macc. 1:39-50 corresponds to events in Dan 9:27a.
"And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week;" =>1 Macc. 1:41-50
"and for half of the week he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease;" => 1 Macc. 1:39,45
All these could have happened in a short time, that is one week, likely the first week Antiochus' army took control of Jerusalem in 167 BCE.
[39] Her sanctuary was laid waste like a wilderness, her feasts were turned into mourning, her sabbaths into reproach her honour into contempt.
[40] As had been her glory, so was her dishonour increased, and her excellency was turned into mourning.
[41] Moreover king Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people,
[42] And every one should leave his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king.
[43] Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the sabbath.
[44] For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Juda that they should follow the strange laws of the land,
[45] And forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the sabbaths and festival days:
[46] And pollute the sanctuary and holy people:
[47] Set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine's flesh, and unclean beasts:
[48] That they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation:
[49] To the end they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances.
[50] And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said, he should die.

Actually that assertion is still false. "Half a week" is always a measure, "halfway through the week" is a point. You need that preposition otherwise there is no way to distinguish between duration and point. It is either duration is without preposition and point is with preposition, or you have no criterion to choose. As we know the preposition added to the duration turns it into a point in all known instances, you need to accept the evidence or be in the position of saying nothing coherent, as you have no criteria from which to base comments.
The proposition is not indicated so the one implied can be "in", "by" or "at". In that case, "half" would need to be replaced by "middle" (of the week). In Judge 16:3, עד־חצי הלילה can be translated by "until the middle of the night"
Bwe-he-he. Look who's Englishizing again! Look here, A.IV.

I looked and it says the word εν can mean in or within (a time period)
As I said, the verb means "prevail" or "be strong" and is perfect with a duration. The example is Omri reigning [perfect in Hebrew] six years. Dan 9:27 regards the covenant with the many which the coming prince with make prevail for one week.
The verb in Hiphil Perfect and therefore would mean, in context of 9:27, "shall cause a covenant be strong with many" (with that action being completed).
Your annotations are merely unfalsifiable fantasies you've conjured up. Have you seen anything in antiquity that approaches the complexity and implied size of your table? I've seen complex data inscribed on the walls of temples in Egypt, but not as complex as your little spreadsheet.
My table is only here for providing a way to check me out.

One way to count is:
The first שבע comes at 6 years after Cyrus' first year, and then add 1 for every 10 years up to you reach 70 years (not included): annotate 6
The next שבע has to come after 70 years from Cyrus' first year. Actually there are 11 שבע from 70 to 79: annotate 17 (6+11).
The next time you'll get a bunch of 11 שבע is from 170 to 179 years. But to get there you have to account also of one שבע every 10 years from 87 to 167 (total 9 שבע): annotate 37 (17+9+11)
Then up to 279, there are 20 שבע to be added: annotate 57 (37+20)
Then up to 379, there are 20 שבע to be added: annotate 77 (57+20)
But wait, we are beyond 70 שבע . We have to subtract 7 from 379, and we get 372 years (after Cyrus' first year), corresponding to 167 BCE in our calendar.

I am quite sure the literate Jews knew how to add and subtract. Many of those had to do that for their business.

The other thing required is the number of years between Cyrus' first year and the generation of Jews at the time. I am quite sure some upper class educated families kept updating a record of that, transmitted from generation to generation (about 12 generations) more so if one of their ancestor was liberated by Cyrus after he took Babylon (something to remember).

The next שבע has to come after 70 years from Cyrus' first year. Actually there are 11 שבע from 70 to 79: annotate 12 (1+11)
Let's repeat it again as you haven't understood thus far. אחרי deals with the part further back, the hinder parts, the rump, the rear, the thing that comes at the end. That could be part of the thing or by extension it could be what comes after it. The cow's bum or the flies that follow. Try a biblical example, 2 Sam 2:23: where did the spear come out (אחרי)? I have found no other example of אחרי with a duration than Dan 9:27. The most common way to indicate "after" with a duration is by the inseparable preposition ל, eg after seven days in Gen 7:10 and 1 Chr 9:25.
I addressed that already. אחרי is widely used all over the OT to indicate an event follows another one in time (in Genesis, the vast majority of the 83 of אחרי means "afterwards') .
Sure it has other meanings also, but I do not see how, as understood in 2 Samuel 2:23, that could apply in Dan 9:26.
You haven't got seventy anything. Thirty-six sevens and thirty-three seventies—a mixed notion that doesn't reflect the text, either in substance or quantity
That reflects the text in quantity. For substance, let's not forget that's part on an oracle (where things are supposed to be said is strange ways).
—and your efforts to insinuate an unstated something before the last week in 9:27, when the text talks about seventy weeks, breaking it up as 7 weeks + 62 weeks + the last week in 9:25. That is the simplest reading of the text. You give no response to this.
I certainly did respond to your theory, and many times. That might be the simplest reading of the text, but that does not mean it is the right one. And your theory has many problems.
You tacitly seem to acknowledge this reading by trying to invent another seven/seventy (or whatever) between the sixty-ninth week and the last week.
I do not know where you get that from. It looks you are not even trying to understand where I stand and imagine stuff I never contended.
You know that you have no response to the seventy weeks that the text overtly outlines, so you have your back to the wall pleading a seventieth something that is not specifically counted between the sixty-ninth and last week. There is nothing perfect here, just someone trying to obfuscate the obvious.
How many times I have to tell you the seventieth "week" (which for me is one year), complete with events within it, starts after the the 69th "week" (Dan 9:26). And the week in Dan 9:27 is really one week, embedded into that year.
And that week makes sense in regard of 1 Macc. 1.

Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
User avatar
spin
Posts: 2146
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:44 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by spin »

Note, Bernard, I will not treat your further attempts at Hebrew after this post. Research from scratch can only go so far in giving you some hope of checking things. You cannot however be meaningful when you invent stuff about Hebrew, as you have. That שבעים must mean "sevens" has never been substantiated and is contradicted by the cohesion of the text. Your nonsense about prepositions is based on your weak grip of English and has nothing to do with Hebrew. Below you can't even see one when you cite the text yourself. It wastes my time when you make claims about what texts say when you cannot even cite the text properly, as you do below. Pretending to say stuff about Hebrew all you do is crap on and that must stop.
Bernard Muller wrote:to spin,
Bernard Muller wrote:
And I did not find anything which would be in your favor when I searched for "what happened to Zerubbabel".
It was hoped that you would get some background.
Can you direct me on websites, showing on a search for "what happened to Zerubbabel", which are in favor of your theory?
Most websites are crap. You need to look at scholarly works. From the search the Maxwell Miller book gave a brief overview. The Rose book is quite exhaustive.
Bernard Muller wrote:
I've never made claims about the accuracy of the durations other than the last week in 9:27
For good causes: your durations are off the roof.
I didn't start with the harebrained notion that the inhabitants of this little community would have the ultra-accuracy that you have gulled yourself into believing.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Not really. We're already alerted with Daniel's jump from years to weeks. Lev 23:15 talks of "seven sabbaths", which in the context would equal 49 days or seven weeks. A "sabbath of years" is just seven years, or a week of years. With that in mind, moving from Jeremiah's "seventy years" to Daniel's "seventy weeks", we know that "week" is not being used to talk of "seven days" (which would make a self-defeating prophecy). Visions require a little substitution to analyze them. The jump by Daniel from years to weeks suggests weeks of years. That's an easy sell.
Clear as mud. A nice piece of apologetics. Is that what you call evidence?
You have a disturbing notion of apologetics. It is based on ignoring everything you don't believe. You have the approach that if it doesn't fit your fringe theory, it can't be accepted.
Bernard Muller wrote:
How bout that! Or: you live and learn! I'm sure you like the "new" information too. Look here at footnote #72 for three sources. More if needed.
Yes, scholarly diverging speculations. But the author of the book acknowledges that Zerubbabel is the man called Branch (who is destined to receive royal honor if and when he rebuilds the temple).
Not speculations. The notion of an old feminine ending preserved is based on scholarly analysis. And you are still denying the text by ignoring the fact that Yeshua alone is crowned.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Sorry, it is not prose like the part of Daniel we're examining, but poetry,
Narrowing the goal posts again?
Not "again". I acknowledge that here you can say I'm moving the goalposts for the reason mentioned, ie that neither of us understand Hebrew poetry, so it is wisest to stick to prose because I can deal with that, sort of.
Bernard Muller wrote:But the Hebrew has a waw starting the clause "it shall be built again with plaza and moat, but in a troubled time" ונבנתה רחוב וחרוץ ובצוק העתים [missing initial verb]. That should be translated as "and it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time".
Just accept the fact that you need to learn some Hebrew so that you don't keep making blunders like this. You've left out the verb that you've previously dealt with—*cough* *cough* remember that qal imperfect?
Bernard Muller wrote:And the whole verse as such: "Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks/sevens and sixty-two weeks/sevens and it shall be built again with plaza and moat, but in a troubled time."
Just total baloney... due to the fact that you don't know what you are talking about (see my comment immediately above) and you persist in showing that you don't know.

(The text does not actually say "plaza and moat". It says "wide and sharp". It is problematic for all translators.)
Bernard Muller wrote:
The only major issue here is that you do not include the 3.5 moedim or 3.5 years or ~1260 days. (You do understand by now that the word for "time" in 12:7 is "moed", a yearly feast, so counting by moedim is counting by years.)
מוֹעֵד (time) is never translated as "year" by the KJV in its 223 occurrences in the OT.
In its first occurrence in the OT (Gen 1:14 "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons [מועדים], and for days, and years:", it is clear that מוֹעֵד is not year.
Yet I have clarified the issue twice and you have ignored it twice. The word moed is used specifically for yearly feasts in the list which includes sabbaths, new moons, and moedim, eg 1 Chr 23:31 and 2 Chr 8:13, the latter listing the moedim as yearly: unleavened bread, weeks and booths. The NJPS reasonably translates moedim in Gen 1:14 as "set times". That is the base meaning of the word from the verb יעד to "appoint" or "assign", moedim indicates appointed things, places, times. The class of books in the Mishna moedim, deals with the set religious times, from sabbaths to specific yearly feasts. The list in 1 Chr 23:31 shows the specific use of moedim for the yearly feasts. Counting feasts is counting years, just like counting sabbaths is counting weeks.
Bernard Muller wrote:The plural of the word מועדים does not have to mean two מועד . Instead it means most likely many "times".
Obviously it does not mean "times". The translators just had difficulty, given the popularity of the KJV phrase and nothing suitably short... "a set time, set times and half a set time"..., naa... "a feast, feasts, half a feast"..., um no. We are left with the KJV "times".
Bernard Muller wrote:Essentially, the "for a time, times, and an half" of Dan 12:7 is not a defined duration.
Genesius talking of the Aramaic version in 7:25 in his dictionary does not agree with you (nor does BDB). In his entry on the Aramaic equivalent to moed he specifically refers to 7:25 as "a year, (two) years and a half", citing "Josephus, Bellum Jud. i. 1" (or BJ 1.32) regarding the stoppage of daily sacrifices for 3.5 years.
Bernard Muller wrote:As for all of 'Daniel', it was written before the news of Antiochus' death reached Jerusalem. Dan 12:7 is no exception.
Actually, I think Dan 12:7 was written before the reconsecration of the temple. And Dan 8:13-14 & 12:11-12 were "updates" written after the facts (because the author would not have dared to predict intervals between events in days before the facts).
There was no point in updates. Daniel's use had passed its expiry date.
Bernard Muller wrote:
The 1260 days is from the cessation of Jewish sacrifices in the temple to the decreed end poured out on the prince/desolator. (9:27)
Don't be misleading. That's not a translation of Dan 9:27.
No, it is a summary that doesn't accept your unknowledgeable attempts to change the sense of the text.
Bernard Muller wrote:
We are dealing with points in time.
Narrowing the goal posts again!
You are the one who wants to invent a point in time here.
Bernard Muller wrote:
No. "hinder part" is usually part of the end of something—as in "posterior" and "get off it". אחרי could be the cow's bum or the flies that follow. Either way you wouldn't want to be No. "hinder part" is usually part of the end of something—as in "posterior" and "get off it". אחרי could be the cow's bum or the flies that follow. Either way you wouldn't want to be אחרי.
You are being ridiculous. I cannot see any reference of cow's body part (or from any other animals) in Dan 9:26.
Oh, for fuck's sake, Bernard. Learn to understand a little satire. The satire deals with the two possible uses of the term for what is at the end... in this case of a cow, its bum (literally) and the flies which follow.
Bernard Muller wrote:The Hebrew for "hinder" is אָחוֹר
The plural form is אחרי, but you wouldn't be able to know that.
Bernard Muller wrote:and is never translated as "after" (in time). Do you have scholarly back up for that very odd interpretation of אחרי in the context of Daniel 9:26?
So, how would you replace the "after" (which shows in all English translations) so anyone will think the events which follow "after" in the text could have happened soon before?
"At the end of".
Bernard Muller wrote:
Actually Onias III was killed around the time Menelaus came to power, through the latter's conniving with Andronicus.
But you agreed that "an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing" (RSV) was referring to Onias III being removed from office, 4 years before he was killed.
Now you are suggesting that would refer to Onias' killing. Can you clarify if the phrase, for you, refers to Onias' removal or killing?
You tell me what "cut off" means here.
Bernard Muller wrote:That's useless pedantry. The Athenian was merely acting on the orders of Antiochus.
Likely, but my point was that change of times was implemented way after Antiochus thought of it.
Doh. Some point. The writers did not see Antiochus's thought processes. They saw the Athenian doing his deeds.
Bernard Muller wrote:
What happens in visions is not the same as outside them. The framing of the prophecies and visions is supposed to be real world, thus literal. Visions are not.
I don't think "Daniel", who wrote both the alleged visions and the "real world", would know about that.
So let's blur the lines a little more: perhaps Darius the Mede wasn't meant to represent reality. Belshazzar as king was not meant to represent reality. Daniel receiving interpretations from Gabriel was not meant to represent reality. The readers don't need to understand what is real according to the text and what is vision. Of course the writers maintained a clear separation between vision and narrative reality.
Bernard Muller wrote:
But you've forgotten the point. You are thinking about the wrong thing in the measuring of time. The quantifying part (the numbers) measures the time in the supplied units (days, weeks, years). We have half a week (it could be one day or six months). The preposition is used with the quantity to mark a measured point in time.
I do not understand what you mean by that.
You want to insert a preposition willy-nilly because it suits your wacky theory. Your silly efforts to find objections show you don't understand your task. You blunder by confusing meanings of English prepositions (by day and by midnight, two distinct meanings, the latter being a point), then trying to use the circumstances in one of those uses (no point implied) to insert a preposition in another case (point desired) while changing the meaning of the preposition.
Bernard Muller wrote:The preposition, whatever it is, is only implied.
Talking about "implication" requires you to demonstrate the implication, not assume it. There is no reason to put a preposition before the duration "half a week" in 9:27. Therefore, no implication.
Bernard Muller wrote:But if "half of the week" would be a duration within the "week" in the same verse 9:27, then there is no indication when that "half of the week" starts.
It makes clear when it ends, so you can easily work out when it starts: half way to the end poured out on the desolator.
Bernard Muller wrote:Starting it in the middle of the "week" is arbitrary.
Furthermore that "week" is introduced by a hiphil perfect verb.
Yes, the prince caused the covenant to prevail one week.
Bernard Muller wrote:That would mean the action during the "week" and the action in the embedded "half a the week" would have been completed.
That does not make sense. What happens in half the week is treated separately from the previous clause.

Analogy: Mary had Bill work for her a week. Half the week he was painting ceilings.
Bernard Muller wrote:But wait, verse 9:27 does not foresee the reconsecration of the temple (which would terminate the actions) before the death of Antiochus.
So the decreed end does not imply the end of Tamid cessation?? That would put an end to the situation indicated by the hiphil imperfect.
Bernard Muller wrote:I also noted that 1 Macc. 1:39-50 corresponds to events in Dan 9:27a.
"And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week;" =>1 Macc. 1:41-50
"and for half of the week he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease;" => 1 Macc. 1:39,45
All these could have happened in a short time, that is one week, likely the first week Antiochus' army took control of Jerusalem in 167 BCE.
[39] Her sanctuary was laid waste like a wilderness, her feasts were turned into mourning, her sabbaths into reproach her honour into contempt.
[40] As had been her glory, so was her dishonour increased, and her excellency was turned into mourning.
[41] Moreover king Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people,
[42] And every one should leave his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king.
[43] Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the sabbath.
[44] For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Juda that they should follow the strange laws of the land,
[45] And forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the sabbaths and festival days:
[46] And pollute the sanctuary and holy people:
[47] Set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine's flesh, and unclean beasts:
[48] That they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation:
[49] To the end they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances.
[50] And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said, he should die.

Actually that assertion is still false. "Half a week" is always a measure, "halfway through the week" is a point. You need that preposition otherwise there is no way to distinguish between duration and point. It is either duration is without preposition and point is with preposition, or you have no criterion to choose. As we know the preposition added to the duration turns it into a point in all known instances, you need to accept the evidence or be in the position of saying nothing coherent, as you have no criteria from which to base comments.
The proposition is not indicated so the one implied can be "in", "by" or "at". In that case, "half" would need to be replaced by "middle" (of the week). In Judge 16:3, עד־חצי הלילה can be translated by "until the middle of the night"
You've got to stop showing your ignorance, Bernard. Did you not see the עד. What is that? A mousetrap? It's a fucking preposition. You must stop fucking up by pretending to be able to say anything about the language you know nothing about. I cannot say anything to you about the language because you are unable to understand, so you go off half-assed and make blunder after blunder. And you will continue to do so.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Bwe-he-he. Look who's Englishizing again! Look here, A.IV.

I looked and it says the word εν can mean in or within (a time period)
Which is no help to you. The Greek is a useless dog's leg to the sad conversation, another language you are raping.
Bernard Muller wrote:
As I said, the verb means "prevail" or "be strong" and is perfect with a duration. The example is Omri reigning [perfect in Hebrew] six years. Dan 9:27 regards the covenant with the many which the coming prince with make prevail for one week.
The verb in Hiphil Perfect and therefore would mean, in context of 9:27, "shall cause a covenant be strong with many" (with that action being completed).
In the context it says "shall cause a covenant to be strong with many one week". Omri reigned six years.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Your annotations are merely unfalsifiable fantasies you've conjured up. Have you seen anything in antiquity that approaches the complexity and implied size of your table? I've seen complex data inscribed on the walls of temples in Egypt, but not as complex as your little spreadsheet.
My table is only here for providing a way to check me out.

One way to count is:
(Why are we counting "sevens" when the text specifically talks of weeks, seven weeks + sixty-two weeks + one week? There is no reason to count sevens given the clarity of the text and its cohesion (weeks, weeks, week). The only reason I can see... is that you have a calculation that puts you in the ballpark by doing so and that shapes your further analysis to make it fit Dan 9:25-27, and you make your data fit your conclusion.)
Bernard Muller wrote:The first שבע comes at 6 years after Cyrus' first year, and then add 1 for every 10 years up to you reach 70 years (not included): annotate 6
The next שבע has to come after 70 years from Cyrus' first year. Actually there are 11 שבע from 70 to 79: annotate 17 (6+11).
The next time you'll get a bunch of 11 שבע is from 170 to 179 years. But to get there you have to account also of one שבע every 10 years from 87 to 167 (total 9 שבע): annotate 37 (17+9+11)
Then up to 279, there are 20 שבע to be added: annotate 57 (37+20)
Then up to 379, there are 20 שבע to be added: annotate 77 (57+20)
But wait, we are beyond 70 שבע . We have to subtract 7 from 379, and we get 372 years (after Cyrus' first year), corresponding to 167 BCE in our calendar.
What??
Bernard Muller wrote:I am quite sure the literate Jews knew how to add and subtract. Many of those had to do that for their business.
If there were less than 2% literate Jews at the time your unprecedented complex calculation would obviously have been complete jibberish to the average listener. You keep acting like people of 2200 years ago had access to the data in your schema wrapped in modern arithmetic.
Bernard Muller wrote:The other thing required is the number of years between Cyrus' first year and the generation of Jews at the time. I am quite sure some upper class educated families kept updating a record of that, transmitted from generation to generation (about 12 generations) more so if one of their ancestor was liberated by Cyrus after he took Babylon (something to remember).
You are sure of nothing. Remember, there were only four kings of Persia.
Bernard Muller wrote:The next שבע has to come after 70 years from Cyrus' first year. Actually there are 11 שבע from 70 to 79: annotate 12 (1+11)
Let's repeat it again as you haven't understood thus far. אחרי deals with the part further back, the hinder parts, the rump, the rear, the thing that comes at the end. That could be part of the thing or by extension it could be what comes after it. The cow's bum or the flies that follow. Try a biblical example, 2 Sam 2:23: where did the spear come out (אחרי)? I have found no other example of אחרי with a duration than Dan 9:27. The most common way to indicate "after" with a duration is by the inseparable preposition ל, eg after seven days in Gen 7:10 and 1 Chr 9:25.
I addressed that already.
The fact that אחרי is not used with durations to pinpoint time but ל is certainly has not been addressed already.
Bernard Muller wrote:אחרי is widely used all over the OT to indicate an event follows another one in time (in Genesis, the vast majority of the 83 of אחרי means "afterwards') .
Sure it has other meanings also, but I do not see how, as understood in 2 Samuel 2:23, that could apply in Dan 9:26.
So you would say "on the third day" is wrong: it should be "after three days". I would say that the ambiguity over אחרי may explain how the conflict arises.
Bernard Muller wrote:
You haven't got seventy anything. Thirty-six sevens and thirty-three seventies—a mixed notion that doesn't reflect the text, either in substance or quantity
That reflects the text in quantity. For substance, let's not forget that's part on an oracle (where things are supposed to be said is strange ways).
Thirty-six sevens and thirty-three seventies does not reflect the text in any conceivable way. You have to corrupt the text to force the use of "sevens", then you have to change that to include "seventies". Then you have to discount the relevance of the last week to the seventy weeks and invent another one between the sixty-nine weeks and the one week.
Bernard Muller wrote:
—and your efforts to insinuate an unstated something before the last week in 9:27, when the text talks about seventy weeks, breaking it up as 7 weeks + 62 weeks + the last week in 9:25. That is the simplest reading of the text. You give no response to this.
I certainly did respond to your theory, and many times. That might be the simplest reading of the text, but that does not mean it is the right one.
But it does mean that you have to demonstrate your reading is better and you are unable to do so because you can't read Hebrew and depend on your limited views about English. (Speaking a language does not mean you know how to analyze it.)
Bernard Muller wrote:And your theory has many problems.
No. It has one problem according to you: it doesn't comply with your need for ultra-accuracy... four Persian kings.... I'm not bound by your needs. I'm bound by the text.
Bernard Muller wrote:
You tacitly seem to acknowledge this reading by trying to invent another seven/seventy (or whatever) between the sixty-ninth week and the last week.
I do not know where you get that from. It looks you are not even trying to understand where I stand and imagine stuff I never contended.
You acknowledge the reading when you admit above that "That might be the simplest reading of the text". And between the sixty-nine weeks and the one week is precisely where you try to inject your last whatever.
Bernard Muller wrote:
You know that you have no response to the seventy weeks that the text overtly outlines, so you have your back to the wall pleading a seventieth something that is not specifically counted between the sixty-ninth and last week. There is nothing perfect here, just someone trying to obfuscate the obvious.
How many times I have to tell you the seventieth "week" (which for me is one year),...
Your seventy whatevers do not allow you to talk of a seventieth week as a specific duration. They are an artifice for you to arrive at 167 BCE, but they cannot individually translate to years. Your seventy whatevers is according to you 372 years with a little jimmying. So a whatever cannot be a year. That's just you being inconsistent.
Bernard Muller wrote:...complete with events within it, starts after the the 69th "week" (Dan 9:26). And the week in Dan 9:27 is really one week, embedded into that year.
And that week makes sense in regard of 1 Macc. 1.
Hmm, sixty-nine weeks are not sixty-nine weeks, but the one week is.

I guess you cannot see yourself shifting the goalposts in continuation because you cannot see your own inconsistencies. And you are here because you ever so want the theory you have cobbled together to be right, insisting on ultra-accuracy when the writers were not able to be so.
Dysexlia lures • ⅔ of what we see is behind our eyes
Bernard Muller
Posts: 3964
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:02 pm
Contact:

Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to spin,
That שבעים must mean "sevens" has never been substantiated
It is in the translation of the NIV and in the alternative translation of a few more bibles (NKJV, NET and (for "units of seven") NASB).
contradicted by the cohesion of the text
What cohesion?
The Rose book is quite exhaustive.
Wolter Rose makes a lot about the word normally translated as "Branch" and says that man called "Branch" is not the same as the one also named Branch in 'Jeremiah". I totally disagree. Why? Because of the analogies:

Jer 23:5 NRSV "The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land."
Jer 33:14-17 NRSV "The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: "The Lord is our righteousness."
For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel,"


As compared with Zechariah:

Zec 3:8 NRSV "Now listen, Joshua, high priest, you and your colleagues who sit before you! For they are an omen of things to come: I am going to bring my servant the Branch."

Zec 8:11b-13 NRSV "... the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak;
say to him: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Here is a man whose name is Branch: for he shall branch out in his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord.
It is he that shall build the temple of the Lord; he shall bear royal honor, and shall sit upon his throne and rule.


It is clear the expected "Branch" is a descendant of David (as Zerubbabel), destined to rule as king.
I didn't start with the harebrained notion that the inhabitants of this little community would have the ultra-accuracy that you have gulled yourself into believing
We are not talking about ultra-accuracy, but in the case of the so-called crowning of Jeshua, about an error of 34 years on 15 years, that is 226 %.
Bernard Muller wrote:
But the Hebrew has a waw starting the clause "it shall be built again with plaza and moat, but in a troubled time" ונבנתה רחוב וחרוץ ובצוק העתים [missing initial verb]. That should be translated as "and it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time".
Just accept the fact that you need to learn some Hebrew so that you don't keep making blunders like this. You've left out the verb that you've previously dealt with—*cough* *cough* remember that qal imperfect?
Yes I made a mistake here. But I already said the Qal imperfect for future event, in the case of "I will burn the house" does not mean the burning of the house will be expected to be endless. It can refer to a short duration action in the future but with lasting consequence.

More about Dan 9:25:
The first one to do some sort of versification (with "stop" as ׃) was probably a 15th century Rabbi named Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymuss. Soon after Robert Estienne adopted Nathan's splits and supplied versification which became widely used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapters_ ... _the_Bible
Nathan did not think a stop should be put before "and sixty-two years" despite the athnach, nor after these words.
And Estienne did not change that.
I personally think that Nathan was not sure about the meaning of the athnach and consequently did not put a stop after "and sixty-two years" (just in case that athnach would signal a new clause). Estienne followed.
And it may be that both Nathan & Estienne knew that 49 years after Cyrus' 1st year, Jeshua the high priest was probably dead or anyway, he did not appear on the scene that late.

Anyway, the fact that the clause after "and sixty-two years" is inside a verse (& with no waw to introduce it) does not mean that the clause should have started with "and sixty-two years".
Yet I have clarified the issue twice and you have ignored it twice. The word moed is used specifically for yearly feasts in the list which includes sabbaths, new moons, and moedim, eg 1 Chr 23:31 and 2 Chr 8:13, the latter listing the moedim as yearly: unleavened bread, weeks and booths. The NJPS reasonably translates moedim in Gen 1:14 as "set times". That is the base meaning of the word from the verb יעד to "appoint" or "assign", moedim indicates appointed things, places, times. The class of books in the Mishna moedim, deals with the set religious times, from sabbaths to specific yearly feasts. The list in 1 Chr 23:31 shows the specific use of moedim for the yearly feasts. Counting feasts is counting years, just like counting sabbaths is counting weeks.
Yes, but there were many Jewish feasts in one year. So there is no correspondence for: one feast => one year.
Obviously it does not mean "times". The translators just had difficulty, given the popularity of the KJV phrase and nothing suitably short... "a set time, set times and half a set time"..., naa... "a feast, feasts, half a feast"..., um no. We are left with the KJV "times".
That would not change anything if the translation was "set times" or "feasts". A "set time" or a "feast" are nor equivalent to one year. Therefore "a time, times and a half" do not mean 3.5 years, but a whole bunch of "set times" or "feasts" whose number is unspecified.
Genesius talking of the Aramaic version in 7:25 in his dictionary does not agree with you (nor does BDB). In his entry on the Aramaic equivalent to moed he specifically refers to 7:25 as "a year, (two) years and a half", citing "Josephus, Bellum Jud. i. 1" (or BJ 1.32) regarding the stoppage of daily sacrifices for 3.5 years.
The word is used in the Aramaic pat of 'Daniel' (2:8,9,21; 3:5,15, 4:16,23,32; 7:12) but never clearly meaning "year".
Sure it just happens that "a time, times and a half", if interpreted as "a year, two years and a half", would coincide with three and a half years pertaining to the death of Antiochus IV. And that's what Genesius and Josephus accepted (with hindsight).
But that does not mean "a time, times and a half" meant that when it was written.
Josephus had certainly good reason to interpret the "time(s)" as year(s) because he thought that "Daniel" was a superlative prophet and therefore predicted when Antiochus would die.

Furthermore, מועדים, very likely, does not mean two times (or feasts, set times if you prefer). It would be if those "times" come by pairs, such as eyes, ears, legs, etc. But that's not the case for "times". In other words, מועדים does not mean two times, but an unspecified number.

And are you suggesting that when "Daniel" wrote 12:7, he knew already when Antiochus' died or it was a lucky guess (assuming that "time, times and a half meant 3.5 years)?
There was no point in updates. Daniel's use had passed its expiry date.
The expiry date of 'Daniel' was the news of Antiochus' death reaching Jerusalem. When that happens, that put the book to rest because Michael did not show up. But before that, because Daniel part 2 is very much about the temple, anything affecting the temple after its desecration forced the author to have them predicted by "Daniel", so the three updates in days.
"At the end of"
"At the end" means just that. "At" does not mean "around" and certainly not "before".
Do you have examples for your interpretation of אחרי in Dan 9:26?
You tell me what "cut off" means here.
I was the one asking the question:
But you agreed that "an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing" (RSV) was referring to Onias III being removed from office, 4 years before he was killed.
Now you are suggesting that would refer to Onias' killing. Can you clarify if the phrase, for you, refers to Onias' removal or killing?
All I have is an evasive answer. BTW "shall be cut off, and shall have nothing" certainly suggests a dismissal from high priesthood rather than killing.
The Hebrew word for "cut off" ('karath') has many meanings, including "separate(d)"/"banish(ed)", from:
Ge17:14 "And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant."
up to:
Mal2:11b-12a "... He has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob the man who does this ..."
Doh. Some point. The writers did not see Antiochus's thought processes. They saw the Athenian doing his deeds.
The point here is that Antiochus thought of changing the times well before that got done by his Athenian.
One can think about doing something but doing it much later (if ever).
You want to insert a preposition willy-nilly because it suits your wacky theory. Your silly efforts to find objections show you don't understand your task. You blunder by confusing meanings of English prepositions (by day and by midnight, two distinct meanings, the latter being a point), then trying to use the circumstances in one of those uses (no point implied) to insert a preposition in another case (point desired) while changing the meaning of the preposition.
I confess that lack of proposition is the biggest (and so far the only one I see) blemish for my theory. However, as you said, this is part of Daniel's vision, and the language is not clear and mysterious at times and prone to different interpretation (as for oracles). And I think that "half (of) the week" can be understood as "middle (of) the week" in that context.
That does not make sense. What happens in half the week is treated separately from the previous clause.

Analogy: Mary had Bill work for her a week. Half the week he was painting ceilings.
Yes, but that half the week is part of the week. And since that week had been completed, so is the half the week.
So the decreed end does not imply the end of Tamid cessation?? That would put an end to the situation indicated by the hiphil imperfect.
The imperfect is here, because at the time of writing 9:27, the cessation of sacrifices was still on-going. That does not mean that cessation was not caused in a few days, some time before.
The decreed end is about Antiochus' expected death. I do not see any implication with the Tamid cessation. After the death of Antiochus (11:45), Michael (at next verses (12:1-3). There was no separation in chapters then) installs a new world order, with deliverance and resurrections. The reconsecration of the temple was not anticipated before that.
You've got to stop showing your ignorance, Bernard. Did you not see the עד. What is that? A mousetrap? It's a fucking preposition. You must stop fucking up by pretending to be able to say anything about the language you know nothing about. I cannot say anything to you about the language because you are unable to understand, so you go off half-assed and make blunder after blunder. And you will continue to do so.
The preposition is missing in front of "half the week". I contented one could be implied other than "for". And the visions (as oracles) cannot be expected to be told in plain Hebrew. There are many examples showing it is not the case.
In the context it says "shall cause a covenant to be strong with many one week". Omri reigned six years.
One week, six years: they both are durations and above all, completed. Are you suggesting "week" should be understood as "year" because the same Hiphil perfect is used for 6 years?
(Why are we counting "sevens" when the text specifically talks of weeks, seven weeks + sixty-two weeks + one week? There is no reason to count sevens given the clarity of the text and its cohesion (weeks, weeks, week). The only reason I can see... is that you have a calculation that puts you in the ballpark by doing so and that shapes your further analysis to make it fit Dan 9:25-27, and you make your data fit your conclusion.)
No, the text does not talk of "weeks" in Dan 9 (as being 7 consecutive days). And why do you expect cohesion in oracles?
How long it would take for the covenant of Antiochus (as I quoted it from 1 Macc. 1:40-50) to be proclaimed all over Jerusalem. One week is long enough.
Bernard Muller wrote:
The first שבע comes at 6 years after Cyrus' first year, and then add 1 for every 10 years up to you reach 70 years (not included): annotate 6
The next שבע has to come after 70 years from Cyrus' first year. Actually there are 11 שבע from 70 to 79: annotate 17 (6+11).
The next time you'll get a bunch of 11 שבע is from 170 to 179 years. But to get there you have to account also of one שבע every 10 years from 87 to 167 (total 9 שבע): annotate 37 (17+9+11)
Then up to 279, there are 20 שבע to be added: annotate 57 (37+20)
Then up to 379, there are 20 שבע to be added: annotate 77 (57+20)
But wait, we are beyond 70 שבע . We have to subtract 7 from 379, and we get 372 years (after Cyrus' first year), corresponding to 167 BCE in our calendar.
What??
What do you mean? Are you admitting you don't have the brain to follow me on that explanation?
May I remind you that your explanation on your weeks of 7 years is far from being straight forward:
We're already alerted with Daniel's jump from years to weeks. Lev 23:15 talks of "seven sabbaths", which in the context would equal 49 days or seven weeks. A "sabbath of years" is just seven years, or a week of years. With that in mind, moving from Jeremiah's "seventy years" to Daniel's "seventy weeks", we know that "week" is not being used to talk of "seven days" (which would make a self-defeating prophecy). Visions require a little substitution to analyze them. The jump by Daniel from years to weeks suggests weeks of years.
I do not think uneducated listeners would have got it (without hindsight). And having "Daniel" jump from years to weeks is far from obvious if you are referring to "time, times and a half" being written after Antiochus' death.

That phrase was not written then, nor "times" means years because "times" means various set times, and there were many of those during one year. And "times" (plural) does not mean twice.

Furthermore, "time, times and a half" in Daniel 7:25 was written before the second foray in Jerusalem and likely also before Jason took over Jerusalem: "He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, two times, and half a time." At that time, it would be more than 5 years before Antiochus lost control of Jerusalem (with Jason not expected to return in force).

Leviticus talks about "seven Sabbaths of years", not just "seven Sabbaths" and certainly not of seven weeks.

And the 490 years would be laughed at if the duration to the first year of Cyrus was known even if only approximately.
Visions require a little substitution to analyze them
Oh, you are so right.
If there were less than 2% literate Jews at the time your unprecedented complex calculation would obviously have been complete jibberish to the average listener. You keep acting like people of 2200 years ago had access to the data in your schema wrapped in modern arithmetic.
But it would take one literate Jew to find the trick about the weeks/sevens and a few more to agree with him. That would be enough to convince the uneducated listeners.
You are sure of nothing. Remember, there were only four kings of Persia.
And why do you think that did not happen? And if "Daniel" thought there were only four kings of Persia, why would he allocate about 320 years for their combined reigns?
I guess your answer: "Daniel" was not ultra-accurate about time intervals.
So you would say "on the third day" is wrong: it should be "after three days". I would say that the ambiguity over אחרי may explain how the conflict arises.
You are the one creating that ambiguity about אחרי . Who else do you know has the same view?
Thirty-six sevens and thirty-three seventies does not reflect the text in any conceivable way. You have to corrupt the text to force the use of "sevens", then you have to change that to include "seventies". Then you have to discount the relevance of the last week to the seventy weeks and invent another one between the sixty-nine weeks and the one week.
This is part of an oracle, so do not expect straight language. I do not discount the relevance of the seventieth "week", with events in it. I do not invent a week as 7 years, but accept that week as one true week within the seventieth "week", which for me is not 7 years, but only one year.
You acknowledge the reading when you admit above that "That might be the simplest reading of the text". And between the sixty-nine weeks and the one week is precisely where you try to inject your last whatever.
Yes, the simplest way to see the universe was to put earth at the center of it all. But that's wrong.
And the simplest way to read the שבעים in Dan 9:24-26 is to see them as meaning "seventy" or "weeks" as 7 days periods. But that does not make any sense. That shows what is simplest reading is not always right.
Your seventy whatevers do not allow you to talk of a seventieth week as a specific duration. They are an artifice for you to arrive at 167 BCE, but they cannot individually translate to years. Your seventy whatevers is according to you 372 years with a little jimmying. So a whatever cannot be a year. That's just you being inconsistent.
But the seventieth "seven" is one year according to a fairly simple deduction. No jimmying required. So there is no whatever.
And since when "week" translates to 7 years?

Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
User avatar
spin
Posts: 2146
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:44 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by spin »

Bernard Muller wrote:to spin,
That שבעים must mean "sevens" has never been substantiated
It is in the translation of the NIV and in the alternative translation of a few more bibles (NKJV, NET and (for "units of seven") NASB).
I said "substantiated".
Bernard Muller wrote:
contradicted by the cohesion of the text
What cohesion?
The term is a common linguistic description. You can see it in "weeks, weeks, week".
Bernard Muller wrote:
The Rose book is quite exhaustive.
Wolter Rose makes a lot about the word normally translated as "Branch" and says that man called "Branch" is not the same as the one also named Branch in 'Jeremiah". I totally disagree. Why? Because of the analogies:

Jer 23:5 NRSV "The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land."
Jer 33:14-17 NRSV "The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: "The Lord is our righteousness."
For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel,"


As compared with Zechariah:

Zec 3:8 NRSV "Now listen, Joshua, high priest, you and your colleagues who sit before you! For they are an omen of things to come: I am going to bring my servant the Branch."

Zec 8:11b-13 NRSV "... the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak;
say to him: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Here is a man whose name is Branch: for he shall branch out in his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord.
It is he that shall build the temple of the Lord; he shall bear royal honor, and shall sit upon his throne and rule.


It is clear the expected "Branch" is a descendant of David (as Zerubbabel), destined to rule as king.
Still nothing. You don't seem to have got anything about the problem of what happened to Zerubbabel that stems from the final form of Zech 6.
Bernard Muller wrote:
I didn't start with the harebrained notion that the inhabitants of this little community would have the ultra-accuracy that you have gulled yourself into believing
We are not talking about ultra-accuracy, but in the case of the so-called crowning of Jeshua, about an error of 34 years on 15 years, that is 226 %.
We are not talking about ultra-accuracy, just assuming it. They must have had a clear idea of durations of hundreds of years earlier.
Bernard Muller wrote:
spin wrote:
Bernard Muller wrote:But the Hebrew has a waw starting the clause "it shall be built again with plaza and moat, but in a troubled time" ונבנתה רחוב וחרוץ ובצוק העתים [missing initial verb]. That should be translated as "and it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time".
Just accept the fact that you need to learn some Hebrew so that you don't keep making blunders like this. You've left out the verb that you've previously dealt with—*cough* *cough* remember that qal imperfect?
Yes I made a mistake here. But I already said the Qal imperfect for future event, in the case of "I will burn the house" does not mean the burning of the house will be expected to be endless. It can refer to a short duration action in the future but with lasting consequence.
You didn't pick up the fact that your actual argument crashed and burned.
Bernard Muller wrote:More about Dan 9:25:
The first one to do some sort of versification (with "stop" as ׃) was probably a 15th century Rabbi named Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymuss. Soon after Robert Estienne adopted Nathan's splits and supplied versification which became widely used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapters_ ... _the_Bible
Nathan did not think a stop should be put before "and sixty-two years" despite the athnach, nor after these words.
And Estienne did not change that.
I personally think that Nathan was not sure about the meaning of the athnach and consequently did not put a stop after "and sixty-two years" (just in case that athnach would signal a new clause). Estienne followed.
And it may be that both Nathan & Estienne knew that 49 years after Cyrus' 1st year, Jeshua the high priest was probably dead or anyway, he did not appear on the scene that late.
Oh, gosh.
Bernard Muller wrote:Anyway, the fact that the clause after "and sixty-two years" is inside a verse (& with no waw to introduce it) does not mean that the clause should have started with "and sixty-two years".
It means that you have to have an argument to justify your acceptance of christian tendentious analysis of the structure of the verse against the natural grammatical reading. You actually have three hurdles to jump over and supply good reasons for each:

1) the arbitrary separation of 69 weeks into 7 and 62 when there is no sense beyond your ad hoc assertions for doing so;
2) explain why you must separate the duration from the clause it apparently belongs to according to a natural reading, such as one has for 9:27, which uses the same syntactic structure but you need the two clause groups to be read differently; and
3) the atnach.

Consilience is against you for you have to take the least likely position three times to try to make your dodo fly.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Yet I have clarified the issue twice and you have ignored it twice. The word moed is used specifically for yearly feasts in the list which includes sabbaths, new moons, and moedim, eg 1 Chr 23:31 and 2 Chr 8:13, the latter listing the moedim as yearly: unleavened bread, weeks and booths. The NJPS reasonably translates moedim in Gen 1:14 as "set times". That is the base meaning of the word from the verb יעד to "appoint" or "assign", moedim indicates appointed things, places, times. The class of books in the Mishna moedim, deals with the set religious times, from sabbaths to specific yearly feasts. The list in 1 Chr 23:31 shows the specific use of moedim for the yearly feasts. Counting feasts is counting years, just like counting sabbaths is counting weeks.
Yes, but there were many Jewish feasts in one year. So there is no correspondence for: one feast => one year.
Stop weaseling. As any particular moed comes but once a year, a moed is a yearly event.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Obviously it does not mean "times". The translators just had difficulty, given the popularity of the KJV phrase and nothing suitably short... "a set time, set times and half a set time"..., naa... "a feast, feasts, half a feast"..., um no. We are left with the KJV "times".
That would not change anything if the translation was "set times" or "feasts". A "set time" or a "feast" are nor equivalent to one year. Therefore "a time, times and a half" do not mean 3.5 years, but a whole bunch of "set times" or "feasts" whose number is unspecified.
It is sufficient that it is a moed, a yearly feast.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Genesius talking of the Aramaic version in 7:25 in his dictionary does not agree with you (nor does BDB). In his entry on the Aramaic equivalent to moed he specifically refers to 7:25 as "a year, (two) years and a half", citing "Josephus, Bellum Jud. i. 1" (or BJ 1.32) regarding the stoppage of daily sacrifices for 3.5 years.
The word is used in the Aramaic pat of 'Daniel' (2:8,9,21; 3:5,15, 4:16,23,32; 7:12) but never clearly meaning "year".
Sure it just happens that "a time, times and a half", if interpreted as "a year, two years and a half", would coincide with three and a half years pertaining to the death of Antiochus IV. And that's what Genesius and Josephus accepted (with hindsight).
But that does not mean "a time, times and a half" meant that when it was written.
Josephus had certainly good reason to interpret the "time(s)" as year(s) because he thought that "Daniel" was a superlative prophet and therefore predicted when Antiochus would die.
Genesius knew what a moed was.
Bernard Muller wrote:Furthermore, מועדים, very likely, does not mean two times (or feasts, set times if you prefer). It would be if those "times" come by pairs, such as eyes, ears, legs, etc. But that's not the case for "times". In other words, מועדים does not mean two times, but an unspecified number.
An arbitrary understanding of (the length of) moedim does not accord with the singular moed and the half.
Bernard Muller wrote:And are you suggesting that when "Daniel" wrote 12:7, he knew already when Antiochus' died or it was a lucky guess (assuming that "time, times and a half meant 3.5 years)?
It is a restatement of 7:25. 1260 days is a substantial increase on 1150 days, as compared to the next update to 1290.
Bernard Muller wrote:
There was no point in updates. Daniel's use had passed its expiry date.
The expiry date of 'Daniel' was the news of Antiochus' death reaching Jerusalem. When that happens, that put the book to rest because Michael did not show up. But before that, because Daniel part 2 is very much about the temple, anything affecting the temple after its desecration forced the author to have them predicted by "Daniel", so the three updates in days.
Just as I explained earlier in this thread. Once the main issues such as the restitution of the Tamid and the end of Antiochus had happened, updates would have been of no use. (This last sentence may no longer be necessary if you agree that the day updates start at the same point and reflect exigencies requiring extensions to the length of time.)
Bernard Muller wrote:
"At the end of"
"At the end" means just that. "At" does not mean "around" and certainly not "before".
It applies to the cow's bum and the flies that follow. (And I don't know why you insist on talking about "before". It not something related to the topic.)
Bernard Muller wrote:Do you have examples for your interpretation of אחרי in Dan 9:26?
The word is not used elsewhere in relation to a duration, so I don't have any examples for you, as you don't have any relevant examples here.
Bernard Muller wrote:
You tell me what "cut off" means here.
I was the one asking the question:
I don't care about the precise situation. You do. You need to deal in such irrelevances because you are trying to invent the seventieth whatever between the sixty-nine weeks in 9:25-26a and the last week in 9:27.
Bernard Muller wrote:
But you agreed that "an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing" (RSV) was referring to Onias III being removed from office, 4 years before he was killed.
Now you are suggesting that would refer to Onias' killing. Can you clarify if the phrase, for you, refers to Onias' removal or killing?
All I have is an evasive answer. BTW "shall be cut off, and shall have nothing" certainly suggests a dismissal from high priesthood rather than killing.
The Hebrew word for "cut off" ('karath') has many meanings, including "separate(d)"/"banish(ed)", from:
Ge17:14 "And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant."
up to:
Mal2:11b-12a "... He has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob the man who does this ..."
If you are happy with that....
Bernard Muller wrote:
Doh. Some point. The writers did not see Antiochus's thought processes. They saw the Athenian doing his deeds.
The point here is that Antiochus thought of changing the times well before that got done by his Athenian.
One can think about doing something but doing it much later (if ever).
Thanks for wasting time.
Bernard Muller wrote:
You want to insert a preposition willy-nilly because it suits your wacky theory. Your silly efforts to find objections show you don't understand your task. You blunder by confusing meanings of English prepositions (by day and by midnight, two distinct meanings, the latter being a point), then trying to use the circumstances in one of those uses (no point implied) to insert a preposition in another case (point desired) while changing the meaning of the preposition.
I confess that lack of proposition is the biggest (and so far the only one I see) blemish for my theory. However, as you said, this is part of Daniel's vision, and the language is not clear and mysterious at times and prone to different interpretation (as for oracles). And I think that "half (of) the week" can be understood as "middle (of) the week" in that context.
1) arbitrary insertion of prepositions;
2) dictating the meaning of שבעים against the cohesion of the text with its 69 weeks plus one week;
3) modern retrojection of ideas you constructed spreadsheet style and expect it to have relevance 2200 years ago, which is nothing more that pure speculation; and
4) your theory doesn't have seventy whatevers specified in the text, only sixty-nine, so you try to create one, where the text does not state one.

Again a problem of consilience, four arbitrary manipulations needed before your theory can work, though you have no evidence for any.
Bernard Muller wrote:
That does not make sense. What happens in half the week is treated separately from the previous clause.

Analogy: Mary had Bill work for her a week. Half the week he was painting ceilings.
Yes, but that half the week is part of the week. And since that week had been completed, so is the half the week.

[one week covenant with many] <-- decreed end
. . . . . . . [half the week] <-- decreed end

Bernard Muller wrote:
So the decreed end does not imply the end of Tamid cessation?? That would put an end to the situation indicated by the hiphil imperfect.
The imperfect is here, because at the time of writing 9:27, the cessation of sacrifices was still on-going. That does not mean that cessation was not caused in a few days, some time before.
The decreed end is about Antiochus' expected death. I do not see any implication with the Tamid cessation.
The decreed end terminates the cessation of the Tamid and the pollution by the abomination.
Bernard Muller wrote:After the death of Antiochus (11:45), Michael (at next verses (12:1-3). There was no separation in chapters then) installs a new world order, with deliverance and resurrections. The reconsecration of the temple was not anticipated before that.
There is a change of topic with 12:5. 12:1-4 is the end of the discourse about the kings of the north and south. Focus then turns to one of two others who appear. This one asks the one clothed in linen, "how long will it be until the end of ?"
Bernard Muller wrote:
You've got to stop showing your ignorance, Bernard. Did you not see the עד. What is that? A mousetrap? It's a fucking preposition. You must stop fucking up by pretending to be able to say anything about the language you know nothing about. I cannot say anything to you about the language because you are unable to understand, so you go off half-assed and make blunder after blunder. And you will continue to do so.
The preposition is missing in front of "half the week". I contented one could be implied other than "for". And the visions (as oracles) cannot be expected to be told in plain Hebrew. There are many examples showing it is not the case.
Your example...

In Judge 16:3, עד־חצי הלילה can be translated by "until the middle of the night"

... was irrelevant because it had a preposition to mark a point as I have stated often enough, so naturally it can be translated as "until the middle of the night", due to the preposition. The problem we are dealing with is the lack of preposition in 9:27 before "half a week".
Bernard Muller wrote:
In the context it says "shall cause a covenant to be strong with many one week". Omri reigned six years.
One week, six years: they both are durations and above all, completed. Are you suggesting "week" should be understood as "year" because the same Hiphil perfect is used for 6 years?
No, I'm pointing out your original assertion regarding the hiphil perfect was not correct.
Bernard Muller wrote:
(Why are we counting "sevens" when the text specifically talks of weeks, seven weeks + sixty-two weeks + one week? There is no reason to count sevens given the clarity of the text and its cohesion (weeks, weeks, week). The only reason I can see... is that you have a calculation that puts you in the ballpark by doing so and that shapes your further analysis to make it fit Dan 9:25-27, and you make your data fit your conclusion.)
No, the text does not talk of "weeks" in Dan 9 (as being 7 consecutive days).
Geez, did you simply assert that against the plain reading of the text??
Bernard Muller wrote:And why do you expect cohesion in oracles?
Certainly, otherwise they could not be divined.
Bernard Muller wrote:How long it would take for the covenant of Antiochus (as I quoted it from 1 Macc. 1:40-50) to be proclaimed all over Jerusalem. One week is long enough.
The text says that the covenant prevailed one week.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Bernard Muller wrote:
The first שבע comes at 6 years after Cyrus' first year, and then add 1 for every 10 years up to you reach 70 years (not included): annotate 6
The next שבע has to come after 70 years from Cyrus' first year. Actually there are 11 שבע from 70 to 79: annotate 17 (6+11).
The next time you'll get a bunch of 11 שבע is from 170 to 179 years. But to get there you have to account also of one שבע every 10 years from 87 to 167 (total 9 שבע): annotate 37 (17+9+11)
Then up to 279, there are 20 שבע to be added: annotate 57 (37+20)
Then up to 379, there are 20 שבע to be added: annotate 77 (57+20)
But wait, we are beyond 70 שבע . We have to subtract 7 from 379, and we get 372 years (after Cyrus' first year), corresponding to 167 BCE in our calendar.
What??
What do you mean? Are you admitting you don't have the brain to follow me on that explanation?
:tomato:
Bernard Muller wrote:May I remind you that your explanation on your weeks of 7 years is far from being straight forward:
We're already alerted with Daniel's jump from years to weeks. Lev 23:15 talks of "seven sabbaths", which in the context would equal 49 days or seven weeks. A "sabbath of years" is just seven years, or a week of years. With that in mind, moving from Jeremiah's "seventy years" to Daniel's "seventy weeks", we know that "week" is not being used to talk of "seven days" (which would make a self-defeating prophecy). Visions require a little substitution to analyze them. The jump by Daniel from years to weeks suggests weeks of years.
I do not think uneducated listeners would have got it (without hindsight). And having "Daniel" jump from years to weeks is far from obvious if you are referring to "time, times and a half" being written after Antiochus' death.
All that was needed from the meturgeman was "weeks", nudge, nudge, "weeks of years".
Bernard Muller wrote:That phrase was not written then, nor "times" means years because "times" means various set times, and there were many of those during one year.
Each only once a year,
Bernard Muller wrote:And "times" (plural) does not mean twice.
Even if understood as dual??
Bernard Muller wrote:Leviticus talks about "seven Sabbaths of years", not just "seven Sabbaths" and certainly not of seven weeks.
And the 490 years would be laughed at if the duration to the first year of Cyrus was known even if only approximately.
Yet the Seder Olam rehearses the same idea, so your assertion is falsified.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Visions require a little substitution to analyze them
Oh, you are so right.
If there were less than 2% literate Jews at the time your unprecedented complex calculation would obviously have been complete jibberish to the average listener. You keep acting like people of 2200 years ago had access to the data in your schema wrapped in modern arithmetic.
But it would take one literate Jew to find the trick about the weeks/sevens and a few more to agree with him. That would be enough to convince the uneducated listeners.
With your 21st century outlook, sure. But you are just crapping on regarding 2200 years ago.
Bernard Muller wrote:
You are sure of nothing. Remember, there were only four kings of Persia.
And why do you think that did not happen? And if "Daniel" thought there were only four kings of Persia, why would he allocate about 320 years for their combined reigns?
I guess your answer: "Daniel" was not ultra-accurate about time intervals.
His concept of time was not like yours.
Bernard Muller wrote:
So you would say "on the third day" is wrong: it should be "after three days". I would say that the ambiguity over אחרי may explain how the conflict arises.
You are the one creating that ambiguity about אחרי . Who else do you know has the same view?
The word betrays the ambiguity. You cannot say when referring to "hinder parts" whether it deals with what is attached back there or what follows separately behind.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Thirty-six sevens and thirty-three seventies does not reflect the text in any conceivable way. You have to corrupt the text to force the use of "sevens", then you have to change that to include "seventies". Then you have to discount the relevance of the last week to the seventy weeks and invent another one between the sixty-nine weeks and the one week.
This is part of an oracle, so do not expect straight language. I do not discount the relevance of the seventieth "week", with events in it. I do not invent a week as 7 years, but accept that week as one true week within the seventieth "week", which for me is not 7 years, but only one year.
You're just saying that you make the term "week" completely incoherent. Sometimes it means your whatevers and in the same passage it is a literal week, yet they are not really anything but a modern devising of how to make sixty-nine whatevers cover the period in your ultra-accurate desire.
Bernard Muller wrote:
You acknowledge the reading when you admit above that "That might be the simplest reading of the text". And between the sixty-nine weeks and the one week is precisely where you try to inject your last whatever.
Yes, the simplest way to see the universe was to put earth at the center of it all. But that's wrong.
We are not dealing with the history of science, Bernard. We are dealing with deriving meaning from a text, purely from what the text says given its cultural background.
Bernard Muller wrote:And the simplest way to read the שבעים in Dan 9:24-26 is to see them as meaning "seventy" or "weeks" as 7 days periods. But that does not make any sense. That shows what is simplest reading is not always right.
You may be starting to get the idea that you have to deal with what the text literally says first of all and it talks of weeks. So far, so good. As it is a vision, it is telegraphing the fact that it is not meant to be taken literally. It is to be seen as cohering to make sense when interpreted logically. It coheres when in 9:25 talks of seven weeks and sixty-two weeks along with 9:27 and its one week, ie seventy weeks. From there you have to deal with the significance of "week".
Bernard Muller wrote:
Your seventy whatevers do not allow you to talk of a seventieth week as a specific duration. They are an artifice for you to arrive at 167 BCE, but they cannot individually translate to years. Your seventy whatevers is according to you 372 years with a little jimmying. So a whatever cannot be a year. That's just you being inconsistent.
But the seventieth "seven" is one year according to a fairly simple deduction.
There is no deduction. There is simple assertion. And seventy whatevers isn't seventy years, so you are using the "week" arbitrarily.
Bernard Muller wrote:No jimmying required. So there is no whatever.
And since when "week" translates to 7 years?
Since when do you translate visions? They require interpretation. We know that half a week is similar in duration to 3.5 moedim (or iddanin in 7:25), half a week, ie 3.5 days. 3.5 (yearly) set times strongly suggests 3.5 years. Everyone else understands this. It's just that you are committed to the crazy idea of 36 sevens and 33 seventies making 70 whatevers.
Dysexlia lures • ⅔ of what we see is behind our eyes
Bernard Muller
Posts: 3964
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:02 pm
Contact:

Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to spin,
I said "substantiated".
It is substantiated by default: it cannot mean periods of 7 days, nor periods of 7 years (for a number of reasons I did explain already and I will again later). And it happens the "sevens", as I tabulate them, fits everything.
The term is a common linguistic description. You can see it in "weeks, weeks, week".
That cohesion cannot be expected in visions narration. And I have shown your last week does not work as 7 years, and "time" in "time, times and a half" is not equal to one year (more later).
You don't seem to have got anything about the problem of what happened to Zerubbabel that stems from the final form of Zech 6.
And what would that be?
We are not talking about ultra-accuracy, just assuming it. They must have had a clear idea of durations of hundreds of years earlier.
An approximate idea would be enough for not allocating 320 years for the combined reigns of Persian kings (more so if "Daniel" knew then about only four of them). More later on the topic.

About versification: if "Daniel" wanted to make sure a new clause to be thought starting at "and sixty-two years, he could have find a way such as, for example, writing the preposition "for" (ל) in front of "sixty-two years". But he did not.
Examples: Gen 1:14, Lev 25:21, Num 11:34, 2 Ch 11:17.

And why would it take 434 years to build plaza & moat? Or, if you prefer, why suggest the rebuilt plaza & moat will remain built during these many years. About the 2nd case, because the verb is niphal perfect (showing the action has been completed), that would mean they would be destroyed after these years.
In both cases, that does not make sense.
And why imply that during the first 49 years, there was no restoration and building?

What make sense is from Cyrus' decree there were sixty-nine "weeks/sevens" in which the restoration occurred (& is still existing because of the imperfect) and when squares & moat have been built and completed (in a short time).
Yes, but there were many Jewish feasts in one year. So there is no correspondence for: one feast => one year.
Stop weaseling. As any particular moed comes but once a year, a moed is a yearly event.
What do you assume "time" refers to only an once a year Jewish feast? Your assumption is unfounded. If "time" means feasts, or set times, then there were many of those in a year. And I have shown already, as in Gen 1:14 "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons [מועדים], and for days, and years:", it is clear that מוֹעֵד is not "year".
Also,
Hos 2:11 NRSV "I will put an end to all her mirth, her festivals, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her appointed festivals [מועדה]."
Genesius knew what a moed was
With hindsight!
An arbitrary understanding of (the length of) moedim does not accord with the singular moed and the half.
מועדים does not mean dual feasts, but an unspecified number of those.
Bernard Muller wrote:
And are you suggesting that when "Daniel" wrote 12:7, he knew already when Antiochus' died or it was a lucky guess (assuming that "time, times and a half meant 3.5 years)?
It is a restatement of 7:25. 1260 days is a substantial increase on 1150 days, as compared to the next update to 1290.
Chapter 7 was written right after the 1st foray in Jerusalem (as also concluded by John J. Collins Daniel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) p. 38.
"The Hebrew–Aramaic text of Daniel evolved through several stages:
1. The individual tales of Chaps. 2–6 were originally separate ...
2. There was probably an initial collection of 3:31–6:29, which allowed the development of two textual traditions in these chapters.
3. The Aramaic tales were collected, with the introductory chap.1, in the Hellenistic period.
4. Daniel 7 was composed in Aramaic early in the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, before the desecration of the temple. Chapters 1–7 may have circulated briefly as an Aramaic book.
5. Between 167 and 164 B.C.E. the Hebrew chapters 8–12 were added, and chap.1 was translated to provide a Hebrew frame for the Aramaic chapters. ..."
.
So that would make your "time, times and a half" about 5 years long, assuming that "Daniel" knew how long Antiochus will be in control of Jerusalem (which is very unlikely).
So we are back to "time, times and a half" meaning a mysterious undefined duration and, above all, "time" not meaning "year".
It applies to the cow's bum and the flies that follow. (And I don't know why you insist on talking about "before". It not something related to the topic.)
Again, your cow's bum? Where did you get that relative to "after" אחרי in Dan 9:26? When I raised the issue, you responded it was just a satire: "Oh, for fuck's sake, Bernard. Learn to understand a little satire. The satire deals with the two possible uses of the term for what is at the end... in this case of a cow, its bum (literally) and the flies which follow."
Is that the best way you have for explaining your understanding of אחרי in Dan 9:26? What evidence do you have to buttress that?

You are weaseling your way through because, for you, the dismissal of your Onias III (175 BCE) needs to occur before the end of the sixty-two years so your last "week" (7 years) can start 4 years after in 171 BCE.
So אחרי means "before" relative to Onias' dismissal but "after" relative to your covenant with Menelaus.
So, according to you:
9:26 "And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary"
would mean:
"And before the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and after the sixty-two weeks, the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary [167 BCE]"
Bernard Muller wrote:
Do you have examples for your interpretation of אחרי in Dan 9:26?
The word is not used elsewhere in relation to a duration, so I don't have any examples for you, as you don't have any relevant examples here.
- Jer 31:33 NRSV "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
- Neh 13:19 NRSV "When it began to be dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the sabbath. And I set some of my servants over the gates, to prevent any burden from being brought in on the sabbath day."
- 2 Sam 21:1 1 NRSV "Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the Lord. ..."
Now you can narrow the goal posts.
I don't care about the precise situation. You do. You need to deal in such irrelevances because you are trying to invent the seventieth whatever between the sixty-nine weeks in 9:25-26a and the last week in 9:27.
Yes you don't care because it is a big problem for you if you cared, for reasons I already explained on this post. Because if your last "week" starts before Onias' dismissal, that 7 years duration will be stretched up to at least 11 years, making your week of 7 years totally wrong:
"After 483 years, Onias III will be dismissed" certainly tells me that the end of the 483th year, and consequently the start of the next 7 years, is before Onias' dismissal.
Of course, I do not buy your odd and unproven interpretation for "after" in Dan 9:26. Even your peculiar substitution: "at the end of" as in "At the end of 483 years, Onias III will be dismissed" does not say Onias is dismissed 4 years earlier. Maybe you should be more innovative and propose "towards the end of", which would fit your so-called understanding of the "after" of Dan 9:26. However that would not be pointing to your covenant with Menelaus in 171 BCE.
If you are happy with that....
You are very evasive on that topic, for reasons I explained just earlier.
The decreed end in Dan 9:27 terminates the cessation of the Tamid and the pollution by the abomination.
The decreed end in Dan 9:27 has nothing to do with any reconsecration, but the death of Antiochus IV (and Michael's intervention) "and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator." (NRSV).
The abomination that desolates would be ending right after the death of Antiochus, but that's not what happened: the reconsecration occurred well before the king's death.

With your "half the week" meaning 3.5 years for you and because "Daniel" "prophesied" after the fact, and the decreed end is about the death of Antiochus, and that death so soon must have been unexpected, "half the week" had to be written after the news of Antiochus' death came to Jerusalem. That would have been the latest "updates".
But then, if Dan 9:27 wrote 'half the week" (= 3.5 years) after the king's death, why did he not know the abomination that desolates was terminated before Antiochus' end?
There is a change of topic with 12:5. 12:1-4 is the end of the discourse about the kings of the north and south. Focus then turns to one of two others who appear. This one asks the one clothed in linen, "how long will it be until the end of ?"
But 12:1-4 happens before the change of focus. And what immediately precedes 12:1-4 is the expected death of Antiochus "... Yet he shall come to his end, with no one to help him." (11:45b)
The text says that the covenant prevailed one week.
No the text says Antiochus "shall make a strong covenant with many for one week" (NRSV) and that action had ended before the writing of Dan 9:27, because of the perfect in the verb. The making (or causing) of the strong covenant is a temporary action which is well described in 1 Macc. 1:40-50.
All that was needed from the meturgeman was "weeks", nudge, nudge, "weeks of years".
And an explanation about "after" in Dan 9:26 having a very special meaning and who is that anointed prince appearing 49 years after the decree by Cyrus, and why the 490 years point to Cyrus the Great's first year and not beyond that by a lot, and why Antiochus causing a strong covenant with many was not in 167 BCE, but during a meeting with Menelaus in 171 BCE.
Bernard Muller wrote:
And "times" (plural) does not mean twice.
Even if understood as dual??
Why would that be understood as dual feasts or set times do not go in pairs, like eyes or legs. And set times (for feasts/festivals) are not durations like years.
Yet the Seder Olam rehearses the same idea, so your assertion is falsified.
Good point. But the Seder Olam was intended to give hope to the Jews after the second Jewish war rather than to be historically accurate (as for Sextus Julius Africanus who used all kind of tricks to have the 490 years falling on 30 CE).
It was the same for 'Daniel' (give hope to the Jews after the events of 167 BCE). Then the 490 years would not be suitable, because it put Cyrus' 1st year all the way to around 620 BCE (instead of 539 BCE). I doubt very much that was believed then in Jerusalem. And 'Daniel' has no "years", just "weeks/sevens".

A chronology existed from Chaldean astronomers for the rulers over Babylon (from local kings, to Persians, to Alexander the Great). It was fairly accurate. For example, the Persian rule over Babylon was set at 207 years (instead of 210 years according to our data). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_of_Kings
Probably initially written in Aramaic, the info in it could have been available readily to Aramaic speaking Jews.
That accuracy (even if not "ultra") is rather remarkable. And it would not have been a problem to assign a duration for the Hellenistic era all the way to 167 BCE.

In other words, one more reason why the "weeks" in Dan 9 as being "periods of seven years" do not fly.
You're just saying that you make the term "week" completely incoherent. Sometimes it means your whatevers and in the same passage it is a literal week, yet they are not really anything but a modern devising of how to make sixty-nine whatevers cover the period in your ultra-accurate desire.
What is coherent for me in 'Daniel' is to accept "week(s)" as meaning just that (regardless of the plural form) when it makes sense as a 7 days period. But when it does not, such as for the "weeks" in Dan 9, then I have to look for other meanings. And "period of 7 years" does not work for many reasons, including those you are sweeping under the carpet.
1) the arbitrary separation of 69 weeks into 7 and 62 when there is no sense beyond your ad hoc assertions for doing so;
It is not arbitrary and can be justified, as I did already. Just because you rejected my argument does not mean justification does not exist.
2) explain why you must separate the duration from the clause it apparently belongs to according to a natural reading, such as one has for 9:27, which uses the same syntactic structure but you need the two clause groups to be read differently;
Natural reading does not have to separate the two durations.
3) the atnach.
The atnach, which came some 9 centuries later, does not necessarily reflect what "Daniel" had in mind.

These arguments are weak. There are much stronger arguments against your handling of Dan 9:25, arguments that I already explained on this post and earlier one.
1) arbitrary insertion of prepositions;
You also inserted a preposition.
2) dictating the meaning of שבעים against the cohesion of the text with its 69 weeks plus one week;
You must mean שבע . I talked about your so-called cohesion. Who said "Daniel had to be coherent in his visions?
3) modern retrojection of ideas you constructed spreadsheet style and expect it to have relevance 2200 years ago, which is nothing more that pure speculation;
It does not have to be modern, as I already demonstrated.
4) your theory doesn't have seventy whatevers specified in the text, only sixty-nine, so you try to create one, where the text does not state one.
The text states seventy weeks/sevens in Dan 9:24 and what comes after the sixty-nine weeks/sevens (9:26) has to be the seventieth week.

Again these arguments are weak. I have much stronger arguments against your handling of Dan 9:27, arguments that I already explained on this post and earlier ones.

I already addressed the rest of your comments.

Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
User avatar
spin
Posts: 2146
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:44 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by spin »

Bernard Muller wrote:to spin,
I said "substantiated".
It is substantiated by default: it cannot mean periods of 7 days, nor periods of 7 years (for a number of reasons I did explain already and I will again later). And it happens the "sevens", as I tabulate them, fits everything.
This is a clueless reaction. Your first response must be to establish the word being used, otherwise you can only perform eisegesis. Your reaction here eliminates your approach before you start. The term is "week(s)" until demonstrated that another word was intended. How the word "week(s)" may be used needs to be understood before considering other possibilities. Visions are noted for their unusual approaches to the lexical items they use. First you must deal with "week(s)". Asserting your desire for ultra-accuracy doesn't count.
Bernard Muller wrote:
The term is a common linguistic description. You can see it in "weeks, weeks, week".
That cohesion cannot be expected in visions narration. And I have shown your last week does not work as 7 years, and "time" in "time, times and a half" is not equal to one year (more later).
Cohesion is to be expected in any text before William Burroughs, who cut up stuff and reordered it for ideological/literary purposes. The reader/listener is a partner in the communication enterprise, so cohesion is needed otherwise there is no hope of communication.
Bernard Muller wrote:
You don't seem to have got anything about the problem of what happened to Zerubbabel that stems from the final form of Zech 6.
And what would that be?
He disappears off the political map and a species of theocracy is instituted.
Bernard Muller wrote:
We are not talking about ultra-accuracy, just assuming it. They must have had a clear idea of durations of hundreds of years earlier.
An approximate idea would be enough for not allocating 320 years for the combined reigns of Persian kings (more so if "Daniel" knew then about only four of them). More later on the topic.
You are injecting 320 years into this literature.
Bernard Muller wrote:About versification: if "Daniel" wanted to make sure a new clause to be thought starting at "and sixty-two years, he could have find a way such as, for example, writing the preposition "for" (ל) in front of "sixty-two years". But he did not.
Please don't keep doing this sort of thing. You are just talking nonsense here about Hebrew, as you have consistently done.
Bernard Muller wrote:Examples: Gen 1:14, Lev 25:21, Num 11:34, 2 Ch 11:17.
Gen 1:14 "to divide day from night"? (ל + infinitive = purpose. See BDB 517 #7)
Lev 25:21 "in the sixth year"?
Num 11:34 (no ל)
2 Ch 11:17 Congratulations you found one of the very few anomalous uses of the preposition ל. One out of four is a much better average than usual.

But ל almost always maintains the notion of "to" as an archetypical example in Est 3:7 displays, מיום ליום מחדש לחדש ("from day to day, from month to month"). Job 21:30 That to a day of calamity the wicked are spared, to a day of wrath they are brought. Although Jer 12:3 translates ל as "for" you can see how the notion of "to" underlies it. "Set them apart for the day of slaughter." The purpose of separating them is the day of slaughter, ie to that end. Look at Ezek 43:25, an example with a duration: "(for) seven days you shall provide daily a male goat for a sin offering", no preposition for the duration but there is a ל for purpose! Hos 9:5, "What will you do on the day of the appointed festival, and on the day of the feast of the Lord?" the preposition ל is used twice, for when the day is reached, ie no duration. Hab 3:16 "...wait for the day of trouble..." again ל translated as "for" in English, though you could also say "wait till the day...". This is not a duration, but a point. The general use of ל with time units gives a point in time. Gen 7:10, 1 Chr 9:25 "after (ל) seven days".

Noah's flood had rain 40 days and 40 nights. As I've said, in Hebrew the duration is given without a preposition. That is the normal Hebrew. And most damningly the covenant with the many in Dan 9:27 is one week, no preposition. The duration is given without preposition; the point in time gets a preposition. There is no reason from the text to suspect that half a week is anything other than a duration. You have failed to overcome this issue time and time again.
Bernard Muller wrote:And why would it take 434 years to build plaza & moat?
The wide and the sharp will be built for 62 weeks. How long has your house been built? (And that question in English is a passive perfect like the Hebrew!)
Bernard Muller wrote:Or, if you prefer, why suggest the rebuilt plaza & moat will remain built during these many years. About the 2nd case, because the verb is niphal perfect (showing the action has been completed), that would mean they would be destroyed after these years.
Omri reigned six years. It's still a perfect with a duration in Hebrew. You have no argument.
Bernard Muller wrote:In both cases, that does not make sense.
And why imply that during the first 49 years, there was no restoration and building?
All we know is that after a length of time Zerubbabel and Yeshua presided over the rebuilding of the temple. Daniel only remembers Yeshua. It marks the rebirth of the city.
Bernard Muller wrote:What make sense is from Cyrus' decree there were sixty-nine "weeks/sevens" in which the restoration occurred (& is still existing because of the imperfect) and when squares & moat have been built and completed (in a short time).
It remained built for 62 weeks despite the strife of the Seleucid/Ptolemy wars. Then Antiochus IV arrived and began interfering in Jerusalemite affairs.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Yes, but there were many Jewish feasts in one year. So there is no correspondence for: one feast => one year.
Stop weaseling. As any particular moed comes but once a year, a moed is a yearly event.
What do you assume "time" refers to only an once a year Jewish feast? Your assumption is unfounded. If "time" means feasts, or set times, then there were many of those in a year.
Now you are weaseling on the English word "time" it is not there in the Hebrew. We just approximate the notion of "appointed" with regard to time.
Bernard Muller wrote:And I have shown already, as in Gen 1:14 "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons [מועדים], and for days, and years:", it is clear that מוֹעֵד is not "year".
Also,
Hos 2:11 NRSV "I will put an end to all her mirth, her festivals, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her appointed festivals [מועדה]."
Here you are arguing that despite the fact that a moed can specifically be a yearly feast, we need to forget that for a more opaque significance because you refuse to acknowledge that the 3.5 days in Dan 9:27 and the 3.5 moedim refer to the same duration in a visionary time space. You may as well argue that the little horn is not the last king of the north.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Genesius knew what a moed was
With hindsight!
All philology scholars work from hindsight, evaluating the evidence from texts of the past. Try again.
Bernard Muller wrote:
An arbitrary understanding of (the length of) moedim does not accord with the singular moed and the half.
מועדים does not mean dual feasts, but an unspecified number of those.
You persistently want to forget the modus operandi of these visions, arguing for opaque meanings when the visions clearly want to provide meanings that are specific in a cryptic guise in order to impress with specificity in the relevant time period, ie the now of the audience. You go for obfuscation because clarity is against your theory. Yet in the context of an "appointed, appointeds, and half" it is so unlikely that the time period—the "appointeds"—is opaque.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Bernard Muller wrote:And are you suggesting that when "Daniel" wrote 12:7, he knew already when Antiochus' died or it was a lucky guess (assuming that "time, times and a half meant 3.5 years)?
spin wrote:It is a restatement of 7:25. 1260 days is a substantial increase on 1150 days, as compared to the next update to 1290.
Chapter 7 was written right after the 1st foray in Jerusalem (as also concluded by John J. Collins Daniel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) p. 38.
"The Hebrew–Aramaic text of Daniel evolved through several stages:
1. The individual tales of Chaps. 2–6 were originally separate ...
2. There was probably an initial collection of 3:31–6:29, which allowed the development of two textual traditions in these chapters.
3. The Aramaic tales were collected, with the introductory chap.1, in the Hellenistic period.

Uh-huh.

Bernard Muller wrote:4. Daniel 7 was composed in Aramaic early in the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, before the desecration of the temple.

Collins may be basically correct with much of the above, but that Dan 7 was written before the desecration seems to imply a separation of the persecution into nice neat boundaries. But the Tamid has already been stopped with the disruption of the cultic calendar. 2 Macc 6:3ff doesn't mention the abomination that desolates, so maybe it was written before it was set up.

Bernard Muller wrote:Chapters 1–7 may have circulated briefly as an Aramaic book.
5. Between 167 and 164 B.C.E. the Hebrew chapters 8–12 were added, and chap.1 was translated to provide a Hebrew frame for the Aramaic chapters. ..."
.
It is vaguely possible that Dan 7 was already finalized but I doubt it. It's just Collins's assertion.
Bernard Muller wrote:So that would make your "time, times and a half" about 5 years long, assuming that "Daniel" knew how long Antiochus will be in control of Jerusalem (which is very unlikely).
So we are back to "time, times and a half" meaning a mysterious undefined duration and, above all, "time" not meaning "year".
There is no substance here.
Bernard Muller wrote:
It applies to the cow's bum and the flies that follow. (And I don't know why you insist on talking about "before". It not something related to the topic.)
Again, your cow's bum? Where did you get that relative to "after" אחרי in Dan 9:26? When I raised the issue, you responded it was just a satire: "Oh, for fuck's sake, Bernard. Learn to understand a little satire. The satire deals with the two possible uses of the term for what is at the end... in this case of a cow, its bum (literally) and the flies which follow."
Is that the best way you have for explaining your understanding of אחרי in Dan 9:26? What evidence do you have to buttress that?
I'll try not to repeat myself with "Oh, for fuck's sake, Bernard...", but you need to hear it again. You should know by now that אחרי can mean the "hinder parts", the back end. That is from where "after" is derived. I have shown that it means back end with the spear example in 2 Sam 2:23. אחרי is here literally the "hinder parts" (as in the case of the cow's bum, you refuse to analyze).
Bernard Muller wrote:You are weaseling your way through because, for you, the dismissal of your Onias III (175 BCE) needs to occur before the end of the sixty-two years so your last "week" (7 years) can start 4 years after in 171 BCE.
So אחרי means "before" relative to Onias' dismissal but "after" relative to your covenant with Menelaus.
So, according to you:
9:26 "And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary"
would mean:
"And before the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and after the sixty-two weeks, the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary [167 BCE]"
This is very sad twaddle.

The last week is the important issue for the writer. What came before is context, but it is the faithful remnant that matters here and now. The many are in a covenant with Antiochus and his forces have caused the cessation of the Tamid and the installation of the abomination. The writer says an anointed one will be cut off. If I'm forced to decide what that might mean precisely, I'd look to Jos 11:21 where the Anakim were cut off and none were left in Israel, ie "killed", or Obad. 9, where every man on Mt Esau will be cut off by slaughter. There are lots of examples of lopping off heads, cutting off asherahs, chopping down trees, all the same verb, all suggest termination. When do you think Onias III was "cut off"?

Incidentally, for "cut off" the LXX provides "destroyed", the Vulgate "murdered".
Bernard Muller wrote:
Bernard Muller wrote:
Do you have examples for your interpretation of אחרי in Dan 9:26?
The word is not used elsewhere in relation to a duration, so I don't have any examples for you, as you don't have any relevant examples here.
- Jer 31:33 NRSV "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
No duration, just a generic "those days".
Bernard Muller wrote:- Neh 13:19 NRSV "When it began to be dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the sabbath. And I set some of my servants over the gates, to prevent any burden from being brought in on the sabbath day."
אחר not אחרי.
Bernard Muller wrote:- 2 Sam 21:1 1 NRSV "Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the Lord. ..."
:tomato:

There's a duration without any preposition, just as you'd expect. Then there is an idiom similar to that found in English which is not about a point in time but a sequence of years.
Bernard Muller wrote:Now you can narrow the goal posts.
You need to set meaningful goalposts. You need to provide examples that clearly show you understand the issue. Not one of the above deals with אחרי and a duration. Is that not a clear condition to you? I said "The word [אחרי] is not used elsewhere in relation to a duration" and apparently, as you can't find an example, you must believe me by now, no?
Bernard Muller wrote:
I don't care about the precise situation. You do. You need to deal in such irrelevances because you are trying to invent the seventieth whatever between the sixty-nine weeks in 9:25-26a and the last week in 9:27.
Yes you don't care because it is a big problem for you if you cared,...
Fortunately I'm neither a rabid fundamentalist nor someone forced to absurd lengths to defend a wacky theory. You must ignore the fact that the source text is not accurate except for the period of writing, because you are committed to a false understanding of Jewish historiography.
Bernard Muller wrote:...for reasons I already explained on this post. Because if your last "week" starts before Onias' dismissal, that 7 years duration will be stretched up to at least 11 years, making your week of 7 years totally wrong:
"After 483 years, Onias III will be dismissed" certainly tells me that the end of the 483th year, and consequently the start of the next 7 years, is before Onias' dismissal.
Of course, I do not buy your odd and unproven interpretation for "after" in Dan 9:26. Even your peculiar substitution: "at the end of" as in "At the end of 483 years, Onias III will be dismissed" does not say Onias is dismissed 4 years earlier. Maybe you should be more innovative and propose "towards the end of", which would fit your so-called understanding of the "after" of Dan 9:26. However that would not be pointing to your covenant with Menelaus in 171 BCE.
Does this still need a response?
Bernard Muller wrote:
If you are happy with that....
You are very evasive on that topic, for reasons I explained just earlier.
I wish you would explain things rather than mess about pretending to do stuff with Hebrew or laboring with claims of ultra-accuracy.
Bernard Muller wrote:
The decreed end in Dan 9:27 terminates the cessation of the Tamid and the pollution by the abomination.
The decreed end in Dan 9:27 has nothing to do with any reconsecration, but the death of Antiochus IV (and Michael's intervention) "and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator." (NRSV).
The abomination that desolates would be ending right after the death of Antiochus, but that's not what happened: the reconsecration occurred well before the king's death.
You seem to be confusing vision with history. They probably won't be the same thing when it is in the future.
Bernard Muller wrote:With your "half the week" meaning 3.5 years for you and because "Daniel" "prophesied" after the fact,...
You should not oversimplify the text. Otherwise you'd have the writers constructing the nonsense in 11:40-45 after the fact. Some of it was actually prediction. There is no point telling people after the fact that the end will come to Antiochus and the Tamid will continue. As I understand it, this is to stimulate courage for the fighters to continue the good fight because the good end had been foreseen by Daniel long before. Look everything he said has come true and the rest will if you keep courage. Writing the prophesied end after the end here makes no sense at all. Updates were made to fix prior claims to keep the text relevant to the struggle.
Bernard Muller wrote:...and the decreed end is about the death of Antiochus, and that death so soon must have been unexpected, "half the week" had to be written after the news of Antiochus' death came to Jerusalem. That would have been the latest "updates".
But then, if Dan 9:27 wrote 'half the week" (= 3.5 years) after the king's death, why did he not know the abomination that desolates was terminated before Antiochus' end?
This just seems to be confused. What is the stuff about "3.5 years after the king's death"? Remember this?:

[one week covenant with many] <-- decreed end
. . . . . . . [half the week] <-- decreed end

The week includes the half week, both ending at the same time.
Bernard Muller wrote:
There is a change of topic with 12:5. 12:1-4 is the end of the discourse about the kings of the north and south. Focus then turns to one of two others who appear. This one asks the one clothed in linen, "how long will it be until the end of ?"
But 12:1-4 happens before the change of focus. And what immediately precedes 12:1-4 is the expected death of Antiochus "... Yet he shall come to his end, with no one to help him." (11:45b)
I don't see the relevance, when there is a clear break in the text.
Bernard Muller wrote:
The text says that the covenant prevailed one week.
No the text says Antiochus "shall make a strong covenant with many for one week" (NRSV)...
Yes, the text does say that the covenant prevailed one week. One of the meanings of the relevant verb is "to prevail". The prince causes the covenant to prevail one week. If you'd like "to be strong", as in he made the covenant be strong one week. This is the text, not the translation. The translation turns the verb into an adjective. But why am I trying to explain this to you? You refuse to learn any Hebrew.
Bernard Muller wrote:...and that action had ended before the writing of Dan 9:27, because of the perfect in the verb. The making (or causing) of the strong covenant is a temporary action which is well described in 1 Macc. 1:40-50.
1 Macc 1:41-51 describes the viewpoint of the remnant. There is no indication in it that the change of religion was only brief.
Bernard Muller wrote:
All that was needed from the meturgeman was "weeks", nudge, nudge, "weeks of years".
And an explanation about "after" in Dan 9:26 having a very special meaning and who is that anointed prince appearing 49 years after the decree by Cyrus, and why the 490 years point to Cyrus the Great's first year and not beyond that by a lot, and why Antiochus causing a strong covenant with many was not in 167 BCE, but during a meeting with Menelaus in 171 BCE.
The covenant is a description of what started in 1 Macc 1:11-15, when the gymnasium was set up and the upper class youth flocked to it.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Bernard Muller wrote:
And "times" (plural) does not mean twice.
Even if understood as dual??
Why would that be understood as dual feasts or set times do not go in pairs, like eyes or legs. And set times (for feasts/festivals) are not durations like years.
Context, Bernard. Concentrate. "An appointed, appointeds and half". The text warns you to be careful with what you are reading. Words are not being used as you might expect, but in specific ways that you can divine with a little prompting (by the meturgeman), singular, plural and half.
Bernard Muller wrote:
Yet the Seder Olam rehearses the same idea, so your assertion is falsified.
Good point. But the Seder Olam was intended to give hope to the Jews after the second Jewish war rather than to be historically accurate (as for Sextus Julius Africanus who used all kind of tricks to have the 490 years falling on 30 CE). It was the same for 'Daniel' (give hope to the Jews after the events of 167 BCE). Then the 490 years would not be suitable, because it put Cyrus' 1st year all the way to around 620 BCE (instead of 539 BCE). I doubt very much that was believed then in Jerusalem. And 'Daniel' has no "years", just "weeks/sevens".
The relationship between the two texts is shockingly obvious, yet you persist in ultra-accuracy for Daniel and make excuses for the Seder Olam.
Bernard Muller wrote:A chronology existed from Chaldean astronomers for the rulers over Babylon (from local kings, to Persians, to Alexander the Great). It was fairly accurate. For example, the Persian rule over Babylon was set at 207 years (instead of 210 years according to our data). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_of_Kings
Probably initially written in Aramaic, the info in it could have been available readily to Aramaic speaking Jews.
That accuracy (even if not "ultra") is rather remarkable. And it would not have been a problem to assign a duration for the Hellenistic era all the way to 167 BCE.
What happened in a Babylonian chancelry has nothing at all to do with little Jerusalem. Do stop bullshitting.
Bernard Muller wrote:In other words, one more reason why the "weeks" in Dan 9 as being "periods of seven years" do not fly.
:whistling: Umm, this nonsense^?
Bernard Muller wrote:
You're just saying that you make the term "week" completely incoherent. Sometimes it means your whatevers and in the same passage it is a literal week, yet they are not really anything but a modern devising of how to make sixty-nine whatevers cover the period in your ultra-accurate desire.
What is coherent for me in 'Daniel' is to accept "week(s)" as meaning just that (regardless of the plural form) when it makes sense as a 7 days period. But when it does not, such as for the "weeks" in Dan 9, then I have to look for other meanings. And "period of 7 years" does not work for many reasons, including those you are sweeping under the carpet.
See my first comment in this post.
Bernard Muller wrote:
1) the arbitrary separation of 69 weeks into 7 and 62 when there is no sense beyond your ad hoc assertions for doing so;
It is not arbitrary and can be justified, as I did already. Just because you rejected my argument does not mean justification does not exist.
Why don't you publish the crap? You know full well that it would never be accepted. People have published materials without the requisite qualifications, if scholarly publishers were convinced about the quality. Try it. You'll be sadly depressed. There is no coherence to your position. It works on ignorance of Hebrew and fairy tale ideas of how people might think 2200 years ago. I've pointed out the desperate flaw in your sixty-nine whatevers that needs you to fake an extra one to make up for the one you discount in 9:27.
Bernard Muller wrote:
2) explain why you must separate the duration from the clause it apparently belongs to according to a natural reading, such as one has for 9:27, which uses the same syntactic structure but you need the two clause groups to be read differently;
Natural reading does not have to separate the two durations.
The ridiculous separation of the claimed single duration makes the view a farce. It is only found in confessional translations. You have to ignore your preferred NRSV, because it disagrees with you. That's just you being refractory and refusing to let go of your fantasy.
Bernard Muller wrote:
3) the atnach.
The atnach, which came some 9 centuries later, does not necessarily reflect what "Daniel" had in mind.
It just shows how native speakers of the language understood the text. They do have a head start on you.
Bernard Muller wrote:These arguments are weak. There are much stronger arguments against your handling of Dan 9:25, arguments that I already explained on this post and earlier one.
Crap.
Bernard Muller wrote:
1) arbitrary insertion of prepositions;
You also inserted a preposition.
My position doesn't need one. You do. But your argument here is simple ignorance. You know nothing about Hebrew and refuse to learn even a little, to understand that Hebrew adnominals function differently from English and you need to learn how.
Bernard Muller wrote:
2) dictating the meaning of שבעים against the cohesion of the text with its 69 weeks plus one week;
You must mean שבע . I talked about your so-called cohesion. Who said "Daniel had to be coherent in his visions?
If the writers wanted to be understood, certainly. Language is funny that way.
Bernard Muller wrote:
3) modern retrojection of ideas you constructed spreadsheet style and expect it to have relevance 2200 years ago, which is nothing more that pure speculation;
It does not have to be modern, as I already demonstrated.
That's verging on not knowing what you are doing at all.
Bernard Muller wrote:
4) your theory doesn't have seventy whatevers specified in the text, only sixty-nine, so you try to create one, where the text does not state one.
The text states seventy weeks/sevens in Dan 9:24 and what comes after the sixty-nine weeks/sevens (9:26) has to be the seventieth week.
You are misrepresenting the text. We both know that. Dan 9:27 specifically states its "one week". You can ignore that all you like but you pretend that you can eke another unstated week between the sixty-nine and the one, though that is only desperation on your part. The text simply disagrees with your wacky idea and you are forced into such nonsense to try to get out of the obvious meaning of the seven + sixty-two + one = seventy, using just what the text says. You are not interested in the text so much as your theory. That means if the theory is—as I see it—utter nonsense, you'll still prefer it to what the text says. That's commitment.
Dysexlia lures • ⅔ of what we see is behind our eyes
User avatar
spin
Posts: 2146
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:44 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by spin »

I've made several clarifications and additions to the above post, but I should assume that you've grabbed the first version of it you found and won't read the new stuff. So, I'll just make a separate point here....

In Dan 10:2,

In those days I, Daniel, had been mourning three weeks.

The expression "three weeks" is in Hebrew "three weeks of days" (see also 10:3). The seemingly unnecessary precision "weeks of days" allows for "weeks" being used for groups of seven time units other than days and left unqualified to make the passage seem more cryptic.

Ezek 4:5,

For I have laid on you the years of their iniquity according to the number of days, three hundred and ninety days....

Here are days being reassigned as years.

In the book of Jubilees, 23:8 we learn that Abraham lived three jubilees and four weeks of years. In 4:7 Adam and Eve mourned Abel four weeks of years. 6:18 has the flood after the fifth week of years into the 27th jubilee. Etc. Jubilees was roughly contemporary with Daniel's visions. A jubilee is seven weeks of years. So at the time of the visions the notion of weeks of years was in circulation. If the weeks in 9:25-27 were not weeks of days, another contender is weeks implying "weeks of years", which strangely enough reflects all scholarly analysis of Dan 9.

Following the same logic as Jubilees, the Cairo Damascus Document (CD) 16.4 talks of time divisions as jubilees and their weeks. The Community Rule (1QS) 10.7 talks of "years up to their their weeks", with the clear implication of weeks of years.
Dysexlia lures • ⅔ of what we see is behind our eyes
Bernard Muller
Posts: 3964
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:02 pm
Contact:

Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to spin,
This is a clueless reaction. Your first response must be to establish the word being used, otherwise you can only perform eisegesis. Your reaction here eliminates your approach before you start. The term is "week(s)" until demonstrated that another word was intended.
How the word "week(s)" may be used needs to be understood before considering other possibilities. Visions are noted for their unusual approaches to the lexical items they use. First you must deal with "week(s)". Asserting your desire for ultra-accuracy doesn't count.
That exactly what I did. I tried "weeks" in Dan 9 as periods of seven years and that did not work for many reasons. Then I demonstrated another meaning was intended.
I was not looking for ultra-accuracy, only reasonable time intervals. It just happened that, with my "seven", I got great accuracy.
You are always bugging me with that ultra-accuracy. But I rather go with accuracy rather than errors of 326% and more than 100 years, which should tell you are on the wrong tracks.
And you are the one going for ultra-accuracy into interpreting the Hebrew in Dan 9:24-27, even if they are part of visions, told in not straightforward Hebrew, as you admitted.
Cohesion is to be expected in any text before William Burroughs, who cut up stuff and reordered it for ideological/literary purposes. The reader/listener is a partner in the communication enterprise, so cohesion is needed otherwise there is no hope of communication.
Ya, but you assume the so-called "weeks" in Dan 9 are weeks (of years). But if they are "sevens", there is no break in your cohesion.
He disappears off the political map and a species of theocracy is instituted.
Also Jeshua disappears after ch. 6 of 'Zechariah'. But as the Branch, Zerubbabel is expected to get royal honor if & when he rebuilds the temple. He is not dead yet and out of the picture.
And 'Ezra' does not mention Jeshua (& Zerubbabel) being present at the inauguration of the 2nd temple.
Your so-called disappearance and alleged replacement are ill-evidenced speculations.
You are injecting 320 years into this literature.
No, you are the one doing so with your 490 years.
Please don't keep doing this sort of thing. You are just talking nonsense here about Hebrew, as you have consistently done.
I did not say "Daniel" made a mistake with his Hebrew. He just did not signal overtly to readers/listeners that a new clause would start at "and sixty-two years", something he could have done easily. And, as I have proven already, your understanding does not work if a new clause starts then.
There is no reason from the text to suspect that half a week is anything other than a duration. You have failed to overcome this issue time and time again.
I have plenty of reasons why "half the week" cannot mean 3.5 years, which I already explained. Please review my earlier posts.
The wide and the sharp will be built for 62 weeks. How long has your house been built? (And that question in English is a passive perfect like the Hebrew!)
Wide and sharp are adjectives. That translation does not appears in any English bibles. However these same words are used in the OT for streets, plaza, squares and salient, ditches, walls.
The perfect indicates that the building of those items was done, or they remained built, for 62 "weeks", but that has ended. Which is very odd in either cases.
Omri reigned six years. It's still a perfect with a duration in Hebrew. You have no argument.
How many times do I have to tell you I understand that the perfect also allows for duration. But the difference between perfect and imperfect, is, in the first case, that duration has ended, and in the second case that duration is still not over at the time of writing.
All we know is that after a length of time Zerubbabel and Yeshua presided over the rebuilding of the temple. Daniel only remembers Yeshua. It marks the rebirth of the city.
No "Daniel" did not name his anointed prince Jeshua. You are imagining that. I wonder why in some cases, you insist on a strict reading of the Hebrew, and in other cases, you see things which are not in the text, such as "week(s)" meaning period(s) of 7 years and "set time" meaning one year.
It remained built for 62 weeks despite the strife of the Seleucid/Ptolemy wars. Then Antiochus IV arrived and began interfering in Jerusalemite affairs.
Antiochus looted and damaged the temple & city, but did not destroy both. And Antiochus' forays in Jerusalem did not happen around 490 years after Cyrus' decree, not even close.
Now you are weaseling on the English word "time" it is not there in the Hebrew. We just approximate the notion of "appointed" with regard to time.
I wrote "time" because it is in most translations. But I do not necessarily agree with that. I acknowledged multiple times that "time" means appointed time or/and Jewish feast/festival.
Here you are arguing that despite the fact that a moed can specifically be a yearly feast, we need to forget that for a more opaque significance because you refuse to acknowledge that the 3.5 days in Dan 9:27 and the 3.5 moedim refer to the same duration in a visionary time space. You may as well argue that the little horn is not the last king of the north.
Where does moed specifically mean a yearly feast? Except if that moed is associated with a yearly feast, such as Passover, which is not the case in 'Daniel'. You are inventing a special meaning for moed.
you refuse to acknowledge that the 3.5 days in Dan 9:27 and the 3.5 moedim refer to the same duration
You probably meant 3.5 years.
Yes, and for good reasons, which I already explained but you refuse to consider.
All philology scholars work from hindsight, evaluating the evidence from texts of the past. Try again.
Yes hindsight. That what "Daniel" used to make his so-called prophesies. And so Genesius.
You persistently want to forget the modus operandi of these visions, arguing for opaque meanings when the visions clearly want to provide meanings that are specific in a cryptic guise in order to impress with specificity in the relevant time period, ie the now of the audience. You go for obfuscation because clarity is against your theory. Yet in the context of an "appointed, appointeds, and half" it is so unlikely that the time period—the "appointeds"—is opaque.
Yes I agree for opaque meanings, such as for the sevens, which are not so opaque after all, because the singular for שבעים is שבע. But you won't accept it.
However with your "appointed, appointeds, and half", we are a very long way to 3.5 years.
Collins may be basically correct with much of the above, but that Dan 7 was written before the desecration seems to imply a separation of the persecution into nice neat boundaries. But the Tamid has already been stopped with the disruption of the cultic calendar. 2 Macc 6:3ff doesn't mention the abomination that desolates, so maybe it was written before it was set up.
Where did you find the Tamid has already been stopped with the disruption of the cultic calendar?
Are you referring to Antiochus thinking about changing times in Dan 7:25. It is not the same as actually implementing that. And 1 Macc. & 2 Macc. have the cessation of Jewish sacrifices implemented two years after. So goes your "time, times and a half" crashing as meaning 3.5 years, because it looks more like 5 years.
It is vaguely possible that Dan 7 was already finalized but I doubt it. It's just Collins's assertion.
I think "Between 167 and 164 B.C.E. the Hebrew chapters 8–12 [in Hebrew] were added" makes a lot of sense. Of course you have to doubt it because your theories would be falsified.
There is no substance here
I think the same about "time, times and a half" (or if you prefer "appointed, appointeds and a half") meaning 3.5 years. All you have going for you is hindsight.
I'll try not to repeat myself with "Oh, for fuck's sake, Bernard...", but you need to hear it again. You should know by now that אחרי can mean the "hinder parts", the back end. That is from where "after" is derived. I have shown that it means back end with the spear example in 2 Sam 2:23. אחרי is here literally the "hinder parts" (as in the case of the cow's bum, you refuse to analyze).
The association with 2 Sam 2:23 is very far-fetched. Furthermore "hinder" is here an adjective, not a preposition.
You want the word in Dan 9:26 to mean "after about" but in 2 Sam 2:23, it is referring to the butt of the spear (NRSV). I do not see any connection.
The last week is the important issue for the writer. What came before is context, but it is the faithful remnant that matters here and now. The many are in a covenant with Antiochus and his forces have caused the cessation of the Tamid and the installation of the abomination. The writer says an anointed one will be cut off. If I'm forced to decide what that might mean precisely, I'd look to Jos 11:21 where the Anakim were cut off and none were left in Israel, ie "killed", or Obad. 9, where every man on Mt Esau will be cut off by slaughter. There are lots of examples of lopping off heads, cutting off asherahs, chopping down trees, all the same verb, all suggest termination. When do you think Onias III was "cut off"?

Incidentally, for "cut off" the LXX provides "destroyed", the Vulgate "murdered".
The Vulgate, written by Christians certainly wanted 'Daniel' to refer to Christ having been killed.
I am puzzled by the LXX "destroyed". But it is followed by "and there is no judgment in him; and he shall destroy the city and the sanctuary with the prince that is coming:" which cannot be justified by the underlying Hebrew (& certainly the LXX translator was not thinking about Onias III!). So I think the translation to Greek of that passage is very problematic overall.
I know that sometimes "cut off' is translated by "killed" or "destroyed" or "murdered" or equivalent. Certainly, killing is a way to "cut off" someone from others.
But according to the BLB, in the KJV, the Hebrew "for cut off" is translated only by "kill" or equivalent only a few times.
Furthermore, the context in Joshua 11:21 and Obadiah 9 indicates clearly that "cut off" means "killed". It is not the case in Daniel 9:26 and therefore "cut off" as "separated" is a lot more likely.
And, if "Daniel" really meant "killed", he would have written it.
You are hanging here on only a possibility.
No duration, just a generic "those days"
"days" is a duration. "after those days" is similar to "after those years", or "after (those) 483 years". Only the duration is different.
אחר not אחרי.
What difference would that make?
There's a duration without any preposition, just as you'd expect. Then there is an idiom similar to that found in English which is not about a point in time but a sequence of years.
Regardless, it means after the previous year.
You need to set meaningful goalposts. You need to provide examples that clearly show you understand the issue. Not one of the above deals with אחרי and a duration. Is that not a clear condition to you? I said "The word [אחרי] is not used elsewhere in relation to a duration" and apparently, as you can't find an example, you must believe me by now, no?
Days, Sabbath day, years are durations, the same than your 483 years. And stop strikethroughing my quotes.
You seem to be confusing vision with history. They probably won't be the same thing when it is in the future.
"Daniel" predicted wrong. That's the whole point. That means Dan 9:27 was written before the reconsecration of the temple, which "Daniel" did not anticipate before the death of Antiochus IV.
I wish you would explain things rather than mess about pretending to do stuff with Hebrew or laboring with claims of ultra-accuracy.
I explained that over and over already. Please read my earlier posts. You make it sounds I am saying these things with no evidence & explanations. That's wrong.
I notice you have no problem accepting errors in timing as large than 236 % error and more than a century with your weeks of years. No I would never put myself in that position.
You should not oversimplify the text. Otherwise you'd have the writers constructing the nonsense in 11:40-45 after the fact. Some of it was actually prediction. There is no point telling people after the fact that the end will come to Antiochus and the Tamid will continue. As I understand it, this is to stimulate courage for the fighters to continue the good fight because the good end had been foreseen by Daniel long before. Look everything he said has come true and the rest will if you keep courage. Writing the prophesied end after the end here makes no sense at all. Updates were made to fix prior claims to keep the text relevant to the struggle.
The author thought that only the end of Antiochus would stop the desecration of the temple. That's a fact which is obvious in Dan 9:27 and that's not from oversimplifying the text.
I agree that Dan 11:40-45 were prophecies by the author of Daniel part 2 when Antiochus was still in Judah. But that does not mean the three so-called prophecies with time intervals numbered in days were not made from hindsight.
Actually, most of Daniel 8-12 was written when things were at their worst for the Jews, right after the massacres and before any resistance became successful. The author thought only the death of Antiochus would bring deliverance of the Jews and usher the intervention of Michael and the resurrection of the dead. The additions of the three prophecies in number of days were updates, because what happened to the temple before the death of Antiochus could not, in the mind of the author, have been missed by "Daniel".
[one week covenant with many] <-- decreed end
. . . . . . . [half the week] <-- decreed end
The week includes the half week, both ending at the same time.
I never contested that. But the strengthening of the covenant has ended then (because of the perfect) at the time of writing. But the decreed end in Dan 9:27 is about Antiochus' death, not the reconsecration. And Dan 12:1 clearly indicates the deliverance of Jews (allowing them to reconsecrate the temple) will happen, through Michael, at the same time than Antiochus' death.
You have a problem here.

Furthermore, for these 7 years, you had to put the strengthening of the (Greek) covenant at 171 BCE, when Menelaus met Antiochus. That's hardly a covenant. That meeting is mentioned only in 2 Macc. 4: 23-25 and any covenant would be about tribute and Menelaus as the new high priest.
[23] Three years afterward Jason sent Menelans, the aforesaid Simon's brother, to bear the money unto the king, and to put him in mind of certain necessary matters.
[24] But he being brought to the presence of the king, when he had magnified him for the glorious appearance of his power, got the priesthood to himself, offering more than Jason by three hundred talents of silver.
[25] So he came with the king's mandate, bringing nothing worthy the high priesthood, but having the fury of a cruel tyrant, and the rage of a savage beast.


Nothing comparable to the one, 3 years later, from Antiochus to the whole population of his kingdom, and above all Jerusalem (1 Macc. 1:41-51), which is a real strong declaration & imposition of the Greek covenant, including cessation of the Jewish sacrifices.
[41] Moreover king Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people,
[42] And every one should leave his laws
: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king.
[43] Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the sabbath.
[44] For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Juda that they should follow the strange laws of the land,
[45] And forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the sabbaths and festival days:
[46] And pollute the sanctuary and holy people:
[47] Set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine's flesh, and unclean beasts:
[48] That they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation:
[49] To the end they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances.
[50] And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said, he should die.
[51] In the selfsame manner wrote he to his whole kingdom, and appointed overseers over all the people, commanding the cities of Juda to sacrifice, city by city.


That was the real strengthening of covenant as referred in Daniel 9:27. No doubt about it.

So again, your week of 7 years (consequently your "half the week" of 3.5 years) goes down the drain.
But 12:1-4 happens before the change of focus. And what immediately precedes 12:1-4 is the expected death of Antiochus "... Yet he shall come to his end, with no one to help him." (11:45b)
I don't see the relevance, when there is a clear break in the text.
What break? Chapters & versification were not in the original text. So it was: "He shall pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain. 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)
Yes, the text does say that the covenant prevailed one week. One of the meanings of the relevant verb is "to prevail". The prince causes the covenant to prevail one week. If you'd like "to be strong", as in he made the covenant be strong one week. This is the text, not the translation. The translation turns the verb into an adjective. But why am I trying to explain this to you? You refuse to learn any Hebrew.
He caused the covenant to be strong for one week is OK by me. But that action could have been short in duration. Anyway it had ended at the time of writing which you have to put after the reconsecration of the temple.
But because the verb is imperfect about Antiochus causing the sacrifice to cease for half the (same) week. That means the temple was still not reconsecrated then.
So how do you explain the causing the covenant to be strong lasted less time than the causing of the cessation of the Jewish sacrifices?
You have a problem here: the "half the week" has to completed at the same time, or before, the end of the "week".
Of course I don't have that problem, as long as in the opaque rendering of visions, "half the week" can be understood as "middle of the week", which you will never accept, due to the alleged ultra-accuracy of your translation of the Hebrew in these opaque visions (quite an inconsistency!).
I consider the causing the covenant to be strong as being a short duration action, as also the causing of the cessation of Jewish sacrifices, except this later action was continuing.
The author acknowledged the strengthening of the covenant had been done before, but the cessation of Jewish sacrifices was still going on.
The covenant is a description of what started in 1 Macc 1:11-15, when the gymnasium was set up and the upper class youth flocked to it.
That covenant was not from the king (contrary to what is said in Dan 9:27) and that was done soon after Antiochus IV became king, anyway before he went to Egypt for the first time (1 Macc. 1:17). So we are far from your 7 years; it is more like 10 years. By the way, there is nothing in 2 Macc. saying that Menelaus went farther into the hellenization of Jerusalem than Jason did before him. So no strengthening of that covenant when Menelaus took over.

[10] And there came out of them a wicked root Antiochus surnamed Epiphanes, son of Antiochus the king, who had been an hostage at Rome, and he reigned in the hundred and thirty and seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks.
[11] In those days went there out of Israel wicked men, who persuaded many, saying, Let us go and make a covenant with the heathen that are round about us: for since we departed from them we have had much sorrow

Context, Bernard. Concentrate. "An appointed, appointeds and half". The text warns you to be careful with what you are reading. Words are not being used as you might expect, but in specific ways that you can divine with a little prompting (by the meturgeman), singular, plural and half.

That still does not say "times" has to be understood as "two times".
And I already shot down your "time, times and a half" in Dan 7 as meaning 7 years, with the help of Collins.
How can you consider "An appointed, appointeds and half" as being 7 years? That's not in the Hebrew, period.
The relationship between the two texts is shockingly obvious, yet you persist in ultra-accuracy for Daniel and make excuses for the Seder Olam.

No, the relationship is not obvious. 34 years is not the same than 320 years for the combined reigns of the Persian kings. The Seder Olam did not get this data from the same source as "Daniel".
Olam used years as units but Daniel used "weeks/"sevens" instead. And BTW, "sevens" makes a lot of sense.
What happened in a Babylonian chancelry has nothing at all to do with little Jerusalem. Do stop bullshitting.
What chancelry? that list was compiled by generation of astronomers. And how do you know it was only known in Babylon?
Why don't you publish the crap? You know full well that it would never be accepted. People have published materials without the requisite qualifications, if scholarly publishers were convinced about the quality. Try it. You'll be sadly depressed. There is no coherence to your position. It works on ignorance of Hebrew and fairy tale ideas of how people might think 2200 years ago. I've pointed out the desperate flaw in your sixty-nine whatevers that needs you to fake an extra one to make up for the one you discount in 9:27.
At least, I published it on the internet and I got complimentary remarks from readers. And what about your crap? did you publish it in any way?
My position is very coherent. I cannot say the same about yours. It is a mix of ultra accuracy on a few words, combined with huge inaccuracies about your durations (and other things) and a shallow understanding of 'Daniel'.
There is nothing flawed about my sixty-nine sevens (can you say sevens instead of whatevers? that's not so difficult).
That's your fault if you do not understand that after the sixty-nine "weeks" we are in the seventieth "week", which is already mentioned in Dan 9:24. That implied the seventieth "week" is addressed, complete with events in it.
Just like saying "I will start working in the third month from now" and then a few sentences later "after the 2nd month I will go see my parents in France and go skiing for a few days in the Alps". Everybody will know I intend to be traveling in the 3rd month and later in the same month start working. They would not see any conflict.
And there are a lot of problems about your last "week" of 7 years.
I don't fake an extra "week". I wonder where did you get that.
The ridiculous separation of the claimed single duration makes the view a farce. It is only found in confessional translations. You have to ignore your preferred NRSV, because it disagrees with you. That's just you being refractory and refusing to let go of your fantasy
I do not prefer the NRSV. But you do. So I try to quote it as much as possible. That does not mean I think the NRSV is always right.
I already explained that the combined single duration in Dan 9:25 can be justified.
And the 49 years does not match by a huge lot (236 % error) the dating of the so-called coronation of Jeshua.
And there are significant problems once you translate as "And for sixty-two "weeks" ..."
As for confessional translations, the very Christian NIV replaced the "weeks" in Dan 9 by "sevens".
I suppose the non-Christian bibles split the two durations because the combined durations favor wild speculation and dubious calculations among Christians about that anointed being Jesus. And their translations (of the non-Christian bibles) are allowed by the underlying Hebrew text (as also for the majority translations). However we are dealing with translators, not researchers, who would look down the line if the translation makes sense in the overall textual & historical context. I did research that, and that translation, even if allowed by the underlying Hebrew, does not make sense, from many reasons (regardless of "weeks" meaning period of 7 years or "sevens").
It just shows how native speakers of the language understood the text. They do have a head start on you.
They had no way to know what "Daniel" was thinking. And later, the Rabbi who put the stop in the Hebrew text did not agree that the atnach was marking the start of a new clause.
You are misrepresenting the text. We both know that. Dan 9:27 specifically states its "one week".
No, I do not know that. Don't say things in my behalf.
You can ignore that all you like but you pretend that you can eke another unstated week between the sixty-nine and the one, though that is only desperation on your part. The text simply disagrees with your wacky idea and you are forced into such nonsense to try to get out of the obvious meaning of the seven + sixty-two + one = seventy, using just what the text says. You are not interested in the text so much as your theory. That means if the theory is—as I see it—utter nonsense, you'll still prefer it to what the text says. That's commitment.
I do not have a problem with that. My "week" is 7 days and it fits nicely into the the year indicated by the seventieth "seven". I do not see how you can call that desperation.
You are the one twisting everything. The sevens are one thing and the week is truly a week. There is no conflict, no fudging. And the text does not say 7 years. Actually, again and again, I have explained your "week" = 7 years does not make any sense in the textual & historical context, according to the evidence we have.

Cordially, Bernard
Last edited by Bernard Muller on Sat Apr 15, 2017 7:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
Post Reply