Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I really think the only reason I spend time thinking about the history of the Bible and its interpretation in order to have 'revelations' and 'inspirations' like I had today. There have been a number of posts about the interpretation of Daniel 9:24 - 27. I started the discussion I think but Andrew Criddle mentioned an alleged parallel understanding in the Testament of Levi which coincided with Irenaeus's interest in the virgin birth (= 1 BCE). So I started thinking. What was Irenaeus's interpretation of Daniel 9:24 - 27?

I think Andrew Criddle agrees basically with my link between Apollinaris of Laodicea's system and Irenaeus's reference to Jesus being 'about 50' at his crucifixion during the reign of Claudius. If Andrew agrees (and I assume he does at least tacitly) that the forty nine years between 1 BCE and 48 CE form the 'seven weeks' the question becomes whether we imagine that Irenaeus follows Justin's identification of the 62 weeks happening BEFORE the 7 weeks (i.e. that 1 Darius to the Virgin Birth = 434 years) or is it possible that what is identified by Jerome as 'Apollinaris system' was really taken over directly from Irenaeus?

I hadn't thought about that before. I mean, one would assume that Irenaeus was dependent on Justin. I have suggested previously that Irenaeus falsified Justin's original text to make it conform to the Virgin Birth. But then there is the issue of the complete ignoring of Claudius's reign in Adv Iud and then ... what I just realized this morning.

While I was thinking today I remembered that in Book Two of Irenaeus's Adv Haer the Church Father NOT ONLY says that Jesus was 'almost fifty' in this book but also makes a lengthy point that those who argue that the 'year of favor' was just the one year of Jesus's ministry (i.e. Clement of Alexandria) are completely wrong. 'The year of favor' applies to the entire length of time from the apostles to the present age (i.e. the time when Irenaeus was writing = the reign of Severus).

This is a curious concept. It doesn't seem to have any scriptural support but - let's face - Irenaeus always finds a way to support his beliefs with scripture. The more I started to think about it, I could see that there were parallels between this understanding and Apollinaris's interpretation of the Seventy Weeks. Under this system the first 49 years (7 weeks) sees the establishment of the Church by 'the Christ' and then the following 434 years will see the Temple (= the Church) established culminating in the appearance of the Antichrist and the end of the world in 482 CE.

Irenaeus's statement (Adv Haer 2.22.1) that Isaiah's prophecy assumes a long period of 'favor' followed by a final 'judgment' fits Apollinaris's system perfectly even though Daniel 9:24 - 27 isn't mentioned explicitly:

The acceptable year of the Lord, again, is this present time, in which those who believe Him are called by Him, and become acceptable to God--that is, the whole time from His advent onwards to the consummation [of all things], during which He acquires to Himself as fruits [of the scheme of mercy] those who are saved. For, according to the phraseology of the prophet, the day of retribution follows the [acceptable] year; and the prophet will be proved guilty of falsehood if the Lord preached only for a year, and if he speaks of it. For where is the day of retribution? For the year has passed, and the day of retribution has not yet come; but He still "makes His sun to rise upon the good and upon the evil, and sends rain upon the just and unjust."(5) And the righteous suffer persecution, are afflicted, and are slain, while sinners are possessed of abundance, and "drink with the sound of the harp and psaltery, but do not regard the works of the Lord."(6) But, according to the language [used by the prophet], they ought to be combined, and the day of retribution to follow the [acceptable] year. For the words are, "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of retribution." This present time, therefore, in which men are called and saved by the Lord, is properly understood to be denoted by "the acceptable year of the Lord;" and there follows on this "the day of retribution," that is, the judgment ... As then this day does not signify one which consists of twelve hours, but the whole time during which believers in Christ suffer and are put to death for His sake, so also the year there mentioned does not denote one which consists of twelve months, but the whole time of faith during which men hear and believe the preaching of the Gospel, and those become acceptable to God who unite themselves to Him.

It is very significant that immediately following this statement the idea that Jesus was 'almost fifty' follows. This is the clearest indication that Irenaeus has Daniel 9:24 - 27 in mind (even if it isn't referenced explicitly. Apollinaris makes clear that the Seventy Weeks is meant here i.e. (7 weeks = the life of Jesus) (62 weeks = the establishment of the Church) (1 week = the coming of the Antichrist and the end of the world).

Now whenever we develop a new interpretation like this we need to find something else - a piece of evidence - that supports the idea and is wholly independent from it. I think I found that in Eusebius reference in Book Six of Church History of a peculiar interpretation of the Seventy Weeks linked to the time of Severus:

At this time another writer, Judas, discoursing about the seventy weeks in Daniel, brings down the chronology to the tenth year of the reign of Severus. He thought that the coming of Antichrist, which was much talked about, was then near. So greatly did the agitation caused by the persecution of our people at this time disturb the minds of many.

I have tried to think of a system whereby a Christian could have made the Seventy Weeks 'end' c. 202 CE. But then I noticed that Eusebius never says this. 'Brings the chronology down to the tenth year of Severus' just means that the Seventy Weeks were understood to run through to 201 CE. It is we and our limited imaginations who think that BECAUSE there was a disturbance associated with this system IT HAD TO MEAN that the Seventy Weeks 'ended' then.

But since Judas was a Christian (= notice the reference to 'the Antichrist') Jesus surely had to figure at some point during the chronology of Daniel which is made up of only a few basic building blocks. If Daniel 9:24 - 27 was a Lego set there would be one 'piece' 49 units long, another 434 units long and then two pieces 3.5 units long. In any event, there is no way to make the Seventy Weeks end in 202 CE.

But then again, Eusebius doesn't say that. The fact that the Antichrist was 'near' doesn't exclude the possibility that Judas's system was the same as Apollinaris's. Christians have been saying that the 'Antichrist' was 'near' forever. There were Christians who assumed that the 6000 years were ending in 300 or so years. That would be considered 'near' or 'at hand.'

All that Eusebius says really is that a figure c. 202 CE must have been raised to prominence owing to his conviction that he and his fellow co-religionists were living within the period of favor (= Daniel's temple being rebuilt). He alarmed his co-religionists by claiming that the Antichrist was coming soon to end the 'good times.' So I ask, was Irenaeus = Judas? After all 202 CE is the traditional date for the martyrdom of Irenaeus - http://books.google.com/books?id=FWM1bq ... CE&f=false

I think we can make the connection between this section and Daniel. For if we go back we should take a look at the reference to consummation in the passage above referenced:

That, then, was called the day of retribution on which the Lord will render to every one according to his works--that is, the judgment. The acceptable year of the Lord, again, is this present time, in which those who believe Him are called by Him, and become acceptable to God--that is, the whole time from His advent onwards to the consummation [consummationem], during which He acquires to Himself as fruits those who are saved. For, according to the phraseology of the prophet, the day of retribution follows the [acceptable] year

The same terminology is explicitly linked to Daniel in Adv Haer 4.26:

If any one, therefore, reads the Scriptures with attention, he will find in them an account of Christ, and a foreshadowing of the new calling (vocationis). For Christ is the treasure which was hid in the field, Matthew 13:44 that is, in this world (for “the field is the world” Matthew 13:38); but the treasure hid in the Scriptures is Christ, since He was pointed out by means of types and parables. Hence His human nature could not be understood, prior to the consummation of those things which had been predicted, that is, the advent of Christ (quam consummatio eorum quae consummata sunt veniret, quae est adventus Christi)? . And therefore it was said to Daniel the prophet: “Shut up the words, and seal the book even to the time of consummation, until many learn, and knowledge be completed. For at that time, when the dispersion shall be accomplished, they shall know all these things.” Daniel 12:4, 7 But Jeremiah also says, “In the last days they shall understand these things.”

The editor has substituted concionata for consummata owing to the Greek. The Greek of Daniel here reads "καιροῦ συντελείας" the Hebrew עַד-עֵת קֵץ "to the end of time"

I think what we are suggesting is even clearer in Book 5 of Adv Haer. In other words, Apollinaris merely took over Irenaeus's interpretation of Daniel 9:24 - 27 whereby 7 weeks = the birth and crucifixion of Jesus followed by 62 weeks of 'the building of the temple' i.e. the Christian religion followed by the rise of the Antichrist c. 482 CE followed in turn by the manifestation of the kingdom of God on earth. Let's look at an important passage in Irenaeus. Irenaeus says that Jesus establishes all the kings of the world. In Adv Haer 5.24.1 we read:

As therefore the devil lied at the beginning, so did he also in the end, when he said, "All these are delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give them." For it is not he who has appointed the kingdoms of this world, but God; for "the heart of the king is in the hand of God." And the Word also says by Solomon, "By me kings do reign, and princes administer justice. By me chiefs are raised up, and by me kings rule the earth." Paul the apostle also says upon this same subject: "Be ye subject to all the higher powers; for there is no power but of God: now those which are have been ordained of God."

In other words, Caesar himself is the legitimate ruler of the world according to Irenaeus, established by god as cosmocrator. This helps us understand not only why the Roman Church escaped persecution in the age but more importantly how Irenaeus could understand Daniel 9:24 - 27 to apply to the Church as the 'restored temple.'

To this end, given that Irenaeus accepts the legitimacy of Commodus and Septimius Severus he distinguishes the coming of one who is not appointed by God - i.e. the Antichrist:

And not only by the particulars already mentioned, but also by means of the events which shall occur in the time of Antichrist is it shown that he, being an apostate and a robber, is anxious to be adored as God; and that, although a mere slave, he wishes himself to be proclaimed as a king. For he (Antichrist) being endued with all the power of the devil, shall come, not as a righteous king, nor as a legitimate king, in subjection to God, but an impious, unjust, and lawless one; as an apostate, iniquitous and murderous; as a robber, concentrating in himself [all] satanic apostasy, and setting aside idols to persuade [men] that he himself is God, raising up himself as the only idol, having in himself the multifarious errors of the other idols. This he does, in order that they who do [now] worship the devil by means of many abominations, may serve himself by this one idol, of whom the apostle thus speaks in the second Epistle to the Thessalonians: "Unless there shall come a failing away first, and the man of sin shall be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God." The apostle therefore clearly points out his apostasy, and that he is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped--that is, above every idol--for these are indeed so called by men, but are not [really] gods; and that he will endeavour in a tyrannical manner to set himself forth as God.

Moreover, he (the apostle) has also pointed out this which I have shown in many ways, that the temple in Jerusalem was made by the direction of the true God. For the apostle himself, speaking in his own person, distinctly called it the temple of God. Now I have shown in the third book, that no one is termed God by the apostles when speaking for themselves, except Him who truly is God, the Father of our Lord, by whose directions the temple which is at Jerusalem was constructed for those purposes which I have already mentioned; in which [temple] the enemy shall sit, endeavouring to show himself as Christ, as the Lord also declares: "But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, which has been spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let him that readeth understand), then let those who are in Judea flee into the mountains; and he who is upon the house-top, let him not come down to take anything out of his house: for there shall then be great hardship, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall be."

Daniel too, looking forward to the end of the last kingdom, i.e., the ten last kings, amongst whom the kingdom of those men shall be partitioned, and upon whom the son of perdition shall come, declares that ten horns shall spring from the beast, and that another little horn shall arise in the midst of them, and that three of the former shall be rooted up before his face. He says: "And, behold, eyes were in this horn as the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things, and his look was more stout than his fellows. I was looking, and this horn made war against the saints, and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of days came and gave judgment to the saints of the most high God, and the time came, and the saints obtained the kingdom." Then, further on, in the interpretation of the vision, there was said to him: "The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall excel all other kingdoms, and devour the whole earth, and tread it down, and cut it in pieces. And its ten horns are ten kings which shall arise; and after them shall arise another, who shall surpass in evil deeds all that were before him, and shall overthrow three kings; and he shall speak words against the most high God, and wear out the saints of the most high God, and shall purpose to change times and laws; and [everything] shall be given into his hand until a time of times and a half time," that is, for three years and six months, during which time, when he comes, he shall reign over the earth. Of whom also the Apostle Paul again, speaking in the second [Epistle] to the Thessalonians, and at the same time proclaiming the cause of his advent, thus says: "And then shall the wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of His mouth, and destroy by the presence of His coming; whose coming [i.e., the wicked one's] is after the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and portents of lies, and with all deceivableness of wickedness for those who perish; because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And therefore God will send them the working of error, that they may believe a lie; that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but gave consent to iniquity,"

Clearly then Daniel 9:27 is yet to be fulfilled for Irenaeus - making it obvious that his system is likely the same as Apollinaris's. In other words, the seven weeks are fulfilled but the Church is living in the midst of the 62 weeks and the final week is yet to come when the Antichrist arises just as with Apollinaris's system.

Irenaeus goes on to cite material from Daniel and other sources to demonstrate to his readers that the final week where the Antichrist appears is yet to come. We read in what immediately follows our last citation:

The Lord also spoke as follows to those who did not believe in Him: "I have come in my Father's name, and ye have not received Me: when another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive," calling Antichrist "the other," because he is alienated from the Lord. This is also the unjust judge, whom the Lord mentioned as one "who feared not God, neither regarded man," to whom the widow fled in her forgetfulness of God,--that is, the earthly Jerusalem,--to be avenged of her adversary. Which also he shall do in the time of his kingdom: he shall remove his kingdom into that [city], and shall sit in the temple of God, leading astray those who worship him, as if he were Christ. To this purpose Daniel says again: "And he shall desolate the holy place; and sin has been given for a sacrifice, and righteousness been cast away in the earth, and he has been active (fecit), and gone on prosperously." And the angel Gabriel, when explaining his vision, states with regard to this person: "And towards the end of their kingdom a king of a most fierce countenance shall arise, one understanding [dark] questions, and exceedingly powerful, full of wonders; and he shall corrupt, direct, influence (faciet), and put strong men down, the holy people likewise; and his yoke shall be directed as a wreath [round their neck]; deceit shall be in his hand, and he shall be lifted up in his heart: he shall also ruin many by deceit, and lead many to perdition, bruising them in his hand like eggs." And then he points out the time that his tyranny shall last, during which the saints shall be put to flight, they who offer a pure sacrifice unto God: "And in the midst of the week," he says, "the sacrifice and the libation shall be taken away, and the abomination of desolation [shall be brought] into the temple: even unto the consummation of the time shall the desolation be complete." Now three years and six months constitute the half-week.

From all these passages are revealed to us, not merely the particulars of the apostasy, and [the doings] of him who concentrates in himself every satanic error, but also, that there is one and the same God the Father, who was declared by the prophets, but made manifest by Christ. For if what Daniel prophesied concerning the end has been confirmed by the Lord, when He said, "When ye shall see the abomination of desolation, which has been spoken of by Daniel the prophet" (and the angel Gabriel gave the interpretation of the visions to Daniel, and he is the archangel of the Creator (Demiurgi), who also proclaimed to Mary the visible coining and the incarnation of Christ), then one and the same God is most manifestly pointed out, who sent the prophets, and made promise of the Son, and called us into His knowledge.

In a still clearer light has John, in the Apocalypse, indicated to the Lord's disciples what shall happen in the last times, and concerning the ten kings who shall then arise, among whom the empire which now rules [the earth] shall be partitioned. He teaches us what the ten horns shall be which were seen by Daniel, telling us that thus it had been said to him: "And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, who have received no kingdom as yet, but shall receive power as if kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and give their strength and power to the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, because He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings." It is manifest, therefore, that of these [potentates], he who is to come shall slay three, and subject the remainder to his power, and that he shall be himself the eighth among them. And they shall lay Babylon waste, and burn her with fire, and shall give their kingdom to the beast, and put the Church to flight. After that they shall be destroyed by the coming of our Lord. For that the kingdom must be divided, and thus come to ruin, the Lord [declares when He] says: "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand." It must be, therefore, that the kingdom, the city, and the house be divided into ten; and for this reason He has already foreshadowed the partition and division [which shall take place]. Daniel also says particularly, that the end of the fourth kingdom consists in the toes of the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar, upon which came the stone cut out without hands; and as he does himself say: "The feet were indeed the one part iron, the other part clay, until the stone was cut out without hands, and struck the image upon the iron and clay feet, and dashed them into pieces, even to the end." Then afterwards, when interpreting this, he says: "And as thou sawest the feet and the toes, partly indeed of clay, and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided, and there shall be in it a root of iron, as thou sawest iron mixed with baked clay. And the toes were indeed the one part iron, but the other part clay." The ten toes, therefore, are these ten kings, among whom the kingdom shall be partitioned, of whom some indeed shall be strong and active, or energetic; others, again, shall be sluggish and useless, and shall not agree; as also Daniel says: "Some part of the kingdom shall be strong, and part shall be broken from it. As thou sawest the iron mixed with the baked clay, there shall be minglings among the human race, but no cohesion one with the other, just as iron cannot be welded on to pottery ware." And since an end shall take place, he says: "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven raise up a kingdom which shall never decay, and His kingdom shall not be left to another people. It shall break in pieces and shatter all kingdoms, and shall itself be exalted for ever. As thou sawest that the stone was cut without hands from the mountain, and brake in pieces the baked clay, the iron, the brass, the silver, and the gold, God has pointed out to the king what shall come to pass after these things; and the dream is true, and the interpretation trustworthy."

If therefore the great God showed future things by Daniel, and confirmed them by His Son; and if Christ is the stone which is cut out without hands, who shall destroy temporal kingdoms, and introduce an eternal one, which is the resurrection of the just; as he declares, "The God of heaven shall raise up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed,"--let those thus confuted come to their senses, who reject the Creator (Demiurgum), and do not agree that the prophets were sent beforehand from the same Father from whom also the Lord came, but who assert that prophecies originated from diverse powers. For those things which have been predicted by the Creator alike through all the prophets has Christ fulfilled in the end, ministering to His Father's will, and completing His dispensations with regard to the human race. Let those persons, therefore, who blaspheme the Creator, either by openly expressed words, such as the disciples of Marcion, or by a perversion of the sense [of Scripture], as those of Valentinus and all the Gnostics falsely so called, be recognised as agents of Satan by all those who worship God; through whose agency Satan now, and not before, has been seen to speak against God, even Him who has prepared eternal fire for every kind of apostasy. For he did not venture to blaspheme his Lord openly of himself; as also in the beginning he led man astray through the instrumentality of the serpent, concealing himself as it were from God. Truly has Justin remarked: That before the Lord's appearance Satan never dared to blaspheme God, inasmuch as he did not yet know his own sentence, because it was contained in parables and allegories; but that after the Lord's appearance, when he had clearly ascertained from the words of Christ and His apostles that eternal fire has been prepared for him as he apostatized from God of his own free-will, and likewise for all who unrepentant continue in the apostasy, he now blasphemes, by means of such men, the Lord who brings judgment [upon him] as being already condemned, and imputes the guilt of his apostasy to his Maker, not to his own voluntary disposition. Just as it is with those who break the laws, when punishment overtakes them: they throw the blame upon those who frame the laws, but not upon themselves. In like manner do those men, filled with a satanic spirit, bring innumerable accusations against our Creator, who has both given to us the spirit of life, and established a law adapted for all; and they will not admit that the judgment of God is just. Wherefore also they set about imagining some other Father who neither cares about nor exercises a providence over our affairs, nay, one who even approves of all sins.

In other words, Marcion and Valentinus and the rest of the heretics are wicked because - living in the 62 week period where the temple has been restored, they insist on promoting a doctrine which divorces Jesus from the cosmocrator, the ruler of the world. I can't help but think there is a political dimension emerging here - Marcion and Valentinus were guilty of not acknowledging that Caesar was the divinely appointed cosmocrator by Jesus. Otherwise how could Irenaeus claim that the Christian Church was living in the age of the 62 weeks? Clearly Irenaeus connects Daniel's list of kingdoms 'divinely appointed' as they are with the 490 week prediction.

In other words, if Israel could view Cyrus as the messiah for his facilitating the restoration of the true religion surely Irenaeus saw it fit to do the same with respect to Caesar.

Yes my understanding of Irenaeus has support from real scholars. Grant Osborne writes:

There are two forms of this approach, dispensationalism and what has been called “classic premillennialism.” Dispensationalists believe that God has brought about his plan of salvation in a series of dispensations or stages centering on his election of Israel to be his covenant people. Therefore, the church age is a parenthesis in this plan, as God turned to the Gentiles until the Jewish people find national revival (Rom. Rom. 11:1;25-32). At the end of that period, the church will be raptured, inaugurating a seven-year tribulation period in the middle of which the Antichrist will make himself known (Rev. Rev. 13:1+) and instigate the “great tribulation” . . . At the end of that period . . . Christ returns in judgment, followed by a literal millennium (Rev. Rev. 20:1-10+), great white throne judgment (Rev. Rev. 20:11-15+), and the beginning of eternity . . . Classical premillennialism is similar but does not hold to dispensations. Thus there is only one return of Christ, after the tribulation period (Mtt. Mat. 24:29-31; cf. Rev. Rev. 19:11-21+) and it is the whole church, not just the nation of Israel, that passes through the tribulation period

Futurism was undeniably the system of interpretation held by the majority in the early church. “Variations of this view were held by the earliest expositors, such as Justin Martyr (d.165), Irenaeus (d.c.195), Hippolytus (d.236), and Victorinus (d.c.303).”7 Modern futurists wholeheartedly agree with the statement of Jerome, writing in A.D. 393: “John . . . saw . . . an Apocalypse containing boundless mysteries of the future”8 As early as Irenaeus (130-200) and Hippolytus (170-236), basic futuristic concepts such as the remaining week of Daniel’s seventy weeks (see our discussion of related passages and themes) had already become evident:

When Knowles deals with the next major contributors—Irenaeus (130-200) and his disciple Hippolytus (170-236)—he describes their views as “undoubtedly the forerunners of the modern dispensational interpreters of the Seventy Weeks.” Knowles draws the following conclusion about Irenaeus and Hippolytus: “. . .we may say that Irenaeus presented the seed of an idea that found its full growth in the writings of Hippolytus. In the works of these fathers, we can find most of the basic concepts of the modern futuristic view of the seventieth week of Daniel ix. That they were dependent to some extent upon earlier material is no doubt true. Certainly we can see the influence of pre-Christian Jewish exegesis at times, but, by and large, we must regard them as the founders of the school of interpretation, and in this lies their significance for the history of exegesis.”9

Because futurism is a result of literal hermeneutics (see below) and the early church was spared the damaging effects of allegorical interpretation, the early church also understood Scripture to teach a future, one-thousand-year reign of Christ on earth in fulfillment of OT promises of the Messianic Kingdom.10 This was a widespread view among early interpreters:

[Justin Martyr] asserts that it teaches a literal Millennial Kingdom of the saints to be established in Jerusalem, and after the thousand years the general resurrection and judgment. . . . Irenaeus . . . finds in the book the doctrine of chiliasm, that is, of an earthly Millennial Kingdom. . . . Hippolytus is a chiliast . . . identifies . . . Antichrist, who was represented by Antiochus Epiphanes and who will come out of the tribe of Dan, will reign 3 1/2 years, persecuting the Church and putting to death the two Witnesses, the forerunners of the parousia (held to be Elijah and Enoch). . . . Victorinus . . . understands the Revelation in a literal, chiliastic, sense . . . The two witnesses are Elijah and Jeremiah; the 144,000 are Jews who in the last days will be converted by the preaching of Elijah . . . the false prophet, will cause the image of Antichrist to be set up in the temple at Jerusalem. http://books.google.com/books?id=K7vqJy ... 22&f=false

So in fact it could be quite plausible that (a) Apollinaris's system was taken over directly from Irenaeus and that (b) this system was identical with that of Judas mentioned in Church History Book 6. As such:

1. when Irenaeus says that Jesus was 'almost fifty' and that he was crucified under Claudius we can almost certain to take these statements together to understand that he developed a highly fictitious system whereby Jesus died at 49 years of age because it fit with Daniel's seven weeks.
2. when Irenaeus says (Adv Haer 2.22.1 and elsewhere) that he and his co-religionists are living in a messianic age which embodies the restored temple expectation of Daniel he is clearly assuming that he was living in the 62 weeks of Daniel.
3. when Irenaeus speaks of the coming of the Antichrist he is assuming he will appear in 482 CE and then the judgment of the dead would follow in 7 years.

It is amazing to see that the gospel was made to fit a 19 year mission for Jesus because of Daniel 9:24 - 27. Strong argument that very little firm evidence for the person of Jesus existed before Irenaeus.

As I go through the various temporal understanding for the Passion in 'real time' - i.e. what year any of this occurred I am struck by the complete lack of agreement among the earliest Church Fathers. It is simply astounding. If - as most of us accept - Christianity was in existence at least from after 70 CE as an organized religion, why don't Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Hippolytus agree with one another regarding even the most basic chronological 'facts.'

For instance while Hippolytus later agrees to make Jesus's birthday December 25th it is apparent that he initially identifies Jesus as being crucified in his thirtieth year - born April 2nd died March 25th. This 30 year model is reflected on the paschal table on his discovered statue.

Whatever Irenaeus system is supposed to be, this teacher of Hippolytus, clearly identifies Jesus as being 'almost fifty' not thirty when crucified. I think I have provided clear evidence Irenaeus developed his chronology artificially from Daniel's 70 weeks.

I think I have demonstrated that Justin originally held Jesus was crucified in the year 21 CE, the 434th year from the 1st year of Darius. Clement's account is totally confused. Tertullian in Against the Jews claims that 52 years and six months separate Jesus's birth from the destruction of the temple (albeit by means of a hopelessly inaccurate chronology which ignores the reign of Claudius).

But the fact that we have all these different 'teachers' attempting to 'figure out' a chronology must have stood in stark contrast to the Marcionites who represented 'a firm tradition.' How can we account for every teacher disagreeing over when Jesus lived, whether he was born, when he was born, when he died etc? I think that all that was clear was that the Marcionite system was forbidden. A new groups of sophists were making up garbage and hoping some of it 'stuck.' But there was no firm idea about the who, what, where and how about Jesus in the early third century. It was all being made up.

Stephan Huller wrote:As I go through the various temporal understanding for the Passion in 'real time' - ie. what year any of this occurred I am struck by the complete lack of agreement among the earliest Church Fathers. It is simply astounding. If - as most of us accept - Christianity was in existence at least from after 70 CE as an organized religion; why don't Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Hippolytus agree with one another regarding even the most basic chronological 'facts'?

... I think I have provided clear evidence Irenaeus developed his chronology artificially from Daniel's 70 weeks.

I think I have demonstrated that Justin originally held Jesus was crucified in the year 21 CE, the 434th year from the 1st year of Darius. Clement's account is totally confused. Tertullian in Against the Jews claims that 52 years and six months separate Jesus's birth from the destruction of the temple (albeit by means of a hopelessly inaccurate chronology which ignores the reign of Claudius).

But the fact that we have all these different 'teachers' attempting to 'figure out' a chronology must have stood in stark contrast to the Marcionites who represented 'a firm tradition.' How can we account for every teacher disagreeing over when Jesus lived, whether he was born, when he was born, when he died etc? I think that all that was clear was that the Marcionite system was forbidden. A new groups of sophists were making up garbage and hoping some of it 'stuck.' But there was no firm idea about the who, what, where and how about Jesus in the early third century. It was all being made up.

Stephan Huller wrote: It is amazing to see that the gospel was made to fit a 19 year mission for Jesus because of Daniel 9:24 - 27. Strong argument that very little firm evidence for the person of Jesus existed before Irenaeus.

So you think there were two different traditions developed separately, and later than we have been led to believe ie. developed 2nd-3rd century rather than 1st C?

I think there were a plethora of chronologies. No agreement. Each borrowing bits and pieces from each other. But the original was Jesus crucifed in 21 CE. It almost feels like "anything but 21 CE"

Remember everyone wants Dan 9:26 = Jesus crucified. But how do you make it work?