by Hellrider 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I`m discussing with a JW on another board, we`re discussing 697/587, the 70 weeks, etc etc. And then he writes:
"Why is it the 70 weeks works out perfectly for the apperance of Messiah?"
...and I don`t understand what he means. Does anyone know? I`m a bit unclear on these "70 weeks". Could someone explain this part of the prophecy for me?
(Daniel 9:24-27) 24 "There are seventy weeks that have been determined upon your people and upon your holy city, in order to terminate the transgression, and to finish off sin, and to make atonement for error, and to bring in righteousness for times indefinite, and to imprint a seal upon vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies. 25 And you should know and have the insight [that] from the going forth of [the] word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until Mes·si´ah [the] Leader, there will be seven weeks, also sixty-two weeks. She will return and be actually rebuilt, with a public square and moat, but in the straits of the times. 26 "And after the sixty-two weeks Mes·si´ah will be cut off, with nothing for himself. "And the city and the holy place the people of a leader that is coming will bring to their ruin. And the end of it will be by the flood. And until [the] end there will be war; what is decided upon is desolations. 27 "And he must keep [the] covenant in force for the many for one week; and at the half of the week he will cause sacrifice and gift offering to cease. "And upon the wing of disgusting things there will be the one causing desolation; and until an extermination, the very thing decided upon will go pouring out also upon the one lying desolate."
To put it shortly, the best contextual explanation imo is that which considers the 70 weeks in Daniel 9 as an extension of Jeremiah's 70 years (25:10f etc., explicitly referred to in Daniel 9:2) -- a prophecy which seemed to have been unsatisfactorily fulfilled in view of the ongoing foreign domination of Jerusalem, and especially the persecutions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 2nd century BC. Daniel's trick is, the "true fulfillment" would come at the end of, not 70 years but 70 x 7 years. The return from Exile was only the end of the first "week" -- interestingly this points to a (roughly) 50-year rather than 70-year exile, cf. also Zechariah. The starting point in this perspective is still Jeremiah's prophecy (cf. Daniel 9:25), but the time for complete fulfillment is brought down to the Hellenistic-Maccabean period according to the approximative chronology of the writer living in that period. In that perspective the "messiah" (anointed) is the high priest Onias III, deposed by Antiochus in 175 BC and then murdered. The prophecy of course implies that this period was to be the end times (cf. v. 24) -- and to that extent it was again unfulfilled.
Of course the main (though not exclusive) Christian interpretation, from the early Church period, attempts to identify Jesus with the "messiah" of Daniel 9, and so looks for a later starting point in the Persian period. In this the WT interpretation which makes it start with the reconstruction of Jerusalem's fortifications in Nehemiah's time is not isolated. But that doesn't make it right.
Thanks, both of you!
...but how on earh do I explain a JW that the book of Daniel wasn`t written down by Daniel, but that Daniel is the legend and the source of an originally oral legend, which was (porbably) written down a couple of hundred years before Christ...(sigh...) ...maybe I should just give up on this guy.
I agree this is probably not the best place to start with a JW. It's certainly easier to stick to those parts of Daniel (chapters 4 of course, but also 10--12) where the shamefully farfetched WT interpretations are easy to debunk. Only when you get to the point "OK, what does that mean then" you can point to the fact that the whole book is desperately obscure (as many Christians feel) unless it is put in its real historical context. Any serious commentary will then suffice.
I wouldn't even begin to get into it with a JW, but apparently the real give-away is found in chapters 10-12 about the kings of the north and south. These were originally the Seleucid dynasty (in Syria, north of Palestine) and the Ptolemaic dynasty (in Egypt, to the south). Both dynasties sprang from two of Alexander's generals. The succeeding generations of these dynasties are described in detail, until the account reaches the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanies who desecrated the Jerusalem temple in the second century BCE. His death is not described accurately - also his downfall was to be followed immediately by the establishment of the kingdom of God. To avoid facing up to this the Society applies the prophecy about the king of the north to Rome (mid-way through the series), and finally leaps forward to the present time in which the king of the south is supposed to be the Anglo-American world power. Until recently, the king of the north was designated as the Communist bloc. Also, some of Christendom's commentators have stated that Antiochus was merely a type of the Antichrist, who would completely fulfill the prophecy. But the point is, the part of the prophetic description which is accurate was already history when the book was written, and the part which turned out to be speculation was not. Therefore, it must have been written in the second century (BCE) when Antiochus reigned.
Well, I`ve come to the conclusion that the guy I`m discussing with, didn`t exactly invent the wheel. He didn`t invent dynamite either, I doubt he was even around when it said "bang". I`m only discussing with him, because I know that many JWs lurk around that board, I`m just hoping to plant some doubt. Here`s his latest response to me on the 607vs587-issue:
" What that some Jews would not want the dates to match up proving that Jesus was the messiah?
How was that the Jews knew when Jesus was to be born and the killing of male babies happened at Jesus's birth?"
??? I don`t even understand what that means. I`ve got a supiscion that this illiteracy is due to stress. Whenever I have argued well, and he can`t respond, he becomes illiterate.Does anyone here understand what those two sentences mean? (I know, it`s hard to know out of context, but believe me, it`s not any easier in context...)
I'll try tackling this one. Though my bible interpretation is more shoot-from-the-hip than scholarly.
How was that the Jews knew when Jesus was to be born and the killing of male babies happened at Jesus's birth?"
He may be suggesting that the wise men from the east, and through them Herod, had properly interpreted Daniel's vision, worked out the math, and accurately predicted the Messiah's return. Your debater might be trying to establish a pattern of mathematical and chronological accuracy from the bible accounts.
There is nothing in the bible account to suggest that the wise men had access to the book of Daniel. Just ask the poor man if Daniel mentioned the star in the East, or if the man might be mixing up prophecies?
Jgnat, thanks.
Well, I`ve been kicked out and banned from that forum anyway. I had the audacity to offer some criticism in a pm to the webmaster for allowing a section on the forum for the very dubious issue of "revisionism" (of the holocaust), in which neo-nazis are allowed to (without critical questions) spew out their rewriting of WW2-history-propaganda. Well, they forum also had a section for UFO-sightings, some "galactic superwave" which is going to destroy all life on earth, etc. In short: It`s probably the lamest, dorkiest forum I`ve ever been registered on. And the JWs there are even stupider than average.
Phjuuu...just had to get that off my chest.
