Does anyone know any links to any other sites or books that go into any more detail on other explainations. Leolaia's explaination is great, but i would love some links to the source material.
jwfacts....If you want more details about the history of interpretation of Daniel 9 and what this oracle most likely originally referred to, you can look at any of the commentaries I listed on the previous page.
a Christian....Thank you for posting your interpretation, which is a variant of the Christian messianic interpretation of the passage. I should start by noting that Julius Africanus tried different calculations (including ones with different starting points) but the solution he adopts is the only one that works to his satisfaction; dispensing with the intercalary periods to adjust the length of the years was a necessary trick to make the numbers fit. Africanus erred in construing the Hebrew calendar as a lunar calendar; it is actually a lunisolar calendar because the reckoning of the start of each year was fixed by a combination of solar (the timing of the equinox) and lunar (the appearance of the new moon) data. This ensured that the feasts would start at the right time every year, otherwise the seasons would be out of synch in as little as 20 years. Because of this, intercalary periods were always a part of the Hebrew calendar. Moreover, in the Hellenistic era when Daniel was published, yearly reckonings were commonly done on the basis of the Seleucid calendar and a 364-day solar calendar was fast becoming popular among the Jews (cf. Jubilees, 1 Enoch, the Qumran calendrical texts). So I find no compelling reason to adopt Africanus' suggestion, especially from the text itself; it is a reckoning that instead arises from a desire to make the period fit with a favored predetermined date.
Second, I should point out that your interpretation critically depends on the Theodotionic text, which is syntatically secondary to the MT. This version conflates the two "anointed ones" into a single Anointed figure by placing the appearance of the first anointed one after 69 weeks (7 + 62), instead of after the first 7 weeks (with 62 weeks intervening between the two anointed ones). It is secondary primarily because of awkward way it would require the Hebrew to read, but also because it has an inexplicable and unecessary division of 69 weeks into 7 and 62, because v. 27 has identical syntax involving two periods that are clearly distinguished, and because v. 26 refers to the latter interval and not a combined sum. Hippolytus moreover has a version of the Theodotionic text that does not lump together the 7 and 62 weeks:
Hippolytus: heós khristou hégeoumenou hebdomades hepta, kai meta tas hepta hebdomadas allai hebdomades hexékonta duo "Until an anointed leader there shall be seven weeks, and after the seven weeks there shall be another sixty-two weeks".
Theodotion: heós khristou hégeoumenou hebdomades hepta, kai hebdomades hexékonta duo "Until an anointed leader there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks".
See also the parsing of the text by Julius Hilarianus. Unfortunately the LXX has completely blundered this passage (mistaking "weeks" for "seventy", placing v. 25b after v. 26, conflating the time reference in v. 25 with the one in v. 26, etc.), so it is not of much help. I notice to your credit that you do make an attempt to make sense of the initial 7 years (as the time the Temple is rebuilt, despite the lack of evidence of 392 BC as a meaningful terminus of this work), but this interpretation is not in accord to the 7 + 62 + 1 parsing of the oracle, which would place the 7 weeks BEFORE the rebuilding since the restoration is placed DURING the 62 weeks.
Since your interpretation does not connect the "cutting-off" of the "anointed one" in v. 26 with Jesus' crucifixion, you must interpret the verb krt "cut off" in the sense of "seperation" tho the verb is frequently used to denote the killing of people (e.g. Genesis 9:11, Leviticus 7:20, etc.), and the parallel oracle in Daniel 11:22 similarly implies the death of the anointed ruler of the covenant (cf. also the LXX which also implies his death in the rendering of w-'yn lw as "and he shall be no more"), an event also alluded to in the rather similar Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 90:8). As far as the covenant in v. 27 is concerned, the text clearly states that the covenant is made for "one week" and not made AFTER ('chry in the Hebrew, meta in the Greek) the week has concluded. Of course, the New Covenant did not last for only 7 years. The word bryt "agreement, covenant" here pertains to the alliance mentioned in ch. 11 between the King of the North (= Antiochus) and the Hellenizers who forsake the "holy covenant":
"By means of alliances (htchbrwt) being made with him he will act deceitfully ... He will care for those who have abandoned the holy covenant and forces of his will take their stand and desecrate the sanctuary. They will remove the daily offering and set up the desolating abomination. Those who have acted wickedly towards the covenant he will turn into apostates by empty words" (Daniel 11:23, 30-32).
This alliance is referred to as a "covenant" in 1 Maccabees 1:11-13: "In those days lawless men came forth from Israel and misled many (polloi, cf. hoi polloi in Daniel 9:27), saying, 'Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles round about us, for since we separated from them many evils have come upon us.' This proposal pleased them, and some of the people eagerly went to the king [Antiochus]. He authorized them to observe the ordinances of the Gentiles." Note also how the reference to the cessation of sacrifice and the setting up of the abomination directly follows the reference to the agreement/covenant in 9:27, just as the reference to the the cessation of offering and the setting up of the abomination in 11:30-32 directly follows a reference to Antiochus caring for the people who abandon the holy covenant.
The biggest problem I see in your approach is the stipulation that v. 26b be confined to a parenthesis. The relegation of this passage to a digression is critical to linking v. 27 to the "anointed one" of v. 26a, yet it is unmotivated by the text itself and it completely alters the anaphoric reference to the implied subject in v. 27. Let me compare the two readings:
#1: "After sixty-two weeks, an anointed one will be cut off with no one to help him. The forces of a ruler who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. His [i.e. the coming ruler's] end will be in a cataclysm and until the end of the decreed war there will be desolations. He [i.e. the coming ruler] will confirm an alliance with the multitude for one week. For half the week he [i.e. the coming ruler] will suppress sacrifice and offering, and the desolating abomination will be in their place, until the predetermined destruction is poured out on the desolator."
#2: "After sixty-two weeks, an anointed one will be cut off with no one to help him. (The forces of a ruler who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. His [i.e. the coming ruler's] end will be in a cataclysm and until the end of the decreed war there will be desolations.) He [i.e. the "anointed one"] will confirm an alliance with the multitude for one week. For half the week he [i.e. the "anointed one"] will suppress sacrifice and offering, and the desolating abomination will be in their place, until the predetermined destruction is poured out on the desolator."
What evidence is there that the "he" in v. 27 must look past the "ruler who is to come" in v. 26b to find its proper antecedent in the "anointed one" of v. 26a? None, other than the fact that the Christian messianic interpretation requires it. The simpler reading in #1 is straightforward; the reference to the "anointed one" is only in v. 26a, then the subject switches to the "ruler who is to come" who is the subject throughout v. 27 and the "desolator" at the end of the verse. The imposition of the parentheses artificially makes the "anointed one" the subject of the "he" in v. 27, tho the verse ends with a reference to the "ruler who is to come" anyway (= the desolator). The parenthetical reading also strangely inserts an event long AFTER the conclusion of the 70 weeks into a discussion of the 70th week. By the principles of parsimony, the better reading is #1. This is also the reading that has the support of all the other parallel visions in Daniel. Compare 9:26-27 with 11:30-31:
Daniel 9:26-27: "The forces of a ruler who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. His end will be in a cataclysm and until the end of the decreed war there will be desolations. He will confirm an covenant with the multitude for one week. For half the week he will suppress sacrifice and offering, and the desolating abomination will be in their place".
Daniel 11:30-31: "He [i.e. Antiochus] will care for those who have abandoned the holy covenant and forces of his will take their stand and desecrate the sanctuary. They will remove the daily offering and set up the desolating abomination".
The two passages are clearly parallel and 11:30-31 states that it is the "forces" of the King of the North (= Antiochus) who (1) desecrate the sanctuary, (2) remove the daily offering, and (3) set up the desolating abomination. All three sacrileges by the same entity (i.e. the forces of the King of the North). This would also be the case with the simpler reading of 9:26-27; the coming ruler's forces would "destroy the sanctuary," and the coming ruler would "suppress sacrifice" and put in place the abomination. The parenthetical reading you prefer, however, would attribute (1) to the Gentile "coming ruler" but (2) and (3) to the Messiah, even tho Daniel 11:30-31 explicitly attributes these to the forces of the King of the North! This is again confirmed by ch. 8 which refers to the same things, the cessation of daily offering and the trampling and desolating of the sanctuary (8:13), again not by a virtuous Messiah but by "a bold-faced king" who "destroys powerful people" (v. 23-24). What is more, the desolation and cessation of offering is not for all time (as the destruction of the Temple was by Titus, and as the cessation of offering was ended by Jesus' death), but "for half a week" as 9:27 states and for 2,300 half-days as 8:13-14 states (= the 3 1/2 times of 7:25 and the 1,290 days for the cessation of offering and the presence of the desolating abomination in 12:11), after which the sanctuary "has its rights restored" (8:14) and the cessation of sacrifice and offering comes to a finite end. Here again, the Christian messianic interpretation fails to respect the sense of the text.