Oh and the word 'times' (iddan) used in Daniel - compare the use of the word in Dan. 2:8, 9, 21; 3:5, 15. It doesn't necessarily denote 'year(s).'
Seven Times Do Not Equal 2,520 Days
by DT 29 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Dutch-scientist
its the same for this year where we have 29 February. 1 day more than 2011. if i count the days of the year 2011 and then asume 2012 has the same amount i will have a problem.
how many days has 3.5 years? its 1277.5 days or 1278 days or 1278.5 days. It depends where the leap year day is been located.
Double the time frame you must have at least one leap year day and maximum two!
DS
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hotspur
3.5, 4.5, 5.5, or 6.5 ~~~ apples.
What you can't say, definitively, is apples = 2 apples. It's an undefined plurality of apples!
Anyway, who wants a half-eaten apple?
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OnTheWayOut
I often wonder what the writer of Revelation was smoking or snorting. Lars, too.
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wha happened?
I remeber one brother pointing out with some document that he found that the word in hebrew used for the word "times", could only mean two. It's been years but I forgot what the basis was for that comment
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Leolaia
I think it should be pointed out that the Jews had two different calendars, the lunisolar one that continues in use today and the sabbatical schematic calendar that was used in Essenism and possibly earlier Zadokite Judaism (this is a matter of debate in scholarship), particularly in the P source in the Pentateuch (where it is especially conspicuous in the Flood narrative). This calendar was derived from the Mesopotamian schematic calendar which had regular 30-day months, amounting to 360 days in a year; it was based in a sidereal reckoning (as opposed to lunisolar or lunar) that divided the zodiac into 360 degrees. There was no intercalation, so the Mesopotamian schematic calendar had shorter years than the lunisolar calendar (which was also adopted by the Jews). The Egyptian civil calendar was similar to the Mesopotamian schematic calendar, except it had a block of five epagomenal days at the end of the year (a time of holiday), which brought the length of the year to 365 days, even though the year consisted of twelve 30-day months.
The Jewish schematic calendar was likely influenced by the Egyptian civil calendar, from whom they borrowed the ideal of inserting epagomenal days into the calendar (OTOH there is evidence of a 364-day sidereal year in later Mesopotamia). But it departed from the Egyptian calendar by recognizing only four epagemondal days, each placed at the juncture of the seasons (corresponding to the two equinoxes and two solstices). There was a reason why only four days were recognized: it would make the calendar sabbatical because 364 is evenly divisible by 7, thereby preventing any conflicts between the sabbath and scheduled festivals. There were two ways of reckoning the epagomenal days. The older method (attested in the Book of Luminaries of 1 Enoch) inserted these extra days in between the seasons as special memorial days heralding the seasons; they were thus not counted among the months of the year, which would be reckoned as containing 360 monthly days. The later method simply lumped the epagomenal days at the end of the preceeding months (attested in Jubilees and in a later stratum of the Book of Luminaries, as well as in the extensive calendarical materials in the Dead Sea Scrolls), such that each season would consist of two 30-day months and one 31-day month. It is also a matter of controversy of whether the 364-day year was intercalated to prevent the seasons from wandering; my personal opinion is that it was not intercalated, since there is a significant theme in Essene sources about the seasons being late in the end times.
The book of Daniel clearly evidences a schematic reckoning. It has "thirty days" as a set regular period (6:8, 13), and the durations of 1,290 and 1,335 days (12:11-12), associated with the "time, two times and half a time" and "half week" of 12:7 and 9:27, understand 3 1/2 years as containing 1,260 days (a span of 42 months, as noted in Revelation 11:2, 13:5) + another 30-day month (to complete 1,290 days) + another 30-day month + 15-day half month (to complete 1,335 days). This confirms that the book follows a schematic calendar with regular 30-day months contra the lunisolar and later Jubilees reckonings (the latter having four 31-day months). The only calendrical date given in Daniel is "the twenty-fourth day of the first month" (I/24) in 10:4, which falls on a Friday in the Jewish schematic calendar. This is the day an angel appeared to interpret Daniel's vision of the eschatological war and the resurrection of the dead, and Daniel had fasted for three weeks after receiving the vision, so the text implies that he received the vision on I/3. This was the day of man's creation in the schematic calendar, which was a most appropriate day for a vision foreseeing the resurrection of the dead (in 12:1-3 the dead are brought to life from the "dust of the earth," a phrase that recalls the creation of Adam in Genesis). Another interesting fact about the I/24 date is that it is 3 1/2 weeks from the spring equinox starting the year (between XII/30 and I/1), which is reminiscent of the Hebrew author's interest in periods of 3 1/2 times and periods of "weeks" (as in ch. 9). The counting of weeks from the equinox to I/24 is also meaningful since the second week ends with Passover, the third week starts with the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the third week ends with the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This is also an important date for a third reason. In the schematic calendar, I/24 immediately precedes the sabbath (I/25), which intervenes between the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the counting of weeks to the Festival of Weeks (Shavu'ot), which are counted from the waving of the Omer on I/26 to the festival on III/15. So the angel's interpretation of the vision occurs at a pivotal time, if reckoned according to the schematic calendar. The weeks spanning between the spring equinox and III/15 also potentially explain the durations of 1,290 and 1,335 days mentioned at the end of the vision. These exceed the period of 3 1/2 years by 30 days and 30+30+15 days respectively, and since the 3 1/2 years correspond to the final half-week in ch. 9, there are historical reasons to start this duration around the time of the fall equinox (Antiochus Epiphanes' second Egyptian campaign came to an end on July 30, Apollonius likely razed Jerusalem afterwards sometime in September, and the abomination of desolation was installed in December). The duration of 3 1/2 years would then end at the spring equinox, the addition of 30 days brings one to II/1 (the date of the census of Israel in Numbers 1:1), and the 30+30+15 days brings one to III/15, the date of Shavu'ot. The completion of the 1,290 and 1,335 days are implicitly associated with the resurrection in 12:2-4, 6, 12-13; on this interpretation, renewed Israel would be reassembled and counted on II/1 and then the covenent renewed on III/15. For more on the structure of the schematic calendar, see David Jackon's Enochic Judaism (T&T Clark, 2003) and on the use of the calendar in Daniel, see Gabriele Boccaccini's article in Vol. 2 of The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception (Brill, 2001).
So if the foregoing applies, then the 3 1/2 "times" in Daniel (= 1,260 days, = 42 months) would have included at least 14 additional epagomenal days, not counted in the months of the year but intervening as markers of the seasons. As expressed in the Book of Luminaries:
"The sun comes in through a door and rises for thirty days together with the captains of a thousand of the orders of the stars, together with the four which are added to determine the intervals between the four parts of the year ... Truly, they are recorded forever: one in the first gate, one in the third, one in the fourth, and one in the sixth. The year is completed in three hundred and sixty-four days... The four captains which distinguish the four seasons of the year enter first; after them enter the twelve captains of the orders which distinguish the months; and three hundred and sixty captains which divide the days, and finally enter the four epagomenal days, the captains which divide between the four seasons of the year.....The leaders of the captains of the thousands who are over all the creation and over all the stars have to do with those four days that are added; they are not separated from their position according to the calculation of the year, and they serve on the four days that are not reckoned in the calculation of the year [i.e. the year is reckoned as 360 days even though there are an additional four days]" (1 Enoch 75:1, 82:4-11).
A duration twice (= 2,520 days) that would have included at least 28 days, or approximately a month. None of these days, in the schematic reckoning, are "reckoned in the calculation of the year" in the older system, although by the middle of the second century BC they came to be included in the months, as found in Jubilees and at Qumran.
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Larsinger58
Tanks L for those details.
My only comment in haste is that whatever schematic calendars were invented, they were only invented to respond to what is observed "naturally". For instance, some might think it was up to the Jews to intercalate the 13th month. But that occurs "naturally"! That is, every 3 to 2 years, the Spring equinox will fall in either the 12th or the 13th month. So over 19 years, the lunar cycle intercalates itself! It's a natural phenomenon. In practice, the Babylonians tended to simply begin the new year on the fist day of the new moon following the Spring equinox. That simple observation would automatically intercalate the years. That is, if you simply waited for the first new moon after the Spring equinox, then the lunar months would automatically intercalate themselves. That is, about every 3 years the Spring equinox would fall in month 13 rather than month 12.
Every 19 years things even out though. That is, 19 years of 12 lunar months plus 7 extra interacalary months equal very close to the same amount of time. Thus the 19-year cycle is the basis of the Metonic luni-solar calendar.
LS
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Larsinger58
A "time" practically means the same in Hebrew as in English. That is, the concept of a "time" is simply that. A reference to a period or point of time. It is not specific. Thus the context determines the specific usage. A "time" can be a specific point of time, it can be a day, it can be a year. It's very flexible like the term "day." The context determines the reference.
LS
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Leolaia
There was no intercalary 13th month in the schematic calendar. That's a feature of the lunisolar calendar. Nor was the calendar invented to respond to what was observed 'naturally'. It eschewed ad hoc observation of luminaries, but it was synchronized to the lunisolar calendar in a triennial cycle, with the lunisolar year gaining an additional (intercalary) month every three years (i.e. 3 x 364 = 1,092; 3 x 354 + 30 = 1,092). That's another reason why I now doubt that the schematic calendar was intercalated to make up the difference between 364 and 365 1/4 days; such an adjustment would upset this synchronization technique. One could imagine that an intercalary month was inserted when the calendar deviated from the actual timing of the year quarters by 30 days, but this would have ruined the septenary function of the calendar since 30 is not evenly divisible by 7.
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Alfred
I don't see John Aquila Brown (author of "The Even Tide") mentioned in this thread... wasn't he the Biblical speculator that came up with this bizarre calculation in the 1820's?