Expect Something New:
Messianic Predictions and Advent in 1st C Judea
Messianic Predictions and Advent in First-Century
Judea:
A Preterist Reading of Daniel 9 Chronologies[1]
[Appendix V in Olds, Douglas. Architectures of Grace in Pastoral Care: Virtue as the Craft of Theology beyond Strategic and Authoritative Biblicism (2023) https://t.ly/PvMl]
Jesus appeared during a time of marked messianic expectation in first-century
Judea, but he was an unprecedented messiah in terms of cultural expectations.
He identified himself as Son of Man and validated his message not by military
revolt, but he authenticated his leadership by his teachings and displays of
healing.
The Jewish/Roman historian Josephus noted at least twelve
failed revolts of religious purifiers and/or military aspirants during the
period from the death of Herod in 4 BCE to the fall of the Temple in 70 AD.[2]
Jesus was the “expect something new” anointed prince, a healing
messiah (Matt 13:15), a messiah who announced release to captives (Luke 4:18)
and healing and sustenance for the oppressed and poor. This “new expectation”
was bound up in his promotion of himself as “Son of Man” and a hint from the earliest
part of the earliest Gospel, Mark, that his identity as Israel’s Messiah was
something he initially downplayed in favor of his identity as Son of Man. As he
moved toward his Crucifixion, he identified himself as the anointed (Mark 9:41)
and the “sent one” (of God) (Mark 9:37; cf. Gal 4:4).
The messianic innovation is Jesus’ bringing the announcement of the metaphysics of grace and shalom's peace to the world
like a mustard seed (Matt 13:31–32) one virtuous and
faithful human agent at a time. His messianism was not a grand exercise of
consequentialist strategy that moved assembled forces to overthrow the Roman
occupiers of Judea. Rome would fall, but first Jerusalem. The corrupt Temple
establishment needed address—the baleful strategic uses of the religion of
peace that made common cause with the occupier’s agon. How tragic that
many ethnic Judeans rejected Israel’s messiah because they did not see their
grand stratagem on the world stage come forth from a peaceful source intended
to radiate peace. Violence and agon could not bring forth a messianic
age of shalom. The “realists” were—and continue to be—disappointed at
this Gospel messiah.
An early (the earliest?) creedal statement in the
New Testament of the advent of the Messiah was by Paul in Gal 4:4. The
Christ (Greek for “anointed” that translates the Hebrew word for
anointed, מָשִׁ֣יחַ Messiah) came in the “fullness of time.” The
Roman historians Tacitus[3]
and Josephus each noted that Judeans expected a divinely ordained deliverer
around that time. The beginnings of Luke’s and Matthew’s Gospels likewise
concerned chronology in awaiting and identifying the one who became the church’s
Christ. Based on these early Christian and non-Christian witnesses, we note
that chronology played a key role in the expectation and identification of
messianic arrival.
Many Christians of the early church
had noted that the Son of Man was prophesied by Daniel 7:13–14, and in chapter
9 of Daniel a chronology counts down the time remaining for Daniel’s people to
make changes to their religious observance:
[EXT]Dan 9:24 [punctuation not in Hebrew text,
so I have repunctuated] Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your
holy city: to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for
iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and
prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.
25 Know therefore and understand: from the time that the
word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an anointed
prince[,] there shall be seven weeks[;] and [“for” not in Hebrew]
sixty-two weeks[.] [I]t shall be built again with streets and moat, but in a
troubled time. 26 After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut
off and shall have nothing, and the troops of the prince who is to come shall
destroy the city and the sanctuary (Dan 9:24–26, NRSV with emendations by
author).[/EXT]
The book of Ezra 7:8 notes that during the seventh year of
Artaxerxes, the Persian Emperor proposed an edict (Ezra 7:21–25) to rebuild
Jerusalem, consistent with what is indicated by Dan 9:25.[4]
Applying information derived from the Greek historian Herodotus
and others, modern historians date the seventh year of Artaxerxes
to 458 BCE.[5]
Returning to Daniel 9:24 (where contemporaries saw weeks/heptads as years), we
note that seven weeks of years (a period of Jubilee where debts are forgiven in
the 50th year; Leviticus 25) added to 62 weeks (of years) make 483 years in
total (69 times 7) from 458 BCE. The NRSV text quoted above punctuates the
Hebrew idiosyncratically. Removing the English text’s punctuation allows for
the 7 and 62 heptads to be read sequentially, with the division of these two
sets of heptads situating atonement in the Jubilee supercycle of debt
forgiveness and grace. From this sequence, we note that the anointed is
prophesied to be “cut off” (or “separated”) in or about 25 or 26 CE.
Yet the prophecy for Daniel’s people delivered to him by the
angel concerned an additional 70th week/heptad, which provides
a termination of prophecy in 33 CE. According to the Crucifixion chronology in
the Gospel of John, the Preparation for Passover fell on a Friday during this
time frame in both 30 CE and 33 CE.[6]
Seven years from 26 CE. supports the latter date for the termination of the
prophecy—either at the Crucifixion or perhaps in the Apostle Paul’s call to the
Gentile mission if the earlier date is accepted.[7]
This historical chronology supports the following five proposals
for follow-up examination:[BL 1–5]
1. A meaningful part of
Judea is expecting a Danielic “anointed prince” around this historical moment.
That the books of Ezra and Nehemiah contain at least three decrees
from Persian emperors to rebuild, it is likely that messianic expectations
could have timed an earlier messianic appearance based on earlier decrees of Cyrus
(2 Chr 36:22–23 and Ezra 1), or a later decree
attested from the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes (Neh 2:1).
2. The decree from
Ezra 7 as prayed over in Ezra 9 seems identifiable as the germane edict because
it is the first imperial decree to explicitly apply to the rebuilding of
Jerusalem as a metropolitan administrative center. Earlier imperial decrees
after the exile focused on rebuilding the Temple alone.
3. A period of
“cutting off/separation” (כָּרֵ֥תיִ kārētyi in Dan 9:26) involved the
final, 70th heptad of years. The Hebrew word can be read in a
variety of ways, including in the messianic text 2 Sam 7:9 and as a
synonym קָטָ֑ף (qāṭāp) in Ezek 17:4, where the cedar-bound
king is broken off as a branch by the Babylonian Eagle (which king is
consistent with Jehoiachin—aka Jeconiah—who was taken into exile in
Babylon [Jer 24:1; 2 Chr 36:10] for whom we have attestations on
Babylonian tablets).[8]
Dan 9:26 does not necessarily imply that the anointed would be killed after 69
heptads, just separated, perhaps in a season of liminal challenge, social
isolation, and/or “desert withdrawal” in preparation for ministry at its end.
If this period of privation suggests recapitulating God’s aboriginal act as
an ex nihilo exercise, “cutting off” seems consistent
with Jeremiah’s prophesied new (social and cosmic) creation—again, an ex
nihilo phenomenon where the convenantor/creator demonstrates no access
to resources save the logos/Word. Recognizing the radical and/or
vicarious messianic privation יִכָּרֵ֥ת מָשִׁ֖יחַ וְאֵ֣ין ל֑וֹ (yikkārēt
māšîaḥ wəʾên lô) allows for the recovery of a creative hermeneutical and
missiological scheme such as we find in Jesus’ use of the Old Testament for his
ministry and intended audience.
4. Jesus uses the term “seventy
times seven” as the number of times a co-religionist may expect to be forgiven
in Matt 18:22. The Greek ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά (hebdomēkontakis hepta)
supports the better translation “70 times 7” rather than the alternate
“Seventy-seven times” (the suffix of ἑβδομηκοντάκις implies multiplication
rather than a cardinal number). This magnitude suggests that Jesus perceives a
limit to the number of yearly yom kippur atonement cycles left for a
people contained in the prophecy of Dan 9:24 and consistent with a 490-year
period of repentance and the 70x7 Super-Jubilee ordained therein.
5. Unlike the exegesis of Darbyite “dispensationalists” who
parochially insert an extended hiatus (“parenthesis”) between the 69th and
70th heptad,[9]
my exegesis reflects the continuity of the angel’s announced seventy heptad
period of repentance for Daniel’s people. However, the prophecy seems to allow
for a hiatus before a one heptad-encompassing one-half heptad period for the
“people of the coming prince” and its abomination(s).[10]
This interpretation of chronology and its linguistic supports
the recognition of the renewed creation—a messianically mediated covenant
proceeding from the “breaking off” that concludes Ezekiel 17, where God Godself
will קָטָ֑ף (qāṭāp) a youthful, noble branch from the highest
cedar, standing for the central institution of the Temple people. An “inner biblical
exegesis” of קָטָ֑ף (Ezek 17:22) as a synonym and referent for the Daniel 9:26
action of כָּרֵ֥ת (kārēt) suggests how the Son of Man saw his function as a radically
separated historical and (new or reformed) hermeneutical moment executed
by the anointed:
[EXT] After the sixty-two weeks, an
anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing, and the troops of the
prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall
come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed.
27 He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of
the week he shall make sacrifice and offering cease; and in their place shall
be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed end is poured out upon the
desolator (Dan 9:26–27, NRSV).[/EXT]. [/BL 1–5]
My interpretation is that the “heptad and the half a heptad” of
the “people of a coming prince” (עַ֣ם נָגִ֤יד הַבָּא֙ ʿam nāgîd habbāʾ)
cannot be part of the 70 weeks chronology. The seventy heptads are already
accounted for in my exegesis, and a heptad and half-a-heptad add on time frame
does not fit. Josephus identified the “coming prince” as the Roman emperor
Vespasian (or his son, Titus). Josephus may be reading Vespasian’s career[11]
to fulfill Dan 9:27, that “he [or it: the troops] shall make sacrifice and
offering cease; and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates,
until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator [or ‘desolate’].”[12]
This exegesis is consistent with identifying a healing messiah
and the “something new” divine role outlined by the allegory in Ezekiel 17.
Jesus symbolically linking in the parables his Kingdom with a new institution
of the cedars is consistent with the conclusion of Ezek 17:22–23—the divine
establishment of a new messianic role outside the physical temple
establishment:
[EXT] 22 Thus says the Lord GOD:
I myself will take a
sprig
from the lofty top of a
cedar;
I will set it out.
I will break off a tender
one
from the topmost of its
young twigs;
I myself will plant it
on a high and lofty
mountain.
23 On the mountain height
of Israel
I will plant it,
in order that it may
produce boughs and bear fruit,
and become a noble cedar.
Under it every kind of
bird will live;
in the shade of its
branches will nest
winged creatures of every
kind (Ezek 17:22–23, NRSV). [/EXT]
Matthew quotes Jesus as identifying his Kingdom with similar
though seemingly evolving or developing ecological images in Matt 13:31
(Cf. John 15:1ff).
If the proposals of this appendix have merit, they expose the
faulty hermeneutics of “dispensational premillennialism” and its resulting
tragic ethics. Because dispensationalism postpones the applicability of the
Sermon on the Mount to a future “third-temple millennium” its leaders are
complicit in syncretism with violent agon (and Christian totemism). I stand with my Presbyterian Church
(USA) denomination that finds dispensational premillennialism subversive if not
heretical.[13]
It is a significant problem for those religious denominations which propose
vicious readings of the Bible to base their claims in “biblical inerrancy” and
“plain readings of Scripture” while deferring to an explosively and
antagonistically idiosyncratic, pessimistic Darbyite hermeneutic that denies
the timelessness of the Sermon on the Mount. This hermeneutic ironically allows
poorly trained charlatans to convince their followers of a claimed “plain” but
nonsensical view of God’s salvation history detailed in Scripture. Darbyite
dispensationalism is not a “plain reading” of Scripture but instead twists it
(2 Pet 3:16) with the ignorant acquiescence of those in the pews who propose to
live inside an unfettered grace that demands no justice, few peaceful ethics,
no virtue—no Sermon on the Mount. Paraphrasing Voltaire: those who can convince
you of Darbyite nonsense can make you perform atrocities. Tragically, Christian
forms have been recently and increasingly cemented to this project, continuing
Christianity’s historical episodes of cooptation by—and syncretism with—toxic
cultures and stupefying imperatives of political agon.
The end of this world is catastrophic for those who envision
something other than the grace of God suffusing all who have chosen to humbly participate
and embody it. Catastrophe for those who
have accorded their assurance in terms of exalting themselves and denying the
eternal call of the Sermon on the Mount. For those who reject other-directed grace (the Golden Rule) as the metaphysical absolute of will, the omega point will come like a thief in
the night.
For the blessed, there is no omega point. There may be a
transition, but the seas will calm. Darkness will ebb its last to become
ceaseless dawn’s palette and harmonies. The will of grace is becoming all-in-all.
There is no hiatus: we are all under Christ’s millennial reign.
[1] This appendix substantially reproduces a 2014 essay by Olds, “Expect Something
New.” https://web.archive.org/web/20220106172246/https://douglasolds.blogspot.com/2014/12/expect-something-new-messianic.html
[2]
[3] Reported
by Hengstenberg, Christology, II. 274. Hengstenberg, E. W. Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1858. https://Bit.Ly/3plR3mH.
The Roman
historian Suetonius in Divus Vespasianus 4 accords with Tacitus Hist.
V. xiii. 3.
—Thomson, Divus
Vespasianus, 4 n. 3. Thomson, Alexander, ed. C. Suetonius Tranquillus: Divus Vespasianus. Perseus Digital Library. https://bit.ly/3kh89TB.
[4] The contents of
this decree to rebuild a municipal center with (non-metaphorical) walls beyond
temple repair (specifically in 7:25) may be consistent with Ezra's (later?)
prayer:
[EXT] Though we are slaves,
our God has not forsaken us in our bondage. He has shown us kindness in the
sight of the kings of Persia: He has granted us new life to rebuild the house
of our God and repair its ruins and he has given us a wall of protection in
Judah and Jerusalem (Ezra 9:9, NRSV). [/EXT]
I do not argue that Ezra 9:9 is
harmonized with Dan 9:25. The word to rebuild the municipal structure of
Jerusalem is not Ezra's but contained in Artaxerxes' decree.
[5] See
dating of Artaxerxes’ reign in Klein, “Artaxerxes,” I.275.
See also
[6] Downs,
“Chronology of the NT,” I.260 (sec. A.3).
[7] Schnelle, Apostle Paul, 56. Schnelle, Udo. Apostle Paul: His Life and Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005.
The division
inside the last week between Jesus’ crucifixion and the Gentile mission is
implied by Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Daniel. Translated with an introduction and notes by Robert C. Hill. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006, 255–57.
[8] See
Kim, “Jehoiachin,” III: 207.
[9] Richard S. “The Seventy Sevens of Daniel 9: A Timetable for the Future?” Bulletin for Biblical Research 21 (2011) 315–30. Vlach, Michael J. “Dispensational Theology.” The Gospel Coalition, n.d. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/dispensational-theology/.Hess
[11] The terminus
ad quem of the 70 week chronology proposed by Tertullian in Adv.
Jud. 8 also aligns it with Vespasian's career.
[12] A preterist reading of this heptad period encompasses
half-a-heptad as when Vespasian’s son Titus—a newly named Caesarian prince—set
up and sacrificed to Roman standards (the “abominable” idols of Imperial Rome)
in the temple precincts around 70 AD:
[EXT] AND now the Romans, upon the flight
of the seditious into the city, and upon the burning of the holy house itself,
and of all the buildings round about it, brought their ensigns to the temple
and set them over against its eastern gate; and there did they offer sacrifices
to them, and there did they make Titus imperator. [/EXT]
—Flavius
Josephus, The Wars of the Jews 6.6.1.
This event
comes in or near the middle (half a heptad when temple sacrifices were
disrupted) of the 66 to 73 (or 74) CE period of Judean rebellion (“the First
Jewish Revolt”) that captured and possessed, then lost, the Roman garrison at
Masada (a heptad).
See the dating
in Shirokov and Lizorkin-Eyzenberg, “Jewish Revolts.”
[13] A precursor of the Presbyterian Church (USA), “the General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States stated that
dispensationalism is ‘evil and subversive’ (A Digest of the Acts and
Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United
States 1861–1965 [Atlanta: Office of the General Assembly, 1966], 50; see also
45–49).”
—Cited in Walvoord,
“Reflections on Dispensationalism,” n. 3.
