Back in 1978, I was asked to teach a seminar on Daniel & Revelation. While doing so, the thought crossed my mind, “What if the 1290 and 1335 days of Daniel 12:11-12 are not the first or last half of the great tribulation, and what if Dan 9:27 isn’t about a seven-year tribulation.”
While in Bible college (class of ‘54), I’d studied all the usual explanations about the 69 weeks of Daniel 9:24-26 (from the decree of Artaxerxes I to the cross), but the way most theologians explained them, you had to fudge the numbers to make them fit recorded history. Then I remembered from the book of Jubilees found at Qumran, that for religious reasons, Old Testament Jews used a somewhat complicated 19 year calender, each year of which had only 360 days. Since Daniel was an Old Testament book, it occurred to me that the Lord may have used a calendar with which Daniel was familiar for the 69 weeks, a year of 360 days, so I tried it.
Bingo, it was exactly 483 Hebrew (476 solar) years from the decree of Artaxerxes 1 (444BC-445BC) to the cross! (32-34AD).
So we could now prove those 69 weeks were not weeks of days, but weeks of years. Then I remembered that the prophet Ezekiel (who lived at the same time as Daniel) had already written that prophetic days should be understood as years . . .
Ezekiel 4:5-6 “For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year. “
Maybe prophetic days elsewhere in Scripture should also be understood as years. I then asked myself, “If the 69 weeks aren’t literal 24 hour days, maybe the 1290 and 1335 days of Dan 12:11-12 aren’t literal days either. We don’t have the authority to arbitrarily decide that days in Dan 12 are literal do we, particularly if they aren’t literal in Dan 9. Hadn’t God had just proven a day for a year in Dan 9:27? I looked at Dan 12:11 again with that idea in mind:
Daniel 12:11 "And from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days.”
Years possibly, but to which abolition of temple sacrifices might God be referring? I just had to try for a fit.
Historically, sacrifices were abolished four times. Once before Daniel, once during Daniel’s lifetime, then in 168 B.C. by Antiochus epiphanies, and in 70 A.D. when Titus the Roman sacked Jerusalem. Since sacrifices were indeed abolished during Daniel’s time, wasn’t it reasonable to conclude that the Lord was telling Daniel about an abolition of sacrifices he knew all about, an event to which Daniel could relate?
The temple was destroyed in 586 B.C. + 1290 Hebrew (1271.5 solar) years = 685.5 A.D.. That’s when the Muslim Califah Abd el Malik Ibn Marwan started clearing the temple mount. But the construction of the Islamic Dome of the Rock didn’t begin for another three years, so I thought there ought to be a better fit.
I went back to Scripture. In Jeremiah 41:5 we find that temple sacrifices continued AFTER the temple was burned, so when were they abolished? In Jeremiah 52:30 we find that Nebuzaradan, Captain of Nebuchadnezzar’s guard, took the final captivity back to Babylon three years AFTER the temple was destroyed, in the 23rd year of Nebuchadnezzar, 583 B.C..
Bingo! 583 B.C. + 1290 Hebrew (1271.5 solar) years = 688.5 A.D., and that, my friends, is the exact year when the Muslims started to build a memorial to Muhammad, The Dome of the Rock, on the temple mount of God Most Holy.
And what did the Bible call it? “The Abomination that maketh desolate!”
