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5. In the rabbinical view, the second temple was destroyed in 70 AD, in the year after a Sabbatical (Dan.9:26), 490 years after the first temple was destroyed allegedly in 421 BC. This era ended and was allegedly absorbed or succeeded by the Christian era. 6. In the rabbinical view, the Bar Kochba revolt was in 132 AD against the Roman occupiers (69 AD + 63 = 132) (34 AD + 98 = 132). The revolt ended in 135, when Simeon Bar Kochba was killed. This view required that Cyrus made his decree in 372 BC instead of 538. 7. The Millerites in 1843 thought that Daniel 9 is speaking of future 70 weeks, or 490 years, from the time Artaxerxes Longimanus allegedly made a commandment in 457 BC for Ezra to return from Babylon to Jerusalem. They calculated that the 2300 mornings and evenings (or years) mentioned in Daniel 8:14 would end in 1843 AD. Ellen G. White, who founded the Seventh Day Adventist Church was influenced by this view. Her parents were at the Miller farm in 1843, when “the Return” became “the Great Disappointment”. 8. Some have calculated that the Messiah would return in 1982, because this was 2520 years (360 Sabbaticals) after the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. 1972 was 2510 (251 x 10) years after 539. 9. Some have calculated that the Messiah would come
in 2008 AD, 6,000 years after Creation in about 3993 BC (for this date of
Creation, see TABLE 6 here: CODE 166). Every Generation Commanded to Expect the Return The faithful
of every generation are commanded to expect Christ’s return during their
lifetime so they would fear God and keep his commandments. False prophets
take advantage of the situation by fraudulently claiming special gifts in
interpreting the signs of the times. They tell others not to buy homes or
save for the next generation, because time is short, probably less than two
years. They want the money. Sir Richard Cox was Chancellor of Oxford and
Chaplain for Queen Elizabeth I. He translated the four gospels and Acts into
English in about 1580 while fleeing to Germany. He also thought he knew who
the beast, the false prophet, “the whore” and the two witnesses were during
his time. It seems that the Bible is written in such a way that every
generation would expect the time of the end. So every generation has had those with compelling
beliefs about the return being in just two or three years. Believers are
“marked in their foreheads” perhaps something like a secret code. They are
like harmless lambs to the slaughter. Some are hot, some cold, some are
lukewarm, like the seven churches in Revelation 3. Past failures
in calculating the end implies that the Bible is written in such a way that
Christians of each and every generation would expect the second coming, and
the Jews would expect the first coming during their time. In this way, each
generation would prepare for the end. No man, not
even the angels, knew in the first century when Christ would return. Only the
Father knew. This might mean that Christ and the angels have needed to be
ready for the return during every generation since only the Father has known
when (Mat. 24:36). We can rest
assured that interventions come at the right time. Israel left Egypt after
430 years, on the very same day. Babylon fell after 70 years, on the night of
a feast day. The temple was burned twice; both time were in a post sabbatical
year, in the same month, the same week, with the same priest (24 weeks in a
priestly cycle), and on the same day, Sunday. In 539 BC, when Cyrus captured Babylon,
nobody expected an invisible army to appear with Cyrus, to part the Euphrates
River, to enter the water gate and write on the wall during the night of
feasting with the vessels taken from Solomon’s temple to Babylon. In 70 AD,
when Rome captured Jerusalem, nobody expected an invisible army to appear
with Titus. Josephus said a massive bronze gate on the eastern wall, which
took 20 men to close, opened “of its own accord” giving access to the most
holy throne room of the temple (Matt. 25:31) to begin cleansing its threshing
floor, to separate the wheat and burn the chaff as predicted by John the
Baptist. The Levite priest, Josephus, at the age of 33, probably sat on a
white horse in the valley of Jehoshaphat witnessing the event and received
from the Romans the books stored in the temple. |
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