[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

RE: orion Captivity begins & ends

    [The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set]
    [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set]
    [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly]

Tom Simms writes

" I am curious how it is that Rabbi Akivah comes up with 
the date for
the beginning of the Exile/Cpativity so out of 
sinchronization
with the accurate dates."

In fact it was Rabbi Yossi a disciple of Rabbi Akivah in 
the great chronology of the Jews "Seder Olam Rabbah" who 
came up with those dates. This year numbered 5758 is a 
direct result of that chronology, so it wasn't a lightly 
taken chronology. We would all like to know how they came 
up with that chronology in which the Persian period is 
drastically foreshortened.  The point was not whether it 
was right or wrong but whether or not it was used and 
accepted at the time the DSS were written

Ever


Mike

Mike_Sanders@photoad.com (private e-mail)
BibleMysteries@photoad.com (web site e-mail)

http://www.BibleMysteries.com



-----Original Message-----
From:	Tom Simms [SMTP:tsimms@quartz.nbnet.nb.ca]
Sent:	Sunday, December 14, 1997 1:58 PM
To:	orion@panda.mscc.huji.ac.il
Subject:	orion Captivity begins & ends

I am curious how it is that Rabbi Akivah comes up with the 
date for
the beginning of the Exile/Cpativity so out of 
sinchronization
with the accurate dates.

The Exile began, Temple destroyed, 586 BCE and ended with 
Cyrus's
edict of return 538 BCE.  390 years later is 148 BCE.

(I haven't a plain copy translation of the DSS but I hope 
to have
one soon - I hear of friends getting the latest...so bear 
with me
if my reading the account is off the DSS versions.)

Now from Daniel I the following analysis (I'd appreciate 
learning
how closely the tranlstion I used follows the Qumran texts.
"
  The date of the complete work appears in the latter half 
of
the book, the visions.  The Seleucid King Antiochus IV 
Epiphanes
desecrated the temple in December, 167 B.C., as we see in 
Daniel
viii. 11Ä14.  Verse viii, 14 implies the writer has seen 
the
rededication of the sanctuary in December, 164 B.C.E.  The 
pas-
sage xi, 40Ä45 shows that the death of Antiochus IV 
Epiphanes was
in the future.  The Seleucid King died in April, 163 B.C.E. 
 We
can thereby date the visions almost to the month.  They are
clearly an immediate apocalyptic forecast.
  For further confirmation, consider the following:
  At the beginning of the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, 
a
conflict broke out between two members of the High Priest 
Levite
family.  The conflict resulted in High Priest Onias III 
going to
Egypt.  There he set up a new temple at Heliopolis 
northeast of
what is now Cairo.  This temple functioned until 70 C.E. 
when the
Romans destroyed it along with the one in Jerusalem.
  Jason, the other High Priest, paid large tribute to the 
King.
This way he stayed in charge until 172 B.C.E.  At that 
time,
factions of Jews objected to his closeness to the Greek 
king.  So
they sent him to exile in Sparta.  A lapsed Jew named 
Menelaus in
170 B.C.E. bought the High Priestly office.  To outraged 
Orthodox
Jews, the Temple sacrifice became an abomination.  In 168 
B.C.E.,
Jason returned from Sparta and deposed Menelaus.
  During this time, Antiochus was campaigning against 
Egypt.
Jason soon fell under the suspicions of the King who 
thought the
returned High Priest was conspiring against him.  The king 
then
came back from his conflict with Egypt, entered Jerusalem, 
and
slaughtered his opponents.  As punishment for this supposed
conspiracy, in 167 B.C.E. he dedicated the Temple to the 
Olympian
Zeus.  This blunder, as noted above, aroused the Jews to 
murder-
ous fury.  The fury restored the Temple in 164 B.C.E.
  Few readers noted that two thousand, three hundred days 
had
passed since Menelaus unlawfully took the position of High 
Priest
in 170 B.C.E. to the restoration of the sanctuary in 164 
B.C.E.
Therefore <<the prophecy of days was exactly that, one of 
days
and not days of weeks or of years>>.  The cleansing of the 
Temple
took place in December, 164 B.C.E.!
  This same historical data explains the forecast of Weeks 
at
the end of the book of Daniel ix, 24Ä27.  Today we do not 
com-
monly understand much about those days before Jesus.  Then 
there
was a priestly or Aaronic Messiah (Anointed One) and a 
princely
or Davidic Messiah.  The High Priest Jason was legitimate 
in the
eyes of many Jews.  So the words "shall Messiah be cut off"
relate directly to the Greek King personally returning and 
dedi-
cating the Temple to Zeus.  He sacrificed swine on the 
altar!
The historical intervals of these episodes compare directly 
to
the Prophecy of Weeks.  <<The Weeks were of days and of 
nothing
else!>>
  In like manner we deal with the forecasts of days given 
at the
end of the Book of Daniel (xii, 11Ä12).  The numbers are "a
thousand two hundred and ninety days" or "the thousand 
three
hundred and five and thirty days".  They relate to the time 
to
the restoration of the sanctuary from either the beginning 
or the
end of Jason's second time as High Priest.  <<The days of 
the
forecast are days, only days and nothing else!>>
  The composers of the book did not have full archives of 
jour-
nals.  They did not have other records easy at hand.  They 
did
not have the easy comparisons to datings we enjoy.  If the
figures in this explanation do not precisely add up, they 
are
well in the ballpark.  A reading of the Apocryphal book I 
Mac-
cabees will show the frame of this argument is right. 
 Teasing
exactness out of the account is likely beyond us.  The 
minor
discrepancies add to the certainty scribes composed the 
book of
Daniel well after the fact.  <<Once again, the simplest 
explan-
ation is the best!>>
"
Thank you for your patience.

Tom Simms