I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.

//We continue our discussion from yesterday, and Daniel’s prediction of 490 years until the Messiah’s arrival.

Note the reference to Jeremiah in today’s verse. God told Jeremiah that Babylon would rule for 70 years (see Jeremiah 25:11-12), but Daniel asks again about the 70 years and is given a different answer. Does this mean Daniel’s 490-year prediction should also date from Jeremiah’s time? Yesterday, we assumed Daniel was counting the years from Xerxes’ command to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, but Jeremiah, too, predicted the rebuilding of Jerusalem:

I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them as they were before. –Jeremiah 33:7

So, did Daniel’s 490 years begin with Xerxes or Jeremiah? Let’s switch from Xerxes to Jeremiah and see where that takes us. Judah’s captivity began in the year 586 BC, and 70 years later in the year 516 BC, the temple was rebuilt as Jeremiah prophesied. But if we instead add 490 years to 586 BC, we reach the year 96 BC. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help us at all; nothing spectacular happened that year. No Messiah then.

Instead, we need to read Daniel’s prophecy a little closer. Skipping ahead to verse 9:25, we read:

“Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. –Daniel 9:25

Aha! So the 490 years begin from the date Jeremiah makes his prophecy, not from the date Jerusalem is conquered! In other words, we need to date today’s verse: Jeremiah 33:7. That will tell us when to begin counting.

Unfortunately, there is no way to know precisely when this was supposedly penned, because Jeremiah’s warnings are not in chronological order, but the majority of his writings center around the first deportation of the Jews under Nebechednezzer (597 BC). Some prophecies appear to be after this date (see chapters 23-25), and some before (see chapter 35). If we add Daniel’s 490 years to roughly this period, we come to about the year 107 BC.

Sigh. Another dead end. Nothing spectacular happened in 107 BC either. I’ll give you time to contemplate, and we’ll solve the puzzle tomorrow.

//Today’s topic stems from N. T. Wright’s new book, How God Became King. Daniel actually says “Seventy weeks” in his prophecy, but most people (such as the NIV translation quoted above) recognize this to mean seventy times seven (490) years. That’s how long it will take, according to Daniel, before the Messiah arrives and sets things right.

Today’s readers may recognize seven as a sort of special number, but it meant far more to Bible readers in Daniel’s day. The seventh day is the Sabbath. The seventh year is a sabbatical year. Every seven-times-seven years is declared a jubilee; slaves are freed, land sold off by the family is restored to its original owner, everything returns to the way it belongs.

Daniel’s promise sounds very much like a jubilee of jubilees! Wait four hundred ninety years, says Daniel, and God will set things right once and for all!

Now, let’s carry this topic a little further than Wright does. If we count 490 years from the date the Jews returned from exile and began rebuilding the temple according to the decree of Artaxerxes (457 BCE) we arrive at the year 33 CE … the year many believe Jesus died. Pretty amazing, huh?

We’ll look at this from another angle tomorrow, and see if it’s really as amazing as it appears.

//Today’s verses conclude Jesus’ parable about the nobleman who went away into a far county, and left silver pieces to ten slaves. One of them was unfaithful, and didn’t invest the money to earn more. From this unfaithful servant, the nobleman takes even the one silver piece that he has and gives it to another.

Then Jesus concludes the parable with this lesson: If you don’t want me to be king over you, then come here and die in front of me.

Harsh, eh? What is Jesus talking about? The answer lies just a few verses later, when we realize this parable has been a lead-in to Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem. As Jesus tops the Mount of Olives and looks down on Jerusalem, he weeps over what is to be their fate:

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace–but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” –verses 41-44.

This, of course, happened 40 years later in the war of 67-70 CE when the Romans overran Jerusalem. In Luke’s parable, Jesus is looking ahead to the destruction of Jerusalem and warning his listeners that if they cannot accept him as king, they will soon be slaughtered.

Shall we give[tribute to Caesar], or shall we not give? But [Jesus], knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it. And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar’s.

//One theme running through the New Testament is the contrast between the Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of Caesar. In today’s verse, Jesus is asked whether it is appropriate to pay taxes to Rome, and he requests a coin. Holding up the penny, Jesus asks two questions: Whose image is on the coin, and whose inscription?

All Jews knew full well the commandment to avoid graven images, yet they were carrying the image of Caesar around in their pockets. They also knew full well how the inscription on the coin declared Caesar to be the “son of god.” The criticism in Jesus’ lesson is unmistakable.

But then, Jesus throws them for a loop. Unexpectedly granting approval for the Jews to carry such coins, he tells them to render to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar and to God that which belongs to God.

The Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus seems to be saying, has nothing to do with the politics of this world, and is not at all in conflict with Roman occupation. Lift your eyes above your mundane dreams of political redemption from the Romans, and recognize the reign of God where it truly lives.

//Every Christian knows about the Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah chapter 53. This became an important theme for New Testament writers in describing a new kind of Messiah. Jesus, Christians insist, died as prophesied by Isaiah. As a suffering servant.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. … he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. … He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. –excerpts from Isaiah 53.

But you’re unlikely to find a Jew who interprets Isaiah chapter 53 the way Christians do. The suffering servant, they say, is a picture of Israel. Not of a man. Before Jesus arrived on the scene, not a single Jewish text interpreted the passage messianically. 

In my upcoming book about John’s Gospel, I rely heavily upon this image of a suffering Messiah. This is, I feel, true to the teachings of John. See John 12:35, where John quotes word-for-word the very verses in Isaiah leading up to the Suffering Servant passage, and concludes that “Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.”

So who’s right? Jews or Christians? The 53rd chapter of Isaiah is imbedded within a long discourse, as God pleads: “Listen to me, my people; hear me, my nation.” (Isaiah 51:4). “Listen to me, O Jacob, Israel, whom I have called.” (Isaiah 48:12). And, of course, today’s verse, which names the servant. It is Israel.

While by no means conclusive, the Jewish interpretation of their own scripture does seem most logical.

“I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?”

//Omni-everything is our God! Matthew 19:26 says all things are possible with God. Luke 1:37 promises nothing is impossible with God. In today’s verse, God himself makes the claim. Well, actually God poses a rhetorical question. He doesn’t actually say he can do anything.

Because it turns out one thing is too tough for even God to handle: Chariots of iron in battle.

//The Greek word aionios appears seventeen times in John’s Gospel, always translated in the King James Version to either “eternal” or “everlasting.” It’s a key theme to the Gospel. But what does it really mean?

What it doesn’t mean is life in heaven. It’s unfortunate that the word John uses over and over has been translated as it has, because the words “eternal” and “everlasting” don’t manage to convey the bliss intended. In actuality, the word speaks not of the quantity of life, but the quality. It means, specifically, “the life in the age to come.” Bible scholars typically retranslate “eternal life” as “life in abundance” or “fullness of life.”

This does not mean John denies an afterlife up in heaven, it just means his focus is elsewhere. John never mentions living up in heaven. His concern is that, by knowing God, we will share a richer life on earth.

With that in mind … we’ve just completed the editing stage on my book about John’s Gospel, and we’ll soon be looking for media willing to review! Anybody interested? http://thewayithappened.com/john.shtml

//You may be surprised to know that this verse in Revelation is the only reference in the scripture to The Lord’s Day. Most of us read the words without thinking any more about it, and conclude that John writes about seeing his vision on a Sunday.

But the earliest Jewish Christians continued to attend the synagogue on the Sabbath (Saturday). In time, they also began to hold their own gatherings on Sunday, with both Saturday and Sunday holy for a time–not an either/or proposition–but eventually Sunday replaced Saturday as the day of worship. We don’t know exactly when Christians began to recognize Sunday as the Lord’s Day. Maybe not until nearly 130 CE and then only in the cities of Rome and Alexandria, leaving us unsure how to interpret today’s verse.

Adding to the confusion is John’s awkward Greek, which sometimes makes translation difficult. Some scholars contest the traditional understanding of this verse, and assert that when John wrote “On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit,” he meant “I was caught up in a vision to the coming Day of the Lord.”

Nevertheless, it appears likely that this verse played a part in the eventual development of a special day belonging to Jesus. Scholars of Revelation recognize the intense competition in Asia Minor (where Revelation was directed) between Christianity and Roman Emperor worship; just as certain rulers claimed particular days as their own, so too did the Lord Jesus deserve his own day, right? My understanding of the verse is traditional. I think John encouraged setting aside a special day to commemorate Jesus.

//Here’s a question that baffled early Christians. At what point did Jesus become God’s son?

We all know the birth stories in Matthew and Luke, and their claim that God impregnated Mary and conceived a son. Surely that is the moment Jesus became the Son of God?

Another, probably earlier, tradition comes from the book of John. John mentions nothing at all about a virgin birth, and instead tells how Jesus was anointed as the Son of God at his baptism. (Technically, John doesn’t mention the baptism itself, but we may infer the event.) So could this be the day? Many early Christians accepted this “adoptionist” explanation and saw nothing heretical in it.

An even earlier tradition is found in Paul’s letter to the Romans. In today’s verse, Paul states his understanding that Jesus was born of the flesh (of the lineage of King David) and became the Son of God only after the resurrection! Surprisingly, the book of Acts, which was authored by the same person as the Gospel of Luke and its virgin birth story, appears to side with Paul! 

“God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second Psalm: ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’ And that He raised Him from the dead …” – Acts 13:32-33

Scholars generally consider this passage in Acts to be a primitive tradition that long predated the day it was copied by Luke. So we have three traditions that show a bit of a progression: