Restoring the Original Bible
The Need for a New Testament
There can be no proper understanding of the New Testament canon (its development, formation and design) unless one factor is kept plainly in mind. The apostles never thought that a New Testament was necessary to present to people of future until they finally realized that Christ was not returning to earth in their generation. Indeed, there is not the slightest hint in the Book of Acts (which closed its account in early 61 C.E.) that any of the books written by the apostles in the first thirty years of Christianity was destined to be placed into a canon of scripture. Why formulate a New Testament for posterity when Christ was expected to be on earth in a few short years? Such action would have seemed thoroughly unnecessary and irrelevant.
However, when the apostles finally realized that Christ was not returning in the 1st century, it then became their major task to select and to write several books which could secure the truths of Christianity until Christ would actually return. They had the example of Ezra the priest who in the 5th century before Christ canonized the twenty-two books of the Old Testament as a divine body of sacred writings for the Jewish people.
Actually, the close of the Book of Acts marks an important point in the history of the New Testament canon. During the historical period covered by that book the apostles were expecting Christ’s second advent, and the closer they got to 61 C.E. the more intense was their anticipation. As a matter of fact, when the Book of Hebrews was written in the early part of 61 C.E., the expectancy was at its apex. 1 In Hebrews 10:37 the Greek actually indicates that Christ’s advent would occur in “a very little while” (Hebrews 10:37). But the epistles written two or three years after 61 C.E. make a sudden shift of emphasis. From then on, Paul abandons the theme of Christ’s imminent advent and concentrates on matters which show a long period of time awaiting the Christian community before Christ’s advent would occur. The year 62/63 C.E. seems to have been the year of decision for the apostles (at least for the apostle Paul) in finally deciding that Christ would not return in the 1st century. This change of opinion may have come with the martyrdom of James during the Passover of 62 C.E.
James, the leader of the Jerusalem Christians, was thrown over the precipitous east wall of the Temple into the Kidron valley. The fall itself failed to kill him and he was finally stoned to death. Just before his execution, he told the Jewish authorities at Jerusalem that Christ “is about to come in the clouds of heaven.” 2 There can be little doubt that the glorious advent of Christ was expected to occur very shortly.
The martyrdom of James must have had a profound effect on Jewish Christians because he was even a recognized figure among the Jewish community for his justice and righteous behavior. His contemporaries gave him the title: “the Sadec” (the righteous one). So respected was he by almost all parties in Jerusalem that it is said he was like a righteous high priest and able to enter the Holy of Holies. 3 Whether one wishes to believe all the traditions about James is not important in our present discussion, but it appears probable that his violent death may have represented a major epochal event to the early Christians.
The autumn of 62 C.E. (six months after the death of James) was also significant regarding the return of Christ for another reason. This period commenced the sabbatical year for all Palestinian Jews. 4 To Jews, the sabbatical years were important prophetic indicators. Daniel predicted that there were to be exactly 70 sabbatical cycles of 7 years until the Kingdom of God would arrive on earth. He divided those 490 years into one period of 49 years (7 times 7 sabbatical cycles), another of 434 years (62 times 7 sabbatical cycles), and a final 7 year period that was divided into two sections of 3½ years each. These last 7 years of Daniel were thought by people of the 1st century to embrace a period of great trouble on Israel, the city of Jerusalem and the Temple. The conclusion to that final 7 years was expected to witness the advent of the Messianic Kingdom of God destined to take control over all Gentile realms in the world.
Since the Book of Hebrews and James (the Christian head of Jerusalem) were expressing an imminence to Christ’s return from heaven, the new sabbatical cycle of 7 years, which commenced in the autumn of 63 C.E. and ended in 70 C.E., must have been reckoned by the Jews as significant. We know this to be the case because Josephus said the Jews went to war with the Romans in 66 C.E. (not long before the middle of that sabbatical period), and the people persisted in that war against all odds because they were trusting in the fulfillment of a divine oracle in their holy scriptures. 5 There can hardly be a doubt that Josephus was referring to the chronological prophecies found in the Book of Daniel.
This may have been the reason that at the beginning of the sabbatical year of 62/63 C.E. Josephus said that a man by the name of Joshua ben Ananias began a 7 years and 5 months verbal prophecy against the inhabitants of Jerusalem which ended with the destruction of the city and the Temple in 70 C.E. 6 Josephus reckoned the start of this man’s prophecy as being so important that he said it represented the official commencement of God’s warnings to the Jews that Jerusalem and the Temple would soon be destroyed.
Even though a great deal of significance must have been attached by the Jews to the end of the sabbatical year and the start of a new sabbatical period of 7 years in the autumn of 63 C.E., 7 there was, however, a problem with the prophetic statements of Daniel. Josephus himself admitted that the chronological statements in Daniel were very obscure and capable of a host of interpretations. For example, the Seventy Weeks’ prophecy began its 490 years with a command to rebuild Jerusalem. But which “command” was this?
There were other unknown factors associated with the prophecy. People wondered if there were any chronological gaps existing between the three main divisions of the Seventy Weeks’ Prophecy? In the prophecy itself the wording of the Hebrew shows that its three sections were to be “cut out” of historical time between the going forth of the command to rebuild Jerusalem and the arrival of the Messiah (Daniel 9:24).
This could indicate that some gaps of time might be expected between the prophetic time indications within the three sections. Such a gap may have been imagined as existing for the years of the Maccabean (Hasmonean) rulers at Jerusalem (when Jews had their own sovereignty over Judaea), or there may have been other “gaps” to consider in the 2nd and 1st centuries before Christ.
And besides the problems with so-called “gaps,” how many days did the particular years of Daniel’s prophecy consist? Were they to be reckoned as normal year lengths of 365 1/4 days? But maybe Daniel intended a 354-day lunar year, or perhaps an ideal 360-day prophetic year. No one in the 1st century knew for sure just what Daniel meant, and the various interpretations could cause several differences in the accumulative number of days, weeks, months, and even years for the fulfillment of the prophecy.
There were even more obscurities to the prediction than those mentioned above. When Daniel mentioned that the prophecy would see the emergence of “the Messiah,” did he mean the anointed son of David, perhaps an ordained priest, or some prophet? Even if the proper “Messiah” could be correctly picked, there were other ambiguities that gave problems:
The truth is, there was not any proven standard of prophetic interpretation in the 1st century that could give anyone a certain conviction regarding the meaning of Daniel’s prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. Because of these variables, the prophecy (and all others of the Old Testament) remained enigmatic both to Christians and Jews. And this is why Josephus called the “oracle” of the soon coming of the Kingdom of God “an obscure prophecy.”
In spite of this, it was commonly believed in the 1st century that the prophetical/chronological factors of Daniel were on the verge of fulfillment sometime within the latter half of that century. And the sabbatical period of 7 years which began in the autumn of 63 C.E. and lasted until the autumn of 70 C.E. was a time when a great deal of Messianic expectation began to be rife in Jerusalem and throughout Judaism. It appeared to the Jews that the “Babylonian (Gentile)” system of government was about to terminate. 8
It must be remembered that the use of numbers (and the symbols behind them) played an important part in the interpretation of prophecy in the 1st century. The number 666 is associated, in the Book of Revelation, with the reign of the world ruler who will have ten nations under his power in the last generation before the Kingdom of God appears on earth (Revelation 13:18). The Babylonian writer Berosus believed that world history itself was governed by cycles of 60, 600, and 3600 years (Fragment 4). And the Bible shows that the number 6 (Or its multiples) has symbolic teaching to it. When Nebuchadnezzar (the head of gold) set up a large idol in Babylon, its dimensions were 60 cubits high and 6 broad (Daniel 3:1). This, of itself, may appear insignificant, but if one figures the numerical value of the Hebrew letters that make up the description of that idol, it comes to 4662 (which is exactly 7 times 666). 9 Conversely, Daniel and his three friends who refused to bow down before that idol found their names adding up to 888:
Daniel (95), Hananiah (120), Mishael (381), Azariah (292) (Daniel 2:17). In the Greek the name Jesus also added up to 888. The numbers 7 and 8 had to do with completion and righteousness, but 6 was almost always connected with man and his evil ways, 10 and the man of sin who will be the antichrist at the end of the age has the number 666.
It no doubt appeared significant to the apostles and most Jews who lived in the 1st century that Nebuchadnezzar (the head of gold in Daniel’s prophecy) began his first year of rule in 604 B.C.E. according to the received chronology. When one adds 666 years to that date, the start of the sabbatical cycle in 63 C.E. is reached. Had this been the only prophetic indication concerning 63 C.E., scant attention would have been given to the outcome. But when one adds 66 years to 604 B.C.E., the year 538 B.C.E. became evident. This happened to be the first year of Cyrus over Babylon who began the “silver portion” of Nebuchadnezzar’s image.
And remarkably, when one adds 600 years to 538 B.C.E., again the year 63 C.E. is reached. This fact may have given the Jews even more interest in 63 C.E. as a cardinal date in the interpretation of prophetic history, because Josephus made the definite statement that 600 years was looked on by the Jews (and others in the world) as an astronomical and historical cycle of time called “The Great Year.” 11 There is little question that Josephus obtained his information from Berosus, the Babylonian astronomer who lived in the 5th century B.C.E. It was no doubt believed that the 600 year period from the start of the “silver portion” of the Babylonian image was important, and this worked out to 63 C.E. as a concluding date.
That did not end the prophetic symbolism of Nebuchadnezzar’s image. There was prophesied to be a third world empire and it was represented by the “brass portion.” This was to commence with a he-goat from the west pushing at the “silver portion” in the east. It was believed by prophetic interpreters in the 1st century that this represented Alexander the Great who started to conquer the Persian Empire with his victory at the Battle of Granicus in 334 B.C.E. And lo and behold, 396 years forward from that date again reaches to 63 C.E.
But what is important with the span of 396 years? This period happens to occupy a space of 6 times 66 years. This fact no doubt appeared too significant to be coincidental. It seemed to signify that the years which commenced the gold, silver, and brass portions of Nebuchadnezzar’s image 12; all had the numbers 6, 60, 66, 600, and 666 focusing on the year 63 C.E. Josephus refused to give any prophetic details regarding the arrival of the “iron portion” of the image which he no doubt equated with Rome, 13 but there must have been a host of chronological interpretations on this matter simply because there were several important periods of time when Rome interfered with the Jews in Judaea from the time of the Maccabees onward.
The Christians, however, had an even more profound reason for expecting that a change in world history was about to occur in 63 C.E. This was because of the “Immanuel Prophecy” found in Isaiah chapter 7 through chapter 12. The apostles identified the virgin birth of Immanuel (as translated by the Greek Septuagint Version) with the virgin birth of Jesus (Isaiah 7:14). But what commentators often overlook is the fact that a 65-year period was destined to be associated with Immanuel in order for Him to overthrow the Syrians and the people of Ephraim and to bring in the Messianic kingdom described in Isaiah 11 and 12. Since Jesus was born in 3 B.C., 14 that period of 65 years would also have terminated in 63 C.E.
Let us pay attention to this year 63 C.E. for a moment. We will then be able to observe an important point regarding the end-time as conceived by the early Christians — and especially by the apostle Paul. If one will survey Paul’s letters written BEFORE 63 C.E., they present a prophetic anticipation for the soon occurrence of all the Old Testament prophecies leading up to the second advent of Christ, but as soon as 63 C.E. passes (and the expected prophecies did not materialize as Paul first thought), he thoroughly abandoned the concept of Christ’s soon appearance and he put the Second Advent into the future. The key year even for Paul was the sabbatical year which ended in 63 C.E. There are important indications to show this.
1 See the article “The Book of Hebrews” at http://www.askelm.com/doctrine/d040901.htm for background about this important New Testament book.
2 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1.23.
3 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1.23.
4 Ben Zion Wacholder, “The Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles During the Second Temple and Early Rabbinic Period,” in Hebrew Union College Annual, 44(1973), pp. 153–196. See the discussion regarding Sabbatical year cycles in Jack Finegan’s Handbook of Biblical Chronology: Principles of Time Reckoning in the Ancient World and Problems of Chronology in the Bible, Revised Edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1998), pp. 116–126.
5 Josephus, Wars of the Jews VI.5,4 ¶312.
6 Josephus, Wars of the Jews VI.5,3 ¶¶300–309.
7 It looks like they considered that particular sabbatical period to have been the last 7 years of Daniel’s prophecy.
8 It is interesting that 63 C.E. (when the sabbatical cycle began) was exactly 666 years from 604 B.C.E. (the first year of King Nebuchadnezzar of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, mentioned as the head of gold in the second chapter of Daniel if one uses the received chronology).
9 E.W. Bullinger, Number in Scripture: Its Supernatural Design and Spiritual Significance, 4th ed. (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd., 1921), p.28. See also http://philologos.org/__eb-nis/13666.htm#666 (search for “4662”).
10 Note that Adam, the first man, was created at the end of the sixth day.
11 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.3,9 ¶106.
12 This gave what was considered a prophetic history of world empires from Babylon to the arrival of the Kingdom of God.
13 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews X.11.6 ¶276.
14 See my book The Star that Astonished the World, 2nd ed. (Portland, OR: ASK, 1996) for proof.
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