The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

[rakovsky]

The prediction of the destruction of the Temple (Mk 13:2) is a Christian creation after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE.


I am not aware of any Jewish eschatological expectation that the earthly Temple would be destroyed during the eschatological event and so I have no reason for Jesus to tell his disciples that it will happen. If anyone knows of any Jewish eschatological expectation that the earthly Temple would be destroyed during the eschatological event I am very interesting in seeing such evidence.

It's explicitly in Daniel 9, which predicts the Destruction of the Second Temple, something that in 30 AD was still yet to occur.

Jesus and the apostles could have been in expectation of the apocalypse and the Destruction of the Second Temple based on it. Note that both in Jesus' and Daniel's prophecies there is mention of the "Abomination of Desolation."

[Ulan]

The prediction of the destruction of the Temple (Mk 13:2) is a Christian creation after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE.


I am not aware of any Jewish eschatological expectation that the earthly Temple would be destroyed during the eschatological event and so I have no reason for Jesus to tell his disciples that it will happen. If anyone knows of any Jewish eschatological expectation that the earthly Temple would be destroyed during the eschatological event I am very interesting in seeing such evidence.

It's explicitly in Daniel 9, which predicts the Destruction of the Second Temple, something that in 30 AD was still yet to occur.

Jesus and the apostles could have been in expectation of the apocalypse and the Destruction of the Second Temple based on it. Note that both in Jesus' and Daniel's prophecies there is mention of the "Abomination of Desolation."

The standard explanation is more or less that this passage is based on a short precursor text that deals with the situation in the year 40, when it was expected that emperor Caius puts up a statue of himself in the temple. As this was averted in 41, this small text was recycled and adapted (inserting the temple's complete destruction) when gMark was composed around or after 70.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Thanks. My question is more about what Mark thinks of the accusation that Jesus said he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. This exact prediction is placed only here in the gospel, and it is placed on the mouths of false witnesses.

Just as an aside. This seems to be an interesting move

Mark 14:57-60 And some stood up, and gave false testimony against him, saying, “We heard him say, ‘That I will destroy (καταλύσω) this temple made with hands, and by three days I will build another made without hands.’” Evenso,their testimony did not agree. And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, “ Do you answer nothing that these testify against you?”	Luke 22:66-67 As soon as it was day, the assembly of the elders of the people was gathered together, both chief priests and scribes, and they led him away into their council, saying, "If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you won’t believe,	Marcion 22:66-67 As soon as it was day, the assembly of the elders of the people were gathered together, both chief priests and scribes, and they led him away into their council, saying, 67 “If you are the Christ, tell us.”
Mark 15:3-4 The chief priests accused him of many things. Pilate again asked him, “Have you no answer? See how many things they testify against you!”	Luke 23:1-2 The whole company of them rose up and brought him before Pilate. They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting the nation, forbidding paying taxes to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”	Marcion 23:2 They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting the nation, destroying (καταλύοντα) the law and the prophets, forbidding paying taxes to Caesar, misleading women and children, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”

[rakovsky]

Check Daniel 9 about the Messiah getting "no more" and "cut off" followed by desolation of the Temple.
Jesus had a saying talking about the Abomination of Desolation in the gospels. He was using the text in Daniel 9.

Daniel 9 says Mashiach the Prince will come, then Mashiach gets killed, then the people of the Prince (The Messiah-Prince? Emperor Vespasian?) desolate the Temple.

Jesus' cleansing of the Temple in Holy Week could be a prefigurement of the temple's desolation. Desolation means to make desolate or empty.

Jesus sometimes liked to talk in parables or vague generalities in order to give his message. Maybe the destruction of the Temple was one of those times. He could have talked about the destruction of the Temple as a reference to the body, because a standard Christian teaching really was that the body is a temple.
And he could have talked about reduilding the temple, because Tanakh talks about third Temple and Jesus talked about Resurrection of the body, which was considered a Temple too. Different interpretations seem possible.

[DCHindley]

Check Daniel 9 about the Messiah getting "no more" and "cut off" followed by desolation of the Temple.
Jesus had a saying talking about the Abomination of Desolation in the gospels. He was using the text in Daniel 9.

Daniel 9 says Mashiach the Prince will come, then Mashiach gets killed, then the people of the Prince (The Messiah-Prince? Emperor Vespasian?) desolate the Temple.

Jesus' cleansing of the Temple in Holy Week could be a prefigurement of the temple's desolation. Desolation means to make desolate or empty.

Jesus sometimes liked to talk in parables or vague generalities in order to give his message. Maybe the destruction of the Temple was one of those times. He could have talked about the destruction of the Temple as a reference to the body, because a standard Christian teaching really was that the body is a temple.

And he could have talked about reduilding the temple, because Tanakh talks about third Temple and Jesus talked about Resurrection of the body, which was considered a Temple too. Different interpretations seem possible.

The problem with that way of interpreting Daniel 9 is that it assumes that the "anointed one" (Hebrew mashiach) can only mean Jesus Christ. Yet all kings and High Priests (in fact all priests) were anointed ones, meaning they have been dedicated to perform a task or role. "Second Isaiah" even calls Cyrus God's anointed one, because He chose him to free the Judeans from captivity.

You could search the archives here for several discussions on the topic which attempt to interpret it as events leading up to the desecration of the temple in 167 BCE to the period immediately following the rededication in 164 BCE. Daniel is not classed among the prophetic books by Judeans of that, or even the present age. It is among the "writings" which include a wide body of works of various genres. Basically, this story is a presentation of those events put into the mouth of the mythical figure Daniel (mentioned in ben Sira, IIRC).

Of course, that would not prevent Judeans as well as Christians from interpreting it in a secondary sense of predicting later events, like a world messiah, or national hero for the Judean people, or Jesus Christ. In that sense, it becomes a "proof text" to support POVs about events that developed quite apart from a prophetic sense.

[rakovsky]

Of course, that would not prevent Judeans as well as Christians from interpreting it in a secondary sense of predicting later events, like a world messiah, or national hero for the Judean people, or Jesus Christ. In that sense, it becomes a "proof text" to support POVs about events that developed quite apart from a prophetic sense.

My point in the above quote you referred to, DCH, was not that Daniel 9 was about Messiah ben David, but that Jesus interpreted and used it that way. The reason that was my point because the thread topic was how best to understand the gospel references to the temple's destruction. My point was that you can use Jesus' talks about Daniel 9 as referring to the Temple's destruction (end of the chapter 9) in order to help correctly understand what Jesus means in his own talks about the destruction of the temple that became so controversial at his trial and became the thread topic.

This is a separate issue from what Daniel 9 actually refers to, which is what you got into below.

The problem with that way of interpreting Daniel 9 is that it assumes that the "anointed one" (Hebrew mashiach) can only mean Jesus Christ. Yet all kings and High Priests (in fact all priests) were anointed ones, meaning they have been dedicated to perform a task or role. "Second Isaiah" even calls Cyrus God's anointed one, because He chose him to free the Judeans from captivity.

You could search the archives here for several discussions on the topic which attempt to interpret it as events leading up to the desecration of the temple in 167 BCE to the period immediately following the rededication in 164 BCE. Daniel is not classed among the prophetic books by Judeans of that, or even the present age. It is among the "writings" which include a wide body of works of various genres. Basically, this story is a presentation of those events put into the mouth of the mythical figure Daniel (mentioned in ben Sira, IIRC).

There are actually many quite good reasons to see Daniel 9 as Messianic.
1. That is the view in Talmud and Rambam. Those traditions come from the 1st to 5th centuries Ad at the least. And don't worry about them being controlled by years of loyalty to Christianity in thinking that.
2. When you combine the 1st century Christian and 1st to 5th c. Jewish readings of Daniel 9 as Messianic, then it's not hard to backtrack another century and a half to get the belief of the author himself as to whether Daniel 9 is Messianic.
3. Daniel 9 introduces the prophecy by saying that it's about a bunch of promises that normally are considered very Messianic by Biblical Judaism, like eternal righteousness, the process of making holy places anointed, atonement sin guilt and ending sin, sealing the prophets. So already you know that this is the kind of prophecy that would be about Messiah.
4. You said it's written in the mid 2nd c., so already we know that the Messiah concept had been stronger and more developed based on what we get from the Bible and 1st to 5th century Traditions. It's not the same situation like if pharaoh was talking about somebody who got anointed back in 1300 BC. In 2nd century BC. "The Messiah" is going to have a much stronger possible meaning in the same way "The Messiah" has a full load of connotations in Talmud, although the connotations could be changed between Messiah ben David in Bible and in Talmud.
5. The prophecy ends with the Temple's desolation/destruction and also the mystery "anointed one" getting cut off/no more. The parallelism there suggests that these two fates- the anointed place's fate and the anointed person's fate have a ton in common.
6. Who else in Israelite history was ever said to end his fate by becoming "no more" in Hebrew? There is only one person - Enoch. Torah says he walked with God and then God took him away and he was no more. So Enoch must be a very special person very close to God. But he has a mystery fate. Did he die? Did he get taken to heaven?
7. I believe it's not exactly true that all kings and priests were called Messiah AFAIK in the same Hebrew way that the mystery Anointed one is called in Daniel 9. IIRC after discussing this with Jewish Hebrew specialists, the particular version of the word Moshiach is only used to refer to kingly Messiahs (like Messiah ben David for example), not to priests. It's true that "anointed" is a term used for a broad category of people, but the version used here is much more restricted to some subcategory.
8. A desecration of the Temple in 167 BC does not work mathematically for what Daniel 9 is talking about. Daniel 9 has a 483 year countdown starting from an order to rebuild Jerusalem. So that countdown that has to start sometime after Jerusalem got knocked down in 597 BC. 597-483 = 114. So we simply can't be talking about some event in 167 BC as the endpoint of the prophecy, DCH. We have to find a time when there was an order to build Jerusalem. That kind of order that will be found in the Bible is going to point to a countdown time (IMO) most likely in the early/mid 1st c. AD. Rashi concluded that the countdown pointed to the era of Titus (from mid to late 1st c.)

[Michael BG]

The prediction of the destruction of the Temple (Mk 13:2) is a Christian creation after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

I am not aware of any Jewish eschatological expectation that the earthly Temple would be destroyed during the eschatological event and so I have no reason for Jesus to tell his disciples that it will happen. If anyone knows of any Jewish eschatological expectation that the earthly Temple would be destroyed during the eschatological event I am very interesting in seeing such evidence.

It's explicitly in Daniel 9, which predicts the Destruction of the Second Temple, something that in 30 AD was still yet to occur.

Jesus and the apostles could have been in expectation of the apocalypse and the Destruction of the Second Temple based on it. Note that both in Jesus' and Daniel's prophecies there is mention of the "Abomination of Desolation."

Sorry about the delay in responding.

From your later posts it seems you are aware of the consensus view that Dan 9:25-27 was written just before about 164 BCE and therefore is not a prophecy. The consensus view is that the anointed one who is cut off is Onias III (ref: 2 Maccabees). It is then Antiochus IV Epiphanes who is “the prince to come who destroys the city and sanctuary”. It is Antiochus IV who makes the Temple a temple to Zeus (2 Mac. 6:2). There were abominable offering and sacrifices in the Temple (2 Mac. 6:5-7). Dan 7:28 “he shall cause to cease the sacrifice and the present-offering, and on the wing of abominations of desolation …”

8. A desecration of the Temple in 167 BC does not work mathematically for what Daniel 9 is talking about. Daniel 9 has a 483 year countdown starting from an order to rebuild Jerusalem. So that countdown that has to start sometime after Jerusalem got knocked down in 597 BC. 597-483 = 114. So we simply can't be talking about some event in 167 BC as the endpoint of the prophecy,

The Muslim calendar I think was introduced quite early, within years of the death of Muhammad. The Christian calendar was introduced after about 800 and not in Greece until 1923. The Jewish calendar was not generally used by Jews until after 1178 CE. Any dating system based on dates from the Bible is very likely to have errors in it. However Jews during the time of Jesus used the Babylonian version of the Seleucid calendar. Antiochus IV Epiphanes died in 164 BCE which was year 149 (1 Macc. 6:16). It is quite possible that Jews counted their history in such a way to believe more years had passed between the fall of the first Temple and 171 BCE. (The chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah in the bible are problematic and so it is quite likely they made similar mistakes with their later chronology.)

Even if the Jews accepted your 597-483 = 114 they would see that the “prophesy” was wrong. It is generally accepted that Darius the Mede is not an historical person. Some scholars suggest that the year 605 is the starting point! Some include the first seven in the sixty-two, so they are only talking about 434 years (605-434 = 171).

Do you have any evidence that Jews of the time of Jesus did not think that events “prophesied” in Dan 9:25-27 had not taken place in 171-164 BCE?

Do you have any evidence that Jews during the lifetime of Jesus saw Daniel as Messianic rather than eschatological?

[rakovsky]

Dear Michael,

From your later posts it seems you are aware of the consensus view that Dan 9:25-27 was written just before about 164 BCE and therefore is not a prophecy. The consensus view is that the anointed one who is cut off is Onias III (ref: 2 Maccabees).

This is not the "consensus" view, since "consensus" requires unanimity, whereas traditional Christian do not equate the figure with Onias III. All we can say is that it's a view among scholars.

Do you have any evidence that Jews of the time of Jesus did not think that events “prophesied” in Dan 9:25-27 had not taken place in 171-164 BCE?

One piece of evidence is the way that the gospels see it as a future event:

The phrase "abomination of desolation" is found in three places in the Book of Daniel, all within the literary context of apocalyptic visions.

And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week:[7] and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one that maketh desolate; and even unto the full end, and that determined, shall wrath be poured out upon the desolate.
— Daniel 9:27 (ASV)

In the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark, the term is used by Jesus in the Olivet discourse. In the Matthean account, Jesus is presented as quoting Daniel explicitly. In the Gospel of Mark, the phrase "spoken of by Daniel the prophet" is absent in the Codex Sinaiticus.[9]

So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
— Matthew 24:15-16 (ESV)

But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
— Mark 13:14 (ESV)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abomination_of_desolation

That Jesus and the gospels relate the prophecy of Daniel 9 to the New Testament era suggests that this was a view among Jews of the time. You might not find it persuasive, but it's evidence nonetheless.

Second, notice the references that Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and Ben Smith gave in the thread about Daniel's prophecy as Messianic and about Tanakh-based Messianic expectations among Jews in the 1st c. (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2823)

A third reason is the math issue. I understand you are making the argument that (A) the Hebrew calendar system could have been so intensely defective that they got their math wrong by about 150 years, or that (B) 605 AD could have been the date of the order to rebuild Jerusalem that starts the countdown, even though Jerusalem had not even been destroyed yet, but these claims do not sound very solid to me, sorry.

(A) is the argument that somewhere between 538 AD when Jerusalem was freed and 164 AD when Onias lived, the Hebrews lost track of about 150 years. If we were talking about pre-Davidic Israel, this kind of argument might seem reasonable to me, since they didn't even have kings at that point. However, the Babylonian calendar system and Israelite records about their line of kings and rulers and history from the time of the Babylonian return up to the Maccabees' time seems quite clear and detailed enough that they wouldn't have a massive black hole of about 1/3 of their post-Exile history.

It's not quite the same thing as the theory that the Dark Ages didn't exist, but it seems to require that kind of vast miss in calculation.

It's like saying: Yeah, well Jesus' marginal band of Nazarenes turned out to be correct that Daniel 9's calculation points to a time long after Onias III, as medieval rabbis like Rashi and we in modern times can tell, but back in the 2nd c. BC to 1st c. AD, the Jewish chroniclers and astronomers with their weird focus on kings and the Zodiac and the Hebrew calendar cycles practically could not tell their elbow from their armpit and Deep Sixed 1/3 of their Post-Exilic, Second Temple history.

As for (B), it looks like an attempt to deal with the glaring time problem in A. Normally, is a command to rebuild a city made before, or after, a city is destroyed and left wasted for a long time? Of course, after. And indeed we have explicit Jewish and divine command(s) given in the Tanakh to rebuild Jerusalem coming after the city was destroyed and laid waste for years. For those who believe in the 605 BC starting date, I would ask them to provide a Tanakh quotation directly commanding in 605 BC to perform the city's rebuilding.

Even if we unreasonably retrocausally back date the command to rebuild the city to 605 BC, the math still does not work out, because the end date would then be 122 BC, not 164 BC. And so the next thing the Onias III theory proponents might do is hide 49 years of the 483 years back inside the 483 years to make them only 434 years total. This proposal of 434 years that hides inside themselves 49 years destroys the plain sense of key phrases like "Seventy weeks (490 years) are determined.... to finish the transgression" and "And after threescore and two weeks (483 years) shall Messiah be cut off..."

I think that claims A and B are not insane or absolutely illogical, they just rely on a style of logic that ironically, some critics of religion have termed "Jesuitical" or "Talmudic", where the plain meaning of normal concepts and reasoning is twisted several times or made to do gymnastics to meet a pre-determined goal. If that's the case, then unfortunately debates about Daniel 9's calculation with a hardcore proponent of claims A or B could end up being endless, as those claims are not absolutely illogical.

I have tried numerous times to go through the math claims & long debates by proponents of A and B, and they become very long and overbearing. For me to get into those kinds of discussions again, anyone who wants to propose B needs to start by pointing to a direct 605 BC command to rebuild the city.

Do you have any evidence that Jews during the lifetime of Jesus saw Daniel as Messianic rather than eschatological?

No, because Messiah has been commonly associated with the eschatological events.
Maimonides for example explains that Daniel's prophecy is an End Times prophecy about Messiah.

Regards.

[DCHindley]

From your later posts it seems you are aware of the consensus view that Dan 9:25-27 was written just before about 164 BCE and therefore is not a prophecy. The consensus view is that the anointed one who is cut off is Onias III (ref: 2 Maccabees).

This is not the "consensus" view, since "consensus" requires unanimity, whereas traditional Christian do not equate the figure with Onias III. All we can say is that it's a view among scholars.

Consensus does *not* mean unanimous, just a general agreement. The general agreement among biblical scholars of a conservative or fundamentalist Christian POV will be quite different that the consensus of biblical critics who use the historical-critical method, which is more center of the road or even left of center than the former consensus would likely be. The latter consensus, I think, is what Michael BG was referring to. Study Editions of the Oxford (Generally Anglican but sometimes Reformed in orientation) or the (Catholic) New American Bible will deal with dating of elements to Maccabean times in the footnotes. The NIV or a Lutheran oriented study bible might include it, but generally to disparage such claims.

This proposal of 434 years that hides inside themselves 49 years [sic] destroys the plain sense of key phrases like "Seventy weeks (490 years) are determined.... to finish the transgression" and "And after threescore and two weeks (483 years) shall Messiah be cut off..."

When it comes to Bible "prophecy" there is no such thing as "obvious." Being the author of that obviously wrong and excessively speculative 434 ear cycle, I explained it once many years ago, thusly:

Evangelicals like to think that "anointed one" in Daniel 9 refers to Christ Jesus. Conversely, many modern critics interpret the "anointed one" of Dan. 9:25 as the ousted Zadokite high priest Onias III. Yet why assume references to an "anointed one" must always refer to Christ or to "goodies?" Cyrus, for example, is an anointed one in Isaiah 45:1. Even if the word "anointed (one)" *does* refer to a high priest, as it may in Dan. 9:26, why only to a "good" one?

Most people see the periods 7 weeks (7 x 7 = 49 yrs), 62 weeks (7 x 62 = 434 yrs) and 1 week (1 x 7 = 7yrs) as sequential to equal 49 + 62 + 7 = 70 weeks of years (7 x 70 = 490 yrs). By leaving open the question of whether an anointed one was a king/ruler or a good/bad high priest, the seventy weeks of Dan 9 can be understood as a sophisticated cryptogram:

597 BCE	<434 yrs>	164 BCE
First 49 yrs 597-548 BCE	<547-172 BCE (378 yrs)>	Last 7 yrs 171-164 BCE

The governing period of the cryptogram is actually 62 weeks of years, starting with the year in which Jeremiah 29:10 *appears* to have been uttered (circa 597/6 BCE, based on Jer. 29:2), and thus ending 163/2 BCE. A "seventy" year-week cryptogram was formed by taking the 62 year-week (434 yr) base period, plus the initial seven year-weeks (49 yrs) plus the final year-week (7 yrs) that are actually contained within it, and arbitrarily adding them together. The nature of all cryptograms is to seem to mean one thing, but really mean another.

It is not absolutely necessary for the beginning date of the initial 49 yr sub period to match the initial year of the start of the 434 year period, or the end date of the final 7 yr sub-period to match the end of the 434 year period, but I believe they were meant to roughly coincide with them. Considering that we are dealing with a cryptic "prophecy" I would not expect the events being relayed to be absolutely sequential, or to exactly meet the quantities described (half a year-week vs 3 yrs, etc.).

Thus, the "anointed one" of Daniel 9:25 is Cyrus. The end of an initial seven weeks of years brings us to ca. 548 BCE when Cyrus was incorporating the Median and Lydian territories he had just conquered, including northern Mesopotamia, and getting ready to conquer Babylon. This is probably the same point in time at which the author of Isaiah 45:1 came to the conclusion that Cyrus had been anointed by God to liberate the Jewish captives. In short, the authors of Jeremiah 29 and Daniel 9:25 both held the same conviction that Cyrus was anointed by God.

The "anointed one" of Daniel 9:26, on the other hand, is probably the "bad" high priest Menelaus, who was executed about 163/2 BCE.

Daniel 9:24 "Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city:
to finish the transgression,
to put an end to sin,
and to atone for iniquity,
to bring in everlasting righteousness,
to seal both vision and prophet,
and to anoint a most holy place.
25a Know therefore and understand:
25b from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (Jer 29:10, ca. 597 BCE) until the time of an anointed prince (Cyrus, as in Isa 25:1), there shall be seven weeks (49 yrs, making this ca. 548 BCE);
25c and for sixty-two weeks (434 yrs starting in 597 BCE) it (Jerusalem) shall be built again with streets and moat, but in a troubled time.
26a After the sixty-two weeks (ca. 597 BCE - 434 yrs = ca. 163 BCE), an anointed one (Menelaus) shall be cut off and shall have nothing,
26b and the troops of the prince who is to come (Antiochus IV) shall destroy the city (Jerusalem, actually, tore down parts of the city walls) and the sanctuary (looted the temple of silver, ca. 169/168 BCE). Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war [that is, there is nothing you can do about it]. Desolations are decreed.
27a He (Antiochus IV) shall make a strong covenant with many [that is, the Hellenizing Judeans] for one week (ca 171 BCE with the appointment of Menelaus, to ca. 164 BCE when Judas Maccabee displaced him for a high priest of his own choosing),
27b and for half of the week (6 Dec 167 BCE, or earlier, to 13 Dec 164 BCE, not exactly 3.5 years but just over 3 years) he [Antiochus IV] shall make sacrifice and offering cease; and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator (Judas' defeat of Antiochus' forces which resulted in the rededication of the temple, 14 Dec 164 BCE)."

In support of this is a historical review:

175, Sep	1 Macc. 1:10 & 2 Macc. 4:7	Antiochus IV Epiphanes succeeds Seleucus IV Philopator.
175	2 Macc. 4:7	Jason outbids High Priesthood from Antiochus and succeeds his brother Onias III.
175-172	2 Macc. 4:10ff.	Jason begins Hellenizing Judean life.
172	2 Macc. 4:21	Antiochus greeted with pomp in Jerusalem on way to secure the Philistine border with Egypt (the imputed “1st invasion” of Egypt in 2 Macc.) after the coronation of Egyptian King Philometor in 172.
172-171	2 Macc. 4:23-26	Menelaus, son of Simon, a Tobiad, outbids Jason, an Oniad, for the High Priesthood and drives Jason as a fugitive into the land of Ammon.
172/1-169	2 Macc. 4:27-32	Menelaus has trouble delivering his promised tribute to Antiochus, resorting to theft of holy vessels from the Temple.
172/1-169	2 Macc. 4:33	Onias III protests this theft and retreats to the place of sanctuary of Apollo and Artemis at Daphne, a city 5 miles from Antioch.
172/1-169	2 Macc. 4:34	Menelaus, by means of Antiochus’ regent Andronicus, has Onias III lured from his sanctuary and killed.
172/1-169	Josephus, Antiq, Book XII, Chapter 10 (edition of W. Whiston)	Onias III’s son, Onias IV, flees to Ptolemy VI Philometor and Cleopatra in Egypt where he is allowed to erect a Temple to God at Heliopolis.
172/1-169	2 Macc. 4:35-38	The Jews protest the murder of Onias III, and Antiochus IV has Andronicus executed.
169	1 Macc. 1:16-20; 2 Macc. 5:1-6	Jason, thinking Antiochus was killed while invading Egypt, rebels against Menelaus, to try and reacquire the High Priesthood, and attacks Jerusalem, taking much of the city. Menelaus retreats to the Citadel which is held by a Syrian garrison.
169	2 Macc. 5:10-14,7-10	Antiochus hears of this and takes the city back from Jason and forces him back into exile in Ammon.
169	1 Macc. 1:20-23; 2 Macc. 5:15-21	Menelaus lets Antiochus enter the Temple itself to steal the votive offerings of prior kings.
169	2 Macc. 5: 22-23	Antiochus leaves Menelaus in charge of civil government as High priest, but established military governors (Phillip in Jerusalem and Andronicus over Samaria) and kills many who practice the Jewish Law.
168	1 Macc. 1:29-35	Antiochus invades Egypt again, and demands tribute from Menelaus, sending his general Apollonius to extract it from the populace by extreme means if necessary.
168 or 167	1 Macc. 1:41-53; 2 Macc. 5:24-26	Antiochus commands that all peoples in his empire follow Hellenic ways, and forbids the practice of the Jewish Law on pain of death. Apollonius enforces the decree.
168/7	1 Macc. 2:1-48	The priest Mattathias, a priest of the order of Jorarib, defies Antiochus IV’s order and starts a guerrilla war against the Syrians and those who apostatized with Menelaus.
167, Dec 6	1 Macc. 1:54-64; 2 Macc. 6:1-7:42	The Temple is profaned by the erection of a “desolating sacrilege/horrible abomination” (i.e., the “abomination of desolation” in Daniel 9) upon the alter of burnt offerings.
166/5	1 Macc. 2:49-69	Mattathias dies.
166/5	1 Macc. 3:1-4:35; 2 Macc. 8:1-7	Judas, son of Mattathias, takes over the resistance movement and upgrades the fight to full scale rebellion.
165/4	1 Macc. 3:35-37	Antiochus IV’s general Lysias was sent against Judas’ forces.
164	1 Macc. 3:38-4:35; 2 Macc. 8:8-36	Judas succeed in defeating the main portion of the Syrian forces in the country.
164	1 Macc. 4:35; 2 Macc. 9:13-29	Defeat of Lysias. Lysias offers peace terms to Judas. Antiochus IV ratifies them as he was busy with a floundering campaign in Persia and/or going insane from a disease.
164, Dec	1 Macc. 6:1-17, 2 Macc. 9:1-12	Antiochus IV was defeated at Elymias in Persia, and on way back to Babylon contracted a disease that killed him. (1 Macc. 6:16, though, erroneously dates his death in the year 163/162 unless his source dated it according to a calendar that started the 149th year of the Seleucid era in the Fall of 164 instead of the Spring of 163 as was the Seleucid norm.)
164, Dec 14	1 Macc. 4:36-60; 2 Macc. 10:1-8	Rededication of the alter in the temple and fortification of Jerusalem and key towns in Judea.
164/163	1 Macc. 4:35; 2 Macc. 10:10-11	Lysias heads to Antioch to secure throne for his puppet Antiochus V Eupator, and get reinforcements to resume battle with Judas.
164 or 163	2 Macc. 10:12-13	Good relations with Ptolemy, an advisor to Antiocus V, until he is denounced as a traitor and he commits suicide.
164-162	1 Macc. 5:1-68; 2 Macc. 10:14-38; 12:1-45	Judas fights off attacks by the Syrian generals Gorgias, Timothy, and Nicanor. In the process, Judas carries the battle for Jewish freedom to foreign soil to strengthen his rebel Jewish government and protect Jews from persecution by their neighbors in Gentile towns and villages.
163/162	1 Macc. 6:18-28	Judas lays siege to the Citadel in Jerusalem, which is still held by the Syrians, and Beth-zur, eventually taking that latter town.
163, Fall	1 Macc. 6:29-54; 2 Macc. 13:1-22	Taking advantage of the Jewish Sabbatical year (Fall 164-Summer 163), Antiochus V and Lysias return with a large force fortified with mercenary troops and they lay siege to Jerusalem and Beth-zur. Due to a lack of provisions, Beth-zur was abandoned to the Syrians and Judas’ forces defending the Sanctuary are seriously reduced.
163/2	1 Macc. 6:55-62; 2 Macc.11:1-38; 13:23-26	Lysias finds out that there is a contender to Antiochus V’s throne and makes peace with Judas in order to be able to head for Antioch, but tears down the city walls.
163/2	2 Macc. 13:3-8	Menelaus, who had joined Lysias’ and Antiochus V’s war party, is accused by some of having started the rebellion through his misrule, and Antiochus has him executed.

Sometimes I amaze myself

DCH

[rakovsky]

Consensus does *not* mean unanimous, just a general agreement.
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Sometimes I amaze myself

See:

Definition of consensus

1
a : general agreement : unanimity
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: a general agreement about something : an idea or opinion that is shared by all the people in a group

Merriam - Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consensus

If you want to continue to discuss the Onias III 164 BC theory with me, it's OK, but my request if you want to do that is to start at the beginning: by quoting what was the specific command to rebuild Jerusalem that starts the countdown.

For example, in your quote above, you wrote: "The governing period of the cryptogram is 62 weeks of years, starting with the year in which Jeremiah 29:10 *appears* to have been uttered (circa 597/6 BCE, based on Jer. 29:2)"
Jeremiah 29:10 says:
For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.

Jeremiah 29 says he will perform a word, in causing him "to return" to Israel.
Jeremiah 29 is not the same thing as issuing a "Word to Rebuild" Jerusalem.


Returning to Israel does not entail rebuilding the city because the latter was expressly forbidden until the king permitted it. An actual "Word to Rebuild" Jerusalem is in fact mentioned later in Tanakh as happening after the Return.