Reddit reviews Daniel: A Commentary (The Old Testament Library)
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I think that it is important to keep in mind that the 70 weeks is already a reinterpretation of Jeremiah's prophecy of 70 years. Cyrus' decree allowing the return of those exiled and the rebuilding of the temple occurred just shy of 50 years after the destruction of Jerusalem. The 70 week prophecy then serves to give new life to Jeremiah's prophecy while introducing what at least Newsom identifies as an intentional hermeneutical ambiguity so that the prophecy could be fluid enough to apply to multiple interpretations.
But concerning your question more directly, here are some brief excerpts from Brenan's reception history included in Newsom's commentary. First Christians deviated from Jewish interpreters:
> Christian predictions differed from those of Jews for several reasons, the first of which was the textual divergences between the Jewish MT and Theodotion’s version (Th), which was preferred by Christians... Second, Christians read Daniel through the lens of the New Testament, which itself had been deeply influenced by the apocalyptic portions of Daniel....
And finally quoting more fully the part on the early Christians:
> Early Christians were eager to think in terms of such numerology. The second-century theologian Justin Martyr, for example, in thinking about the “time, times, and half a time,” concluded that the “man of iniquity must reign at least 350 years” (Dial. 32.3). Clement of Alexandria, also from the second century, began his calculation of the eschaton with the rebuilding of the second temple, counting the end of the 62 weeks with Christ’s incarnation and a last week that encompasses the Roman emperors Nero, Vespasian, and Titus, who were all involved in the war that led to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 (Strom. 1.125–26; cf. Tertullian, Adv. Jud. 8). Origen, bemused that he could not use the text allegorically (cf. Jerome on 9:24–27), took a more universal focus and interpreted the 70 weeks as 4,900 years, calculated from Adam to the end of the first century C.E., which constituted the close of the apostolic period (Origen, Comm. Matt. 24.14–18). Hippolytus of Rome, writing at the turn of the third century, seems to have introduced several important features of apocalyptic thought into Christian discourse, starting with his use of the Jewish model of a 6,000-year world history to situate the prophecy of the 70 weeks. According to Hippolytus, the 6 days of creation refer to 6,000 years of the world, followed by a 1,000-year period of rest, which represents the age to come (Comm. Dan. 2.4). Since Christ was born in the year 5500 after creation, Hippolytus argues, it stands to reason that 500 years remain. Hippolytus (Comm. Dan. 4.35) argues that Daniel confirms this: 62 weeks after Jesus’ death, the abomination of desolation, referring to the antichrist, will arrive, and the free offering of salvation to the nations will be taken away. When Daniel “spoke of the one week, he was referring to the last week at the culmination of the whole cosmos,” putting the final date of the eschaton sometime near the year 500, but with a final “week” of amorphous length (Hippolytus, Antichr. 43).
> Yet Hippolytus also used the 70 weeks to trace the time between Cyrus’s order to restore the Jerusalem temple and Jesus’ birth; according to Jerome (on 9:24–27), “the dates do not agree at all,” since from Cyrus’s decree to Jesus’ birth is 560 years. Hippolytus also argued that the distinction between the 1,290 days and the 1,335 days signified a 45-year period of respite and repentance for the faithful before the end; this idea, championed by Jerome (on 12:11–12), became a mainstay in medieval theology and gained the name “the refreshment of the saints” (Lerner 97–144). Sextus Julius Africanus, a contemporary of Hippolytus, argued that the 490 years began with Artaxerxes’ order that Nehemiah rebuild the city and ends with Jesus’ birth, but this is clearly about 15 years off, since it is 475 years from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes until the year 1 C.E. Julius claims that the 490 years are lunar years, not solar ones, and thus are of shorter duration; converted to solar years, the prophecy seems to align with Jesus’ presumed birth date (Adler 221–22). Following Theodotion, Julius also proposes that the final week could be severed and enacted at a much later date, but he does not formalize this thought. Apollinarius, a fourth-century theologian, argued that the 490 years began with Jesus’ birth and that the end would arrive near the year 500 without interruption; Jerome (on 9:24–27) responded that “by breaking away from the stream of the past and directing his longing toward the future, he very unsafely ventured an opinion concerning matters so obscure.”
> A major event occurred in the interpretation of Daniel when Augustine, following the exegetical arguments of Tyconius, dampened the millennial fervor of the early church through his polemics against calculating the eschaton; though some Christians continued to ponder the numbers in Daniel and Revelation, the decrease in speculation following Augustine is remarkable (Civ. 20).
One more claim for today. It has been stated at least three different times that we have copies of Daniel dating to about/in 200 BC. Our earliest copies actually date to about 125 BC.
This is only 75 years – what does it matter? It is pretty undeniable that Daniel describes events from the sixth century until about 165 BC. He clearly describes the persecution under Antiochus IV, 175-164 BC. It would be very hard to find a scholar, mainline or conservative, who disagrees with this.
Does Daniel CLEARLY describe anything after this date? No. (I know the response some Xenos people will give. Daniel 9 predicted Jesus' death to the exact date. Scroll down to the bottom of this page. But even if Daniel 9 really was so specific and accurate--why is it ok to make false claims about the date?)
Again, the newbie to Daniel hears the false claim that we have copies of Daniel that date to, or about 200 BC (false)--and finds out that Daniel describes events in the 160s BC (true). What other conclusion is there to reach? Daniel must have written no later than 200 BC, and thus predicted events at least three decades in his future.
Here are the time stamps.
I included the context...in addition to the false 200 BC claims--if you listened to these quotes, almost everything you just heard is false (eg 'scholars used to date Daniel to 100 BC, then they found a copy dated to 200 BC, and started dating Daniel to 200 BC', which is designed to prop up their claims by making these scholars look ridiculous.)
These '200 BC' claims go back to 2009. Where do they come from? I have no idea. Someone, please ask these teachers for their source. Any legitimate scholar you read will tell you the earliest copies of Daniel date to late second century, or possibly early first century. Here are just some resources that back this up.
Carol Newsom, Daniel (2014) https://www.amazon.com/Daniel-Commentary-Old-Testament-Library/dp/0664220800
p 3--Earliest copies 4QDan(c) and 4QDan(e)--late 2nd to early 1st cent BC
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Courses-Dead-Sea-Scrolls/dp/1598036300/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488416930&sr=1-2 (can get this with free Audible.com trial) Dead Sea Scrolls Gary Rendsberg 2010 – audible.com Lecture 11 14:45ff. The Daniel manuscripts (plural) are dated circa 125-100 BCE...only 1/2 century at the most after it was written (165 BC)
Making of the Dead Sea Scrolls 2002--there are eight Daniel copies in the Dead Seas Scrolls 125 BC (4QDanc) to 50 A.D. (Every recent source I have ever looked at confirms that there are 8 copies, meaning there have apparently been no recent discoveries, as suggested at Xenos teachings above
Daniel Apollos Commentary Lucas 2002 (conservative) p 17--earliest copy of Daniel is from late 2nd century
Meaning and mystery of Dead Sea Scrolls – Shanks space 1998 p 142 – earliest scrolls date to late second century BC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Daniel (see 'Manuscripts')
This actually might take a bit of work to verify this... But consider this. If we really had copies of Daniel that date to 200 BC, Christian apologists would be shouting this from the rooftops. You would have no trouble finding proof of this. Also, conservative scholars would stop making this argument found here https://www.amazon.com/Daniel-Story-God-Bible-Commentary-ebook/dp/B00VEYHY1E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1510792030&sr=1-1&keywords=widder+longman+daniel Daniel Story of God Commentary, Widder and Longman, phDs, conservative scholars. (2016) Introduction (Who Wrote Daniel?) “Most critical scholars think the book was written by an anonymous Jew…during tumultuous events of the early second century BC…involving Antiochus IV. [175-164 BC[…Proponents of a late date situate the completed book…with the earliest possible date being a few years after 167 BC. Yet the manuscript evidence found at Qumran indicates the book was considered significant and sacred as late as late second to early first century BC, no more than 50 years after its proposed completion date." (This argument would be obsolete if we had copies dating to 200 BC. They would just say 'Daniel can't have been written in 165 BC, we have copies decades earlier!)
I emailed some very well-known scholars-- one has written commentary on Daniel, in addition to a book on the Dead Sea Scrolls. This scholar told me that dating the Daniel copies (at 180 BC) is based entirely on guesswork, but there's no reason to date that early (the date I asked him about was 180 BC, not 200, because I found a very questionable source making a similar claim, using 180 instead). The other scholar told me that the 180 date was false, and confirmed that the source of this claim is not legitimate.
Again, these teachers at Xenos are the ones making the claims. They are the ones who need to provide evidence.
Now, back to Daniel 9. It's not a clear passage. Do some research on alternative views. Just one example of this: the other major interpretation favored by conservative scholars, that agrees that it predicts Jesus, disagrees with Xenos' interpretation on five different points--the start date (458/7 vs 445/4), date of Jesus death (29 or 30 vs 32 or 33), the meaning of 'comes' refers to Jesus' baptism/start of ministry (not the triumphal entry), no 'gap', no 360-day lunar conversion. A specific, clear prophecy does not have five (there are more) legitimate points of disagreement among scholars. A specific, 100% clear prophecy has ZERO legitimate points of disagreement. That's all Daniel 9 is, nothing but questions and no answers. (It's not even clearly referring to THE Messiah; the word mashiach never refers to THE Messiah in most OT translations; it is always translated as 'anointed', referring to a high priest, a prophet, military leader or king--thus Isaiah 45:1 calls Cyrus God's meshiach, his anointed--that doesn't mean he's THE Messiah.) Just read this article by Gleason Archer, who holds this alternative view. This is the conservative scholar that wrote the article that Xenos hands out, to demonstrate that the Aramaic of Daniel is not consistent with 2nd century Aramaic. Incidentally he says here that the majority of conservative scholars date Jesus' death to 30...This doesn't mean that the 33 date is wrong, but if it's so obviously 33, why do conservative scholars not know this? https://verticallivingministries.com/tag/gleason-archer-on-daniels-seventy-weeks/
In addition to this, the 8 events described in Dan 9:26-27 very accurately match events that occurred from 171-164 BC (7 years, or a 'week'.) While some are vague, some of these are incredibly rare and specific, such as the Abomination of Desolation in 167, or the stopping of sacrifices. All center around the persecution of Antiochus IV. This suggests that Daniel 9 has nothing to do with 'The Messiah'. (That doesn't invalidate Christianity; many Christians hold the view that the 70 sevens end in 164 BC. See https://infidels.org/library/modern/chris_sandoval/daniel.html#war. This is obviously from an atheist, but he describes the 8 events of Dan 9:26-27, and how they match actual events 171-164 BC. (Even if the historical fulfillment of Daniel 9 really ended in 164 BC, those who believe in dual fulfillments in prophecy can find a second fulfillment in Jesus. That would actually make Daniel 9 even more impressive, if it were true.)
I am not trying to prove that Daniel 9 is not about Jesus. I'm only showing that it's up for debate. Why? I say that it is very important NOT to tell people that we have copies of Daniel in 200 BC, because it (falsely) demonstrates that Daniel predicted the future (160s BC). Some at Xenos will respond 'It doesn't matter when the copies date; Daniel 9 is so specific and accurate.' And, I tried to showed how this objection is wrong. (This argument, that I know will be used, that it doesn't matter when our copies date, is exactly the argument made by one of these teachers at Xenos. See Xenos Summer Institute teaching 2014, Predictive Prophecy in Evangelism, 12:35)