Dear Refiner's Fire...

I Know we are living in "The Last Days" but I'm just not sure "Where", in that time line, we are.

Daniel 12: 11 From the time the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days.

My Question: Is the time when "The Regular Burnt Offering" was taken away known - ie. the starting point for the 1290 day clock to start ticking?

Our Response...

Thanks for trusting us with an answer! Author Andrew Gabriel Roth responds:

I can only offer a brief opinion and just say that I don't think you can apply Daniel 8-9 to Y'shua's return. This was the mistake that William Miller made in the "Great Disappointment of 1844". He applied the day = year model forward from the time when Antiochus Epiphanes defiled the altar in 166 BCE and concluded 1843 or 1844 was the year of the return.

Now, it was well understood by the rabbis of the first century and by the historian Josephus that Daniel 8 was predicting the "Hanukkah event" and not either coming of Messiah--Josephus says 408 years in advance. While not perfect (I will explain) that explanation of tying Daniel 8 to the Hanukkah event fits better historically than applying it to our future and the Second Coming.

The main problem is this: Y'shua's first advent is tied to the Land Shabbat cycle but his return is tied to the Jubilee, the only cycle left to him. So the day = year counting in places like Ezekiel 4:4-6 can NOT apply to our times. As I said, this was Miller's big mistake IMHO.

However, I said applying Daniel 8-9 to the Hanukkah event was not perfect and that's because no matter how you count the 2 year period that the Temple was defiled over, you cannot get to 1290 literal days. If I'm not mistaken, it is closer to 1160 days....

It's at this point that I have to explain the ongoing nature of my study in this area and say the final answer is not here for me to proclaim just yet. At least, it's not a detailed and wholly satisfactory answer right now. 1260 and 1290 days relate to the 360 day Prophetic calendar cycles discussed in my book, Wheel of Stars. The way it works broadly is each year is 12 months, 30 days each. At the end of each year you 5.25 days short. After 6 years, this translates to a little more than 30 days, so you add a leap month. [It will also balance at the end of 39 years to balance the 40 year generation, but that doesn't affect this pattern.]

Now where 1260 and 1290 days appear it is in connection with 3.5 years or 42 months, depending on the source. If the 3.5 year period has no leap month added (i.e. it does not include the time after year 6 but before year 7 of a given cycle) then it is 1260 days. If it includes a leap it is 1290 days.

As you also know, the year of the Exodus is 1447 BCE. Using Biblical math and data we account for the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years and calibrate the clock to a spring to spring cycle. When we do that, the entry into Canaan is in the spring of 1406 BCE, and the first Jubilee is 50 years later, 1356 BCE. Next Jubilee would be 1306, then 1256, and so on. In BCE time, any year in -56 or -06 is a Jubilee. In CE time the Jubilee years are ending in -45 and -95.

Along with that, within each 50 year cycle are 7 shemittah or Land Shabbats. What's interesting is my Jubilee cycle has been confirmed in Josephus. He said that 164 BCE was a shemittah/Land Shabbat. By the rules I have laid out, 206 BCE was Jubilee, then count 7 year intervals for each shemittah and you have the years 199, 192, 185, 178, 171 and 164! (Then 157 is year 49 where you announce that Yom Kippur that th next spring is a jubilee, or 156, and repeat the process.)

The reason this matters is that somehow--I am not sure exactly how yet--Daniel is targeting prophetically this year period between 171 and 164 BCE, and in particular the last 3.5 years of that 7 year cycle, between 168 and 164 BCE. This is the only way I can think to understand the different historical incarnations of the abomination that is desolation, which by my count happens 4 times:

(1) 166 BCE, when Antiochus sacrifices a pig and puts pagan gods on the altar.

(2) 70 CE, when the Romans put their pagan ensigns on the remains of the Temple.

(3) 135-6 CE, when Emperor Hadrian announces he is building a shrine to Jupiter where the Temple stood (and does it).

(4) Sometime in our future.

All of these incidents involve pagan gods "standing in the place of Elohim" and the last time this will happen, will be when Anti-Messiah comes.

When Daniel 9 comes around, THAT targets the first coming of Y'shua, because 69 x 7 from the time all of Jerusalem was allowed to be rebuilt (Ezra 7) means 483 years from the 7th year of Artaxerxes, which is 457 BCE, bringing us the 27 CE--the 15th year of TIberius (Luke 1), 46 years from when the Temple was expanded by Herod the Great (John 2) and also the year of the Immersion!

The Second Coming though must be at the 70th Jubilee, but that's another story....

So I guess I am more sure of what Daniel 8 is not than in the details of how exactly it is. It is a matter for more study. Hope this helps!