Stop 8. Where the lines split: Daniel 9

Now go below the bar. The first contested passage is Daniel's seventy weeks: "Seventy weeks have been determined concerning your people and your holy city" (Daniel 9:24). The verses end with a covenant and a halt to sacrifice: "He will confirm a covenant with many for one week. But in the middle of that week he will bring sacrifices and offerings to a halt" (Daniel 9:27).

The arithmetic is drawn on The Whole Story, Stop 10. This chart shows where each view lands the weeks.

The blue lines (Dispensationalism) end the 69th week at the triumphal entry in Luke 19 (Sir Robert Anderson's AD 32) and send the 70th week far to the right, into "still future". The whole church age falls in the gap.

The purple lines (Partial Preterism, Kenneth Gentry) end the 69th week at Jesus' baptism in Matthew 3, put the 70th week in his ministry with the cross in the middle, and send the destruction of 9:26 to AD 66–70 as its result.

The red lines (Full Preterism) also start the 70th week with Jesus, but run it to AD 70.

Record check (judgment). Gentry's AD 26 is an inclusive count; elapsed years give AD 27. Don Preston's own anchors make the 70th "week" about 40 years long. (Calculated, from The Whole Story's data.)

Record check (judgment). Daniel's date. Many critical scholars date the book to the first half of the 2nd century BC and read its visions against the persecution under Antiochus IV, who reigned from 175 to 164 or 163 BC. On that view, parts of Daniel are history written as prophecy. The conservative case dates it to the 6th century BC: its Aramaic was in court use from the 7th century on, Belshazzar did reign in Babylon while Nabonidus was away, and Jesus calls him "Daniel the prophet" (Matthew 24:15). Eight fragments of the book were found at Qumran, the oldest copied in the late 2nd century BC. A copy of about 125 BC fits either date; defenders argue it leaves too little time after 165 BC for a new book to be accepted as scripture, and that is a judgment, not a measurement. The date decides whether Daniel 9 is prediction. It does not decide between the three lines here, because all three read it as prediction.

Picture: Daniel 9 and its arcs. Layers: all three end-times views.