Prophecy as Proof of the Bible

This except from Dr. Norman L. Geisler’s article Prophecy as Proof of the Bible, from his Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, documents a miraculous fulfillment of Bible prophecy by Jesus Christ:

 

While it wasn’t recognized until after the fact, one of the most precise predictions in Scripture gives the very year in which the Christ would die. Daniel was speaking of both the exile of Israel and the atonement for sin when he recorded a prayer of confession for the sins of his people (9:4–19) and a vision in response in which the angel Gabriel gave to Daniel the following foresight (9:24–26):

Seventy “sevens” are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy. Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One [Messiah], the ruler, comes, there will be seven “sevens,” and sixty-two “sevens.” . . . After the sixty-two “sevens,” the Anointed One will be cut off.

The context indicates that Daniel knew he was speaking of years, since he was meditating on the “number of years” that God had revealed to Jeremiah that Jerusalem would lay waste, namely, “seventy years” (vs. 2). God then told Daniel that it would be 7 x 70 (years) before the Messiah would come and be cut off (die).

Artaxerxes ordered Nehemiah “to restore and rebuild Jerusalem” (Dan. 9:25; cf. Nehemiah 2) in 445/444 b.c. From that year, rather than the earlier date when Cyrus approved only the rebuilding of the temple (Ezra 1:3), Daniel predicted that it would be 483 years to the time of Christ’s death. Taking the widely accepted date of 33 for the crucifixion (see Hoehner), would be 483 years exactly:

Seven sevens plus sixty-two sevens is 69 x 7 = 483

444 + 33 = 477

Add six years to compensate for the five days in a solar year not in the lunar year followed by Israel (5 x 477 = 2385 days or 6+ years).

477 + 6 = 483 years

This assumes Daniel’s 490 (70 x 7) is not a round number, which is possible. The Bible frequently rounds its numbers (see Bible, Alleged Errors in; Chronology, Problems in the Bible). In either event, Daniel’s prediction takes us to the very time of Christ.
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[1]Geisler, Norman L.: Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics.Grand Rapids,Mich. : Baker Books, 1999 (Baker Reference Library), S. 612