1. The History of an Interpretation

ALL IDEAS have a beginning. People who believe in an idea, however, are often completely unaware of its background, origin and development. Ignorance of that history may strengthen the conviction that the idea is true, even when it is not. As happens in other cases, this ignorance may provide fertile soil for fanaticism.

True, knowledge of the historical development of an idea does not necessarily disprove it, but such knowledge does enable us to improve our judgment of its validity. A clear example of an idea– in this case, an interpretation – that is obscured by ignorance is a widely‒held concept concerning the “Gentile times” referred to by Christ at Luke 21:24

They will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captives among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of Gentiles are fulfilled. – NRSV.

Millions of persons internationally have come to accept the belief that this prophetic statement definitely points to and is linked with a specific date in the twentieth century and they even build their present plans and future hopes on that belief. What is its history?

The length of the period called the “Gentile times” (translated “the appointed times of the nations” in the Watch Tower Society’s New World Translation) has been calculated by some expositors, including the Watch Tower Society, to be 2,520 years. This calculation is founded upon the so‒called “year‒day principle.” According to this principle, in biblical time‒related prophecies a day always stands for a year, “just as on a map one inch may stand for one hundred miles.”²³ two passages where prophetic periods are explicitly counted that way: Numbers 14:34

From the Awake! magazine of October 8, 1973, page 18.

The calculation of the “times of the Gentiles” as a period of 2,520 years, beginning in 607 B.C.E. and ending in 1914 C.E., is the chronological basis of the apocalyptic message preached worldwide by the Watch Tower Society.

In the first text, as punishment for their errors, the Israelites were to wander in the desert for forty years, measured out by the number of days the spies had spied out the land, forty days, “a day for a year.”

In the second text Ezekiel was told to lie on his left side for 390 days and on his right side for 40 days, prophetically carrying the errors of Israel and Judah committed during just as many years, “a day for a year.”

It should be noted, however, that these specific interpretations are given to us by the Bible itself. “A day for a year” is nowhere stated to be a general principle of interpretation that applies also to other prophetic periods.

The development of the concept that the year‒day principle can indeed apply to any time‒related biblical prophecy has a long history. The shifting nature of its application during that history surely reveals something as to its reliability.

Jewish rabbis were the first to begin applying this way of counting prophetic time beyond the two references cited, and they did this with the “seventy weeks” of Daniel 9:24‒27 verse of which states: “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.”²⁴

Despite this, the fact is that the “year‒day” application was not stated as a general principle until the first century C.E., by the rabbi, Akibab ben Joseph (c. 50‒132 C.E.).²⁵

Hundreds of years passed and it was only at the beginning of the ninth century that a number of Jewish rabbis began to extend the year‒day principle to other time periods in the book of Daniel. These included the 2,300 “evenings and mornings” of Daniel 8:14 and 1,335 days of Daniel 12:11 12 as having Messianic implication.

The first of these rabbis, Nahawendi, considered the 2,300 “evenings and mornings” of Daniel 8:14 them from the destruction of Shiloh (which he dated to 942 B.C.E.) to the year 1358 C.E. In that year he expected the Messiah would come!²⁶

Nahawendi was soon followed by others, such as Saadia ben Joseph from the same century and Solomon ben Jeroham from the tenth century. The latter applied the year‒day principle to the 1,335 days of Daniel 12:12 year 968 C.E. as the date for the redemption of Israel.

The famous rabbi, Rashi (1040‒1105), ended the 2,300 year‒days in 1352 C.E., when he thought the Messiah would come.

Abraham bar Hyya Hanasi (c. 1065‒1136) speculated that the 2,300‒, the 1,290‒ and the 1,335‒year periods would terminate on different dates in the fifteenth century. The end of the 2,300 year­‒days, for instance, was set at 1468 C.E.²⁷

Even up into the nineteenth century, many other Jewish scholars were continuing to use the year‒day principle to fix dates for the coming of the Messiah.

The methods the rabbinical scholars used in applying the year­‒day principle during those ten centuries were varied and the dates they arrived at differed. Whatever method employed, however, one thing was true: all the end‒dates eventually proved empty of fulfillment.

Since the use of the year‒day principle was relatively common among Jewish sources from early centuries, was this also the case among Christian Bible expositors?

Of greater interest, does the history of its use within the Christian community – and the results obtained – demonstrate a contrast, or does it follow a similar pattern? What has been its fruitage?