AKA: Daniel 9

Christians claim that Jesus has to be the messiah because the messiah has to come back before the second temple was destroyed.

In order to understand this passage, we begin with Daniel 9:1:

1 In the first year of Darius son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans—

2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, consulted the books concerning the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD that had come to Jeremiah the prophet, were to be the term of Jerusalem’s desolation—seventy years. Daniel 9:1-2 (SCE)

This “the word of the LORD that had come to Jeremiah the prophet,” refers to “the term of Jerusalem's desolation—seventy years.” This indicates that Jeremiah is considering the prophecies in Jeremiah 25 and 29 that mention seventy weeks. There are two specific prophecies here, which I will refer to as Prophecy A and Prophecy B.

The first prophecy, A, is that the Babylonian empire would collapse:

12 When the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation and the land of the Chaldeans for their sins—declares GOD—and I will make it a desolation for all time. Jeremiah 25:12 (SCE)

Daniel was clearly referring to this prophecy, as it is the prophecy of seventy years found in Jeremiah.

However, there is another part to this prophecy:

Prophecy B is that God would return the exiled Jews back to Jerusalem:

10 “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.Jeremiah 29:10 (ESV)

Daniel's connundrum