Without a calculator? Not likely. But here's how it works out, as I understand it.

483 prophetic years of 360 days each comes out to 173,880 days. So far, so good. The starting gun was Nisan 1, 444 BC. (Actually, Nehemiah never actually says it was the 1st day, he merely names the month and the year of Artaxerxes' reign.) Sir Arthur Anderson worked it out (based on a starting date in 445 BC, because he didn't know about the delayed commencement of Artaxerxes' reign---see Future History, chapter 7) to the time span between March 14, 445 BC to April 6, 32 AD---476 years and 24 days. So the math is, 476 x 365 = 173,440 days. Add 116 days for leap years and the 24 day gap and you get the requisite 173,880 days.

But knowing about the later starting date for Artaxerxes reign, H.W.Hoehner worked out the dates to be 476 years, 25 days apart. 476 x the real length of a solar year (365.24219879 days) comes out to 173,855 days. Add the extra 25 days, and you still come out to 173,880 days. With my limited means, it's still impossible to pin it down to the day because of discrepancies in the timing of the new moon. Wikipedia notes: "Furthermore, the modern Hebrew calendar cannot be used to calculate Biblical dates because new moon dates may be in error by ±2 days and months may be in error by ±2 months. The latter accounts for the irregular intercalation (adding of extra months) that was performed in three successive years in the early second century, according to the Talmud." And as I said, Nehemiah didn't pin it down to the day, anyway.

We know the end date beyond the shadow of a doubt, not only from historical sources, but also by reverse engineering the Passover prophecy: the Lamb had to be brought into the house on the 10th of Nisan, which fell on March 28 in 33. It's harder to pin down the start date with any assurance. But we know we're pretty close (within two days at the outside), and if we know Yahweh, we can trust Him to be precisely accurate, whether we can keep up with His math or not. The Jews can't have it both ways: if Yahshua wasn't the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy, then Yahweh is a liar.

kp

How does the actual cycle of the Biblical/Prophetic calendar work? If a prophetic year is 360 days long, how does the Word correlate the difference, does it add any months anywhere to play catch up?




My thing is: if the Messiah was crucified in 33CE and we go by the current Gregorian calendar of 365 days for 3 years plus one year of 366 days, we get about 730500 days for a 2000 year period, making His return in 2033. But if using the prophetic calendar of 360 days we get about 720000 if I do a simple calculation of mutliplying it to 2000 years, which is about 28 years earlier, making in 2005. Gosh! I better release a press statement; the End of the World has come and gone and we missed it, in God's mercy He didn't bring the End! So my question is: how does the prophetic calendar play catch up, or is there another calendar in use determined by the New Moon sitings?

Probably best if someone just points me to the place in FH, TOM or YY where it provides clarification.