The Triunity Report

A Mathematical Error with the Bible?

By Guy Cramer

One of our readers sent in the following comment:

I just read two of your reports:

"The Unexpected King...." and "God's Precise Mathematical Equation..." both of which are used to illustrate that only God could and can predict the future. At any rate, "The Unexpected King..." takes into account a "leap year" correction factor. The other report "God's Precise Mathematical Equation" does not. I do not understand this...how can one take into account the leap years and the other not?"

Is there a problem with the calculations?
Lets review the mathematics involved in these two papers. These are not the complete papers so I have placed links in the titles so you may read the entire paper(s).

The Unexpected King, (A Precise Mathematical Prediction)
By Chuck Missler

Verse 25 then declares that Daniel should "know and Understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and rebuild Jurusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty two weeks." This verse is a precise mathematical prediction of the time of Messiah's coming! In effect, the angel Gabriel told Daniel that after sixty-nine weeks of years the Messiah would be revealed to the nation of Israel!

If a "shabuim" is a week (seven) of years, it therefore follows that 69 sevens is 483 years (69 x 7= 483 years).

The Jewish (and Babylonian) calendars used a 360-day year; 69 weeks of 360-day years totals 173,880 days.

In effect, Gabriel told Daniel that the interval between the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem until the presentation of the Messiah as King would be 173,880 days.

he commandment to restore and build Jerusalem was given by Artaxerxes Longimanus on March 14, 445 b.c. (The emphasis in the verse on "the street" and "the wall" was to avoid confusion with other earlier mandates confined to rebuilding the Temple.) When we examine the period between March 14, 445 b.c. and April 6, 32 a.d., and correct for leap years, we discover that it is 173,880 days exactly, to the very day!

Here are the calculations.

March 14th, 445 B.C. to March 14th, 32 A.D. is 476 years.

(1 B.C. to 1 A.D. is one year, There is no year zero)

476 years x 365 days per year = 173,740 days

Add for leap years = 116 days (Leap years do not occur in century years unless divisible by 400 [therefore, we must add three less leap years in four centuries])

March 14th to April 6 th = 24 days

total = 173,880

This is the only occasion that Jesus presented Himself as King. It occurred on April 6, 32 a.d.

The Jews would remain without an independent nation for another 2,520 biblical years from 536 B.C., the beginning point of the prediction (360 years x 7 = 2,520 years biblical years).

Ezekiel's prophecy of the 430 years declared that the end of Israel's punishment and her final restoration to the land would be accomplished in 2,520 biblical years of 360 days each which totals precisely 907,200 days. To convert this period into our calendar year of 365.25 days we simply divide the period of 907,200 days by 365.25 days to reach a total of 2,483.8 of our modern calendar years. Therefore, Ezekiel prophesied that the end of Israel's worldwide captivity would occur precisely 2,483.8 years after the end of the Babylonian Captivity which occurred in the spring of 536 B.C. In these calculations we must keep in mind that there was only one year between 1 B.C. and A.D. 1. There was no year Zero. As an illustration, there were only twelve months between the Feast of Passover on 14th of Nisan in the spring of 1 B.C. and the next annual Feast of Passover in the spring of A.D. 1.

The Babylonian captivity ended in the Spring of 536 B.C.	536.4 B.C.
	MINUS
The duration of Israel's captivity (from Ezekiel 4:3-6)	2,483.8 calendar years
	=1,947.4 A.D.
To adjust for the fact there was no year zero between 1 B.C. and A.D. 1, we adjust one year.	+1
Therefore; the end of Israel's captivity would occur:	1948 - May 15 The Rebirth of Israel

On the afternoon of May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independence of the reborn state of Israel. At midnight, as May 15, 1948, began, the British Mandate officially ended and Israel became an independent nation.

Chuck Missler paper describes the prophesy from Daniel concerning the Messiah entering Jerusalem as King. 476 years x 365 days per year = 173,740 days. This shows the mathematics involved in our calendar time verses the Jewish calendar scale of 360 days = one year. But we must also take into effect the leap years in our calendar to get 172,880 as Daniel phrophesized.

Grant Jeffrey paper explains that the prophesy from Ezekiel about the rebirth of Israel is 2,520 Jewish years multiplied by 360 days to equal 907,200 days. He then states, "To convert this period into our calendar year of 365.25 days we simply divide the period of 907,200 days by 365.25 days to reach a total of 2,483.8 of our modern calendar years." The fact that Grant Jeffrey uses 365.25 shows the leap year effect. If we leave this .25 out of the equation we can see the same calculation Chuck Missler uses.

907,200 divided by 365.25 equals = 2483.7782 (Grant has rounded this number)
2483.7782 multiplied by 365.25 equals = 907,200 days
2483.7782 multiplied by 365 equals = 906,579 days
This gives us our approximate leap year correction of 621 days

We see both equations do take into account the leap years.