THE SEVENTY-WEEKS PROPHECY OF DANIEL 9:24–27 AND FIRST-CENTURY AD JEWISH MESSIANIC EXPECTATION

For Christians who interpret the seventy weeks of Daniel 9:24–27 by correlating the coming of the messiah with the arrival of Jesus Christ, the question of whether Jesus could have been identified as the predicted messiah at the time of fulfillment is theologically significant given biblical claims of prophetic intelligibility. There is a consensus among scholars affirming the view that interpretation of the seventy-weeks prophecy led to a climate of messianic expectation among certain sectors of first-century Jewish society. This position is supported by the explicit connection of the seventy weeks to the anticipated arrival of a messiah in Melchizedek
(11Q13). Josephus provides an independent line of circumstantial evidence that dates this expectation to the first century. This warrants the theological conclusion that the prophecy was, in principle, intelligible to those among whom it was fulfilled.