Comment on the basis of the chronological scheme and the command 'to restore and to build Jerusalem'..

Hebrew tenses

Dear T,

Your letter comes as a double disappointment. I was expecting that promised copy of the letter from Charles Ozane: I am also sorry you are deviating from a straightforward checking out of what you call my proposal, though it is more than that, being an assertion.

However the chronological scheme is not something dependent on the point you want to query or any other single feature, it is based firmly upon the Sabbatic and Jubilee structure from the entry to the land until the jubilee of Luke 4.  You should disregard the chronology in the Companion Bible; It is defective both because of its concept of Anno-Mundi/Anno Dei years and the spacing of Jubilees at fifty year intervals instead of 49 years. But I accept the early placing of Esther's marrlage to Astyages, so being the mother of Cyrus the Great.

My chart does not give Gabriel's visit to Daniel as 409bc. It does not give a date, though it was 428bc. Your major error is one that Sellers did not make, in that the lokked for command was not to build a temple or a wall, but to restore and to build Jerusalem.

There is no future tense in Hebrew, and prophecy always is expressed In the Present Tense. Robert Young's Literal Version has this Note : "The present tense - besides its proper use, is used rhetorically for the future, there being no grammatical form to distlngulsb them. - - In every other instance of its occurrence it points out an Imperative, not so gently as when a Preterite is used for this purpose, nor so stern as when the regular Imperative form is employed, but more like the Infinitive."   Make of this what you will.

You will do well to carefully work through the main arguments set out In Chronology Rectified and not get diverted into minor issues. Its conclusions do not depend on evidence from Josephus: that is only used to demonstrate the need to question the accepted duration of the reign of Manasseh. The chronology of Van Lennep is faultless except on this point.

You say you have given this "deeper consideration", but I could only assess it to be somewhat shallow. So keep at it '

Yours Sincerely   Maurice Lloyd 13th November 2000

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