DanielsTimeline.com teaches that Jesus the Messiah will return 2017 according to an interesting twist on Daniel’s prophecy and other verses. Are its assumptions sound?
I have heard about this Daniel's Timeline prophecy DVD video teaching from a few people who were quite fascinated by it. Unfortunately, after looking at it I could immediately see that this is yet another timeline attempt that breaks Scripture. For example, it makes the common mistake of using 50 years for the Jubilee cycle instead of the correct amount of 49 years. See this article on the Jubilee Year to understand this important topic.
Seventy Feasts of Shavuot/Pentecost?
Another stretch is how it takes the 70 weeks or "sevens" of Daniel and turns them into 70 years to span the time from UN Resolution No. 181 on November 29, 1947 to 2017 when "God's rest" is supposed to arrive--one year after Messiah arrives 69 years after the same starting point. He claims the 70 weeks or shavuot in Hebrew could also refer to 70 Feasts of Weeks/ Pentecost (also Shavuot in Hebrew). The problem with this theory is that Pentecost has nothing to do with the return of Jesus or start of the Millennium so it makes no sense the Bible would instruct us to count them to find when Jesus comes. As Dewey says, Jesus will come on the feast day of Trumpets some four months after Pentecost. If we were supposed to count any holy day until the end of this age, the fall feast of Trumpets would make more sense than the spring feast of Shavuot.
Note that I'm not even commenting on whether the conclusion about 2009-2016 is wrong. It sometimes happens that people come to the right answer using incorrect reasoning. I'm only pointing out that the arguments used unfortunately break Scripture by separating the prophecies from their plain meanings. For that reason I'm not convinced by his arguments that Jesus has to return by 2016.
2008 Update
With the passing of time since I first wrote this in 2007, it is now clear to me that Daniel's Timeline's is indeed wrong in its conclusion as well as its methodology. In other words, it is safe to say even now in late 2008 that it cannot happen--if you know the missing prerequisite events from the prophecy roadmap as covered in my book. Read this new article on 2012 for details.
2012 Update
I still get emails about this video. This amazes me since there are less than five years left until the year Dewey predicted Jesus' return, 2017. This leaves no time for all the events that must happen before his return in the first half of the 70th week to happen, also known as the "Beginning of Sorrows." This includes the devastation of Star Wormwood, which would come in 2013 if 2017 were the end of the Great Tribulation. By now the world would already be hearing the warning of a prophet about the need to move to safety. We would also have seen the Middle East War.
In brief, it's long overdue to relegate this date to the same category of failure of all other past dates.
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Tim McHyde
Tim is the author of this site (since 1999) and the book Know the Future that explains Revelation literally at last--including the key event of Wormwood (Rev 6-8). To read more from Tim and not miss a single new article, sign up for his free newsletter above.