Bible Question: Why did the 69 weeks of Daniel 9:25 not end on Nisan 1?

Bible Question:I am intrigued by your study on Daniel 9:25-27 but I have a question on the dates. The decree went out on Nisan 1 and (7 + 62) * 7 * 360 days (173880 days) followed. Shouldn't the end date be Nisan 1 again? Since multiples of 360 days passed (the number of days in a Jewish year) we should end up back at Nisan 1. Even if leap months were inserted (and they no doubt occurred), they are still 30 day leap months which should maintain the day of the month.

Bible Question: The answer to your question is found in the calculation of the Jewish leap years. The ancient Jewish calendar had some months that were twenty-nine days and others that were thirty days. In a given year that would result in less than 360 days. Our calendar, the Gregorian calendar, has approximately 365.25 days. Since the Jewish calendar has less than 360 days their leap year corection is solved by addiing an entire month that they call Adar I. The leap years were calculated as follows:

The Jewish leap years are years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19 of the Metonic cycle. To determine whether a year is a leap year, find the remainder when dividing the Jewish year number by 19. If the remainder is 3, 6, 8, 11, 14 or 17, the year is a leap year and an extra month, Adar I, is added, preceding Adar II (sometimes called "the real Adar"). If the remainder is zero, the year is also a leap year since year 19 of the Metonic cycle is a year exactly divisible by 19. Another way to check a specific year is to find the remainder in the following calculation: ( 7 x the Jewish year number + 1 ) / 19. If the remainder is less than 7, the year is a leap year.[1]

This calendars indicate that some months in the Jewish calendar have 29 days and others have 30 days. The Jewish year 3792 was a leap year as indicated by the addition of the month Adar I. Since 3792 was a leap year we know that the calendar was corrected in that year.. Now if we count the number of days between Nisan 1, 3792 to Nisan 1, 3793, we find that there were only 354 days. Note that Nisan 1 is the first day of the Jewish New Year. Iif we assume that Adar 1 corrected the calendar perfectly, we discover that the calendar is lagging by eleven (11.25) days (accounting for 0.25 days in the solar year) when we arrive at Nisan 1, 3793. But the Jewish calendar gains approximately 0.78 days every year independent of leap year compensation.[3] Since Daniel's prophecy spans 483 years (69 years x 7), that means the Jewish calendar was ahead by 2.23 days in 3793 after 483 years. If we subtract 2.23 days from 11.25 days we discover that the calendar is in lagging by 9.0 days in the Jewish year 3793. So we must add 9 days to Nisan 1 to compensate for the missing days in the calendar. When we add 9 days to the calendar we arrive at Nisan 10 as the corrected calendar date in 3793. This corresponds to the day of Jesus' Triumphal Entry on 10 Nisan 3793 which is 3 April A.D. 33.

Conclusion:We would encourage you to compare this information with that found in the study "Jesus is Alive." May God bless.