It seems we have a disagreement regarding the interpretation of Daniel 9:25-27 regarding the identity of the “anointed one” referenced in the text. Like James, you argue that there is not one anointed one, but two. However, I have interpreted the passage as containing one anointed one: Jesus, the Messiah.

In the three articles you referenced, you make two arguments regarding this passage, both based on the original Hebrew:

1 – The definite pronoun “the” does not appear in the Hebrew.
2 – A hard stop appears between seven sevens and sixty-two sevens.

Regarding the first, you appear to be correct. Like you, I would prefer to see translators be as unbiased as possible. Regarding the second, however, your article “The Seventy Weeks of Daniel”, indicates that the truth is significantly more complicated than that. After presenting the issue of the hard stop, you remark:

“The difference between the ESV and the KJV is that the ESV follows the Masoretic Text (MT) while the KJV follows the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Theodotion text…Many people believe the Masoretes changed the text to avoid the Messianic interpretation of Daniel 9:25, whereas Theodotion’s translation supports the Messianic view.”

Therefore, by your own admission, this is not a simple case of biased translation. This is a question of source texts and your source text on this passage is considered by many to be suspect. In other words, your source text is suspected of injecting a bias against a Messianic interpretation into the very source text, which, unsurprisingly, yields a similarly biased English translation.

Rather than deal with this problem, you appear to leap from a discussion of Hebrew translation to the claim that a period between the 69 sevens and the final sevens is not found in the passage. Concluding that this is eisegesis, you apparently consider the matter closed.

However, just as the Dispensationalists’ ideas should not dictate the translation of this text, neither can the rejection of their ideas guide us to the correct text.

Furthermore, it should be noted the text itself clearly groups the first 69 sevens, but appears to present a gap before the last seven. In verse 26, events are enumerated that occur after the 69 sevens, including the actions of “the people of the prince that shall come” (ie, he hasn’t yet come and the 69 sevens are over). In verse 27, the final seven is identified as a covenant with this prince. The text itself clearly presents a gap, it does not need to be inserted.

Finally, I was disappointed by your lack of an alternate interpretation. You claimed to have refuted the interpretation that the anointed one(s) is the Messiah, but you omit identifying any other possible individuals, or an alternative interpretation of the “weeks” which would seem to also be required by any view that omits Jesus as the anointed.

If you have time, I’d be curious to know how your view deals with these issues.

PS: You need to include the “http://” preface in your anchor tag’s href attribute. Otherwise, some browsers appear to insert the current url as the base url, leading to broken links. I’ve inserted to “http://”into your comment already so you don’t need to edit your previous comment.

Thank you for your post on the Messiah in the book of Daniel. Daniel 9 is a very difficult passage and the proper interpretation of the text requires careful investigation of the original Hebrew. I have written three posts dealing with the Hebrew of Daniel 9:25-27. Those who are interested in understanding the text may read my posts:

Rereading Daniel 9:25-27: The Coming of the Messiah

Rereading Daniel 9:25-27: The Seventy Weeks of Daniel

The Use of Upper Case in Translations of the Bible

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary