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Kevin is absolutely correct when he essentially tells us that in the time of Christ, Passover was observed differently according to the specific sect to which one subscribed. I may differ from my friend Gustave, as to which date I prefer. I may think that my choice is a better one. But, the bottom line is, as I understand it, none of the suggested dates can be determined to absolutely correct. Just as I may suggest that Gustave is wrong, so also may he say the same for my preferred date.

Hi JoeMo: You are correct that Daniel 8:14 does not say "Day but "evening-morning." But may I say that this does NOT suggest a reference to the sacrifices and be equivalent to 1,150 days, but is actually a stronger argument for the Adventist application than if it did use the word "day". First of all, the term for the sacrifice is NOT "evening-morning", but a very technical "morning and evening". I actually read in a couple of commentaries that support the 1150 days that the author of Daniel was clearly Dyslexic because he meant to write "mornings and evenings" but he switched around the words "morning"and the word "evening" and he forgot to include the word "and" but that we have to be careful to recognize his dyslexia and not read the text as it stands but to change the text to what he meant to say. However, others recognizing that the term "evenings-morning" is very similar to the "evenings and mornings" of Genesis 1 and is thus related to the daily cycle, but that it is also emphasis to the daily cycle and should be compared to the weekly cycles that we find in Leviticus 23 and in the book of Deuteronomy. In Leviticus 23 a Hebrew week is 6 days and the weekly Sabbath, 6 months and either Passover or Yom Kippur, 6 years and the Sabbatical year, and 6 Sabbatical years and the Jubilee. Thus an evening-morning is a reference to the daily cycle of this and can be a literal day, month, year or sabbatical year. However Daniel is based on Deuteronomy which does not have the Jubilee as it is in Leviticus. Everything that happens in the Jubilee in Leviticus occurs in the Sabbatical year of Deuteronomy, thus while it can relate to the Jubilee it would not allow for 2300 sabbatical years. Anyway, another reason why we can say that it should not be 1150 days is by looking at the text. The vision was given in the 3rd year of Belshazzar. Now it was not until the 20th century that we learned that Belshazzar was indeed a real person. The 1150 days comes from the theory that Daniel did not exist and the book was written to deal with the issue of Antiochus Epiphanes and the wrong but wishful thinking that he would only have power for 1150 days. (they see the 2300 days as too long, the 1150 days are actually too short, but fit a little bit better than the 2300, and they can point out that it was only wishful thinking.) But now we know that Belshazzar was indeed a real person and we know what years he ruled. Now we only have the year to go by, but if you start with the third year of Belshazzar and add 1150 literal days to it you come to a year of business as usual. However if you start with the third year of Belshazzar and add 2300 days to it you come to the year that includes Medio-Persia approaching Babylon, Behshazzar's feast, and the early days of the Medio-Persia empire. Also, if you hold the early date of the exodus, Yom Kippur 1844 ends a cycle of 7 Sabbatical years and the start of a Jubilee. And what was happening on the earth at this time was that the Rosetta stone had recently been translated opening up ancient languages, and Edward Robinson just completed his first trip to the Holy Land and had just published his book of the trip. This was the first serious study in Bible Geography which opened the door to Biblical Geography and archaeology, it was the dawning of the age of exegesis. A time where we get to investigate the pages of scripture like never before.

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