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APPENDIX VII-- THE CHRONOLOGICAL PROPHECIES-- In the Book of Daniel, five numerical prophecies are given. According to the principle that days signify years (cf. Num. 14:34), there is the 490 years concerning the appearance of Christ (Dan. 9:24-6); the 2,300 years concerning the time of the end (Dan. 8:13-14, 17); the 1,260 years concerning the abomination of desolation and the commencing of the cleansing of the sanctuary (Dan. 12:7, parallel to Rev. 11); the 1,290 years marking the end of the cleansing of the sanctuary (Dan.12:11); and finally there is the 1,335 years concerning a great blessing that is to come (Dan. 12:12), a blessing the nature of which is probably alluded to in the next passage by the word 'rest' (Dan. 12:13), signifying the seventh-day rest which marks the world triumph of Baha'u'llah's Faith. (201:1) The first prophecy (Dan. 9:24-6) refers to the first appearance of Christ, while the last four all involve chronological predictions concerning the time of the end. Of these four chronological numbers, two - the 1,260 years and the 1,290 years - conform to the lunar calendar, and the remaining two - the 2,300 years and the 1,335 years - correspond to the solar calendar. Even though the western world was essentially divided into two dominate religious groups using two different calendars, solar (Christian) and lunar (Islamic), the prophecies still provide sufficient guidance for all because history has shown that either calendar could be used to arrive at the primary date initiating the new age. This is most clearly demonstrated in the exact correlation between the 2,300 solar years and the 1,260 lunar years. Nothing short of divine providence could have caused the 2,300 years - calculated from the edict (457 BC) which commences 490 years before Christ's ascension - to correspond so exactly to the 1,260-year date of the Islamic calendar, a date which also corresponds precisely to Qur'anic verses (40:7, 32:4; cf. 2 Pet. 3:8) understood to refer to the 1,000 years that would pass after the disappearance of the Twelfth Imam (260 AH) before the coming of the Day of God.
(201:2)
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