Daniel's 70-week prophecy

24 “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. 27 And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator” (Dan 9:24-27).

I'm going to make a brief observation about this famous, disputed prophecy. Some scholars think this denotes a literal sequence of years. Other scholars think the numbers are symbolic. 

Certainly the number seven is a figure with symbolic connotations in Scripture. At the same time, it can be literal. Jews had a literal 6-day workweek, followed by the Sabbath. Likewise, the Jubilee was a literal cycle.

A prima facie problem with the literal interpretation is picking a terminus ad quo that yields a meaningful terminus ad quem. Although on one reckoning, the prophecy gets us remarkably close to the public ministry of Christ, that is not exact. Is that just a remarkable coincidence? 

Is a ballpark figure good enough, or is this a case in which some scholars reason back from their desired result, and cut corners to make it fit? On the face of it, this has the appearance of special pleading. And some scholars feel that mismatch justifies the symbolic approach. 

There are, however, two objections to that conclusion:

i) Our reconstruction of ancient chronology is not a sure thing. The dates may well have a certain give, considering the uncertainty of dating ancient events. It's possible that the imprecision is due, not to the actual interval, but to our rickety chronology. So we should make allowance for a bit of leeway in our calculations.

ii) More to the point, there may be a false dichotomy between literal and symbolic numbers. What if Daniel is using round numbers? Although round numbers are inexact, round numbers are real numbers. They aren't purely symbolic.

Daniel could be rounding the numbers for symbolic reasons. Yet it would still denote a genuine chronological interval, a genuine chronological sequence. 

That would explain why, on one reckoning, the terminus ad quem corresponds so closely to the public ministry of Christ, even if it's a few years off.