Most scholarship, I believe, puts the stoning of Stephen in 34 or 35 AD. Is there reason within the Scriptures to substantiate this claim? Yes, I believe there is! However, such substantiation comes from prophecy in both Old and New Testaments, but the understanding of these very prophecies is clouded by the interpretation of most scholarship, which puts the fulfillment of them at the second coming of Jesus.
I have written similar posts which had to do with Stephen’s death back in November of 2009. However, I think I should be clearer on this matter in order to have a better understanding of the timeline of early Acts with a particular interest in the placement of the High Priests for Stephen’s death, Paul’s persecution of the Jewish believers in Jesus in Acts 9:1, and when the “peace” occurred in Acts 9:31.
The Seventy Weeks Prophecy of Daniel 9 was supposed to offer the believer the identity of the Messiah by showing the exact time in which he would appear. The 70 Weeks Prophecy begins with the first sacrifice offered on the rebuilt altar on the Temple mount when Joshua, the High Priest, and Zerubbabel returned from the captivity. The Jews began to make daily offerings to God from the first day of the seventh month upon their return from captivity (Ezra 3:6). This is a very important date, as it represents the first time in decades that worship of the God of Israel was offered from the Temple mount, and it represents the “firstfruits” of the decree of the emperor, which I believe is implied in the prophecy. So, the date of the decree itself is not important, but date of the firstfruits of that decree is the important part of the prophecy in terms of when it begins. The Messiah was to come at the beginning of the 70th week or 483 years after the first sacrifice was offered by the returning captives.
No matter which year one chooses to begin the 70 Weeks Prophecy, the 484th year must begin in the fall and on the Feast of Trumpets. I submit that from Luke 4:16 and up to Luke 6:49 Luke shows Jesus beginning his ministry on the Feast of Trumpets (Luke 4:16) and each Sabbath mentioned thereafter is either an annual Holy Day or a seventh day Sabbath. The odd “second Sabbath after the first” in Luke 6:1 is the seventh day Sabbath which occurred in that year back to back with the annual Day of Atonement, a fast day, which is why the Apostles were hungry and began to take some grain from the fields on the Sabbath day, rubbing it in their hands and eating the kernels.
Anyway, long-story-short, 3 ½ years later Jesus was crucified, and the 70 Weeks prophecy foretold the Messiah would be ‘cut’ (offered for the covenant) in the midst or the middle of the prophetic week (Daniel 9:26-27). The 70th week comprises 7 years, 3 ½ of which represented Jesus public ministry culminating in his crucifixion and resurrection. Notice in Luke 10:18 that Jesus said he beheld Satan like lightning fall from heaven. This is shown in Revelation 12:7-10 where Michael/Jesus makes war with Satan. Now I am not saying Jesus is an angelic being, but I am saying Michel is Jesus—the Angel of the LORD who is God in the Old Testament. Anyway, Jesus with his disciples were waging spiritual warfare against Satan’s kingdom (cf. Luke 10:17). The angels in Revelation 12 represent the messengers of Jesus and Satan respectively. In the Gospels they are Jesus’ disciples waging war against Satan or the Pharisees and high priests who fought against Jesus and his disciples. The woman (the Jewish believers) had a place of safety for 1260 days (Revelation 12:6). This is the first part of the 70th prophetic week and represents Jesus care for his disciples—they were safe, and he lost no one.
In the second part of the week the disciples were also safe according to Revelation 12:14. The believers were spiritually nourished for a time (1) + times (2) and half a time (1/2) or 3 ½ years. Daniel refers to this time as the 1290 days.
Formerly, I had believed the 1290 days began on the day of Jesus’ resurrection, which if it did, the days would have culminated on the Day of Atonement in 34 AD. However, had they done this, it would have indicated national repentance, which didn’t occur, and the proof of this is Stephen’s death, which occurred on that day. Thus, the 1260 days ended in blood (the crucifixion), but the 1290 days were intended to end in repentance, but instead Stephen was stoned. Therefore the fulfillment of the 1290 days were delayed. There is a gap between the 1260 days and the 1290 days of nearly 40 years due to unbelief, and is typified by Israel’s wandering in the wilderness for 40 year due to their unbelief. The 1290 days begin when the Roman general, Cestius, surrounded Jerusalem with his armies (cf. Luke 21:20), tore down the northern wall of Jerusalem, but for no good reason retreated, allowing Jesus’ disciples to flee (Luke 21:21). They end, when Titus, the Roman general and son of the Emperor, surrounded Jerusalem with his armies, broke down the northern wall (that was repaired) and encamped inside the walls of Jerusalem. Thus the city fell.[1]
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[1] See my study, The Seventy Weeks Prophecy and the 1290 Days, which details this.
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105 responses to “When Was Stephen Stoned?”
Wow one of the best articles, it was so so interesting, and this helped me so much with my religion assignment. Thank you so much!!
Lord bless
Elise
Hi Elise, and thank you for reading and for your kind words of encouragement. I’m glad to be of help. Lord bless you, too. I hope all goes well in your studies.
Eddie,
I appreciate you work on this topic and it seems to me that you have done a very nice job of it. I agree with you that the Dispensational view of Scripture and particularly eschatology can’t be defended from the Bible. It simply does not fit.
You are correct that there is no other example of prophecy anywhere in the Bible where there is a “gap” in time when God gives a specific time frame in the prophecy. As a matter of fact, Daniel was reading the Book of Jeremiah regarding the Babylonian captivity of which he himself (Daniel) was caught up in… “In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans— in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.” (Daniel 9:1-2)
So while in the final years of his 70 year captivity in Babylon, Daniel is reading about the prophecy given to Jeremiah about the captivity and the angel appears to Daniel and gives him another prophesy regarding a future 70 “weeks” prophecy. Did the angel of God come to Daniel at the end of the 69th year of his captivity in Babylon and tell Daniel that the captivity would continue on for an undisclosed amount of time? Did he say that the prophetic clock had “stopped”? No he did not. Did Noah find out that forty days and nights of rain actually meant 50 or 60 days and nights? Did the Moses and the Jews wander in the wilderness for 40 years or was it actually 50 or 100 years? What kind of God would we be serving that did something like that? Certainly not the faithful and true God of the Bible!!!
By the way, I agree with you about the 70th week of Daniel ending at the stoning of Stephen. I have studied this quite a bit myself and I believe that the Seventy weeks of Daniel began with the decree given by Artaxerxes I in the seventh year of his reign (457/456 B.C). It is recorded in Ezra 7:8-26.
483 years later (69 weeks of years), Jesus began His earthly ministry with His baptism by John. It is recorded by Dr. Luke in his gospel (Luke 3:1-2)…
“Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.”
Notice the precision that Dr. Luke goes to in describing the time of the baptism. Normally in the Bible, one prominent figure is all that is needed to nail down a timeframe like: “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.” That should have been sufficient to lock down the date. Luke goes much further and specifically mentions seven prominent people to absolutely nail down this time. WHY? It is when Messiah the Prince officially arrives. This is the beginning of the Seventieth Week Daniel!! We know historically that Tiberius reigned from 14 to 37 A.D. The 15th year of his reign would put the baptism of Jesus around 29 to 30 A.D.
I would really be interested in how you calculated the date for the stoning of Stephen.
Grace and peace to you.
Hi Eugene, sorry replying took so long, but I was out of Internet service for almost a week. I also need to delay replying in full, until I return from a doctor’s appointment. Lord bless you and thanks again for reading and for your comment. I promise to reply in full upon my return.
Greetings, again, Eugene. I’ll now reply to your comment and question above.
I agree that the 70 Weeks Prophecy begins in 457 BC, but there are errors in secular chronology due to the ‘so-called’ scientific studies of Claudius Ptolemy in dating the reigns of Persian kings by eclipses. Claudius Ptolemy is a 2nd century AD historian / scientist who is praised by a number of Biblical scholars, but I don’t agree. The decree in Ezra 7 has to do with Ezra’s journey to Jerusalem and the “release” of Jews who went with him, but by the time they arrived the Temple was almost built. They arrived in time for the memorial celebrations, and Nehemiah was permitted to return to take charge of the celebrations too, but he had to return to Persia afterward. He had been permitted to journey to Jerusalem cir. 20 years earlier, but problems involving neighboring anti-Semitic nations forced his recall before the Temple was completed. The decree that began it all was the decree of Cyrus in Ezra 1, but the 490 years didn’t begin until an altar was built up and the first animals were sacrificed thereon since it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. This was on the Feast of Trumpets 457 BC (Ezra 3:1-3) and 483 year later Jesus is found saying “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” (Luke 4:18), which I take to be the beginning of the final week of the 70 Weeks Prophecy.
You have the week beginning with Jesus’ baptism, and that’s okay. After all this is just a Bible study, and we can disagree about some things. Nevertheless, I believe I have better support in the Scriptures, but that may be just my point of view. :-)
You asked how I calculated the date for the stoning of Stephen. Well, it is a bit involved, and you may find it detailed better in some of my studies relating to this prophecy, but basically it can be shown that the “thousands” of converts in the early chapters of Acts represent folks coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish annual festivals. There are several “updates” in Luke’s chronicle, and they are better understood to show the passage of years—e.g. Acts 2 is Pentecost 31 AD, but Acts 3 might be Passover 32 AD. The controversy in Acts 6 showing a disagreement between the Hellenist Jews and the regular Jews born in Judea/Galilee shows a few years passage of time. After all, most of the growth of the early church in Judea probably represented Jews who knew Jesus firsthand. They heard him preach and saw his miracles. Yet, another group began to grow. Some of the Diaspora heard the Gospel during the annual festivals and either took the Gospel back to their local synagogues in Asia and Europe (as well as Mesopotamia and Egypt), but some of them resettled in Judea, like the six evangelists Peter ordained to lead the Grecian Jewish believers who broke away from the regular Judean/Galilean born Jews. This takes us only so far. We are able to see from the number of converts and the context that Acts 1-6 is 2-4 years.
We can narrow it down a bit by saying, since the 70th week began with Jesus’ sermon in Nazareth and his ministry ended in the midst of the week (according to Daniel), which historically proved true. He was crucified on the Passover day, 3 ½ years after he began his ministry on the 1st day of the 7th month of the Jewish calendar 27 AD. Therefore, Acts 1 through 6 must be about 3 ½ years long, if we can believe the Lord is giving us a short chronology of the final 3 ½ years. I did all the calculations in another study on this subject, if you care to read it.
Finally, Revelation 12 shows that during the first 1260 days of the 70th week the disciples of Jesus are protected—he personally protects them. The next “time, times and half a time” or 1290 days (see Daniel 12) the woman (believers / disciples of Jesus) is persecuted but is helped and protected. So no blood is shed among the disciples for the entire 70th week. The first half of the week ended with Jesus’ blood being shed (the 1260 days). The second half of the week ended with Stephen’s blood being shed (the 1290) days. The 1290 day begin on resurrection Sunday and end on the Day of Atonement, 3 ½ years later. All the Days of Daniel begin and end on a significant day in the Jewish Calendar, usually one of the annual Holy Days of Leviticus 23.
I have a number of studies dealing with this subject that can be found HERE, if you care to read them. May the Lord bless you and all your studies of his word.