Just as a follow-up to this, I spoke w/ a gifted Christian historian that was able to confirm the specifics of the city's rebuilding having taken place during the specific 444BC-395BC timeframe. This was once again a situation where my lack of OT knowledge got the better of me because I didn't understand the timelines.

Jim pointed out that there's strong Biblical evidence to support the fact the city's rebuilding might have started around 450BC and he felt that it was very reasonable to believe that it would have taken 49 years for the city to be rebuilt from that point forth.

I couldn't embrace this since it only took Nehemiah to get those walls up in just 52 days-here then, a 10-12 yr timeframe would have made a lot of sense.

However, once a person considers each and every little detail involving the entire city's reconstruction, this in a time and place w/o any modern day technological capacities, it's extremely plausible to believe it would have taken the full 49 yrs for the city to be rebuilt. The realities would demand that type of timeframe, in fact.

One thing Jim mentioned is that he felt it could have taken even longer than the 49 yrs to complete the city's rebuilding, but yet if Dan 9:25 says that it would take a "Seven" to do so, we must accept God's Word and thus believe the city's rebuilding would have been completed around 395BC.

The point is that the prophecy fits the timeline and adds up in the physical sense of the labor related realities of the day and age the ancient Jews were living in.

Last edited by olpo25; Sun Sep 21, 2008 2:31 PM.