Alex,

Hi.. I have just a moment to get you started if you want 'the rest of the story' <g> but the book is named, "The Coming Prince" by Sir Robert Anderson and was written in the last century. The fellow who wrote it took many many years to study the details and write the book. I seem to recall that he spent some 60 years researching it out. Here's a link: http://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Voice/The.Coming.Prince.html

Apparently on March 14, 445 BC is the 'trigger' date references in the book of Daniel. It turns out that 69 7's equals 483 years (Babylonian/Lunar @ 360 days per year) which equals 173,880 days whic is exactly the day we have come to know as Palm Sunday.


>>>OK I will bite. Where is your source the Russia will get into the picture soon?
>>
>>The Bible. The same place that predicted to the day when Jesus would enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey and the same one that predicted that Israel would indeed be formed again as a nation.
>
>And where in the Bible it says anything about the Russians getting into the picture soon?

This would be Meshech (sp?) and Tubal, north of Israel.

>
>>predicted to the day when Jesus would enter Jerusalem?
>
>Is there any independent confirmation of that as a fact? Or could it be that whomever wrote it was:
>
>a) not there (so it's hearsay)
>b) not even alive at the time (hearsay again)
>c) revisionist history
>d) fairy tale
>e) factually correct

>
>Is there anything that can point to one answer as better than any of the other ones?

Yes.. The bokk I referenced above. It's considered THE authoritative work on the subject regarding the predictive prophecies in Daniel. It's also heavily annotated so you'll find an absolute wealth of supporting materials.

Typicall, Alex, the kinds of response one gets to making these types of assertions is, well, not much more than uneducated scoffing. The problem is is that it is almost entirely uneducated and almost always, what would be a good word?, "nasty" in its tone. Sad...

>
>Just note that the apocryphal story is mentioned in Mark 11. Now, it has been debated by scholars and historians on who was Mark. To date there is no real concensus nor certainty that he even existed or it was some local scholar that wrote these. Did Mark (or the writer) ever met Jesus?

Most folks think he was the young lad (mentioned in Mark, whose clothing was lost as he wriggled out of the grips of the Romans. He apparently was a protoge' of Peter and as such a lot of scholars consider the Gospel of Mark really more appropriately the Gospel of Peter - dictated/reminisced to Mark.

>
>R. Funk, B. Scott and J. Butts write in "The Parables of Jesus" (Polebridge Press - 1988):
>
>"The names attached to the gospels, including those included in the New testament, are traditional, and in most cases do not provide any real information about authorship or origin. When the gospels emerge as written documents in history - when the first copies are made and circulated - author and place of origin have already been lost. The original composition of these gospels took place between 50 C.E. and the beginning of the third century C.E"
>
>So, the writer(s) lived at least 50 years after Jesus' death. Did they ever meet him? Were they there when Jesus got upset at a fig tree? Doubt it.

Regardless, there is considerable internal evidences that have led to many of these traditions. Candidly I don't particularly care who wrote them but that they were written, if that makes sense. A LOT of wasted energy goes into arguments over what really amount to non-issues and if that's your point you'll get no argument from me.. <s>