Not a three and a half year ministry of Yeshua
Almost all of the Christian world has grown up with the concept of a three and a half year ministry of Yeshua (Jesus). However, no scholar has yet been able to prove this hypothesis. In fact, the entire text of the narrative Gospel proves that three and a half years of ministry is a mathematical impossibility. The construction of a three and a half year ministry is the theological invention of an age-old religious system that provides no evidence of what its adherents blindly accept.
It was Eusebius who first proposed a three and a half year ministry three hundred years after Yeshua's resurrection, while every "church father" and historian of the first three centuries stated clearly, if never contradicted, that Yeshua's ministry lasted "about a year". Eusebius presented his undocumented claim in fulfillment of Daniel's 70 weeks prophecy, and now, after 1600 years, his theological supporters continue to defend this unprovable invention with unshakable conviction. His assumptions destroyed any chance of truly understanding Daniel's prophecy, which Eusebius ostensibly resolved. Eusebius his successors were saddled with insoluble contradictions as they clung to his invention.
Artificially extending the ministry of Yeshua was necessary to lay a foundation for replacement theology and preterism. Replacement theology is the concept where Yeshua started a new religion that mysteriously took away the eternal covenant with Israel. Preteristic eschatology is a view where all prophecy (including Revelation) was fulfilled as early as 70 CE, which has opened the door for “the vicar of Christ” to rule from his millennial throne at Rome. To support this position, it was necessary to artificially fulfill all seventy sevens of Daniel's messianic prophecy, and it took exactly seven additional years from the beginning of Yeshua's ministry to make this invented substitute Christology valid.
"Seventy weeks has been appointed for thy people and thy holy city, to finish transgression, to shut up sin, to atone in iniquity, and to bring eternal righteousness, to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint something most holy." (Daniel 9:24)
It was exactly sixtynine weeks of years (483 years) from the time Artaxerxes gave the order to go to Jerusalem and rebuild (Ezra 7, 1 Aviv, 457 BCE) until the day Yochanan ben Zachariyah (John, the baptist) stated: “Look! The Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world! ” (John 1:29, 1 Aviv 27 CE). This left seven years, or a final week of years. To find another seven years from this moment, representatives of Rome made up a three and a half year ministry of Yeshua, while Yeshua had to die as a one year old male lamb and not as a three and a half year old red heffer, and then squeeze the remaining three and a half years out of Acts. This artificial fulfillment of Daniel's seventy weeks was carried forward as being the complete fulfillment of the Torah and the Prophets. And so they decreed that the everlasting covenant with Israel was fulfilled, broken off and replaced by the ever-changing decrees of a new religious system, headed by he who calls himself "Almighty God on earth."
The theological evidence for this new doctrine was derived from the incident where Peter was sent to the home of the Roman centurion, Cornelius who they claimed unfoundedly took place three and a half years after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Shavuot (Pentecost). This incident (Acts 10 ), where Peter was instructed to "consider no man unclean," was perverted to teach that the Spirit had destroyed the Torah by commanding Peter to eat vermin from a dirty sheet. From the thought that the Creator had suddenly revoked His eternal Torah, it could also be taught that the Almighty had simultaneously disapproved Israel and handed over the “church” to Roman Gentiles at Caesarea (Acts 10:1-11:18). With the fulfillment of these last seven years, the light of the eternal Torah was extinguished, and the everlasting covenant with Israel destroyed, although the foundations of replacement theology were anchored in quicksand.
Source: The Chronological Gospels - The Life and Seventy Week Ministry of the Messiah by Michael J. Rood
