324 Joel White concerned the time at which the world ruler would appear together with Josephus’ statement noted above that Daniel alone among the prophets gave indication as to when the events he prophesied would occur make it virtually certain that he had Dan 9,24-27 in mind. These references support Beckwith’s contention, referred to above, that in the late Second Temple period Jews of various ideological bents attempted to calculate the time of the appearance of the Messiah based on their reading of Dan 9,24-27. The well-documented heightening of messianic expectation during that period clearly shows that, although they might have quibbled with each other about the details of the timing, all expected that the end of the age would soon be upon them. 3. The Abomination of Desolation (Dan 9,27; 11,31; 12,11) Gabriel’s revelation to Daniel concerning the seventy weeks of years ends with the announcement that the temple cult will cease during the final week, and an “abomination of desolation”, as the term has been traditionally rendered (LXX: bdevlugma tw'n ejrhmwvsewn), will be set up in its place (Dan 9,26-27). The same phrase is repeated in 11,31 and 12,11, and on all three occasions the abomination of desolation is closely connected to the cessation of sacrifice in the temple. It is therefore likely that in each case the referent is the same. My concern, however, is not to determine what the phrase referred to in its original context but, once again, to assess its Wirkungsgeschichte in early Judaism (62). a. The author of 1 Maccabees explicitly associates the abomination of desolation with the desecration of the Temple carried out by Antiochus Epiphanes IV in 167 B.C.E. Cf. 1 Macc 1,54: “Now on the fifteenth day of Chislev, in the one hundred forty-fifth year, they erected a desolating sacrilege [bdevlugma ejrhmwvsew"] on the altar of burnt offering”. b. The Synoptic Gospels ascribe to Jesus a warning in the eschato- logical discourse that “when you see the abomination of desolation (both Matthew and Mark have to;. bdevlugma th'" ejrhmwvsew"; Matt 24,15; Mark 13,14) standing in the holy place (Mark: “where it ought not to be”), then those in Judea must flee to the hills”. While skepticism about the attribution of this logion to Jesus remains strong in some scholarly circles, first century Jewish Christians in Jerusalem seemed to have entertained no doubts as to its prophetic (62) On which, cf. D. WENHAM, “Abomination of Desolation”, ABD I, 28-31.