Free Hill of Grace by Stephen Orr Page A

cake and coffee. If nobody else was going to take the Bible seriously then he would have to.
    The first book he studied was Daniel. In chapter nine there was a well-known prophecy of ‘seventy weeks’, a period of time extending from God’s commandment to rebuild a broken Jerusalem through to a time when ‘the anointed one shall be cut off’.
    The following Monday, as Joshua, Arthur, Seymour and Ron Rohwer gathered in the Miller house for study, William set to explaining what he’d come up with. Study and facts alone, he stressed, had led him to this understanding. ‘I say nothing that wasn’t said in the Bible.’
    The group looked at him, Joshua sucking on his pipe, already convinced. ‘Remember,’ he said to the group, ‘William’s picking up on research that’s already been done. Aren’t you, William?’
    â€˜Some.’ Referring to some pseudo-religious ‘facts’ he’d seen in someone’s old Watchtower . ‘I’ve read the Bible three times in the last three weeks,’ he said, as Ron thought, So what, lifting his eyebrows and whispering, ‘A book in Chinese is just as meaningless after – ’ ‘Different thing,’ William interrupted.
    â€˜Not necessarily.’
    They stopped, realising they sounded like a couple of school boys.
    â€˜So,’ Seymour began, sitting back and folding his arms, ‘let’s hear what you’ve got to say.’
    â€˜Let’s,’ Ron joined, folding his arms.
    â€˜The starting point for the seventy weeks,’ William explained, ‘could only be the decree of Artaxerxes, which is in Ezra.’ He took his Bible from underneath a pile of papers and flicked through.
    â€˜Ezra chapter seven, eleven through twenty-six. Does anyone know it? The decree was to allow Ezra to return to Jerusalem. Yes . . .?
    The rebuilt city?’
    He stared at them in anticipation. ‘People have tried to link Ezra and Daniel before, this is nothing new.’
    â€˜It’s new to us,’ Seymour said, sitting forward.
    Seeing he had their attention, William pushed away the pile of papers and continued mostly with his hands. ‘Next step, I took a day in the Bible to mean one of our years. Seymour, you’re good at maths. If a day becomes a year, seventy weeks becomes . . .?’
    â€˜Four hundred and ninety years.’
    â€˜Correct. Now, according to the Bible, the decree of Artaxerxes was issued in 457 BC.’ He looked back at Seymour, who smiled and bowed his head, saying, ‘Four hundred and ninety on from 457 . . . that’s 33 AD.’
    William’s eyebrows lifted, he extended his hands in jubilation and looked at each of them. ‘The year of Christ’s crucifixion.’
    Ron nodded his head, unable to make sense of it. ‘So, what does that prove?’
    â€˜457 . . .’
    â€˜457 . . .?’
    â€˜It might be a coincidence.’
    â€˜What might?’
    â€˜I went back to Daniel, and there it was, in front of me.’
    It had been a sub-zero Thursday morning, one a.m., when he came running into Bluma, asleep in the middle of their king-size bed. Shaking her awake he said, ‘Two thousand four hundred and nine . . .’
    But she had just rolled over and gone back to sleep, and he’d returned to his maths. ‘In Daniel chapter eight, verse fourteen,’ he continued, sure that he hadn’t lost any of his audience yet, ‘there’s a reference to two thousand four hundred and nine evenings and mornings which’d have to elapse before the sanctuary’s cleansed.’
    â€˜The sanctuary?’ Seymour asked.
    â€˜Where else? Here. Our sanctuary. And who’s the one set down to do the cleansing?’
    â€˜Christ,’ Arthur gathered.
    â€˜Yes. On his return.’
    Which was William’s way of referring to the atheists and agnostics with their Mickey ears and shiny fridges, the