The term "week," it is claimed, means a period of seven years, and assumed that by Messiah is meant Christ. Seven weeks and three score and two weeks are sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years, the time that was to elapse from the command to rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of Christ, if the prophecy was fulfilled. The decree of Cyrus to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple was made 536 B. C. According to the accepted chronology Christ was born 4 B. C. From the decree of Cyrus, then, to the coming of Christ was 532 years instead of 483 years, a period of seven weeks, or forty-nine years, longer than that named by Daniel. Ezra, the priest, went to Jerusalem 457 B. C. This event, however, had nothing whatever to do with the decree for rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple. It occurred 79 years after the decree was issued, and 58 years after the temple was finished. But a searcher for Messianic prophecies found that from the time of Ezra to the beginning of Christ's ministry was about 483 years, or sixty-nine prophetic weeks; and notwithstanding there was a deficiency of 79 years at one end of the period, and an excess of 30 years at the other, it was declared to fit exactly. Christian theologians pretend to recognize in the Old Testament two kinds of Messianic prophecies: 1. Specific predictions concerning Christ which were literally fulfilled; 2. Passages in which the writer refers to other persons or events, but which God, without the writer's knowledge, designed as types of Christ. The fallaciousness of the former having been exposed--it having been shown that there is not a text in the Jewish Scriptures predicting the coming of Christ--they now rely chiefly upon the latter to support their claims. These "prophecies" are almost limitless; for a firm believer in prophecy can, with a vivid imagination, take almost any passage and point out a fancied resemblance between the thing it refers to and the thing he wants confirmed; apparently oblivious to the fact that the passage is equally applicable to a thousand other things. Had the Mormons accepted Joe Smith as a Messiah instead of a prophet they would have no lack of prophecies to support their claims; and by translating and revising the Scriptures to suit their views, as Christians did, these prophecies would fit him as well as they do the Christ. 41 What name was to be given the child mentioned in Isaiah's prophecy? "They shall call his name Emmanuel" (Matthew i, 23). What name was to be given Mary's son? "Thou shalt call his name Jesus" (Matt. i, 21). In the naming of the Christian Messiah Isaiah's prophecy was not fulfilled. He was never called Emmanuel, but Jesus. 42 To whom did the angel announcing the miraculous conception appear? Matthew: To Joseph (i, 20, 21). Luke: To Mary (i, 26-38).