Daniel 12:11, 12 says,

¹¹ And from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. ¹² How blessed is he who keeps waiting and attains to the 1,335 days.

The time cycles given in these verses are a mystery to most people. As I said earlier, John has nothing to say about these two cycles, focusing only upon the 1260 days (Rev. 12:6). This is the equivalent of “a time and times and half a time” in Rev. 12:14. John expresses it as 42 months in Rev. 13:5, when he wishes to suggest its connection to tribulation.

But 1,290 and 1,335 are mysterious numbers, not only because John says nothing, but also because the angel told Daniel so little. All we really know from Scripture is that 1290 is associated with the temple and the abomination of desolation. The number 1335 is even more mysterious.

Solar and Lunar Years

A solar year is 365.24219 days. A lunar year of 12 full moons is only 354.36708 days. The difference is just under 11 days—more precisely, 10.87511 days. Our Western calendar is based on a solar year, but the Islamic calendar is lunar. So a year on the Islamic calendar is only 354 days long, whereas our western calendar is 365 days in length.

This is why the Islamic holy month of Ramadan regresses 10.87511 days each year. It is because the Islamic year is about 11 days shorter than our solar year. So in 2012 Ramadan began on July 20; in 2013 it began on July 9; in 2014 it began June 29; and in 2015 it began on June 18. In 2024 Ramadan will begin on April 24. Because they never add a 13th month, their months do not remain seasonal.

The Hebrew Calendar

The Hebrew calendar is a combination of solar and lunar. The months are lunar, but because it is anchored by the ripening of barley (for Passover), it is necessary to insert a 13^th month every 2-3 years in order to overcome the 11-day regression each year. If this were not done, the first month of the Hebrew calendar would continue to regress like the Islamic calendar does, and soon the feast of Passover would have to be kept in the winter. If this were to happen, they would have no sheaf of ripe barley to wave on the Sunday after Passover.

Hence, an intercalary month is added at the end of the Hebrew twelfth month whenever the barley was still unripe. The rabbis were sent to Jericho each year at the end of the twelfth month to find ripe barley. If they found some, then the next month was proclaimed to be the first month of the new year. If the barley was unripe, then the next month was proclaimed to be the thirteenth month of the previous year.

This is why Passover and “Easter” are not celebrated on fixed days of the year. These feasts regress about 11 days each year until it regresses into the month of March when barley is not quite ripe. The Passover then shifts forward 19 days (one month minus the 11 day regression), so that it can be celebrated in late April when the barley is “in the ear,” or “eared out” (ripe). See Exodus 9:31 and Mark 4:28 (KJV) to see examples of this terminology.

Daniel’s Time Cycles and the Calendar

This lunar-solar combination in the Hebrew calendar is reflected in the relationship between the three numbers: 1260, 1290, and 1335.

A prophetic year is 360 days, representing the mean distance between a lunar and a solar year. In other words, it is about half way between 354 and 365. Long-term prophecy uses the same numbers but apply the principle of “a day for each year” (Ezekiel 4:6; Num. 14:34).

1260 is the first number that sets the standard for a 3½ year period, or 42 months, in which a model (or prophetic) month is 30 days.

1290 is also a 3½ year period, but it has the extra month added to it, in accordance with the Hebrew calendar, which would always add an intercalary month during a 3½ year period.

2,520 lunar years is 2445 solar years. (2520 x .9702249 = 2444.9667, or 2445) So there is a 75-year difference between 2520 lunar and 2520 solar years. This is the 75-year difference between 1260 and 1335, which shows their connection to the full 2520-year cycle.

The Solar Desolation Cycle (1290 Years)

Daniel 12:11 says,

¹¹ And from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days.

This verse has at least two applications. The first is when the “regular sacrifice” was abolished shortly after the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon in 586 B.C. The second is when the “regular sacrifice” was abolished by Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 B.C.

There is evidence that even after the temple was destroyed in 586 B.C., some continued to bring offerings to the temple for a few years. This is seen in Jer. 41:4, 5,

⁴ Now it happened on the next day after the killing of Gedaliah, when no one knew about it, ⁵ that eighty men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria with their beards shaved off and their clothes torn and their bodies gashed, having grain offerings and incense in their hands to bring to the house of the Lord.

However, when we study the time 1290-year time cycle, it is clear that it started in 586 B.C. when the temple was destroyed. In fact, there are two ways in which this cycle was fulfilled in history, one by solar reckoning, and the other by lunar reckoning.

By solar reckoning, the starting point is the fall of Jerusalem in 604-603 B.C., ending with the construction of the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem in 688-691 A.D.

History tells us:

The Dome of the Rock was built by the Umayyad caliph abd al-Malik from 688-691 A.D.

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/israel/jerusalem-dome-of-the-rock

This first cycle of 1290 solar years ended as the Dome of the Rock began to be constructed on the temple mount in 688 A.D. Daniel calls it “the abomination of desolation.” The second cycle of 1290 years ended in 1978-79 with the Camp David Accord between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The framework was agreed upon in 1978, and the Accord itself was signed formally in 1979.

It appears that the first 1290-year cycle ended with the abomination of desolation in 688, while the second one, ending in 1978, ended on a positive note with a peace treaty. But because Jeremiah 19:10, 11 prophesied the ultimate destruction of Jerusalem, it is certain that in the end no peace accord can prevent this from happening.

The Lunar Desolation Cycle (1251 Years)

The second cycle began 17-18 years later with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 586 B.C. This literally ended the sacrifices. The fact that men continued to bring offerings to the destroyed temple for a few years does not mean that God recognized those sacrifices.

The lunar time cycle is based on the lunar calendar, and it too is doubled. (1290 lunar years is 1251 solar years.)

To calculate 1290 lunar years, one must multiply 1290 by .9702249. It comes to 1251 solar years. I find nothing historically significant in the midpoint year 666 A.D. That year certainly must have been noticed by biblical scholars of the day. No doubt they related it to Rev. 13:18 in regard to “the number of the beast.”

The second cycle is more significant, because 1917 was the year that British General Allenby took Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks toward the end of World War I. This date was also 2,520 years from 604 B.C., the year that Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem.

The difference between two cycles of 1290 lunar years (i.e., 1251 x 2) and “seven times” (7 x 360 = 2,520 years) is just 18 years. The first totals 2,502 years, and the second totals 2,520. The two cycles have the same endpoint, but the beginning points are 18 years different (604 and 586 B.C.).

The Second 1290- Year Application (Greek)

As I said earlier, there are at least two applications of the 1290-year cycle. The first dates from the cessation of the sacrifices at the time of Jerusalem’s destruction, while the second dates from Antiochus Epiphanes, who stopped the regular sacrifices in 168 B.C.

This second cycle was fulfilled, not in lunar years but in solar years, because it involved Templars during the First Crusade, who used the solar calendar. From 168 B.C., adding 1290 years brings us to the year 1123 A.D. The First Crusade began in 1098, and led by the Commander, Godefroi of Baudouin, they took Jerusalem a year later in 1099.

When the Dome of the Rock was taken over by the Crusaders in 1099, it was turned into a Christian shrine called Templum Domini. This would have been seen by Islamic people as a desecration, or abomination of their own holy site. Perhaps we could say that from their perspective it was a reverse abomination of desolation.

Godefroi died in 1100 and was replaced by his younger brother, Baudouin of Boulogne, who reigned as King of Jerusalem until 1118. During this time, the Knights Templar were established by Hugues de Payens. Orthodox accounts date the founding of this Order in 1118, but it was actually founded some years earlier. There were nine original members. According to Laurence Gardner’s Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark, p. 220,

When Baudouin moved his quarters to the domed citadel on the Rock of David (which was then a Christian shrine called Templum Dodmini), the Mosque was left entirely to the Knights. Their ambition was to excavate the site and to retrieve the treasure that had been stowed by Jeremiah and Hilkiah’s Temple Guard over 1,700 years before. Deep beneath the mosque was the original vault complex, and it was known by St. Bernard to contain the wealth of Old Testament Jerusalem, including the Ark of the Covenant.

The Knights Templar were patronized and protected by the Cistercian Abbot, St. Bernard de Clairvaux, who had built his Cistercian monastery in 1115. While the Templars had a reputation for poverty, they had no lack of funds. Gardner writes in his book, Bloodline of the Holy Grail, pp. 257, 258,

Deep beneath the Jerusalem Temple site was the great stable of King Solomon, which had remained sealed and untouched since Biblical times. The enormous underground shelter was described by a Crusader as “a stable of such marvelous capacity and extent that it could hold more than 2,000 horses.” To find and open up this capacious store-room was the original secret mission of the Knights Templar, for it was known by St. Bernard to contain the Ark of the Covenant which, in turn, held the greatest of all treasures—the Tables of Testimony.

It appears that the treasure was discovered about the year 1123, and that it had been transported to southern France by 1127. On page 260, he writes,

By 1127, the Templars’ search was over. They had retrieved not only the Ark and its contents, but an untold wealth of gold bullion and hidden treasure, all of which had been safely stowed below ground long prior to the Roman demolition and plunder of AD 70. It was not until very recently, in 1956, that confirmatory evidence of the Jerusalem hoard came to light at Manchester University. The deciphering of the Qumran Cooper Scroll was completed that year. It revealed that an “indeterminable treasure,” along with a vast stockpile of bullion and valuables, had been buried beneath the Temple.

In 1139 Pope Innocent granted the Knights Templar independence from any authority other than himself. The Templar Order became wealthy beyond imagination, and…

… within a decade of their return the Templars were probably the most influential body the world has ever known… Being so well funded, the Templars established the first international banking network, becoming financiers for the Levant and for practically every throne in Europe. (Bloodline of the Holy Grail, p. 262)

It is hard to say if the Templars really found the lost Ark, or if this story was manufactured in order to support their claim as Merovingians to the Dominion Mandate.

(I certainly do not agree with their interpretation of the New Testament, which claims that Jesus did not really die on the cross but lived to sire three children by Mary Magdalene who are the progenitors of the Merovingians. Gardner is a publicist and spokesman for the Merovingian royal families of Europe, who claim descent from Jesus Himself. I believe they invented this theory many centuries ago to support their claim to the divine right to rule. It was actually designed to answer the Papal claim as holders of the “key of Peter.”)

The secrecy involved in transporting the wealth from under the temple site could be that they really do not have the ark at all. It is clear, however, that they discovered a great deal of wealth. With this wealth, they were able to construct numerous cathedrals: Notre Dame in 1163, Chartres in 1194, Reims in 1211, and Amiens in 1221.

They dedicated all of their cathedrals to “Our Lady,” Mary Magdalene (not Mary, the mother of Jesus), because they believed that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus and the mother of the Merovingian kings who claimed to rule by divine right as bloodline descendants of Jesus. (Hence, the title of his book.) However, for public consumption, the people were allowed to think that these cathedrals were dedicated to the other Mary—the mother of Jesus.

The Templars were eventually suppressed in 1309 when both popes and kings became frightened at their power and envious of their wealth. The Order then went underground. The knights joined other orders but secretly retained contact among themselves. They resurfaced two centuries later as the Jesuit Order and later as Freemasons, both of whom are heavily involved in the rule of Mystery Babylon today.

Understanding this history, we can see that the discovery of the Ark and the hidden treasures under the Temple site in Jerusalem was a major world-changing historical event that affects us to this day. I have not found a precise date for the discoveries, but if it was completed by 1127, as Gardner says, then it is likely that this important Temple event could have occurred in 1123, which was 1290 years after Antiochus desecrated the Temple in 168 B.C.