On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai ... -- Haggai 2:10

Haggai works his way to this crucial question, and so shall we. Once again he begins a prophecy with a precise date.

These dates are nearly unique in scripture. Zechariah, Haggai's contemporary, also uses exact dates, but in most instances the date of a particular passage in the Bible is determined from outside evidence. Archaeological evidence in the form of inscriptions can sometimes provide a date for one of the Hebrew chronicles. Sometimes grammatical clues, such as the use of certain words or phrases, give scholars a rough estimate of the date of composition.

But Haggai dates his prophecies by pagan reckoning, and this allows …