The author wishes to express grateful appreciation to the following brethren who contributed in one way or another to the present work: To Bros. Charles Thornton and Fred Williams, Sr., for alerting us at an early date to developments in this area and motivating us to send out a clarion call to other interested brethren. To Bros. Ric Cunningham and Jerry Leslie for producing excellent treatises expounding the Bible Student position. These both provided the inspiration to pursue the Scriptural defense yet further and to follow through on lines of reasoning that were suggested. Bro. Leslie’s scholarly Dating the Desolation also renewed our interest in the views of earlier advocates of a 70 year desolation period. In addition, our gratitude extends to Bros. Eugene Burns, Michael Koterba, Paul Mezera and Dick Salyards with whom correspondence and comm unication yielded fruitful results and further encouragement. As always, my dear wife Elaine deserves special appreciation for her cheerful labors in typing, proofreading and constructive suggestions for improving both content and grammatical form.