Well if you read my earlier post mentioning SP Laurie you will see that this sort of weird thinking was around going back to the books of Daniel and Enoch.
Apparently (I haven't got my head round it yet) there is in Enoch the concept of the "Apocalypse of Weeks" which no doubt led to all the excitement by Darby (Dispensationalism, Plymouth Bretheren) and Miller (Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses, and also of course Joseph Smith (Mormons).
Should anybody be interested there is a commentary here on the Animal Apocalypse - a key part of the First Book of Enoch
All this stuff well predates Christ or the New Testament - but was highly influential in the New Testament construction.
First Book of Enoch, pseudepigraphal work (not included in any canon of scripture) whose only complete extant version is an Ethiopic translation of a previous Greek translation made from the original Hebrew or Aramaic. It is a compilation of several separate works, most of which are apocalyptic.
www.britannica.com