https://etzion.org.il/en/tanakh/ketuvim/sefer-ezra/kings-persia-and-missing-years
Approach 5
– A number of traditional scholars have proposed that the rabbis knew
and accepted the conventional chronology but obscured it for some
reason.
This
position was perhaps most famously adopted by Rabbi Shimon Schwab,
leader of the German Jewish community in Washington Heights, New York,
until his death in 1995. He maintained that the rabbis had intentionally
obscured “the missing years” in order to dissuade anyone from
calculating the time of the coming of Messiah. This followed the charge
laid out in the book of Daniel (12:4):
“But you, Daniel, keep the words secret, and seal until the time of the
end. Many will range far and wide and knowledge will increase.” Toward
the end of his life, however, it seems that Rabbi Schwab recanted his
position, expressing concern that the masking would have had too great a
negative impact on halakhic matters such as the molad, and therefore the notion that the rabbis would have obscured the actual dates is implausible.[11]
While
we have offered only a bare-bones outline of the controversy, it is
evident that the dispute concerning the chronology of the Persian kings
carries significant theological, historical and exegetical implications.
Throughout our treatment of Shivat Tzion
we will be operating within the framework of the scholarly consensus.
This view most easily accounts for the evidence and is endorsed by
traditional thinkers such as Ba’al Ha-maor. Still, when a particular
interpretive question hinges on the dispute, we will make note of how a
devotee of the rabbinic view might tackle the question at hand.
