What Is Adventist Eschatology Good for?
By AT News Team, March 5, 2015: Three Seventh-day Adventist academics and pastors will gather at Loma Linda University (LLU) this Saturday (March 7) to address a number of questions regarding Adventist end-time expectations: What is Adventist eschatology good for? Does the Second Coming matter today? Do the books of Daniel and Revelation still matter?
“Last-day events still mesmerize many Adventists, but staying interested is not as easy as it used to be,” states the event’s promotional materials. “The long delay of the Second Coming has had a dampening effect. There is little threat, just now, of a national Sunday law. From the standpoint of traditional Adventist eschatology, difficulty in the relationship between Islam and the West comes as an unsettling surprise.”
The three participants—John Brunt, Kendra Haloviak and Charles Scriven—will argue that indeed Daniel and Revelation matter very much today. Blunt is a New Testament scholar and pastor of the Azure Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church. Haloviak is author of a just-published book on Revelation and a faculty member at the La Sierra University Divinity School. Scriven is a theologian-ethicist and visiting professor in the Loma Linda University School of Religion.
Under the title “What Is Adventist Eschatology Good for,” they will attempt to show how a fresh reading of the Bible’s literature of hope can enhance the church’s message and build a better world.
Scriven gave Adventist Today a preview of some of the material the trio will cover. “The panelists will consider whether or not a ‘last-day-events’ interpretation of the Bible’s apocalyptic literature does full justice to the moral passion that suffuses the entire biblical canon,” Scriven told Adventist Today. “John Brunt and Kendra Haloviak-Valentine have published articles and books that that raise questions about conventional understanding and supply perspective that we don’t necessarily get from the end-time preaching and seminars we are used to,” he added.
“One argument you will hear is that Daniel and Revelation, and related material in other Bible books, have this-worldly implications,” Scriven noted. “To skeptics of the Christian hope, eschatology seems, all too often, like a vision of escape from the practical demands we face today in the world God made for us. This conversation will address, among other things, the concerns that Jesus had in mind when he asked us to pray: ‘Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.'”
The panel discussion will not be live-streamed, but it will be recorded. Viewers will be able to access the video on the LLU website approximately two weeks after the event date (link).[1]
The discussion will begin at 3:00pm in the Damazo Amphitheater. The event is sponsored by the Loma Linda University School of Religion’s Humanities Program.
I hope this is a “Gong Show” format.
Whereby, the first panelist or audience member who mentions “Soon” is removed.
GONG!
Question: “What is Adventist eschatology good for?” Answer: In the 21st Century, very little. Question: “Does the Second Coming matter today?” Answer: Once we can agree on what “the Second Coming” is, then we can have a discussion on Does it matter?”. Question: Do the books of Daniel and Revelation still matter? Not really.
If the books of Daniel and Revelation were never mentioned again, what difference would it really make in the lives of Christians who believe in Christ as their Redeemer? “Soon” has no meaning. There are far too many problems individuals and society face today that have nothing to do with the Adventist eschatological theory.
If one cannot live a good and decent life without the overhanging threat of suddenly being seized into a frenzy about getting ready for the “Big Event,” the best thing would be to drop, scuttle, and ignore it. Who cares anymore but a few dyed-in-the-wool devotees of “end-time” predictions.
It never fails to amaze me how Elaine always makes the most relevant and accurate comments with the fewest words. I hope that when I am her age I still will have her clear insights.
Amen. I so enjoy Elsine’s comments.
Sorry, Elaine. I am having trouble typing on my cell phone.
Ervin, your compliments are greatly appreciated. As we both realize, age has its problems but also the advantages that only a long background can offer; a perspective not often recognized until one reaches our age. Whether it’s a blessing or curse depends on other’s perspectives.
Why do you ASSUME that having a right understanding of eschatology is a threat, a kind of fear-based inducement to being “good”?
That is YOUR problem, not a problem of God’s self-revelation via the Holy Spirit to Daniel and John (and in many other places.)
The problem as usual is your anger at SDA-ism blinds you to what the Spirit reveals as the WHOLE GOSPEL. Half a gospel is a lie. Every half-truth is a lie.
And you must be really frustrated that end-time interest is everywhere present, and sects that emphasize it such as SDAism keep right on growing, without the slightest interest in your complaints.
And I speak as someone who is very aware that many of SDAism’s favorite interpretations were simply late 18th century mistakes as to the meaning of various passages.
Try Revelation 1:1 to see if the whole book of Revelation has any meaning today.
It depends on what is meant by “Adventist eschatology”.
I wasn’t even aware of it until a few months ago but there seem to be many professed Christians who realize that there is something “wrong” with the dispensationalist futurist eschatology that has been promoted by the Schofield Reference Bible, Hal Lindsey and, more recently, the Left Behild series of books and movies. It isn’t just that some Christians think there is a problem with the pre-tribulation rapture doctrine or the gap theory. They seem to be aware that the popular version(s) of futurist eschatology promotes the very kind of kingdom that Jesus refused to set up 2,000 years ago–a different kind of kingdom than that described in the Sermon on the Mount.
Most of the Christians who reject dispensationalist futurist eschatology, however, are not aware that there is any alternative than to treat Bible prophecies–at least those in the book of Revelation–as alegorical.
If “Adventist eschatology” is understood as the historicist method of Bible interpretation, there are many Christians who really need to know that it IS possible to interpret it in another way than the two ways described above.
But there is another problem. Some members of our denomination have hijacked the historicist method to promote doctrines that not even I, who have been a voting member of the denomination for over fifty years, consider to be essential to the message of Revelation–who our God is and how he deals with the terrible emergency of sin.
I think we (historicists) need to provide people with the tools to interpret the prophecies without treating them as allegorical INSTEAD OF selling a package deal–an interpretation that includes specifics that are represented as essential to historicist interpretation when they aren’t.
Adventism will never confess it’s eschatology as a grand hoax, beginning at its very birth. Penance for fifteen decades of faulty interpretation and proclamation of Scripture is in order, not likely, ever. Confession would be an institutional task of great magnitude, far above the reach of this small committee.
Well Bugs-Larry, let me ask you this one question:
If there is no true interpretation of Scripture, then are not ALL interpretations equally invalid and therefore equally valid?
Admittedly this was a rhetorical question 8-).
The bottom line of Bugs-Larry’s views as I understand them is that the Bible itself is a hoax. So why single-out Adventists from other Bible-believers as being the hoax peddlers?
Anyway, Hammy, a hoax is an intentional swindle. I single out Adventism because its attempt to transform belief via “prophecy” into real time events is an utter, demonstrable failure and cannot now be honestly promoted. But has become a hoax and has been for long time.
Adventist “hoax peddlers” are balanced precariously on its backbone without an alternative since itsproclaimed eschatology was the narrative of its foundation.
The Bible cannot be a hoax, you trickster! There is no cabal of authorship, no motive possible, no angle conceivable, no benefit. You know it story as well as anyone. Oh, there is an endless supply of hoaxers around who supply their craft with nuggets from Scripture. You can’t blame the gold mine for fool’s gold.
I’m sure Jews said the same about the first generation of Christians.
So, Steve Ferguson, a slippery fish your are, you manufacture a whispy equivalency argument (always a sign of defeat), wallaaaa, no need to address the issues!!!
But this one is so thin-air feeble, Steve. Show your source for what Jews said then. And what first generation of Christians, if there were any of significance, what they might have been doing or saying that Jews would even notice. Oh, a moot opinion. Theologicrat? Now I get it.
The real point is, Steve, explain why Adventist eschatology isn’t now a hoax. And what part of the manufactured narrative central to Adventism, self-proclaimed, as the selected church by God to escort his Sabbath “truth” through the end times has not only totally and completely failed and is now verifiably false, but been advanced even a teeeensy bit.
Um I don’t think you need to be a great scholar to see that Jews thought Jesus’ claim to be a Messiah was a great hoax. The Gospels themselves mention these arguments, that the disciples supposedly just moved Jesus’ rotting body so He didn’t really rise from the dead.
And then the NT clearly gives the impression Jesus would return during the Apostle’s own lifetimes. But it didn’t.
So that is two possible counts of failed eschatology. The Great Disappointment has many parallels to early Christian disappointment, if one was to believe in cognitive dissonance and all that.
Bugs could you please explain (sorry I’m a bit simple) what part of Adventist eschatology exactly is a hoax. Given Adventist eschatology shares a hell of a lot with ‘mainstream’ Christian eschatology, you’ll have to be a little more specific.
Steve Ferguson, I have revealed the failure of Adventist eschatology elsewhere. Here is a different approach. You are going to convince a seeker to join the SDA church on the demonstrability, legitimacy and power of its stance on eschatology.
Now is the end of the world.
We predicted Christ was coming in 1844, twice.
He is coming back, soon.
There are sign of the times, rumors of wars.
The Sabbath is the last great debate.
God chose Adventists to elevate and guard the renewed value of the Sabbath.
Adventists are anointed by God as the “Remnant.”
The Catholics are going to kill us for that.
We are going to have run to the rocks and mountains to hide out.
Sunday laws will be signed to force Sunday observance.
There are 3 angels messages, all for Adventism and the end time.
Ellen White is the Spirit of Prophecy.
God is busy in the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary, but he won’t stay there.
That is where he went in 1844.
When he physically walks out of there, “probation” will close.
There is a time of trouble approaching.
He is going to come in a could this size of a man’s hand, take the saved to heaven.
The bad will stay behind for a thousand years and then be burned up.
This is a quick list, Steve. There is plenty more. If you were investigating Adventism, would you be swayed? There is no way to make any of these items look relevant or good. Even if a minor Sunday law was being passed somewhere, you would at least have a morsel of hope. But no, there is nothing, you’re not an idiot.
Adventism was built on what turned out to be the false premise of the quick return of Christ. All of its distinctive doctrines were fashioned to buttress that expectation. It was a package deal and it busted. Get over it. Humpty Dumpty is broken, you can’t put him back together again.
Yes and no.
Yes and no, maybe, probably, or probably not. Possible.
:——–(UMMMMM !
This paranoid, obsessive, fear-based catastrophizing that is Adventist eschatology has been devised as a means of motivating more of the fearful to joint the ‘remnant’ and so guarantee ‘salvation.’
Christians, on the other hand, need ‘give no thought for the morrow,’ know that NOW is the hour of salvation, ‘fear not those that can destroy the body’ and enjoy living daily in the peace that is not of this world.
Of what possible use is SDA eschatology to them?
Sergei,
Well said. The SDA interpretation of Daniel and Revelation is based on the false notion that the Bible contains a historical outline from the Creation to the Second Coming with “landmarks” that allow the interpreter to establish the exact time of the events on the timeline, including the Second Coming.
Biblical evidence does not support such a perspective. Historicism has failed to support itself with historical data because it is fiction, not fact. I have demonstrated in a few research documents that:
1. Historicism has not Biblical or historical basis. It is an Adventist fiction.
2. There is no evidence for a Year-Day Principle in the Bible.
3. The little horn in Daniel 8 is Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and not Rome.
4. 1844 is not a historical event. Except for the social mess that followed Miller’s failed prediction, there is no recorded historical event that provides evidence that Jesus “moved” from a “holy” to a “most holy” in a “heavenly sactuary.”
The Adventist “Sanctuary Doctrine” is bankrupt. Take a look at my papers in Academia.edu.
What if Adventism was willing to see Daniel and Revelation and other OT prophetic books as PRO-spective information that God’s people will need NOW and into the very near future? After all, God promises to do nothing without telling his servants the prophets and we are looking at a time more terrible than has ever been. Doesn’t “prophecy” mean to foretell? If it is all (or even mostly) done, what is there to tell? Might there be a renewed interest in end-time events that are unfolding at breakneck speed? Israel was unwilling to see the Messiah’s coming in any form other than the story-line they had put together; therefore they missed the signs, and ultimately Him. Will historicist Adventism do the same?
2 Peter 3
3:1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in [both] which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
3:2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
3:3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as [they were] from the beginning of the creation.
3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
3:11 [Seeing] then [that] all these things shall be dissolved, what manner [of persons] ought ye to be in [all] holy conversation and godliness,
3:12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
3:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
3:14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
3:15 And account [that] the longsuffering of our Lord [is] salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
3:16 As also in all [his] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as [they do] also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
3:17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know [these things] before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.
3:18 But grow in grace, and [in] the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him [be] glory both now and for ever. Amen.
I’m with Sergei. It’s just like Satan to create a diversion and have us take our eye off the prize. Get with the program people! Who cares about any of these things. We have God’s Word and if that isn’t good enough, then Christ will surely NOT find faith when he returns.
Please folks, here’s some great Sabbath reading:
http://temcat.com/L-1-adv-pioneer-lib/Advent-Pioneer.htm
Scroll down to A T JONES (Adventist) writings and read the following in exact order: 1) What Is The Church?; 2) From Babylon to Jerusalem; and then 3) Greater Purpose, Ecumenism, Vol 2.
I promise you will come away with light and truth as you have never heard it before. While I could see why, back in 1888, (when these messages were given), Adventist leadership were scratching their heads, but in our day, it is so much more clearer and relevant.
If you ever wanted to have a clear understanding of who are the people, and where are the people the angel is calling out of Babylon, this is for you. If you ever wondered how is it that organized religion has blossomed into the biggest business on the face of the earth, this is for you! If you want to know that you are in fact in “The Church” God’s Remnant Church, this is for you. In fact, your jaw will drop when you read what and where Babylon is today. Enjoy!
Perhaps some participants here are trying to develop a science of unbelief or something. Of course, if one denies the Biblical ‘controversy’ theme, it’s reasonable to deny everything.
2 Peter 3, appropriately cited by ‘Notrocketscience,’ fully describes the mindset prompting the discussion. (I’d love to engage Erv as to what he thinks “’the Second Coming’ is.”) ‘Steve up the sleeve’ is on it. I’d love for the panelists to interpret Revelation 1:1-3 for the audience this afternoon.
(Will this discussion possibly be available online?)
Mark 13:28-37 (and Luke 21:25-36) is for people who are/will be under considerable duress. It is actually a message of hope. If things are peachy keen for you, you might interpret/perceive eschatology as fear mongering.
I wonder if Scriven and others will emphasise the anti-Gnostic element of Adventist eschatology, in the way other non-Adventist theologians who share that anti-Gnostic streak do. For example, Bishop N. T. Wright (Anglican-Episcopalian, 1948-) who comes close to Adventists on many points (including the State of the Dead) recently encapsulated what I think is close to the essence of the Adventist theological perspective, when he recently entitled an essay:
‘Jesus Is Coming—Plant a Tree’
The anti-Gnostic eschatology emphasising the salvation “of” this world, as opposed to some ethereal escape “from” this world. This has important ramifications for Christian ethics, including our relationship with the environment, animals (i.e. including our food principles and vegetarianism) and stewardship.
Elaine: “If one cannot live a good and decent life without the overhanging threat of suddenly being seized into a frenzy about getting ready for the “Big Event,” the best thing would be to drop, scuttle, and ignore it. Who cares anymore but a few dyed-in-the-wool devotees of “end-time” predictions.”
The usual nay-sayers.
I like C S Lewis’ analogy, who happened to fight in one World War and lived through another, of Nazi-occupied France.
No doubt to many French, especially those pro-Vichy France, the question of liberation meant nothing if not much. They continued to go about their daily lives. They probably got used to the Nazi occupation, as if it became the new normal and natural state of things.
There were of course a few ‘true believers’, for whom ‘military eschatology’ mattered. To them hope in the parousia (the original biblical word for the Second Coming, with military connotations) did matter. These were members of the French Resistance. Interestingly, most average French most likely supported Vichy France in 1940 and the members of the French Resistance only grew rapidly in 1944. Historical amnesia there.
For the French Resistance, hope in the military parousia mattered a great deal. For a start, they had to watch closely, so they could offer the maximum help when D-Day eventually did come – and it eventually did. In the meantime, the hope of liberation helped motivate the Resistance to keep up the fight.
C S Lewis is right in pointing out this is the essence of Christianity. This is what the gospel is all about. Why the naysaying ‘disbelievers’ are even here, commenting on this post, except to destroy the faith of others, continues to escape me.
I’m glad I’m not the judge because I remember what happened to the Vichy supporters when D-Day did occur. Remember those women with shaven heads and various War Crime Tribunals?
The French Resistance an analogy for ‘the essence of Christianity?’ Did I read you correctly Steve? ‘the essence’ of Christianity?
What happened to being born anew of the Holy Spirit? Becoming a new creation? Transformed into the image of His dear Son? Being in the world but not of the world? Being able to live under whatever government God should place over us?
Rom 12: ….. Be not wise in your own conceits.
17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
1 ¶ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
etc….
Not my analogy Serge – C S Lewis, from Mere Christianity. I can try and give you the page number if you like. It isn’t the Gnostic form of Christianity you are used to, so you might not like it.
Calling me nasty names like ‘Gnostic’ isn’t nice Steve. Besides, you are wrong. I suggest that you are far more ‘gnostic’ than I by your view, eg, that ‘God’ is not part of this creation and so therefore is invisible and inaccessible to humanity. It is also likely that your view of God breaks down into ‘Father God is invisible, Jesus God is accessible.’ This does great violence to your doctrine of Trinity.
No it doesn’t. Again you split the opposites of Power and Personality. The whole point of BOTH is that the One Infinite God is revealed first as Father in light unapproachable, representing in time and space the infinite majesty of “God” whom all three represent.
But such a work, while absolutely necessary, is not sufficient by itself. It would lead over time to fear, especially since God could not be known personally.
The Son, however, fills that in. Here we get to see God as a Person. This is essential, but by itself it would never adequately represent the majesty of the One Infinite God. Over time created beings would have come to see the Son (if alone) as a nice fellow, but we have our own ideas on how to do things.
And thus be in danger of separating from God, which is to say, dooming themselves to death.
That is, the Son’s work, while absolutely necessary, is not sufficient by itself.
And, moreover, since both Father and Son (POWER and PERSONALITY) are OBJECTIVE revelations, they can be (and will be) misinterpreted by finite beings.
That is, the work of Father and Son TOGETHER, while absolutely necessary, is not sufficient.
Finite beings, due to their automatic llimitations, can only reason from their own patterns of thought and personal experience.
Hence another revelation of God is necessary. A SUBJECTIVE REVELATION that works from the thought patterns and experience of each individual sentient being in the universe was essential.
If this had been the ONLY revelation of the One Infinite God, disaster would certainly have ensued over time. One individual would claim the Spirit was telling him something, another make the claim for an opposite course of action. One or both of these individuals would be headed for death.
IT IS ONLY WHEN THE WORK OF FATHER, SON, SPIRIT ARE TAKEN TOGETHER THAT WE HAVE A NECESSARY AND FINALLY SUFFICIENT REVELATION — WITHIN TIME AND SPACE — OF THE ONE INFINITE GOD.
All are of the same nature, the “outshining” of the One who stands beyond time and space but is everywhere present in time and space. The Psalmist correctly observes that there is no “place” — including Sheol, the Realm of the Dead, where God is NOT present.
Serge: “What happened to being born anew of the Holy Spirit? Becoming a new creation? Transformed into the image of His dear Son? Being in the world but not of the world? Being able to live under whatever government God should place over us?”
Serge who said otherwise – I never did.
Most Christians (even Gnostic-like ones) recognise this world is ‘occupied’ under evil spiritual powers. Part of that means the corruption of humanity, which is why we human beings need to be born again. If there was nothing wrong with this world and human nature why do we need to be born again? What would be the point of such a transformation?
Yes we have to live under the civil administrations of the world. Rom 7 certainly teaches that. But that doesn’t mean this world isn’t ultimately under the yoke of Satan and evil powers. Again, if it were not so, why did Jesus have to come and die on the cross, and why would even need this transformation.
What your quote from Rom 12 has to do with it I have no idea. Resisting Satan doesn’t mean giving evil for evil with the affairs of men.
How very gnostic of you Steve…….. ‘the world under the yoke of Satan and the evil powers…’
Whereas Luke 10.18……… Satan has been deposed.
Col 2.15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Notice, past tense.
Your gnostic view that the world is ruled by evil principalities and powers just doesn’t fit with Paul, or Jesus.
Steve, are you so beguiled by Adventist eschatology, your desire for continuous materialist existence, heavenly mansions, streets of gold, a desire to see the wicked consumed by fire, the devil bound with a chain etc etc.?? Are you so mesmerised by the fear of what is to come on the world that you can not know the peace that is yours now?
Believe the gospel…… It is already done! It is ALL done.
Serge Jesus has won the battle but the war still isn’t over. If it has, why hasn’t Jesus returned. Oh, but you don’t believe He will return.
I am lost in this discussion. Both seem to be operating out of a Bible not found in my possession.
When did SATAN ever do anything but act out God’s will?
Did he triumph (as he supposed he would) when he put Christ on the cross? Did the evil men who took part, let us say King Herod, High Priest Caiaphas, former High Priest Ananus, Procurator Pilate, think they were carrying out their OWN will?
OF COURSE.
But unintentionally, and with no insight, they were doing exactly what God 1. knew they would do, 2. wanted them to do.
There is no such thing as evil independent of God. NO creature, Satan included, continues to exist moment by moment without God’s direct intervention. The moral purpose of keeping evil alive was to demonstrate its nature, which could not have been obvious at the outset of the Great Controversy.
If a huge number of the angels sinned, and then died, what chance would the rest of the universe have had to believe God’s claim that He did not kill them, but that they killed themselves by embracing sin?
Indeed, the purpose of “the great time of tribulation/trouble” is for God to briefly demonstrate the real nature of sin WITHOUT HIS CONSTANT RESTRAINT.
While it will be a time of trouble unimaginable, unlike anything since there was a nation upon the earth, said the Savior, it will NOT be a time when evil is either gone or independent of God’s will.
Why are we seeing the opposites being split apart in this discussion?
I think the apposite question is whether Biblical Eschatology matters?
To the extent that Adventist Eschatology and Biblical Eschatology are the same, these are the same question. To the extent they are not the same thing, these are different questions.
Yes. Few SDAdventists have any sense of historical theology, or realize that Adventist eschatology is the late historicism of the second half of the 18th century and first quarter of the 19th century.
Once the Powerscourt Conferences were completed, historicism and dispensationalism parted company and were frozen into final theological traditions. And religious traditions don’t change, even when shown to be wrong.
Ellen White said “we” would often have to bow down and admit “we” were wrong on this or that doctrine. That has not happened. SDA-ism is as traditional as Roman Catholicism. It is interesting, reading the reports of these conferences, how little they actually understood of the prophecies they were studying so ardently.
And amazing that their misconceptions are still alive and well this close to the Second Coming.
People mocked Noah and his boat. So what else is new? And so Paul says of the wicked, There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Rom. 3:18
We must be honest and admit much of this unbelief has been advocated and stimulated by the church itself because they continue to trumpet the false doctrine that you don’t have to keep the law to be saved, and you are not saved by keeping the law.
Paul has been wrested so far from his meaning and teaching that there is nothing left that is true by way of SDA interpretation. The church has not only abandon EGW, but the bible itself. And even if we don’t know doctrine, Jesus gave us a practical test that anyone can use to see and evaluate the meaning and application of present church teaching. “By their fruits, ye shall know them.” This test indicts Adventism as a false church teaching false doctrine. Not because historic Adventism was false. NO, NO. But because modern Adventism has abandon EGW and the bible and now has no viable basis to define and interpret truth except by their own convoluted ideas and speculations.
Any rational person can clearly see that we are “saved” by keeping the first commandment. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” And we know that the whole law is bound up in a perfect whole, so that if you violate even one precept, you violate them all.
No one is saved who does not respond according to the biblical imperatives set forth in scripture. Neither does faith save if and when it denies the whole of scriptural teaching on law and gospel.
The Sabbath is going more and more out the window as more and more people are accepting the deluded theology being taught, even in the so-called conservative ministries of the church. The SDA denomination is in the self-destruct mode along with Protestantism as both have abandon scripture for the sake of “unity” and church authority.
Bill, do you have any pictures of ‘Jesus’ hanging on your walls, in your books, in your church? Graven images all. ‘If yo break one you break them all.’
Now you’re talking my language Serge. And in that context, never you would see so much as a plain cross hanging in or on an Adventist Church, but today images of Jesus, crosses and angels are right up front and center of worship, in every bible, book and magazine.
Question –why was it so abominable 30 years ago to make or purchase or use these images and today it’s common practice? God’s Word never changes so why does church doctrine change? The same happened with Christmas and Easter! Never were these celebrated in any Adventist Church. Things that make you go HUMMM!
Is Daniel relevant for us today? Here are a few things that should make us pause before concluding that Daniel is not written for us in the 21st century.
Scholars are agreed that of all the OT books Daniel had most influence on the NT
Christ quoted from Daniel chapters 2,7,8,9, 11, 12. His second advent sermon ( Mt 24-25; Luke 21, Mark 13) is largely based on the prophecies of Daniel. Mt 24:15 and Mk 13:14 quote from Daniel when using the phrase ” the abomination of desolation”.
Christ saw himself in the prophecies of this OT book. The title “Son of Man” is used in the Gospels , Acts, and Revelation scores of times in total. It was the chief title Christ applied to himself and its source is Dan 7:13. And in his second advent sermon Christ enlarged upon Daniel 9:26-27 predicting the events of A.D. 70 and the end of the world thereby typified.
Daniel is the only OT book on which Christ placed his finger and said “Understand this”. See Mt 24:15.
The case for a 2nd century BC dating for Daniel has been refuted. See Appendix one of my In the Heart of Daniel.
Daniel 9:24-27 is the most amazing prophecy ever written. It foretold that within less than 500 years from the writing of Daniel the Messiah would come and be murdered by his own people resulting in the destruction of the Jewish temple and desolation for the Jewish race till the end of time. Verse 24 is a summary of the essence of the Christian gospel predicting in the language of the great Atonement chapter of the OT ( Lev 16) Christ’s atoning death and his provision of “everlasting righteousness” for all who believe.
The concluding book of the Bible Revelation cannot be understood without Daniel from which it draws repeatedly.
Scholars agree that the NT is an eschatological work which has its roots in the prophecies of Daniel
Some may care to read one or more of the several books I have written on Daniel. Of these In the Heart of Daniel is the most important.
Wow quite amazing Dr Ford!
Dr Ford, nice to have your company on AToday.
‘The NT is an eschatological work….’ Do you mean that in the sense of Heb 1.1,2? 1 ¶ God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days(eschaton) spoken unto us by his Son,
So the eschaton, according to the author of Hebrews, was ushered in then and there. How do you read? In this sense, the whole of the NT is indeed eschatological.
Re ‘abomination of desolation.’ What is it exactly? I have read where you say it is idolatry, represented by the setting up of images of Zeus and other ROman standards in the Jerusalem temple. In this case, Mt 24.15 is long ago ‘fulfilled.’
OR is it? Something apotelesmatic happening here? In which case, how does an abomination of desolation relate to us today? How does this relate to standard SDA views of a literal ‘heavenly’ temple? Some have suggested the ‘transfer of sin’ to the heavenly temple by virtue of CHrist’s atonement abominates it, but His blood then cleanses it. But how can this, given it has any veracity at all, also ‘desolate’ a heavenly temple? Can God be expelled from His own temple in heaven? ANd how, on earth, could we ever ‘see’ this abomination, and so take heed to flee?
Does it not make more sense to stick strictly to the NT idea that ‘we are His house’ (Hebrews again) and the abomination that desolates is a false gospel which drives out the Holy Spirit?
Or as Jesus said, ‘Oh Jerusalem Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, BUT YE WOULD NOT. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.’
THis is not some unknown future to fear, but an ever present danger in the Christian walk. Now. In this eschaton.
The argument for Daniel’s authenticity is extensive, and we point to the works of Kenneth Kitchen as a beginning point for those who do not understand the issues.
Now as DF has underscored above, the Seventy Weeks of Years prophecy is by far the most fascinating and powerful of all the messianic prophecies.
Further, it is the most attested. The prophecy specifies a command by a Persian emperor that was to do TWO things. First, it was to restore Jerusalem to its former polital eminence. Secondly it was to see the city (and of necessity the Temple) to its former estate.
We sometime hear that three decrees qualify, but this is NOT correct. The decrees of Cyrus the Great and Darius the Great were preliminary, concerned the Temple only, and did not afford the means to accomplish the work, despite the gallant efforts of Prince Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua.
Rather, a decree issued in the summer of 457 BC by Artaxerxes Longaminus did two things: it restored Jerusalem as the capital of the Persian province “Beyond the River” — a territory that is virtually identical to the empire of David.
Second, it moved all royal taxes to Jerusalem and opened the Persian treasury to virtually unlimited means to re-build the city and the Temple. Ezra was given time to get back to Palestine when the decree was to go into effect in the Fall of 457 BC.
We have cross references from the Persian Annals, the papyri from the Jewish colony at Elephantine on the Nile, and the Samaria Papyri, discovered only in the 1960s, to cross-reference and corroborate this period. (There is almost nothing else that is so heavily attested historically!)
From the fall of 457 BC — and making sure not to accidentally count a zero year — we date the beginning of Christ’s ministry to the Fall 27 AD. Only the Gospel of John discusses three subsequent Passovers, the third of which is the time of Christ’s crucifixion.
That brings us to Spring, 32 AD, a date absolutely rejected in modern scholarship as a potential year. I have written elsewhere extensively on this and showed the massive evidence that 31 AD was, in fact, the very year of Christ’s death on the cross.
Next comes a period of persecution for the apostles. The murder of the Apostle James, the attempt to murder the Apostle Peter (two of the three of Christ’s inner circle), the murder of the arch-deacon Stephen, and the activity of the Jewish king Herod against the apostles all led to the formal end of the Jewish people corporately as God’s unique “Israel”.
After this, Israel continues, but with “grafted in wild olive branches” and hopefully, some re-grafted original branches, as Paul so fervently hoped!
CONTINUED
Paul gives us an interesting insight into the 34 AD ending to the Seventy Weeks of Years. Scholars are divided over whether the Jerusalem Council that determined the Gentile Christians need only heed the requirements of the Covenant with Noah, that covered all mankind (and therefore a very important decision that few SDAdventists understand) occurred some 17 years after he was confronted by the risen Christ in his attempt to follow up on the murder of Stephen.
Scholars generally agree that this happened between AD 49 and AD 51. The 51 date has many weighty studies to commend it. And it dovetails with the end of the 490 years AND PAUL’S COMMISSION TO CARRY THE GOSPEL TO THE GENTILES.
If (and we think it’s more than an “if”) the Jerusalem Council convened in AD 51, that was EXACTLY the 17 years Paul had given. The date of his commission, and the closing of the Seventy Weeks of Years is then validated by Christ sending the gospel to the Gentiles in 34 AD.
Thus the period began and ended with divine intervention. The Messianic Kingdom prophecies went unfulfilled. The six infinitives in Daniel 9:24 to be achieved in this period were not (on the human side) but on the side of God’s action everything necessary for the eventual literal Kingdom of God was fulfilled!
John: “Scholars are divided over whether the Jerusalem Council that determined the Gentile Christians need only heed the requirements of the Covenant with Noah, that covered all mankind (and therefore a very important decision that few SDAdventists understand) occurred some 17 years after he was confronted by the risen Christ in his attempt to follow up on the murder of Stephen.”
Very true John. Acts 15:19-21 is the real reason Adventists don’t eat pork, keep the Sabbath but don’t circumcise or wear blue tassels on our garments.
Steve, the issue was whether the Gentile Christians needed to keep THE LAW OF MOSES.
We know for sure what that term meant. It included the Deacalogue, for it included every one of the 613 identifiable laws in the Pentateuch. But read what the Holy Spirit said to the church via the person in charge, James the Just, the oldest living descendant of David and therefore automatically “the boss” at the m eeting.
Sorry John you’re wrong. Simply wrong.
No Steve, I am not wrong. I am actually quoting what the Bible says. The Law of Moses included every single law in the Pentateuch including the ten commandments.
Read in Romans 14 what Paul says to the Roman church, part Jewish, part Gentile, about the “which day” argument. Why would he say this if it was a fixed rule.
Keeping the law of Moses would mean living in the Jewish ghetto of Roman and Greek cities. It would mean keeping every single annual festival, every new moon feast, every weekly Sabbath, and eating only a kosher kitchen. Any intercourse with Gentiles would render the Christian unclean, and require the mikvah rebaths, never mind baptism. Keeping the Law of Moses would mean being JEWISH with a slant not much more unique than the slant of the other Jewish sects, the Essenes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Samaritans (a priestly Jewish sect, despite what you may have heard).
The “commandments” in Revelation which are kept are those that we find in the Johannine literature everywhere in the Gospel of John and the three Epistles of John. Go read and find what those commandments were and are. IT IS NOT THE DECALOGUE.
Rather than relying on one favorite author for determination of Daniel’s prophecies, I have just been re-reading two books by an Orthodox Jewish Scholar, James Kugel, professor of Hebrew, Harvard University, now living and teaching in Jerusalem.
Jews have always viewed their own history written in the Bible as a living document, to be interpreted, not read as without changing “one jot or tittle,” as do many Christians.
Kugel wrote: “The book of Daniel is probably the latest book in the Hebrew Bible, while its last six chapters (7-12) seem to reflect directly the period of religious persecution under Antiochus IV. The fourth beast represens the empire of Alexander the Greata, and the ten horns are en Hellenistic kings who will arise from it. The eleventh horn is different from the others, however–it represent Antiochus. In other words, Antiochus will eventually be overthrown , and the Jews will once again gain sovereignty over their own land.”
“A whole body of literature grew up at this time among the Jews, known as apocalyptic writings. There were others: the first and second books of Enoch, the fourth book of Ezra, the second and third books of Baruch and many others. The New Testament book of Revelation is another example of this genre.”
Jews certainly know how their writings were used and interpreted; they were not written for Christians but they have often taken liberty to interpret tham
Now that’s funny Elaine. It really is. Rather than “relying on one favorite author” WHICH I NEVER SUGGESTED ANYONE DO, you rely on a favorite author who has deliberately disguised his presuppositions and does not give one sentence about why his presupposition about the date of Daniel is contrary to the weight of evidence.
So Elaine, you are a lady of quick wit. Tell me, help me here, is there ANY REASON why Jewish commenters on Daniel would want to evade the precise dating of Daniel 9:24-27? Or do they LOVE what one called “Christian speculation” that dates the very year of Christ’s appearance, death, and the move of the Christian message to the Gentile world?
Any reason Elaine? Anything you can think of?
As to the unfortunate paragraph you quote (apparently because you think it has some weight (?) let’s take it by the numbers:
1. The first symbol, the lion, is Neo-Babylonia, which was annihilated by
2. The second symbol, the bear with the side which came up last, the Medo-Persian coalition that created the Persian Empire, which was destroyed by
3. The four-headed leopard, the Macedonian or Alexandrian Empire. On Alexander’s untimely death, a six-sided, then five-sided, then FOUR-SIDED struggle ensued, which ended in the division of the empire into four parts, WITH FOUR HEADS.
Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Antiochus founded four dynasties, and these were eventually destroyed by a single power. AND THAT POWER WAS NOT ONE OF THESE FOUR HEADS. THE ANTIOCHENES DID NOT DESTROY THEMSELVES. THEY DID NOT DESTROY THE PTOLEMIES. THEY DID NOT TAKE OVER THE REALMS OF CASSANDER OR LYSIMACHUS.
All were destroyed by
4. THE ROMAN EMPIRE. You have heard of Cleopatra, right Elaine?
The supposed propagandist work, Daniel, LOVES the pagan kings Nebuchadnezzar and Darius the Great. It reserves revulsion and disgust for Belshazzar who is summarily slain. None of these fit Antiochus IV Epiphanes!
Further, the Antichrist figure of Daniel 11 is a contemptible person who has usurped the throne, and to whom royal authority has not been given. This alleged propagandist is lousy! He does not even know that this is a completely bogus picture, that Antiochus was the legitimate king in a long-continued dynasty! (or not….)
Apparently your Jewish commentator does not know that Daniel 7 to 12 is not a literary unit. Daniel 8 to 12 is Daniel’s first-person account of the messages he received.
Daniel 2 to 7 is a huge chiasm, very carefully balanced, and is a THIRD-PERSON POST DEATH ACCOUNT OF WHAT HAPPENED TO DANIEL IN HIS LIFETIME. Even Chapter 7 is a report of what Daniel said when he was alive.
Finally, Daniel 1 gives us the date of his exile to the date of his death, 605 BC to 535 BC, THE VERY 70 YEARS OF THE EXILE as described in Jeremiah 25 and 29
Antiochus did not displace the ten horns. He did not destroy three of the horns to rise. And yes, Daniel WAS a popular book at the time of the…
This comment also is innocent of any complaint that it might be logical: “Jews certainly know how their writings were used and interpreted; they were not written for Christians but they have often taken liberty to interpret tham.”
The 70-Week prophecy brings us to the anointed being “cut off” but having nothing for himself in that. That is, it brings us TO CHRIST. I have not found a single Jewish commentator who deals with this issue.
There is no wiggle room, however much you want to disbelieve, Elaine. While I know you have no understanding of textual criticism or the languages involved, the Imperial Aramaic of Daniel does not fit the second century BC.
Your liberal Jewish commentator is not going to discuss that. The loanwords in Persian and Greek are from the early Persian Empire, not the second century. The Deuteronomic theology in Chapter 9 was non-existent in the second century.
There are among the Dead Sea Scrolls two nearly complete copies of Daniel in an unusual hand dating from approximately the Maccabean period. Too early for such complete copies to exist!
As for the ten horns on the Roman Imperial dragon, let’s count, NOT the Antiochene kings. but the ROMAN kings. I know you can recite your Latin history, so let’s count together:
1. Julius Caesar. 2. Augustus Caesar. 3. Tiberius Caesar. 4. Caesar Caligula. 5. Claudius Caesar. 6.Neron Caesar. 7. Caesars Galba, 8. Otho, 9. Vitellius. 10. Caesar Vespasian. Note that in the wars of the three emperors, Vespasian put down three to complete the ten, exactly as described in Daniel 7. There is no doubt that in destroying the Temple and Jerusalem, the Christians would have seen him as the little horn Antichrist figure.
Especially so since unlike his predecessors, he was not a Roman of noble birth. Note the wonderful symmetry of Neron being the sixth Caesar.
When Vespasian did not fulfill the picture in Daniel 7, the Christians looked to Titus, his son, heir, CO-REGENT (AND THEREFORE STILL NUMBER 10) who continued after his father died (suddenly, possibly poisoned by his younger son Domitian.) But The comes Domitian, the fulfiller of the terrible idea that Neron would live again, taking father and older brother’s place in the role of Antichrist.
Antiochus IV was not the TENTH of the Seleucids by any means. So once again we see that he has no relationship to what Daniel actually says. Of course these liberal scholars will NEVER mention that their portrayal completely misses the description of the evil king in Daniel.
I showed above that t he fourth empire in Daniel 7 can only by the ROMANS and cannot possibly be the Seleucid state, one of four Greek states symbolized by the four heads on the leopard, a state which was destroyed NOT BY ONE OF ITS OWN HEADS, but by the Romans!
In Daniel 8 the same point is made. Daniel sees the Greek Hellenes rushing on the Persians, and the notable horn — Alexander — is snapped off. Out of it comes FOUR HORNS to replace it, certainly the four Greek local states that carved up the former Alexandrian conquests.
The generals Seleucus, Ptolemy, Cassander and Lysimachus are those four heads. Now the evil “little horn” in Daniel 7 appears again in Daniel 8. The angelic interpretation precisely identifies Alexander as the great horn and the four horns that arise as “four kingdoms that shall arise from his nation BUT NOT WITH HIS POWER!” Dan 8:23
Now the prophecy jumps directly to the rise of the evil little horn power, which, according to Daniel 11:45 ff appears IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE FINAL WEEK OF YEARS.
wHEN IS THAT?
“AND AT THE LATTER END OF THEIR [THE FOUR WEAKER KINGDOMS], WHEN THE TRANSGRESSORS HAVE REACHED THEIR FULL MEASURE, A KING OF BOLD COUNTENANCE, ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS RIDDLES SHALL ARISE. HIS POWER SHALL BE GREAT AND HE SHALL CAUSE FEARFUL DESTRUCTION.” Dan 8:23, 24
Antiochus fought a war against the Jews in 167-164 BC. THAT IS LONG BEFORE THE LATTER END OF THE RULE OF THE GREEK KINGDOMS. ANTIOCHUS ISN’T EVEN CLOSE!
This bogus interpretation, once again, utterly defies the actual description in Daniel of the antichrist figure who would have appeared had the Jews faithfully kept their covenant obligations and prepared the world for the coming of Christ.
Specifically, the Seleucid kingdom with its Antiochene kings, did not end until the Romans snuffed it out in 63 BC.
Their perpetual rivals, the Ptolemies, did not cease until the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC. Again, at the hands of the Romans
Let me say again that the idea that an orthodox Jew is UNBIASED is absurd in the extreme.
I got it, Elaine. You choose to believe what he says.
He speaks against the weight of the evidence. And that has ONE PARTICULAR REASON: the Seventy Weeks of Daniel 9:24-27 date the real Christ beyond cavil
And that he does not abide. Nor you, apparently? He is not called by the Jewish magazine “Moment” the “professor of disbelief” by accident. And it is no accident that you are such a devotee.
You could not have chosen a better representative of all that is wrong when liberal scholarship confuses its presuppositions with its conclusions. (One of the reasons I read liberal Biblical scholarship is that often the details given support exactly the opposite presuppositions. And liberal scholarship has enriched our understanding of the Bible even while darkening it.
And Elaine, just so you know, bar Ilan university is still in Tel Aviv. There for a moment I thought it had teleported to Jerusalem!
“Kitchen is an evangelical Christian and has published frequently from that background on questions relating to the Old Testament. His publications in this area have consistently defended the historical books of the Old Testament as an accurate record of events, i.e., as history, against the academic consensus that they are primarily theological in nature. Kitchen is an outspoken critic of the documentary hypothesis. He has produced various written works including articles and books upholding this viewpoint. He cites several types of proof for this theory, including that the depictions in the Bible of various historical eras and societies are consistent with historical data on these areas.”
Wikepedia confirmed my impression. Kitchen is clearly an apologist and not an unbiased source, which is understood. But there is a world of difference between an apologist and a historian and an unbiased Hebrew scholar who is a devout Orthodox Jew but also a former professor at Harvard and now at Tel Aviv University. Surely, in that position, his interpretation of his ancestor’s long and diligent defense of their own ancestral writing, should be not take second place to a Christian who clearly has a Christian perspective on Hebrew writings.
As Kugel is far more knowledgeable about his own history, he know the background of the written words and the interpretations that are considered equally to words written long before; this is what makes their writing a LIVING DOCUMENT, only by interpretation; as contrasted with the often used Christian interpretation of attempting to read prophecy as identifying specific people, places, and kings. Specificity was not how the Jews read the Torah. They read, and interpreted the meaning of the reader and at that time.
John, because I didn’t mention everything Kugel wrote, I can confirm that he also recognizes that there were two authors, at different times who appear to have written what is known as the book of Daniel. Much more could have been written, but that is to clarify your earlier comment that he did not appear to know that fact.
Indeed John, one can cite many historically, objectively attestable dates for the beginning of the 70 weeks. But where, other than the NT, can you find objective historical dates for the endpoint(s)? Even you take issue with other scholars on these dates.
The value of ‘history’ is therefore lost to those who require ‘a sign.’ FOr those of faith, precision of historical dates is hardly necessary.
I did not take issue with any date except excluding AD 31 as the date of the crucifixion. THE BEGINNING of the 70 Weeks is attested in Ezra 4 and 7 and Nehemiah, and the Elephantine Papyri, the Persian Annals, and the Samaria Papyri.
THE END OF THE PERIOD IS IN THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE. Who else but the writers of the New Testament would there be to bring out the force of these dates? Jesus began to preach by saying “The TIME is fulfilled!” Read the opening of Mark.
Your objection makes no sense, logically. And only one single decree fulfilled the dual requirement of Daniel 9:24 that Jerusalem be “restored” to its former glory and also “rebuilt” including the Temple. That went into effect in the Fall, 457 BC, and all other dates fall into line precisely.
You can see all three decrees of Cyrus the Great (Ezra 1:2-4), Darius the Great (Ezra 6:6-12), and Artaxerxes Longaminus plus a private letter from Artaxerxes to an official of the province “Beyond the River” in Ezra.
The first two decrees are very limited. They grant permission for the Temple to be rebuilt ONLY. The restoration of Jerusalem as a great and powerful city ruling over the area once ruled by David is nowhere present.
In fact, not even the rebuilding of the city is involved. These two decrees, sometimes pointed to as potential fulfillments of Daniel 9:25 are absolutely NOT fulfillments, not even close.
The purpose is bringing them up is to confuse the issue (especially among liberal Jewish commentators like the one Elaine unfortunately presented as an example. And it is a parade example, alright, of what is wrong with their position.)
NOTE WELL that the decree of Cyrus and the decree of Darius DO NOT provide the necessary funds or the impetus for the Jews to return from their rich lives in Persia to the ruins of Palestine.
NOTE WELL that the specification in Daniel 9:25 (not 24 as I said incorrectly above) is that the relevant decree must specify THE RESTORATION OF JERUSALEM as well as its REBUILDING.
Now we look at the decree of Artaxerxes Longaminus. It tells Ezra to determine the actual current situation of Judah and Jerusalem. The Persians had taken over the former Neo-Babylonian realm, approximately modern Iraq.
Ezra is to stop there on his way and take “all the silver and gold which you shall find in the whole province of Babylon” plus freewill offerings of the Jews themselves.
This enriching of Jerusalem and Judah at tremendous cost to the former Babylonian realm is a fulfillment of the prophecies at the beginning of the exile that God would take vengeance on Babylon in due time (at the end of 70 years, when its probation was fulfilled) for the lost Temple.
Further, no tolls were to be charged to anyone involved in this mass new Exodus. The next province, the province of Beyond the River, is ordered to pony up a maximum of 100 talents of silver and whatever else is needed to make Jerusalem, Judah, and its Temple resplendent beyond measure.
Furthermore (and this is the final insult) the magistrates of Beyond the River are retired. Ezra is to appoint magistrates — bureaucrats who run the local government — over the whole province Beyond the River and judges who are to make judgments based on The Law. And the folks who don’t know The Law are to be instructed in it by force. (No separation of church and state.)
This is the ONLY decree that has anything to do with Daniel 9:25.
Artaxerxes discovered that his predecessors had made half-hearted decrees that did not give the essentials to have them carried out. Under the theory of Persian law he was bound to make that happen.
Hence you will see that the much longer and much more detailed decree of Artaxerxes
…. is the ONLY decree that has any claim to be the one described in Daniel 9:25.
The Hillary Clinton response – “What difference does it make? – has been effectively addressed by Des Ford, Stephen, and others. It only makes a difference if we believe in the Bible as sacred text, and if we respect and value the insights and experiences of those who laid the foundations for our faith traditions. I don’t think our salvation depends on having an accurate understanding of Daniel and Revelation. But I do think that, as Christians, when we reject or discount any part of the Bible as God’s Word, we are on very thin ice.
Having just returned from the panel discussion which was the topic of this news item, I would say that the presenters very much highlighted what Steve refers to as the anti-Gnostic elements of Adventist eschatology. Without discounting the possibility that the details of Adventist eschatology may some day turn out to be substantially correct, the presenters pointed us to Christ’s more pressing concern about how we live in the here and now. The need to maintain orthodox beliefs about end time chronologies and events is a distraction from where our focus needs to be – How do we incarnate and share the Good News that the Kingdom is here and now? We do it by following in Jesus footsteps. Our ability to live Kingdom lives is the best assurance of God’s will and ability to wipe out evil once and for all.
I just can’t find anywhere in the Gospels where Jesus placed importance on discerning and following singular prophetic cookie crumbs. The clues He did offer to the Second Advent seem to have occurred many times throughout history. So maybe He is hoping that we will learn from history, and quit trying to predict what He is going to do in history, when He will do it, and how He will do it.
BTW, I strongly suspect that the primary reason Adventism has placed so much doctrinal and evangelistic emphasis on its eschatological pradigm is the self-serving value of that model. The more we can prove that each element of our chain link theology is correct, the more inescapable the conclusion that the Adventist Church must be the true Remnant Church prophesied in Revelation. But what does the accuracy of our eschatological understandings have to do with the Kingdom living to which Christ calls us?
Careful, Nathan, Steve will brand you a gnostic!
Serge why would I think Nathan is talking Gnosticism. Luke 17:21 makes clear that the kingdom is now, within us. My problem is those like you who only ever see one side of the coin, in promoting ONLY realised eschatology.
I guess I find it amazing, Nathan, that anyone could think it is possible to present Christ without a clear doctrine of who He is, why He came, and what He said about the future. I guess I can say I reject “either/or” theology for the most part.
In the 1888 fiasco, EGW did not chide people for presenting the law and theology about the law. She did chide them for not showing how theology must also include the role of Christ in any and all law discourses. I think today she would be shocked on some level the way Christ is extolled at the expense of the law and doctrine. Or, maybe not. Since she spoke about an “Omega” apostacy without a lot of detailed explanation of what it was.
What we can discern on some level, is that she seemed to think it was some gospel presentation of faith that undermined the role of the law in the salvation process. Her letter to Jones is pretty clear on what she was concerned about in a “faith alone” context that was wrested from its biblical context that she said not only confused the people but Jones himself.
It may well be that the church has followed Jones in all this confusion and it doesn’t seem likely the issue will be resolved either now or in the future in the framework of the church.
Individuals will no doubt find the way eventually. But not unless they abandon their illusion of an infallible church that they opt to let define the bible and ignore their own personal accountability. The church has been “selling” this idea for years and we see the counter-productive results by way of ignorant church members that have little or no stimulus to seek truth for themselves with the full reality that “the church” is only a means of grace and a faulty one at that. Our sinful nature creates a Roman Catholic spirituality. But it won’t fly in the day of judgment.
You misread my comment, Bill. I completely agree that who Jesus was, where He came from, and what He said about the future are foundational to understanding Him and presenting the Gospel. I just don’t read in Jesus’ words much concern that we have a clear concept of events leading up to the end of history. Most frequently, His parables and analogies suggest that the timing of the Second Advent is highly unpredictable.
Nathan, we understand there was an error on the precise event of the second coming in the prophetic understanding of Miller and his associates. But there is no error that the event of 1844 is the beginning of the judgment of the church.
So the obvious purpose was to affirm the nearness of the second coming, not the second coming itself. And like any historical event, even if it was in heaven, it was to ratchet up motivation and intensity to know what to do and believe to be ready for the actual event of the second coming. There must be a clear understanding of law and gospel by way of parallel and contrast in the minds of God’s people so they would not be deceived in the final conflict with evil.
Law and gospel is not a perfect parallel, nor is it a total contrast. So the Jews would make the law eventually do away with the gospel, and modern spirituality would make the gospel do away with the law. Neither spirituality is correct. Since law is in effect 100% of the time, just so, grace must also be in effect 100% of the time. This is an eternal principle in God’s kingdom called the “everlasting gospel”. We must not try to resolve the paradox, but we must understand it in its biblical context and apply it.
Rome resolves it by running the two concepts together in a way that destroys both. And modern Protestantism resolves the paradox by a separation that accomplishes the same thing.
Interesting enough, the 7th day Sabbath is a perfect example of how law and gospel remain by both parallel and contrast. We obey God by resting in the finished work of Christ. So we acknowledge God’s authority to command and demand obedience and trust in His grace by doing so. And this is the principle of heaven for all eternity.
J.C. Ryle once said, “Heaven is a never ending Sabbath”.
So how can we miss the point and use the gospel to undermine the law, or, emphasize the law to undermine the gospel? Small wonder the devil hates the Sabbath and will do all in his power and deception to undermine its meaning and application. He moves final authority to man instead of God. So, the issue is surfacing more and more. We need to know the truth and how to defend it and appropriate it for ourselves.
It’s largely self-referential: We Adventists are predicted in prophecy, are the remnant, and the only ones keeping ALL the commandments. Except: the correct translation is for the saints who have washed their robes. How does that equate to keeping commandments?
There you go again, Elaine (as Ron said to Jimmy). I pointed out the real nature of the verse, but the verse you cite is not even the one that SDAdventists use to prove their singularity.
And you seem to have accidentally bought into the idea that the “commandments” in the Revelation are the Decalogue. A surprise for someone with the curmudgeonly attitude toward Adventism that you regularly exhibit!
Actually, the Johannine literature is remarkably clear on what those commandments are. They are defined and repeated over and over in the Gospel of John and in the Epistles of John.
Judged by the actual reference to the actual commandments that the Revelation refers to, YOU WOULD HAVE DONE BETTER TO STICK WITH THE PROBABLE ORIGINAL WORDING OF THE TEXT.
Perhaps we should cite every reference to those very precise commandments to illustrate what we mean. Even Elaine learn something…..
Nathan, I couldn’t agree more. There has been entirely too much emphasis on prophetic predictions when it has absolutely nothing to do with the here and now are our relationships with others, which was always foremost in Christ’s teaching. Where did Christ ever say that we must have an accurate understanding of OT prophecies to be ready for heaven? The church has majored on trivia to the great neglect of the Gospel Commission which the church was given.
Misunderstand the Messianic Kingdom prophecies and wait for the appearance of Christ in majesty ON EARTH. As does Catholicism, nearly all of Protestantism AND NEARLY ALL OF ISLAM, WAITING AS IT IS FOR “ISSA” (jESUS) TO RETURN AS PRINCE OF PEACE AND GUIDE THE CALIPHATE THAT THEIR PROPHECY SAYS WOULD BE FORMED IN SYRIA JUST BEFORE “CHRIST’S” APPEARING…….
and you will end up bowing down to Satan as to Christ. So do you actually believe that Jesus of Nazareth said that a delusion, a deception, was coming so good it would deceive the very elect… if possible.
And yeah, it is possible.
Teach part of the gospel and you have Satan instead of Christ.
Serge: “So the eschaton, according to the author of Hebrews, was ushered in then and there. How do you read? In this sense, the whole of the NT is indeed eschatological.”
Truth is Serge I rarely totally disagree with what you say. The eschaton is indeed now, just as Jesus made clear the kingdom is now (or near).
The problem as I see it is you continually only look at one side of the coin, at just one set of verses. The kingdom is now but it is also future. It is both inside you but also a future historical event.
The major problem as I see it is your implicit suggestion that the Second Coming has already come. Or do I misunderstand you? Because that sounds a little like the Gnostics again, in both their ancient manifestations and their modern ones, such as in the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Paul seems to addresses that misconception pretty clearly:
‘[Do] not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come.’ (2 Thes. 2:2)
No man can serve two masters, Steve. Usually, either future thinking will dominate, or present experience will. Only one of these you cannot do without. Guess which one that is?
I don’t think I have anywhere said ‘the day of the Lord’ has come. I have pointed you to the verses which follow John 14.1-3 in which John / Jesus tells what He means by ‘I will come again,’ ie, coming of Father, Son and Spirit to the heart of the one born anew of the Spirit.
I do, by way of background, believe that the NT is a somewhat schizophrenic compilation of views, materialist/literalist/futurist vs spiritual/symbolic/now modes of viewing teh CHristian life.
And agian I say, only one of these you can do without. That is where our emphasis should be.
Serge your last statement totally confuses me. If the NT promotes a schitzo of two views, in your opinion, then you seem to be admitting you essentially read only half the NT – cutting out the half you don’t like. That is quite the admission.
If that is so, how do you know the half you’ve cut out is the right half? As for me, I don’t share your rather fundamentalist view that it has to be an either/or.
A good example of this is the subject of the afterlife. I don’t deny those texts (as other Adventists do) which such some sort of out-of-body non-material immediate post-mortem existence, such as:
“Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8).
I think it is a stretch to suggest, as Adventist theologians traditionally teach, that Paul only meant personal fellowship in God’s presence in bodily form after the resurrection. Paul seems to say the exact opposite of that. Yet Paul in other passages says he will only receive his reward at the Second Coming, not immediately after death (2 Tim. 4:7-8) and the Bible clearly emphasises a physical resurrection.
So how do we reconcile the schitzo contradictions, as you seem to admit. I agree Adventists often take a materialistic extreme as you take the opposite immaterial extreme. Both approaches are fundamentalism at their worse.
I think the answer is to realise there is no such contradiction, by distinguishes “objective immortality” from “subjective immortality.” I believe in the interim post-mortem state immediately after death we are both subjectively non-existent but equally objectively existent in God’s mind (Jer. 1:5; Luke 12:7).
What I mean by all this is that when we die but in that interim period before the resurrection event, we don’t personally experience anything. We personally know nothing, as the Bible teaches. At most, we remain but an idea in God’s mind. We don’t, as most other Christians teach, exist as phantom without a body, just as can’t go live in an architectural drawing of a house or drive a picture of a car.
When my computer crashes, all the information stored on my online internet account still objectively exists somewhere, but only on some distant server (probably in China or India) as unfathomable ones and zeros (computer code). Subjectively from personal perception and experience, my internet account doesn’t really exist anymore because I can’t access that data.
Paul’s example of a dormant seed (1 Cor. 15:37,38) offers another good illustration. Seeds can objectively lie dormant for a very long time – hundreds of years in fact. Whether the wait is objectively a year or a hundred years, from the subjective perspective of a new plant, the length of time is irrelevant, because time effectively stops whilst waiting to restart at germination. Thus, only a germinated plant is personally and subjectively alive, although a dormant seed does objectively exist in a sense too, as a…
Serge, ALL REALITY IS MADE UP OF OPPOSITES. That is true of you and I and my computer, my desk, my dog, and the window I’m looking out through. There is absolutely not reason to cavil at THE KINGDOM PRESENT and THE KINGDOM TO COME as both valid.
And they are easily correlated, each illuminating the other.
It is also true that God never ever uses predictive prophecy to undermine free choice. The writers of the New Testament, like the ancient prophets, always saw the Kingdom as coming in their day. (So did EGW)
However, the coming by the Spirit is preparatory to the coming in majesty. The one does not negate the other. Both comings are essential. The one makes the other possible.
In the NT the Eschaton is indeed Immanent. But it is also Imminent. What begins with Christ dwelling IN the believers, ends with the believers dwelling WITH Christ.
This is not an either/or – it is a both/and.
The intense emphasis on D&R given by Adventists is all self-referential.
While it is much more simple to read Daniel’s prophecy of the great tribulation as foretelling the destruction of the temple and the Macabbean revolt climaxed by Jesus the Messiah, it can only be predictive prophecy if it was written ca. 500 B.C. But where is the evidence? It is two books combined, or two different authors at different times, thus the anachronims.
Most scholars and historians (Des. Ford excepted, and whom I greatly respect) place it in a short window of 160-150 B.C. which fits Daniel’s description much better.
There is no prophecy in Daniel that extends 2000 years later as it was intended to be a warning of the Jewish temple’s and system overthrown, as Jesus predicted, and not to our present time.
Many people want to read themselves in Bible prophecy and so explain it is for us, now, to make it more relevant. This goes for Revelation, also. John was writing of the present persecution under Domitian and Nero from which Christians were sacrificed, not some 2,000 years later of Adventists: those who “keep the commandments and the Spirit of Prophecy (a.k.a. EGW).
Everything points to us, we Adventists, who are the center of prophecy in the Bible.
And millions believe as they were taught without personally studying history.
Wasn’t it Diocletian not Domitian? Elaine why can’t it be both Nero, Diocletian and a future figure?
Absolutely not Diocletian. It was Domitian, widely believed to be Nero “redivivius”. And we know his motivation: his natal prophecy said that when there was blood on the moon in Aquarius, he would die violently by swords. Even his father and brother are known to have taunted him about this prophecy.
He died young. On the day appointed, and affirmed by many other astrologers. He even attempted to thwart fate by disproving astrology to be absolute. One well-known example is that he asked a famous astrologer publicly to state how he, the astrologer, would die and when.
He answered soon, and that he was to be torn apart by dogs. Domitian knew this and had his soldiers ready to hack the man to death. So much for astrological prophecy!
Then the body was taken and put on a funeral pyre. Alas a huge thunderstorm arose and blew much of the pyre apart and the intense rain extinguished the flames. Some time later a pack of dogs came and tore the body apart.
Domitian’s attempt to annihilate Christians was an attempt to appease the gods, and to verify one side of a belief about astrology: that it was permeable to change, and that natal predictions were not absolute.
On the day appointed he locked himself in his palace bedroom, realizing that he had about 51 hours when there was blood on the moon in Aquarius, and that the DESCENT of the moon around the Roman fifth hour (11 AM) would be the most dangerous time.
After several hours he hollered to a longtime trusted manservant what time was it? The servant (one of the plotters) assured the emperor it was the sixth hour. Domitian joyfully came forth, was talked back into his bedroom and hacked to death. It was the fifth hour.
The Christians of Roman Asia were not beheaded en masse, though Domitian’s persecution of “some Jews” is noted by Suetonius, who depicts him as a constantly angry and terrifically fearful man, “who was fair in that he hated everyone equally.”
Elaine. Elaine. Elaine. Daniel is not a product of the Maccabean War 167-164 BC. I urge you to read all of Kenneth Kitchen’s books and become aware before parroting things that are simply not true.
The Hebrews placed Daniel, not among the Prophets, but among the Writings, indicating that it was written later than the Prophets. In ca. 180, Jeshua ben Sira lists the heroes of the faith from Enoch, Noah, and Abraham through Nehemiah (Ecclus. 44-49) but makes no mention of Daniel.
OTOH, Daniel and his three companions are mentioned in 1 Macc. 2:59-60, probably composed late in the 2nd century. The “abomination that makes desolate” alludes to the desecration of the temple by an altar to Zeus (1 Macc. 1:54; 11 Macc 6:2-5) and is referred to specifically as the “abomination that makes desolate” (ll:31; 12:11).
This is apocalyptic literature and in such circumstances it is dangerous to be specific with one’s references. Instead of name of a “little horn” (8:9) and a “king of the north” (ll:40), which is why Daniels took a name and guise of a hero of the second millennium. It is a type of Jewish midrash.
Apocalyptic literature can have dual applications. But what it meant to the writer and the original audience is the first application as those readers had no understanding or imagination about a world 2,000 years later; that is dependent on much later interpretations.
I fully agree that “trying to rip it from its original has no exegetical or interpretive merit.”
Disagree, even in non-Adventist scholarship of theologians trained in higher-criticism, there has been a push away from overtly stressing just the original meaning. Many scholars are now starting to question the obsession with identifying the original strands that make up much of historical-criticial analysis, including source criticism and redaction criticism.
Existentialism of the likes of Rudolf Bultmann is one such non-historical approach, focusing on the ‘proclaimed Jesus’ as opposed to the ‘historical Jesus’. Then there is ‘structural criticism’, ‘semiotics’ and ‘narrative theory’, which all challenge historical-critical methods.
The point is, and this is especially important for eschatology, sometimes it ISN’T what the original author meant that matters most. For example, Daniel clearly had no idea what he was describing, full with symbols and having the book ‘sealed up’.
Sometimes, the meaning of the text is actually found in its final redacted form in a cannon – not in its original writing as revealed by a prophet.
Wrong on all counts, Elaine. If you are a Hebrew scholar, surprise us by not making liberal claims without any support and omitting the facts that show the opposite.
ben Sirach omits many people who could have been added. It is an example that illustrates nothing.
In 1 Maccabees THE TOPIC is heroes of faith who risked or paid with their lives for the truth. Quite a difference and without doubt because AS I HAVE ALREADY STATED Daniel became popular again during the Maccabean Wars. Alas! the timing was all wrong for Antiochus to be the evil little horn.
The reason Daniel was not included in The Prophets was simple: he was NOT a prophet in the classical sense. He was a Davidic prince who served THREE pagan dynasties. The intertestamental Jews were sensitive to that. Moreover, the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks of Years (which is the whole point of Daniel 8 to 12 inclusive) had not been fulfilled.
Jews everywhere were looking for that fulfillment. But the Maccabean Wars were way too soon.
Now apparently you simply did not read what I said earlier, so let’s try logic again:
1. The portrait of pagan kings in Daniel is not negative. Belshazzur pays for his life IMMEIDATELY when he desecrated the Temple vessels.
THAT DID NOT HAPPEN TO ANTIOCHUS. And Darius and Nebuchadnezzar are beloved in Daniel. STRANGE way to symbolize Antiochus.
2. The little horn of Daniel 7 comes AFTER the fourth beast. The THIRD beast is ALEXANDER. Do you even know, Elaine, that the major reason Alexander did not attempt to destroy Jerusalem was that he dreamed seeing the high priest of the Jews in advance, and that that high priest would tell him something in a book about himself?
And that Jaddus did just that by showing him Daniel 7 and Daniel 8, where he was the great horn, the first king?
SO DANIEL WAS AROUND TO BE READ IN 331 BC. WHAT DO THE LIBBIES DO ABOUT THAT? WHY THEY SAY THAT THE OTHERWISE RELLIABLE JOSEPHUS, WHOSE WORK GREATLY ENLIGHTENS THIS PERIOD, IS RECITING A FABLE.
In other words, if it agrees (possibly, no matter how far-fetched) with our presuppositions, it is true. If it disagrees or utterly undermines our claim, IT HAS TO BE FALSE.
3. The little horn comes at the “latter end of their rule’ in reference to the four horns of Alexander’s divided kingdom. The four horns and the four heads in Daniel 7 are obviously the same thing. The Antiochene kings of Seleucid Syria continued until 60 BC when destroyed by the Romans. The Ptolemies continued until the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC. Way after the time of Antiochus.
CONTINUED
4. None of the four heads or four horns persecute the Jews. That is someone who comes from THE NEXT BEAST, THE DRAGON, IN DANIEL 7, A LATER EMPIRE.
5. The evil king is called an interloper who stole the throne, a contemptible person to whom royal honor had not been given. Antiochus IV was the legitimate king of a long-established dynasty. How stupid do you think the author of Daniel really was?
“it was intended to be a warning of the Jewish temple’s and system overthrown, as Jesus predicted, and not to our present time”
Well I would agree that Daniel was intended to be a warning for the Jews regarding the end of their era.
But it was also a promise of the dawn of another era ushered-in by their Messiah.
So like the question of whether the Eschaton in the NT is imminent or immanent, this is not an either/or proposition – it is a both/and. Many passages in the Bible have more than one application. It is a hallmark of great literature to convey multiple meanings, and the Bible certainly qualifies on both counts. It is a reductionist fallacy to claim that because a Bible passage clearly conveys one meaning, therefore it does not or indeed cannot also convey other meanings.
I maintain that the end of Daniel 12 describes our time much better than it describes the happenings of 70 AD. Admittedly the gospel of Christ was proclaimed by the believers who did travel from one end of the diaspora to the other to proclaim it. Still our world is much larger than was theirs. Both people and information travel orders of magnitude more rapidly today than in AD 70.
Again, the last 1260 days are the second half of the 70th Week, when the Antichrist WOULD HAVE been in control, had the Jews as a people recognized the Christ and hailed him and set up the Kingdom of God on earth as intended, at that time.
1290 days takes us to the next new moon when the Temple having been cleansed, could be re-inaugurated.
1335 days (quite literal, evenings-mornings, btw) brings us to the annual enthronement festival, when Christ would have been enthroned as King.
All these are “WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN” as SDA BC 4 “The Role of Israel in OT Prophecy” illustrates so clearly. Trying to rip this from its historical context and apply it to our time has no interpretive or exegetical merit.
All of Daniel’s prophecy was essentially the time up to the Messiah and the crucifixion. To place it forward two millennia is to macerate his prophecies to comport with Adventists in the mid-19th century. Adventists were a laughing stock in the religious world as those with strange ideas of the end of the world, rejected by their former churches for such biblical interpretations and with the prophecies of D&R to support those beliefs, they would receive proper recognition so badly needed to remove the cultic appearance.
Wow, Elaine, and you have studied historical theology too? Impressive!
Except, WRONG.
The issue in the late 18th and early 19th century, brought out so clearly in the Powerscourt Conferences, was the post-millennial appearance of Christ opposed by pre-millennialists.
ALL premillennialist teaching was anathema to Catholicism and the older Protestant sects. But at that time pre-millenniallism was coming to the fore. Today it is the basic teaching of all conservative Protestant sects.
The basic outline taught in Millerism was already present by 1780, and, as I said, pre-millennialism was growing in acceptance.
Now you have a point that you do not recognize yet. How did the figure 2,300 “days” come into existence? Why did Daniel not question it.
Hint: SDAs argue officially (and quite correctly, btw) that evenings and mornings in the First Creation Story have to be 24-hour days, and that is exactly what the Scripture writer meant.
Yup, true, true!
But wait! in Daniel 8:14 it is not 2,300 “days” but 2,300 “evenings mornings” which is temple language for 24-hour days. No room for turning that into years.
Where did that come from anyway? Well, from the enormously influential commentary on Daniel and the Revelation published by “The Blessed” Joachim of Fiore in AD 1198. (Credit Joachim also for making the 1260 days, not half the final week of years, as Daniel says, but 1,260 YEARS!
Hence the SECOND GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT IN AD 1260. (The first was in AD 1000 of course.)
If you can find some reason for the Temple to be abused for 2,300 literal days, and relate that to the other time periods in the Seventy Weeks of Years, you’d have a point, Elaine.
(And yes, the book and cross-references have very precise information on this point.)
Oh, and Elaine, another point (thanks for bringing this up):
In the Ancient Near East, mythopoeic thought saw time as CIRCULAR AND CYLIC, not linear.
What happened in the past would happen again. Jesus Christ pointed out that the horrors of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD were a MICROCOSM of what would be repeated at the end of the cycle, at the end of the age. (That is, the beginning and the end are identical, which is the nature of a cycle.)
In the same way, the persecution of DOMITIAN (not Nero and definitely not Diocletian, Steve!) was a microcosm of what was to happen at the end of the age, when the seventh head saw the mortal wound to the sixth head healed. (See Rev 17)
The Christians of Roman Asia were informed that the empires of Daniel 7 (in Chapter 12 represented by the coalescence of the composite Imperial Dragon, made up of a lion, a bear, and a leopard, and then fused to the dragon) would result not merely in FOUR empires. Now that the Jews had failed, the cycle would continue through SEVEN empires to be completed.
And what was happening to the Christians of Roman Asia would be happening to ALL Christians at the end of the age.
And, by the way, was it Neron or Domitian? Well actually both. There was a very popular belief (a wish on the part of the poor, mostly, since Neron had emptied the Roman treasury giving subsidies to the poor…
that Neron would be raised again (redivivius) and appear in the person of another emperor. Of course it was NERON (with that final “nun” that gave his name to the number 666, derived not from the pagan and despised LATIN but by the use of the gematria of the sacred language, HEBREW.
It is not difficult to see why the Christians of Roman Asia would assume that Domitian was the fulfillment of that belief.
Was Revelation a letter sent to 7 literal churches with historic problems or about 7 church periods? It would seem logical to suggest it was both surely? The idea of scriptural texts sometimes have a literal and symbolic meaning at the same time is as old as “Church Fathers” Origen and Iraneaes.
One of my perpetually renewing Alice in Wonderland exposures to the surreal is the psychedelic projections by what could be mentally disturbed, or drugged, ancient seers and the degree with which otherwise ordinary modern, rational people in our time claim clear insight into their purpose, motive, and irrationality. These mad prophetic forays are meaningless, their reason for appearing cryptic. Most are entertaining, all grotesque, bizarre, dreamlike, even nightmarish. They have no intrinsic value, only what is assigned to them. Argument fodder. That’s there only function
Here and elsewhere inanity rules by fools who confuse their interpretive musings with worthwhile contrbutions. The skirmishes over Daniel and Revelation has lasted for hundreds of centuries with nothing good achieved and now only reenactment camps are left for reenactors to gather, dash out, slash at each others for a season with imaginary swords of the spirit, and now retreat to prepare for the war against big windmills this summer in San Antonio.
Had the compilers of the NT skipped D & R, Christian theology wouldn’t have lost anything and billions of words and billions of reams of paper could have served elsewhere. And billions of meaningless arguments would never have happened. And the nightmare of 1844 neither. Woa, there’s a consequence I hadn’t factored.
Is there anything that doesn’t ‘Bugs’ you Larry? If people want to have a little fun arguing about mythical beasts, why should that bother you? What do you do for fun Larry?
I read and reply to these posts for fun. And I obviously provide a minority report, for fun. And finally, I am continuously amused by the gymnastics exercised over, under, through and about those “mythical beasts” and their creators. To show I have some skill in that department, surprising to you and others for sure, I have figured out that the little horn of Daniel is a prediction of the Battle of Little Big Horn in Wyoming of 1876. I am working out the details, which will be corroborated by some passages from Revelation. All of which I will disclose. Soon. Always be ready.
I can’t wait.
But its good to hear you are keeping yourself…. and others….. amused. Cheers
Totally in agreement. Christianity applied to serve humanity presently by increasing goodwill and mutual goals amongst individuals and nations. That being the timeless salient message of the gospel is the most relevant and least applied. The kingdom will come today and every other day.
Much of Revelation had distinct meaning to people at that time; much later, it was interpreted as types (the seven churches) and far future events.
The meaning it had for the original readers has been interpreted as having meaning 2,000 years later. But the phrase “the time of the end” is often taken as meaning the time the interpreter determines. It is deliberately ambiguous: a prophecy can may be fulfilled according to interpreters. Thus, Adventists have always assumed that the time of the end meant “very soon” and for them when the Sunday Law was passed. But it is a very ambiguous term, non-specific as to time.
Who says it wasn’t both Elaine? Maybe that is why Revelation is written in such symbolic language. It gives hope to each generation that the end could be around the corner.
To go back to my analogy of the French Resistance, they were continually looking for signs for D-Day. These signs kept giving them hope, and helped them keep up the fight in the interim.
Ever wondered then why Jesus did not give an exact date for His return? Ever think He wanted us to develop an ‘eschatological consciousness’. But you’d have to believe Jesus is more than just a great moral man to believe that, which I believe you don’t.
The Bible has always been subject to interpretation, sometimes, by each generation. Else why so many Christian denominations, all claiming to use the Bible only (excepting Adventists who has an inspired prophet).
I don’t disagree Elaine. As for using the Bible only, I don’t recall the Catholics, Anglicans or Methodists upholding that view. Just what denomination do you have in mind?
ALL OF REVELATION had a “distinct meaning to people at that time” if you mean by that the Christians of Roman Asia, who were under a death sentence. Your vague comment seems to be that historicism later re-interpreted The Revelation, which is certainly true, beginning in about the fourth century.
None of that has to do with sound exegesis, for exegesis is a serious scientific pursuit of what any passage of Scripture meant in its original setting.
Since time was cyclic in the ancient mind, the news in Revelation is that yes, you are indeed in the fourth empire of Daniel. But the end is not yet, because there are larger empires after these four: in fact, according to Rev 17, there are SEVEN imperial period).
The Revelation operates on the same principle as other eschatological passages. What does the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 have to do with the end of the world? The one is a MICROCOSM of the other. Understand what went on then and see what the whole world will experience in its finality.
Same here. The Christians of Roman Asia are told that what they are experiencing at the hands of Domitian (it was an imperial province and Domitian was from Ephesus as were his father and older brother).
In the end, what every Roman emperor aspired to, to be absolute ruler of the entire world, would come to pass — in the seventh imperial period. Since we know for sure that Daniel was big in the Eastern early church, there is little doubt that they got the message: it was for them and for those in that final period.
And had nothing to do with Saracens, the Ottoman Empire, a papal temporal rule that did NOT begin in AD 538 and most definitely did NOT end in the papal triumph in the tiff with the Atheist Directorate in AD 1798.
That is seen in historicist writings because in every century historicists updated their “interpretation” to include contemporary events in their own time.
None of this, Elaine, has anything to do with exegesis. You make things seem much more ambiguous than they are, by ignoring exegetical analysis, which really isn’t interested in preterism (it was all about back then), futurisim (it’s all about the end of time and in the future from now), or historicism (it’s all about everything that happened from the first century to now), or allegorism (it’s an allegory about the spiritual struggle of the soul to reach God’s kingdom).
The “time of the end” in Daniel was the same “time of the end” in every prophet and writer from Deuteronomy 4 onward. It was the time AFTER an inevitable exile, when the Kingdom of God would be regathered and established and then attacked by the massed force of the lost. In Daniel it is even more precise, the time of the 70th Heptad (Week of Years) dating from the only effective decree to meet the dual requirements of Daniel 9:24. It id not mean “very soon” to Daniel and his disciples. But it was EXTREMELY precise as to time.
Elaine, you are no exegete. See my comments below.
Since time was cyclic, what was happening in Roman Asia was distinctly and explicitly said to be a microcosm of events that would include every human being in the seventh and final cycle.
Try not to make it up as you go along.
PS — “the time of the end” is NOT a phrase from the Revelation.
What I can tell you for sure, Steve F, is that those churches were very very literal, as were the cities and the things described in them. The road into the interior of Roman Asia (western Turkey) hit those seven cities in the order given in the Revelation.
Since the book is a revelation of Jesus Christ, the first revelation is that though he did not come in AD 70, he is intimately aware of each church group, their problems and their successes.
He is dressed as the high priest on the Day of Atonement (which is what “kuriake hemera” means, not “Sunday” as later commentators try to say for obvious reasons.)
The problem with the historicist position is that it has never changed since the fourth century. Writers then could identify each of seven periods, sure they were in Laodicea.
And that is the weakness of historicism. It constantly updates the material and interprets by current events rather than the reverse. After all, historicism was born long before modern exegesis was possible!
If you were to read the AD 1198 influential commentary of Joachim of Fiore (where most of your last-day interpretations originated) you would find that Joachim had the same scheme, with everything from the first to the twelfth century worked out. With certainty that in AD 1198 they were in the Laodicean period.
Do you see the problem?
Rather, the correct way to apply the Revelation to our time is this: ALL OF THE REVELATION APPLIED TO THE PEOPLE TO WHOM IT WAS WRITTEN. EVERY DETAIL WAS SOMETHING THEY UNDERSTOOD AND RELATED TO.
BUT WHAT THEY WERE UNDERGOING RIGHT THEN, AWAITING A UNIVERSAL DEATH DECREE AT THE HANDS OF AN EVIL EMPEROR WHO WAS WORKED BY SATAN, WAS BUT A MICROCOSM OF SOMETHING ELSE.
SINCE TIME WAS CYCLIC IN THE ANCIENT MIND, WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO THEM RIGHT THEN WOULD HAPPEN AGAIN.
ONLY NEXT TIME IT WOULD ENCOMPASS EVERY PERSON ON EARTH.
WHILE THEY KNEW OF FOUR EMPIRES, AND THOUGHT OF THEMSELVES IN THE LAST ONE, THE REVELATION IN CHAPTERS 12 COMPARED TO 17, CHANGES THE PICTURE. THE FAILURE OF THE JEWS TO ESTABLISH THE KINGDOM BY PREPARING THE WORLD FOR CHRIST MEANT THAT TIME WOULD CONTINUE.
ONLY IN THE 7TH PERIOD, WHEN THE DEADLY WOUND TO THE SIXTH HEAD WAS COMPLETE, WOULD THE PERSECUTION THEY WERE GOING THROUGH BE RPEATED ON A WORLDWIDE SCALE.
(IN OTHER WORDS, INSTEAD OF APPLYING “LAODICEA” TO THE MODERN CHURCH, IT DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ARE. WHAT CHURCH WOULD YOU SAY YOU BELONG TO PERSONALLY?)
And no, Origen and Iranaeus are hardly the inventors of literal things being symbols. Have you ever read “Moses and the Gods of Egypt”? The plagues were a systematic war on the Egyptian pantheon. Hence the Nile (something very real) was understood by everyone on both sides to stand for something greater: a god. Finally the axe fell on Pharaoh himself, a real person, but allegedly having the powers of Amon-Re-Atum in him.
The basis for this cyclic thinking is the astrological ‘great year’ of about 2,200 solar years. Lest one contend that Hebrew thought was immune from such thinking, refer to the ‘ma’azaroth’ of Job. This is a specific reference to the constellations of the zodiac. Ancient synagogues from the Galilee have been found with a zodiac mosaic on the floor.
Historically it is interesting that most of OT period was the age of Aries (sheep), teh first Advent coincided with the Age of Pisces (fish/’ichthus’ – well-known symbol for Christ) and now we are transiting into Aquarius (Spirit).
I don’t hold too much sway with this kind of thing, but I do find it curious that it bears passing resemblance to the kind of religious thinking in those eras.
Does anyone have an opinion on the meaning of Heb 1.2, where the eschaton is said to happen with teh FIRST Advent?
The cross of calvary is an end of the world event. George Eldon Ladd pointed out that Christ broke into human history and brought the life of the age to come into the present. So, the 33 years of the life of Christ belongs to the future.
We, by faith, begin to live the life of the age to come in the present. So we should move the cross to the end of the world in the historical process. This is important, because many try to move the end of the world to the cross. And this is one reason there is such a convoluted understanding of how to explain a last day judgment when the last day judgment already took place 2000 years ago.
Let’s not move the end of the world to the cross. Rather, let’s move the cross to the end of the world. Now we can make sense of the fact the historical process continues and probation is not ended until the final judgment at the end of the world.
But now you know why Paul says, “Once, at the end of the world, Christ has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” It is an end of the world event.
The basis for cyclic thought in the Ancient Near East and the Old Testament was most certainly not the astrological great year.
In fact, let’s begin with that old classic “Before Philosophy: the Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man” and see what the documents from the period actually say about their use of cycles, and the interchangeability of cycles. (This classic is generally recognized as such by professionals in the field. One of the top ten important books of the 20th century.)
In any case, the six days of labor and seventh of rest, the six months of growth and the seventh of harvest, the six years of labor and the seventh year of rest were recognized as cycles that were, by definition, interchangeable, in the constant rule of ancient thought “Similarity of appearance equals similarity of essence.”
What is so special in your mind about Hebrews 1:2? You keep bringing it up. Did any of the New Testament writers say that they were all in the last days, and that Christ’s coming was SOON?
Oh that’s right. They all did! (Again, I ask, what’s so special about Hebrews 1:2?) The Book of Hebrews — using Neo-Platonic thought, urges the Christian priests (about 6000, one third of the Temple priesthood, according to Josephus) to get away from the Temple, its animal sacrifices, and its impending destruction.
Since the dual question of the Apostles led them to believe that the destruction of Jerusalem would coincide with the end of the world and the Second Coming, it is hardly a surprise that the author would write in this way.
Am I missing something?
For the Jews, the destruction of the temple was the end of their world.
Not relevant to what the author of Hebrews meant nor to Serge’s apparent concern over the meaning of the author’s use of “these last days” and what that means.
All New Testament writers expected Christ to return by the destruction of Jerusalem. That believe is front and center in Hebrews, as it was clear that the Temple and its system were on the very edge of destruction, as Jesus had warned.
In fact, one clear exegetical conclusion about The Revelation, looked at carefully, is that one of its main purposes was to answer the question “Why did Christ not come decades ago when Jerusalem was destroyed/”
How it answers that question is fascinating.
John, the NT writers may have expected the ‘end’ at the time of the destruciton of Jerusalem, but SDAs have been of the view that ‘the end times’ commenced in 1844, based on Dan 8.14.
So Heb 1.2 serves as a great corrective to this false view of the eschaton.
You say Hebrews uses Neo-Platonic thought. I can’t disagree. But apart from drawing my own conclusions, I’ve not read any sytematic discussion of the subject. DO you ahve any references for this?
As is the nature of NeoPlatonism, insofar as I understand it, Heb 1.2 is more interested in eschaton as a quality than in the numerics of dates, prophetic or otherwise. Again, Heb 1.2 is a geat corrective.
The mention of myths introduces the realization that many myths in both Greece and Rome appear to have been lifted and placed in the Bible by the Gospel writers.
So many main characters: Dionysius, Zeus and others were produced by gods impregnating virgins; Both were resurrected after dying, and many more almost identical backgrounds. Comparing them with many Bible stories it is seen that many had a common background source.
Not to mention the much earlier story of Gilgamesh and Sumerian flood stories predating the biblical story by centuries.
It appears for Erv, Elaine and their followers the books of Daniel and Revelations have a little or not value. They question the date and authorship of Daniel.
On the other hand Jesus believed in the reality and importance of Daniel the Prophet and his prophesies reaching even beyond our days
What a tuff choice… who to believe
Neo, Finding importance in arcane and cryptic documents has no attraction for me. I once taught Adventist interpretation of Daniel and Revelation on the Academy level. I abandoned them, and the church, as pertinent when I realized the verification for my faith wasn’t there. It was the opposite. My belief was making me see there what I was supposed to. I realized the writers thousands of years ago didn’t know I would be reading their work, had no intention of speaking to my distant generation, and likely had no clue any divine guidance was embedded in their work, at least that would pertain to my time.
And their audience was likely in their moment without any hint time would stretch to our day. They lived in a functional presumption of the world, a cosmology, foreign to us, and ours totally unthinkable to them. As I see it, it is the same as if a dictionary was loaded into a blender, spewed forth bits and pieces that landed such that someone could divine a code, and in the alignment, claim to find evidence for God. It’s the decoder, not the code that makes up meaning.
Apparently you find your “eureka” moments in places I don’t. I have no argument with you.
What to believe? Whatever you want. There really is no right or wrong in regard to prophecy, only opinions. Yours and all the others. As an example, you, me, Irv, and no one in the whole world really knows the date of Daniel and his life. You “act as if” the date in your head is true and you make judgments based on that. That is called belief. It provides satisfaction to you. I don’t even care even if he lived or not. I care about God as love and the experience of it in my life.
And that really is the point. Prophecy can either be a blessing or a curse. It can give hope, present hope precisely because the symbols are hard to understand, or it can be a curse, causing us to treat God like a cosmic crossword puzzle. It can help us live in the moment, because today really might be the last day of planet earth (like some Zen exercise), or it can make us live so far in the future we are of no earthly good.
Prophecy isn’t really the problem. The problem is attitude. I suspect Bugs that if you taught Daniel and Revelation, you were delving into the minutae of the subject that risks going down the rabbit hole. Maybe you did go down that rabbit hole. It is no suprising then that you have a distaste now for any biblical equivalent of Lewis Carroll.
For the rest of us, and I mainly speak for myself, I can appreciate Lewis Carroll without fretting about how to put all the intricate pieces of Humpty Dumpty back again or remember all the lines to the Lobster Quadrille.
I taught the Adventist main line on D&R, and “prophecy” is the real problem as I stated above. But I accept Serge’s jab and previous insight that I shouldn’t be “bugged” by grown men (PC, people) entertaining themselves with the happiness prophetical meanderings provides. But I will continue my entertaining view from my grandstand, laughing at the amusers gratifying themselves with endless dives into the psychedelic rabbit holes of prophecy! And I have to add, the most hilarious part is the wisdom and academic contributions offered by individuals to support opinions based on presuppositions with no supportable basis.
That’s why those opinions are called beliefs, Larry. And your beliefs about their beliefs are equally ‘opinions with no supportable basis.’
For example, myself. I was once in ministry, teaching D&R pretty much standard format, with reservations. Didn’t object when the post-Glacier View purges took place. Then I went into agnostic territory, where I sometimes think I see you as remaining. But what forced me to reconsider my agnosticism was the challenge of my psychologist friend to make sense of human nature as it is. (Of course, this is hotly debated as well, but that only proves that there is something going on there.)
And so as one tried to deal, empirically, if that is possible, with questions of human psychology, one is forced to come to terms with age-old issues. It soon becomes apparent that intelligent humans have been asking similar questions since cave-man days. The ?30,000 + years old cave art of S. France being case in point. Various scriptures from the Vedas onwards do the same. These guys were not idiots. THeir work survives because it is a thoughtful response to the front and centre questions…… who/what am I?
The fact that they universally come to similar, ‘spiritualised,’ conclusions, at their centre, is highly relevant. It is when moderns attempt to resolve these questions in materialist terms that one is confronted with a noteworthy lack of sophistication of thought, imho. SDA literalist/materialist interpretations of ancient thinking are a case in point. ie, completely miss the point, and presents itself in quite banal terms.
The materialist view is essentially pessimistic, whether it be religious or atheistic in nature.
The view that man’s true nature is ‘immaterial,’ or ‘spiritual,’ is one that can make sense of the thinking of the ancients. But such thinking has ‘evolved.’ I think the neo-Platonic ideas which so strongly inform NT psychology are as good as it gets.
So it is no wonder to me that unless you have ‘moved on’ not just from Adventism, but from its materialist view of the nature of reality, that all that remains to you is to take pot-shots at their silliness. Mostly I agree with your conclusions. But I would like to see you take the view that yes, God is Love, but perhaps to add the reasonably logical view that Love is all there is, and that in essence, humans are one with that divinity which is Love also.
The post which prompted my remarks seemed to be one where you were unusually irked by the inability of folks to ‘see’ a greater reality than the highly blinkered SDA view of reality. And that ‘irkness’ took on a tone, unusual for you, of near bitterness. I didn’t like to see you suffering. As a doc I know that most ‘jabs’ are intended to relieve suffering.
So, what is your opinion of the real ‘nature of man?’ Does it matter, what we think of it?
The Holy Scriptures were written not as a history book or an insight into future events in regards to this material world, but rather a powerful force for spiritual preparation which leads us to Christ. If the Scriptures don’t show us who we are and our relationship to God the Father through His Son Jesus the Christ, them all we achieve when seeking to see others and the world through the Scriptures is carnality and not Spiritual knowledge. We, in fact, drift further from the Truth by this carnal approach.
I just noticed that Nate suggested the self-serving nature of Adventist prophetic interpretations and Elaine and others of sound judgment have concurred. All you have to read articles almost every month in the Adventist Review to provide evidence that Nate’s suggestion has the ring of truth to it. We “know” what others don’t. We can predict the future, and others can’t–unless, of course, they join us and then they will then be able to tell others what they now “know.”
“It ain’t bragging if you can do it.” It wouldn’t be “self-serving” if Adventism was producing what it promised, actually knew what others don’t. People would be lining up to join up if it could make good on the claim. It can’t. And that is the cause of the emasculation of its eschatology and the public display of its current Great Disappointment.
Ervin, my misspelling of your name as “Irv” in a previous reference was just a typo! Or I it may have been just a head fake in case you do know the real date(s) of OT Daniel and his work(s) (if there was a one-and-only as an author). Just being cautious!
That may be all true. But as I said previously, it is the exact same type of existential crisis the early Church went through. First, in proclaiming a Messiah who was killed as a traitor; secondly, in proclaiming the soon return of Jesus Christ, which never happened.
So if you are all correct what is the answer? What sort of “Adventism” is Dr Taylor suggesting exist without belief in an “Advent”?
Are you just saying Christianity is just about the moral teachings of Jesus?
But of course Christianity means “following Christ.”
There is nothing in Christianity that demands emphasis on eschatology, The Law, or Sabbath; all of which are the main features of Adventism as the name identifies.
If one believes and follows those three essential points, he can be an SdA. Externals, as in Judaism, or what matters.
Ah interesting question Elaine. I would love if Dr Taylor would consider writing a post just on that subject. Can there be an “Adventism” without an “Advent”.
Several Christian writers, C S Lewis (Mere Christianity p.52) comes especially to mind, said we can’t just have Christianity with eschatology. The central message of the Gospel is not Jesus’ moral teachings. Jesus’ moral teachings are not unique, and mostly just a repeat of things already found in the OT.
The central message is His death and resurrection. Without eschatology, there is none of that. Thus, there is no Gospel.
Notable scholars like Albert Schweitzer (Lutheran, 1875-1965), and more recently E. P. Sanders (Presbyterian, 1937-), have challenged modern approaches that try to play down Christianity’s eschatological (end-time) message. To Schweitzer, everything Jesus did had an eschatological bent, even His moral teachings. Sanders likewise believes, ‘Jesus was a radical (“thoroughgoing”) apocalyptic prophet.’
Paul makes this all explicitly clear in 1 Cor 15:13-14:
“If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. (1 Cor. 15:13-14)”
Sorry that should have been:
‘C S Lewis (Mere Christianity p.52) comes especially to mind, said we can’t just have Christianity without eschatology’
There you go Steve, taking spiritual things literally again. Of course you won’t ‘get it.’
“Can there be Adventism without advent?”
Probably not. But there can certainly be Christians without Advent or Sabbath. The question should be: which is more important?
Adventists are known by the name to be Sabbath observing believers in a soon Advent. But if they are not known as Christians, those beliefs mean nothing; they are only additional doctrines masking and placing secondary to Christ’s command to love one another. It is often not reflected in their relationships to others members and the public.
How long, now over 2,000 years, can the message of Jesus’ soon coming be relevant or even gain attention?
What difference does it make for the millions who have, and will die in the future who never heard of a second coming? Or even about a Christ?
But every normal human being appreciates and responds to love and caring. This was Jesus’ essential message and demonstration and why his followers loved him. Not for the return at some future time, but what he meant, and should mean to us today of love for our fellow man. It is a universal message with no scripture or future involved: it is here and now. All the eschatological diagrams and Bible texts are meaningless unless they first know and experience that love, and it is only demonstrated through people.
The truth will free and strengthen you, as for delusions they are not worth the fleeting baseless joy. Have faith that life, your life and humanity has hope and intrinsic value. Bless.
I’ve tried to write two substantial responses but my computer kept crashing! I’ve try to quickly say that you can have some sort of Christianity-influenced philosophy without eschatology but I don’t think you can have Christianity the religion without it. The gospel message is fundamentally eschatological.
Most if not all major religions are eschatological. They all aim to deal with the problems of a broken world, where innocents suffer without justice, and with a hope of eventual redemption. None of them merely provide moral codes for life.
Buddhism is eschatological in seeking to get us out of the endless cycle of violence that is the wheel of samsara. Islam continually emphasises judgment. Judaism has hope in the Messiah and the world to come. Hinduism is a progression to a higher state of consciousness, according to notions roughly equivalent to Christian theosis. Even Serge’s Gnosticism is essentially eschatological, seeking to free the immortal soul from the material prison made by the Demiurge.
Maybe Shintoism is close to the sort of religion you seem to be advocating Elaine. It doesn’t really have an eschatological message, but whose emphasis is on moral conduct in the here and now. Maybe confuscionism or taosim as well. Maybe some forms of animanism.
Yes, eschatology is meaningless without love. But eschatological is (or should be) about love. It is hope that this screwed up world isn’t all there is or will be. To live wholly in the here and now, to embrace this totally cr*p world, isn’t enough for me or most humans.
I’d probably shoot myself if I really thought this rubbish is all there is. I really honestly would. I need hope. Most people do. You might not need it and good for you. But don’t rain down on my parade, even if it is just a God delusion. It might be just the blue pill, but it makes life worth living thank you.
Eschatology is meaningless unless it is wrapped-up in an overwhelming love for God and a desire to be eternally united with Jesus. Unfortunately, for most Adventists, the purpose of eschatology has become merely to demonstrate having correct theology about God instead of helping a person be in a right relationship with God.
“Abomination which causes desolation”. Self glorification. God has no place in such a heart/temple.
2 Thess. 2:3-12 “the man of sin….who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God , showing himself that he is God….”
9 And he said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 10 Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand.