Christianity and the End Times

quote:

---

But of course this is a sham.

---

And that is just more of your false belittling of my points. Especially as you declared it impossible that both descriptions could fit the same man - even if you reject my explanation it is still pretty good.

quote:

---

Heliodorus murdered Seleucus but was never on the throne. The little horn of Daniel 7 follows ten KINGS, Heliodorus was never a king

---

That is what you get for relying on an article covering the entire history of the empire instead of looking at more detailed articles as well. wikipedia

quote:

---

Then we have Demetrius, second on your list, who even you admit fell outside the relevant time period.

---

Another of your strange misinterpretations. Demetrius managed to take the throne and rule later, but that is a side-note. He is on my list as the rightful heir of Seleucus IV and therefore with a claim to be king. A claim that Antiochus IV denied him. It is a viable interpretation. You may disagree but that is just opinion.

quote:

---

As for the infant son of Seleucus IV I couldn't find anything to suggest that he was ever on the throne and if he was it would have been after Antiochus Epiphanes

---

As I said - and you obviously ignored - young Antiochus was co-regent with Antiochus IV at the start of the latter’s reign. WikipediaYou really should remember that I do make the effort to get my facts right.

quote:

---

A claim to be king is not being king.

---

Being the rightful king - as Demetrius was - seems close enough to me.And again, having a match this good is evidence that Antiochus is the person meant in Daniel 7.And thank you for living down to my prediction. It’s nice having the moral high ground.

quote:

---

But it isn't good enough by the standards of scripture. Two of them are not reigning kings and the prophecy speaks of the little horn's arising among, or after, ten kings which certainly sound like established kings. Since in my scenario all this is yet future I can't answer it directly.

---

This seems a rather arbitrary criterion. It’s not in the text. The fact that three of the ten are uprooted by the eleventh rather suggests that they can’t have much of a reign.But then this is the standard that says that a series of four empires, the last destroyed by God can be a series of four empires plus several others which don’t get mentioned, where the fourth is destroyed by humans but somehow comes back hundreds of years later. But it can’t be a slightly series of four empires which fits the text equally well, and doesn’t have all the additions.It seems a rather flexible standard and apparently indistinguishable from Faith likes it.

quote:

---

To make the Seleucid empire into the fourth beast of Daneil 7 does destroy the pattern of the prophecies, which foresees four separate empires succeeding each other, and always puts the Seleucids under the images of Greece which is the third beast of Daniel 7.

---

That assumes that the empires are divided up the same way each time. Given the quite different imagery I don’t think that is guaranteed, the more so since Daniel 11 deals with the Ptolemies and the Seleucids as distinct kingdoms.

quote:

---

Also, you still haven't any reasonable timing to fit the seventy weeks prophecy of Daniel 9

---

However I have a reasonable explanation and by my assessment the weight of evidence supports it. I’m still waiting for a sensible explanation of how you can shoehorn in a gap of 2000 years.

quote:

---

and of course I continue to object that your messiahs are utterly inadequate to the tenor of the prophecies. Messiah the Prince has to be Jesus Christ, and the sixty-nine weeks does point to His time and not the time of the Maccabees.

---

In fact my two messiahs are remarkably good fits and it is just silly to deny it. Cyrus is a messiah and a prince and prominent in the Jews return to Jerusalem (and he gets quite a lot of mentions in scripture). Onaias III is prominent in the events leading up to the Maccabean revolt and is murdered shortly before events fitting with the seventieth week of Daniel 9.They are such good fits that they count as good evidence for my reading by any sensible standard. Your dismissal has no objective basis.

quote:

---

I'm still aiming to get the verses together that differentiate the two little horns and show that the prophecies continue far in the future, but that's going to take time especially since other things are interfering with my efforts.

---

So far I haven’t seen anything on either front worth considering.

I think it is entirely fair to deal with side issues, even if the main points should be left.

quote:

---

Image of winged lion on Babylon gate

---

quote:

---

If there is any question as to what this represents see the image I posted at the top: Babylon symbolized itself by the image of a winged lion.

---

It isn’t. That is a replica of decorations from the palace of Darius in Susa. It’s Persian. Frieze of GriffinsMay I suggest that jumping to wild conclusions from a label on a tourist photograph is a bit foolish. The more so when the label is wrong.Edited by PaulK, : Fix tag

quote:

---

I got the image from a Google Image page for Lion Image of Babylon. Most of the images don't have wings but a few do and they all look like the other lions except with wings. This one was identified as drecorating the gate of Babylon.

---

This one also has horns and the back legs aren’t from a lion either. Unlike the ordinary lions you’d find on the Ishtar Gate which really is a gate from Babylon.So all you have is an image which someone said was from Babylon Gate in the Louvre. The Louvre says it’s from the Griffin Frieze.Here’s a link with a better image. You can see it’s exactly the same. wikimedia

quote:

---

I don't need the image for my argument, I just tnought it made a nice illustration for the theme, as well as handy to refer to.

---

I hope you have some other support for your assertion that the winged lion is a special symbol of Babylon then. (It is a symbol of Venice but I wouldn’t try to prove it by showing an image said to be from Venice.)

quote:

---

And your link doesn't go to a picture. I don't think you've proved me wrong about this

---

You forget who you are talking to. The Louvre page is set up to display a Flash animation. For those without Flash - most of us now - they have links to images right there on the page. So yes, I have proven you wrong.

In fact the Lamassu is much older than Babylon, and even the Persians adopted it. It’s a symbol found in Babylon (the version with a bull’s body, too). But a special symbol of Babylon? That’s a different question.

quote:

---

I accept the biblical prophecy as authoritative. If it identifies it as specifically Babylonian then it is specifically Babylonian.

---

The problem is that the Bible doesn’t. If Daniel did or any OT Boom did I would definitely accept that as evidence. But an image that isn’t even Babylonian or intended to represent Babylon ? No.

quote:

---

And I feel no obligation to prove that to you. If you prefer your extrabiblical references, enjoy.

---

By which you seem to mean that you consider some guy on the internet more authoritative then the museum which hosts the work.How silly.

quote:

---

We know the first empire is Babylon. If the visions aren't enough there is the fact that Daniel identifies the time of each of his reports with the ruler he was serving under and tht includes Babylonian and Median and Persian rules, in that order.

---

We don’t know it from the symbolism of Daniel 7. Anyway this is a side point - the real issues are about Daniel 8 and the fourth empires of Daniel 2 and 7, not the first of either. I’m saving those issues for the full reply, despite your attempt to drag out this tangent.

quote:

---

Biblical prophecy often includes distinctive differences and details to make it identifiable with the real situation but in this case all we got was "ten kings" with nothing to distinguish them from each other, so there is no justification for thinking they were anything but ten reigning kings.

---

And if it suited you you would argue the exact opposite, that they only have to be Kings.In fact there is a distinction. Three are uprooted which surely means a brief reign at most. The practicalities of defeating three kings to claim the throne suggest as much as well.

quote:

---

If there is any question as to what this represents see the image I posted at the top: Babylon symbolized itself by the image of a winged lion.

---

Funny that you haven’t bothered to correct this when it is clearly a Persian symbol, and your idea that particular image represents Babylon is your invention.

quote:

---

Daniel 8 refers only to two kingdoms, but they are understood by evangelicalsw to represent the second and third kingdoms of the silver arms of the statue prophecy of Daniel 2 and the bear prophecy of Daniel 7: The first in this chapter is the second in the previous chapters:

---

That is an assumption and one that is far from certain. The very fact that we have only two beasts instead of four suggests that it may well be different.

quote:

---

So the ram in Daniel 8 is now identified as the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, or Medo-Persia. Daniel served not only under two kings of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, but under kings of Media and Persia, including the great Persian king Cyrus, which illustrates the same sequence as the first two images in the first two visions and focuses in on the second kingdom in Daniel 8.

---

Ah yes, the fictional Darius the Mede. One of the reasons for thinking that Daniel was not written when it claims to have been written.

quote:

---

And besides its historical sequence, another way to identify that the second kingdom of the first two prophecies is Medo-Persia is by its twoness in each image: the two arms of the status, the bear raised up on one side, and the ram's horns one taller than the other, and in that image the taller one came up second, which reflects the historical fact that Persia was the stronger of the two kingdoms.

---

This is all subjective interpretation. The interpretation of the statue is especially questionable. You could as easily argue it meant a threefold division as a twofold.I think I prefer the Medes for the second empire of the statue. That way you get (according to Daniel, not history) a sequence of four Empires each conquering and absorbing the next. Any other interpretation gets a bit messier. Also a short-lived Median Empire would better fit the claim that the second empire would be lesser than the first (Daniel 2:39)Of course this doesn’t fit your interpretation but it is clearly a valid interpretation.

quote:

---

In Daniel 7 the fourth beast is called Great and Terrible and has teeth of iron, which links it to the iron of the legs of the statue, identifying it as the same empire.

---

But the real issue is whether they are exactly the same. If the fourth beast is the Seleucids as I claim and if the iron and clay represents the variations in the strength of the Diadochi kingdoms then the same link applies. A strong Diadochi kingdom would be represented by iron.So to return to the main point, it is entirely possible that the second beast of Daniel 8 corresponds to the third and fourth beasts of Daniel 7. Thus this point does not rule out Antiochus as the little horn of Daniel 7.

quote:

---

Historically the Babylonian empire preceded the Persian empire. Its symbolism even if similar would have preceded Persia's. And the order of empires in the vision has to have Babylon preceding Persia.

---

But - to point out the problems of interpretation again - Babylon doesn’t need to be in the Daniel 7 prophecy.But really shouldn’t this issue be on the main thread, not on a side branch created to point out that you chose to use a Persian image for Babylon ?

quote:

---

The two empires of Daniel 8 are not an assumption, the ram is Medo Persia, I proved it, the shared symbolism is quite clear. and the goat is Alexander's Greece, and the four horns of the goat are still Greece.

---

What a great victory for you. Proving a point that nobody disagrees with because it is explicitly stated in the text.That’s a pretty good sign you can’t answer my points. Thank you for being so obvious about it.

quote:

---

I'll trust the Bible about Darius the Mede. Historians thought for a long time that no such people as the Hittites existed, then they finally discovered them

---

I tried to track that down once. Christian apologists gave no sources (hardly a surprise) and the closest I found was the idea that the Hittites were an obscure Canaanite tribe because the Bible said so. Which turns out to be mostly true, because Hittite is used - in English translations at least to refer to two different peoples, one of which IS an obscure Canaanite tribe.

quote:

---

You are engaged in destroying known interpretations of the book of Daniel for no good reason. There's no reason to take anything you say seriously.

---

If my interpretations better fit the text - as they do - then that should be a perfectly good reason to put them forward - for anyone who respects the Bible.Of course those who subordinate the Bible to doctrine won’t welcome this. So much for Sola Scriptura.

quote:

---

Babylon IS in the Daniel 7 prophecy, therefore it needs to be there. God doesn't make mistakes

---

And daring to disagree with you would be a mistake, would it ?

quote:

---

Denying what the Bible says is not respecting it

---

Exactly my point. That is why the text must come before doctrine.

quote:

---

God wrote it and it's God you are objecting to

---

And there you go denying what the Bible says.

quote:

---

God wrote the Bible, I didn't.

---

Then why would it be a mistake for God to exclude Babylon from the Daniel 7 prophecy ? You didn’t give any reason, you just said it would be.

It’s difficult to find a Babylonian winged lion, isn’t it. That’s rather odd if it was a special symbol of Babylon.