Prophecy in the Bible - Theology of Double Fulfillment

I have not limited myself to Daniel 11 and in fact expressly mentioned earlier chapters as foreshadowing.

I mentioned this before so I'll focus on this one point. If you take the prophecies as seperate then you are abandoning the cohesiveness of Daniel. The beast with 10 horns from which the little horn grows and displaces 3 other ones is exactly the lineage of the Seleucian kings + Antiochus IV who had to depose 3 rivals to take the throne.Please focus on THIS point that I am about to make and not if you agree with what I just wrote about the beast. IF you disagree that the prophecies are pointing to the same person/events, are not cohesive, then you are in fact diminishing the impact of Daniel's prophecy. You are changing Daniel from a cohesive set of prophecies that point to the same set of events and the power of fulfillment that that represents into a tarot card/psychic friend/scam fortune teller whose words can abstractly be twisted to claim fulfillment in any event that vaguely resembles a small piece of what was said.That is my opinion. Obviously I don't think you believe that of yourself but I am really trying to get you or Buz or someone to see what I am seeing. I am a Christian who has lost his faith in the Bible. If Daniel really is as you say it is, then it is a bogus, no better than Nostradamus, can mean anything, scam.I am looking for some value left in Daniel and the 2 avenues I am pursuing are the notion of a fully preterist view of Daniel (all said and done in Maccabean times), and this proposition that I have from some of my other friends that prophecy can have multiple fulfillments.All that being said, I think it is more than obvious that even different believers can have different interpretations of prophecy. How do you KNOW that yours is the right one? Are you willing to claim with confidence that another Christian is wrong?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Hi Buz, thank you for your replies. I have replied to Peg in this regard and would direct you to that rather than repeating myself here. It should be the post immediatly before this one unless Peg of Paulk was quick to reply.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

IF you feel like you are being ignored it is partially because you are. For whatever reason, miscommunication, minunderstanding, whatever, you are not getting what I am asking. The only thing you ever replied to me about so far is in an effort to prop up your own particular interpretation.Let me be as clear as possible one last time without any malice intended. I DON'T CARE what you believe about Daniel. I don't care that you believe it is the right interpretation. I want to know WHY you believe it and to JUSTIFY why you believe it. I'll try not to take offense by this if you won't take offense when I claim that your basic human communication is that of a novice.You don't know me, you don't have to participate in this thread if you don't want to, you certainly have no right to proclaim your intellectual superiority and expect anybody to give you any credence.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Thanks again for your reply Peg. I hope you don't think I am too confrontational about this because I think you are actually trying to understand where I am at. So for me, as skeptic of your particular interpretation, there is absolutely no basis for me to simply accept 'bible chronology'. I would argue that it is not even a requirement of Christianity to accept a 'bible chronology'. The biggest reason I can think of why you wouldn't want to make that a pillar of your faith is simply that the bible's chronology is demonstrably wrong.Since I reject inerrancy, I also reject the chronology. Since I reject the chronology I have no reason to prop-up a delicate mish-mash interpretation of prophecy so that it fits the chronology. I much prefer that the Bible says exactly what it says even if it is occasional wrong. Otherwise, like I said before, we are just playing Nostradamus advocates trying to fit every little event and every possible alternate meaning into this web of unnecessary consistency. But this isn't even true! You picked the event you want the prophecy to match and then you twist the prophecy to match that event. If you plainly and simply read Daniel at its face value you absolutely do not get your interpretation. I am not saying that you are wrong, but you ARE IN FACT saying that Daniel has to more complex than a bald faced reading so that it will line up with the dates that YOU LIKE. Being discredited is not a badge of honor! If there are good and VALID arguments against my belief then I am an idiot to continue with that belief. Did you mean to say something else here!?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

If you really have been paying attention to what I have been saying you would know that I am trying to discover my belief about the book of Daniel. I don't have an ideology about it. It is not my way or the highway but I certainly am not just going to take your word for it and have you call me a novice when I challange you about it.Like I said before, I am examining 2 potential positions on Daniel that just happen to be different from yours. If that makes me a bad Christian in your eyes then so be it. I don't answer to you.Your perfectly free to reply to any post in any thread Buz, but I am done responding to you in this thread unless you decide to engage me as a peer and actually address the questions that I am asking.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

First off, thanks for all your participation thus far. Its always interesting to see how someone else breaks it down. I have learned a lot in your exchanges with Peg. As much as an argument about the particulars of Daniel was not exactly what I was looking for I am interested in it anyway. To be quite honest, as more time has past and I have run into those friends again I have the feeling that this was not a very sophisticated answer to my questions about Daniel. It could be that there actually does exist a sophisticated form of this argument but I don't think I have seen it yet. I think yes they do agree that Daniel 11 will happen again in some form and that the actors in that chapter will have modern analogues. I think you could at least somewhat logically say that Daniel 8 for example was Antiochus in order to show that Daniel could in fact predict the future and then the real important prophecy, about the actual end times, has a multiple fulfillment. At some point it breaks down to the issue of, "why are you asking these questions? Smarter people somewhere have this figured out." For particular social reasons I don't push too hard but I can push here. I just don't know if we have the right mix of ideas in this thread yet. Sure, that is why I didn't try to limit it too much in the OP but Daniel is where the idea for the thread started but I am really interested in other places where other believers tackle this issue where it might fit better.Overall, I was taught growing up in chuch that the Bible does in fact have to stand up to scrutiny. This was a BIG part of the reason I started as a believer to begin with. More and more as time goes on I feel that what my preachers/teachers meant by "scrutiny" was more like "there exists a possible explanation for anything you can think of" rather than what I thought when I consider "scrutiny" which is if it is actually true. I had a pretty decent sized crisis of faith when I really started to ACTUALLY study the Bible and noticed how fallible it is. But you can't just divorce that from the religious experience so I came around to examining the situation with a more leniant allowance for Biblical error. There very well may still be value in the Bible and in my "old" (probably not the right word there) religion and I have already devoted enough time in my life too it that I feel it is only justified to give it a fair hearing with my new set of eyes.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

I won't deny that they are parts of Daniel that don't fit a Maccabean fulfillment. So the two choices are that you have to twist up the parts that do fit a Maccabean fulfillment which makes them sort of distorted, or you accept that Daniel was wrong. This problem with this is that it was not shut up until YOUR choice of fulfillment. Daniel was circulated quite well during Maccabean times and not at all prior to that (that we have evidence of).Would it not fit your interpretation better had Daniel been sealed until Jesus' time?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Which doesn't answer my question about why we would then see it have an explosion of circulation, copying, editing, during the Maccabean period.Remember you said: But we know that it WAS NOT shut up during the time that Antiochus was running around desecrating the temple, lying, coniving, killing jews, etc. Daniel was KNOWN then and even experienced quite a bit of popularity that it didn't experience before that.It just seems REALLY strange that you are using Daniel 8 to suggest that the prophecy should be shut up until the end as support for why it could not refer to the Maccabean period when in fact we know the Maccabean's were quite fond of Daniel.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

So you are choosing not to respond to my points about the prevalence of Daniel in Maccabean times? John did not "unseal" Daniel, the Macabeans did. They were EDITING Daniel in 150BC.Please kindly keep the remaining conspiracy theories to yourself as they are off-topic.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Accidently submitted early. See next reply.Edited by Jazzns, : double post

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Buz, I am trying to respond to the points I feel are relevant to why I started this thread. I realize there is a deep understanding that you feel you have about these particular prophecies but I feel like we are getting very bogged down in Daniel. I am interested in the general method of interpretation. You and Peg both seem to be taking a version of interpretation that is theology first, history/literary second. THAT is not the question I asked. I asked why you talked about Daniel's prophecy being sealed until John the Revelator as important to establishing the futurist interpretation when it is very plainly clear that Daniel was prominent in Maccabean times. This is a legitimate question that I have about your method of interpretation. "Facts" aside, modern fulfillment of prophecy is not something I am interested in. In fact it bores the crap out of me. Anybody can play the psychic friends game and make ancient writings fit modern times. People have been doing it for, oh about 2000 years now. Buz, I think you are using the fact that I don't agree with you as an excuse not to try to understand what I am asking about in this thread.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Which is not a requirement. It is perfectly reasonable for Daniel to be wrong or even just partially wrong. Which is the part I was calling the "psychic friends game". This is irrelevant. Arguments can and have been made for other world leaders and events filling in for the prophecies just the same. Why are yours better? Yes and I tried to address that and you didn't respond to my point. At least that I didn't see. John the Revelator was able to READ Daniel. Corroborating with something that you can reference is easy. You are labeling as "facts" your own interpretations. It would certainly help make your case if you were to be a little bit more humble about your participation. I realize that you have many years invested in this but that does not automatically make you right.Buz, please answer my question about the prophecy being "sealed". Was it "sealed" until John or not? Does that change what you said about it supporting a futurist interpretation?Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

You said.... We KNOW that the prophecy was in fact NOT "shut up" until after Antiochus. In fact we KNOW that Daniel was being circulated and edited contemperaneous to Antiochus.On this one point and this one point only, how can you support that this order to "shut up" the prophecy supports only a futurist interpretation?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

I have already responded to that. It is in fact quite possible that Daniel was wrong and that is an acceptable answer to me. The preterist interpretation would have to either accept that or go further into double fulfillment or some other kind of twisting which I feel is just as reasonable as the methods you are using to arrive at your interpretation.It doesn't change the parts of Daniel that do in fact agree quite well with a preterist interpretation. In my mind, there are basically 2 choices.1. Daniel is a cohesive description of a single, historically referenced event that just happens to get the last little bit wrong.2. Daniel is a non-cohesive description of a variety of events by which the internal connections are destroyed to achieve some theological end or "correctness".The kinds of "facts" you are using to support your interpretation just are simply not convincing to me Buz. Your welcome to continue to appologize for your interpretation but really I don't see the point. You just don't GET what I am trying to understand here. I am not sure if it is because I am not asking it well enough or you just simply don't care about the concerns that I am having. Unless someone else can comment on if I am not being coherant in what I am asking then I only have my own opinion on that issue which is simply that we are not connecting at all.If you would like to win this debate on the theological grounds then I conceed. I am just simply uninterested in propping up any particular theology. Happy?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson