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Author | Topic: Christianity and the End Times | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined:
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Where does this idea come from that "fundamentalists" come to the Bible text in any different way than any other person who is sincerely intent on understanding it? Some come with a bias against the supernatural, and that is NOT a sincere intent to understand it because the Bible presents itself as a supernatural text.
"Fundamentalists" preconceptions are that we believe prophecy is real, which is how the text presents it, we believe God doesn't err, which scripture clearly affirms, so we expect the text to make sense, we expect numbers to be precise, not allegorical, and we aren't going to settle for approximations because we know God is precise and perfect in all His ways.; If we can't work out all the calculations that's our fault, not God's, we know they do work out even if we aren't up to the computing. And really, truly, we leave the text to speak for itself. What preconceptions could we possibly have about a prophetic text anyway? The imagery is hard enough to understand without trying to impose something on it when you don't yet even understand it. The first thing you have to do is figure out what all the imagery means. At first it is just total confusion. Beast with many heads? many horns? horns fall off and others grow in their place? one horn has eyes and speaks? What the? No "fundamentalist" could impose anything on such a welter of confusing images. You have to make some kind of sense out of them first, and prophecy often entails knowing something about history apart from the biblical record. I've only very recently reached the point where I feel I understand the images in Daniel well enough to argue about them on this thread. Next I want to tackle Revelation.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I don't see the point of trying to make a case for the shift in focus in the text that alerts us that we have left the original context and are now being presented with something that is yet future, as long as PaulK insists that the two little horns of Daniel 7 and 8 are the same person.
The text says that the one comes from among ten kings and the other comes out of one of four kingdoms. We agree that the second is Antiochus Epiphanes who was defeated by the Maccabees around 200 BC. He says the first is the same person.; I say the text says he's a different person. The TEXT, not me, not my interpretation, the TEXT which says he comes from an empire with ten kings while we know that Antiochus came from the kingdom of the Seleucids which was one of four of the divided Greek empire. There are other things that make the men different, and other things that make his reading of the text wrong in other ways, but just that one is enough to stop any kind of reasonable discussion in its tracks. It's a blatant denial of what the Bible says. If he can't get that simple fact straight about what the Bible actually says there's no point in trying to make a case for the subtle switch in focus that takes some of the prophecy into the future. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Prove your claim about the ten Seleucid kings.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
But of course this is a sham.
Here's the prophecy about the fourth beast in Daniel 7:24
Dan7:24 writes: And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. PaulK writes: The three who were uprooted are Heliodorus - murderer and usurper of Seleucus IV. Defeated byAntiochus IV Demetrius - son and rightful heir of Seleucus IV (who managed to gain the throne later, but outside the relevant time period) Antiochus - infant son of Seleucus IV, co-regent with Antiochus IV until his murder. Here's Wikipedia on the Seleucid Empire on the first of your list, Heliodorus:
The reign of Seleucus IV Philopator (187—175 BC) was largely spent in attempts to pay the large indemnity, and Seleucus was ultimately assassinated by his minister Heliodorus. Seleucus' younger brother, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, now seized the throne. Heliodorus murdered Seleucus but was never on the throne. The little horn of Daniel 7 follows ten KINGS, Heliodorus was never a king. Then we have Demetrius, second on your list, who even you admit fell outside the relevant time period. There were a number of kings named Demetrius but they all FOLLOWED Antiochus IV, after his death. So there was no Demetrius who was a king when Antiochus IV appeared, Again, the little horn of Daniel 7 follows ten kings, but Demetrius followed Antiochus. Note the bolded first line of the Wikipedia article:
After the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid Empire became increasingly unstable. Frequent civil wars made central authority tenuous at best. Epiphanes' young son, Antiochus V Eupator, was first overthrown by Seleucus IV's son, Demetrius I Soter in 161 BC. Demetrius I attempted to restore Seleucid power in Judea particularly, but was overthrown in 150 BC by Alexander Balas — an impostor who (with Egyptian backing) claimed to be the son of Epiphanes. Alexander Balas reigned until 145 BC when he was overthrown by Demetrius I's son, Demetrius II Nicator. Demetrius II proved unable to control the whole of the kingdom, however. While he ruled Babylonia and eastern Syria from Damascus, the remnants of Balas' supporters — first supporting Balas' son Antiochus VI, then the usurping general Diodotus Tryphon — held out in Antioch. 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. Once again: the little horn of Daniel 7 follows ten kings. That didn't happen with any of your three candidates for the uprooted kings of Daniel 7. Your claim is an absolute bust. Again I say, you must rescind your claim that the little horns of Daniel 7 and 8 are the same or there is no point in continuing the discussion.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
duplicate
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
A claim to be king is not being king.
However, I'll accept your interpretation and go on to other ways the two horns are not the same person.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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. I admit it is much better evidence than I thought possible for your claims. I have to concede that much and apologize for assuming you didn't have any. 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. 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. Also, you still haven't any reasonable timing to fit the seventy weeks prophecy of Daniel 9, 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. 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. But again, I can't answer your claim about the ten kings as long as you insist on the meanings you insist on. I think they are wrong, that they don't fit the prophecy at all, but as long as you hold to those interpretations I can't answer it. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined:
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Finished. I may have to come back and do some mopping up though.
Image of lion from Babylon 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. 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.
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. The different imagery nevertheless contains symbolism that identifies them as the same empire, which is what I want to demonstrate here:(I'm including some biblical quotes as references to the different prophecies and their images at the bottom of the post)*
================================* BIBICAL REFERENCES (These are from Blue Letter Bible): 1. Daniel 2: The statue in Nebechadnezzar's dream
Daneil2:31-33,38-42 writes: Daniel 2:31 -33 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Daniel 2:38-42 Thou art this head of gold. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. 2. Daniel 7: Daniel's vision of the four beasts during the reign of the Babylonian king Belshazzar:
Daniel 7:3-8 writes: And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things. {In the vision a man comes to explain the beasts to him} Dan 7:17These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. {And goes on to explain the fourth breast with its little horn in particular} 3. Daneil 8 Daneil "in the third year of the reign of Belshazzar" now has a vision of two beasts
Dan 8:3 writes: Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.... Dan 8:5 And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. Dan 8:8-10 Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. {a man appears to Daniel to tell him what these animals represent:} Daniel 8:20-21 The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. {We know from history that this first king of Greece is Alexander the Great. The horn is displaced bgy four horns as the vision progresses, which represent the four generals under Alexander after he died, which split his kingdom among them.} Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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.
Again, the lion is identical to the other Babylonian lions, unless you want to claim that all of them are really Persian.; 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. And your link doesn't go to a picture. I don't think you've proved me wrong about this. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
A little more than halfway down on this page (which I haven't read but it sounds like it might be something you'd enjoy reading, for possible ammunition in this debate), A Skeptic's Guide to Bible Prophecy, you'll find two images of winged lions with human heads with this caption:
The Lamassu, a lion with wings and a human head is a recurring figure from the ruins of Ancient Babylon. It fits perfectly with the beast described in Daniel 7:4. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Hmm.... When I Googled, "winged lion on Babylon gate," I got Barry Setterfield's page on prophecy. Go to Google Image and look for Lion Image of Babylon.
Anyway, if the Jews had seen that image in Babylon, it's no surprise that it would end up in their consciousness. That tends to diminish the likelihood that the "vision" was real. I suspect that's what the writer of that page I just posted about also argues. But no, the first visions in Daniel came while Daniel was IN Babylon, first serving under Nebuchadnezzar and then under Belshazzar, so the images of Babylon would have been quite familiar to him and to all the Jews in the Babylonian Captivity. The winged lion in his own vision did, however, come AS a vision. He would have recognized it, but the point of having a recognizable image would be to serve as an anchor for the whole prophecy, to give a model for how to identify the other beasts in terms of kingdoms or empires. Of course we get lots of other help too as angels keep showing up to explain them to Daniel. Daniel lived through both the Babylonian and the Medo-Persian empires. I need to check but I don't think he lived to see Alexander's conquest, although Greece is identified by the angel as the kingdom that defeats Medo-Persia in Daniel 8. That makes it also the empire symbolized by the brass part of the status in Daniel 2 and the leopard with four wings and four heads in Daniel 7, that is, the third of the four empires in the first two visions. The fourth empire of Daniel 2 and Daniel 7, which evangelicals interpret as the Roman Empire, isn't even named by the angels as I recall, wo that one is left entirely for us to interpret.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I accept the biblical prophecy as authoritative. If it identifies it as specifically Babylonian then it is specifically Babylonian. And I feel no obligation to prove that to you. If you prefer your extrabiblical references, enjoy.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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.
And clearly the lion image is associated with Babylon enough to have a whole Google Image page on it. That's enough. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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.
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. 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.
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