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Author | Topic: Christianity and the End Times | |||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: That’s really your problem, not mine.
quote: You don’t have standards. Just excuses. Harsh, but sadly true. As I am sure we will see.
quote: Interesting that you consider God to be inadequate.
quote: You’re just refusing to accept an interpretation that disagrees with yours. The text just tells us that it’s an anointed Princd and Cyrus undoubtedly qualifies for that.
quote: Again, your prejudices are your problem.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Prejudice is never a reliable guide to the truth. That’s why you fall for silly nonsense like the stuff Alex Jones pedals.
quote: It doesn’t seem very good to me, first he claims that the identifications of the parts of the statue are in the text, which is untrue. He claims that the ten toes of the statue represent ten kings, but the toes aren’t even mentioned in Daniel 2. To assign them any importance is to go beyond the text. He claims that the ten kings from Daniel 7 are depicted as ruling simultaneously but again, that is not in the text. Obviously he is not distinguishing between the text and his preferred interpretation. That in itself disqualifies his writing as being a good analysis of the text. And of course you won’t hear from him that Daniel 2:43 likely refers to marriages between the Diadochi royal families of the failure of those marriages to bring peace.
As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay
(Daniel 2:43 NKJV) Revelation’s use of similar images is not relevant to me. Daniel obviously wasn’t influenced by Revelation, and I have no reason to think that the writer of Revelation had any special knowledge of what the author of Daniel intended. It seems far more likely to me that any reuse of the images is more a reinterpretation of Daniel - or perhaps no more than simple reuse of the images. So I am really not seeing anything there of value. Just a very questionable interpretation with less textual support than mine. If he is the best you can find, I’d hate to see the worst.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: It makes sense to interpret Revelation in the light of Daniel, but not the other way around. The author of Revelation very likely knew and used Daniel, but obviously the reverse cannot be true.
quote: And once again you are relying on doctrine. Since I don’t accept your doctrine it is hardly going to be persuasive. In fact it further undermines your claims. The Revelation can’t change the fact that Daniel 8 and Daniel 9-12 clearly place the end times close to the Maccabean revolt. It can’t change the fact that you don’t have a sensible interpretation of the vision of the statue. It also can’t change the fact that the source you need for this discussion is one that fairly and accurately analyses the text of Daniel and deals with the issues. Someone who can’t tell the difference between the text and the interpretation he favours is not useful at all.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Except that the beasts of Daniel 8 don’t reflect the same symbolism as the statue. There is no commonality there. There is nothing goat-like or ram-like about the sections of the statue, nor are the goat or the ram assigned metals. And let us note that references in Daniel can certainly help us understand Daniel. Such as the appearance of the little horn in the two prophecies, letting us identify the fourth beast as an offshoot of the Greeks, and the iron in it links it to the strong Diadochi kingdoms represented by the legs of the statue in Daniel 2. You may disagree with those points - so why should you expect me to accept yours when mine have a stronger foundation in the actual text? (Or is that the reason?)
quote: Which is a doctrinal issue. It’s not surprising that Christians would seek to reinterpret the older texts. It is not surprising that modern Christians would assume that the reinterpretations are valid. It is surprising that anybody would expect non-Christians to automatically accept it. It would be like a Muslim expecting a Christian to accept the use of the Quran in interpreting the Bible. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: There’s a big problem for you there. You don’t have a good explanation of the statue, and if the legs are Greek - and the evidence points that way - your interpretations of the rest go up in smoke. I’ve already explained why Revelation carries no weight with me, and my reasons are perfectly rational so I don’t see why you keep bringing it up. It only emphasises the fact that you can’t make your case from Daniel.
quote: And we know that Daniel 9 is really talking about Antiochus and the author of Daniel expected the end to come long before Jesus was born.
quote: You’re appealing to Christian doctrine because the sensible ways of reading Daniel produce interpretations you don’t like.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: I intend to get to the Revelation in time, but there is more to do before we get there. However, since you know that the Revelation can’t offer much to the debate in the interpretation of Daniel talking about it in that context is a waste of time.
quote: In other words this book - that supposedly shows us how accurate prophecy can be - gets it massively wrong. Odd that.
quote: Since that won’t help in the debate over the interpretation of Daniel, may I take it that you are giving up on that ? After failing to show even one hole in my arguments for the Maccabean interpretation over the futurist ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
You still haven’t found any real holes.
quote: You mean that other passages are interpreted - by futurists - as connecting Antiochus to a future similar personality. If the Maccabean interpretation is correct the futurists are wrong on that one.
quote: As I have already shown there is good textual evidence to the contrary. Simply telling me that futurists disagree doesn’t help your case at all.
quote: Which is irrelevant for the same reasons that the Revelation is irrelevant.
quote: We’ll get to that. While we can’t say that Jesus said those words, we can say that they are at least a very strange thing to say given the actual events.
quote: The Revelation is not relevant. As I have shown that there is a strong case from Daniel that they came from the same kingdom.
quote: My thought is that it refers to the rise of Hellenistic culture. According to Maccabees, Jews were adopting Greek culture, Greek names, Greek activities - even havin surgery to hide the fact that they were circumcised. 1 Maccabees 1:14-15 (GNT - possibly not the best, but convenient)
14 They built in Jerusalem a stadium like those in the Greek cities. 15 They had surgery performed to hide their circumcision, abandoned the holy covenant, started associating with Gentiles, and did all sorts of other evil things.
And things just escalated from there with the Hellenisers dealing with Antiochus, bribing him to get appointed High Priest, and even groping as far as civil conflict. On top of that Antiochus goes the whole way by seizing the Temple, ending the Jewish rites and dedicating it to the worship of Zeus (and, IIRC Antiochus didn’t make a lot of distinction between him and himself) I hope you can see that this was a unique threat to Jewish culture and faith.
quote: As we have seen in past discussions phrases like that can be very tricky. Hebrew is a bit odd in that respect, and I would hardly be surprised if the same oddity was found in Jewish Aramaic. Given that Daniel clearly doesn’t take a world-wide view (for instance, Daniel 11:30 mentions Rome’s intervention in Antiochus’ wars against Egypt, but says nothing about Rome itself) it’s far from clear that this is meant literally. Even in Greek it doesn’t have to literally mean the whole world. Luke 2:1 says that Augustus decree applied to the whole world, when there were large parts of the known world where Rome had no power. Indeed, it is likely that the actual census was of Judea, or at most the province of Syria when Judea was annexed to it.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: The Seleucids were the ones who had power over the Jews and the Hellenising faction were making deals with Antiochus.
quote: Which other kingdom took control of the Temple for their own pagan rites ?
quote:The toes are not mentioned, but as I have pointed out the iron and clay actually seem to be references to the Diadochi kingdoms. quote: And yet, as I pointed out the usual translations of Luke speak about the world when the actual event likely only applied to Judea. The author of Daniel really doesn’t seem much concerned with anything outside the region. And Daniel 11 clearly tells us that Antiochus would conquer Egypt.
quote: Please back that up. I have researched the issue in the last and found no evidence of such.
quote: Given that you don’t even seem to have a sensible count of four - there’s no reason for the count to stop there or omit your presumed recreation - I think that you would really do better addressing the serious problems in your own arguments.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Exactly what I said. You have no sensible reason for the count to stop at four, or for the presumed recreation of the fourth empire to be completely absent from the prophecy. I have been making this point repeatedly so you don’t have any excuse for sudden surprise.
quote: I certainly do have justification, and I have given it.
quote: Which only shows how much you need a sensible explanation for the omissions.
quote: I have yet to see any evidence of mangling. The fact that the prophecies repeatedly list four kingdoms is a part of my point, not a contradiction of it.
quote: What misrepresentation ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: In fact I have a reasonable case for a start date that gives an error of only sixty years. And a very strong case that the intended end date IS in the period of the Maccabees. Until you can refute that - and I haven’t seen any good points from you on that front, I’m still well ahead. Especially as you have yet to justify inserting a gap of 2000 years into the prophecy.
quote: OK, your God is wonderfully fallible when it comes to dates. I don’t see what’s so great about that, but if you like it... Oh sorry, I read the rest. It’s wonderful that God’s is fallible so you can make up stuff you like much better. Thanks for admitting that.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: The point makes perfect sense. So this is just your usual nastiness in place of argument.
quote: But history has rather more than four that seem to qualify for the list. The Maccabean interpretation comes with that fine because the end occurs during the time of the fourth Empire in the sequence, without any intervening empires, or the necessity of a destroyed empire somehow returning. Your interpretation covers a range of history where multiple empires are active in the region, where your candidate for the last Empire is destroyed - and you say that it comes back (and we still don’t have a good explanation of how that could happen either) - an ad hoc move that has no support in the prophecy. So again, the problem is that your interpretation doesn’t really make sense.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: If you can’t be bothered to understand my points the least you could try and do is be honest about it instead of attacking me.
quote: So the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire - to name the two most obvious examples - never existed ?
quote: The Catholic Church is not an Empire, the Holy Roman Empire was a confederation of Germanic princes - Roman and an Empire in name only, and the relationship with the Catholic Church was rather more complicated than the Church controlling the so-called Empire. And excepting the Crusades the so-called Holy Roman Empire had almost nothing to do with the region of interest to the author of Daniel. So, not very convincing. Even if the Holy Roman Empire was still around it wouldn’t be convincing.
quote: Don’t forget that Titus wasn’t a ruler when he took Jerusalem so his qualifications as Prince are rather lacking.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: And the real reason was not that I was making no sense - your claim - but that you couldn’t be bothered to understand.
quote: In other words, if the prophecy doesn’t fit reality, you ignore reality.Now that doesn’t make sense to me. quote: That’s pretty obviously impossible.
quote: Aside from the absurdity of ignoring the text - the author of Daniel does deal only with a small part of the world whether you like it or not - expanding the scope only makes things worse for you. Obviously the Mongol Empire - the largest land empire ever - would deserve a mention.
quote: Apparently you think that the author of Daniel is an antisupernaturalist scholar because I got that directly from reading the Book of Daniel.
quote: Funny how this handicap helps me understand the Bible far better than you.
quote: Indeed, it is a case where I understand the Bible better than you - because I am not locked into false dogma.
quote: You do love your crazy fantasies. Probably because of all your hate. There is no Roman Empire. There is no prospect of the real Roman Empire returning. The historical empires which ruled the Middle East after the expulsion of the Romans really did exist. We are not living less than 490 years after the decree of Artaxerxes. The Diadochi kingdoms are long gone. Facts, Faith. The actual prophecy failed. It failed long, long ago.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
But you aren’t. It’s all,a fantasy. You only believe the insane idea of the Roman Catholic Church merging with Islam in the near future because you unthinkingly hate both.
Islam itself becoming a unified force in the near term is unlikely, to say the least. And how you could imagine that Islam and the RC Church could possibly join together without implausibly large doctrinal shifts on at least one side is beyond me.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: So this same mindset - which is conveniently not defined (nor mentioned in Daniel) is your supposed reason for the prophecy missing out all the other empires. Even though the fourth empire is supposedly different. And aside from the obvious ad hoc invention you still have the problem that Rome is gone, it can’t simply reappear and scripture doesn’t say anything about that.
quote: You’re obviously wrong. Even the Bible disagrees with you.
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