The “week-est” link?
The “week-est” link?
Dear Lion:
First, let’s feed the strays - we must soon get to the idea of the “end of the age” and the end of the world, the bite you will get from that snake may surprise you
as I can utterly disprove the premillennial timeline. Confident little bugger aren’t I??
Also, there is a lot of material to cover, so I have decided to concentrate primarily on the Daniel issues, putting aside a few of the other issues temporarily until this is exhausted so that I do not draw yet another rebuke from Knight (the heckling is bad enough) :noid:
So now onto the main enchilada:
Is the destruction of the Temple an event to fall within the seventy weeks?
Of course I said
no and proved that point by demonstrating that
Daniel 9:24, which is Gabriel’s declaration of the goals for the seventy weeks,
does not mention the destruction of the Temple even once. That is significant and was pretty much hand-waved away. You have agreed that the destruction of the Temple was a result of their rejection of the Messiah
(that will be a costly admission later) but deny that this
can even place the destruction of the Temple outside of the 70 weeks, by stating:
The entire prophecy is because of their rejection.
Really?? Is that your final answer?? If so, then your insistence that the last week was stopped because they rejected their Messiah makes even less sense than before.
I have provided evidence that the entire prophecy of the 70 weeks is redemptive in context based upon the obvious Jubilee pattern. The judgment falls as a
result of rejecting the completed redemption, it is not part of the completed redemption. Jesus gives us a major clue to this when He cited
Isaiah 61:1-2 in
Luke 4:18, claiming to be the fulfillment of the Jubilee, and omitted the last sentence speaking of the
“day of vengeance of our God.”
Now onto to the cutting off of the Messiah … the only thing that we agree upon thus far is that the text says that this cutting off will occur
after the 69th week, which only leaves
during the 70th week. So far so good… you are moving rapidly in the right direction. However, we quibble on what part of the 70th week. You seem to be claiming it would be the very first moments of the 70th week (thus conceding I am right that the crucifixion is
in the 70th week) and state that there is no implication of a three and one half year interjection. Well as a matter of fact, if we are considering only
verse 26 there is no implication of “immediately after” either as a matter of plain fact.
Nonetheless there are numerous problems with your assertion.
One: You have not dealt with the issue in
9:25, in which I asked the question, until Messiah the Prince
what?? In your view
verses 25-27 deal
only with the events of the 70th week beginning with the crucifixion. But do you realize that you have just made Christ’s earthly ministry textually invisible here for you must allege that nothing is mentioned of the Prince until He is crucified?? What about His “Kingdom proclamation” for three and one half years prior?? The text makes much more sense (especially within your own view ironically enough) for placing the “until” Messiah the Prince to the time of the beginning of His public ministry where He was presented to Israel as their Messiah (see
John 1:31).
Two – Despite your claim that there is no reason to interject three and one-half years in between the presenting of Messiah to Israel and His being cut off, I did in fact demonstrate that the text is explicit by referring you to
verse 27 which spoke of a “he” who confirms a covenant for one week (which you believe is the 70th week – as do I), and in the midst of the week “he” brings an end to sacrifice and offering. I demonstrated that the “he” can only refer back to Messiah the Prince, and speaks of His bringing a judicial end to the sacrificial
system.
In then examining your contention, I notice something very interesting here. The “he” who confirms the covenant for one week does so at the beginning of the 70th week, which in your view is the crucifixion (yet in my view is Christ’s baptism). Who is this “he”? It cannot be some future figure (in your view) for “he” existed at the time of the crucifixion and began the “confirming” of the covenant at that time. I can anticipate your answer, but since I do not want to falsely assume, I will cease, but unless you have moves worthy of Astaire, this is a tremendous problem for you.
Three – The Hebraic parallelism of the verses completely supports my contention. Observe:
Verse 9:26 –
And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;
And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined.
Verse 9:27 –
Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; but in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.
And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.
The red colored text is parallel as is the blue. This places the timing of the cutting off in the midst of the 70th week. Also notice in the concluding words of
verse 26 and 27 in parallel, that it is only the determination of the desolations that is said to be determined in the 70th week itself. The effecting of those desolations could take place any time thereafter.
Four – The text tells us
exactly what was to take place during the 70th week, and once again, the destruction of the Temple is noticeable only by its absence. During the 70th “he” (who can only be Christ) makes firm the covenant with the Jews during the entire seven years. In the midst of these seven years the sacrifices and oblations cease.
Where again is that destruction?? What do I hear??
Crickets?? LOL. This is where I found a remarkable juxtaposition of our two views, but again, in sheer irony, only my position on this passage exploits this idea to the fullest. You see, I also affirm that there was a special and specific focus on the Jews during Christ’s earthly ministry and for the period of time thereafter leading up the conversion of Paul, which was three and one-half years later. Christ made firm the covenant with them first before opening the floodgates to the Gentiles. He then gave them a probationary generation to repent, after which the judgment came.
This fits in so perfectly with the Exodus imagery of the NT with Christ as the eschatological Passover lamb and the first Christians being the wilderness wanderers waiting until the wicked generation was killed off before entering the “promised land” of the New Covenant. I will have much more to say on this as we progress.
Next, you object to my equation of the anointing of the Most Holy to Christ’s baptism by stating, “I see no place in scripture that places anointing and baptism as one and the same.”
I must apologize for being unclear. My bad. The anointing that I was referring to was the anointing of Christ by the Spirit at His baptism.., I conflated the two events causing the confusion. Christ explicitly claimed to have
already been anointed by the Spirit by the time He read from
Isaiah 61:1-2 as previously mentioned is a direct allusion to the Jubilee (which is the pattern in
Daniel 9) thus making my position a compelling referent. Peter also speaks of this anointing of Christ (
Acts 10:38) and looks back to the baptism by John as the significant founding of the salvation/redemptive message (
Acts 1:21-22). John also declared that his ministry was to reveal the Christ (
John 1:31). Throughout His ministry, Christ was referred to as the Anointed One (i.e. Christ) meaning that this very significant anointing had
already taken place. Additionally, Scripture gives us explicit precedent for referring to the gift of the Spirit as an anointing (
1 Corinthians 1:21-22; I John 1:20,27).All of this dovetails perfectly.
You bring forth
Mark 14:3-9 as a possible candidate for the anointing, and I will concede it is possible. However, considering the significance of the descent of the Spirit upon Christ concurrently with the beginning of ministry, His claim to be the ultimate Jubilee in
Luke 4:18 (with the Jubilee pattern in
Daniel 9), I find my interpretation much truer to the typological and redemptive context.
However, your own interpretation causes you some timeline problems (and tsk, tsk, tsk, here is where those pesky details come buzzing around again) because you do not even have Messiah the Prince being a significant figure in the
Daniel 9 passage until His crucifixion! This anointing took place
before that event… Not good. :nono:
I have one other issue to bring in, that I brought in my prior post which has remained unacknowledged thus far. Specifically,
you agree with the preterist contention that there are unambiguous time references in the Gospels teaching that the Great Tribulation and a “coming” of Christ was expected in the first century.
You differ with the preterists in that you believe that although this was expected and actually begun, it was interrupted about one year after the resurrection. This puts you in a tremendous bind for you have sold the farm with the concessions to the preterist position made thus far. Why? Because the “near” time references do not end in the Gospels, they continue throughout the
entire New Testament even in NT books written after this plan was allegedly interrupted. Did God not tell anyone about this?? :doh:
This is a major problem for you.
I acknowledge that I did not go over the
Jeremiah 18 issues for which I have MUCH to say.
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