Here Kitty, Kitty…..
Here Kitty, Kitty…..
Dear Lion:
We are still quite obviously on the
Daniel 9 issues and at the point on some of them where we may just need to move on…. Our main sticking point has been whether or not the destruction of the city and Temple fall
within the 70 weeks (your position) or as a
result of the 70 weeks (my position). My starting point for my position has always been that Gabriel very clearly laid out the goals for what was to be accomplished
within the 70 weeks in
Daniel 9:24, and no matter how you slice it, the destruction of the city and the Temple ain’t one of them. :nono: As we get into the Olivet Discourse I have further proof which is premature to bring in now. In order to overcome this incredible large piece of evidence in my favor, you point out that Gabriel states:
Dan 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city
….for which I say you missed the next little word
“to” which is repeated
six times stating the goals. This is crystal clear….
seventy weeks are determined to… to…. to…. to…. to…. to…. and again, the destruction ain’t one of them. We apparently are not going to agree on this whatsoever. Your citation of
Genesis 1 and 2 is weak as you attempt a comparison between a narrative and prophetic text, and as you assume the very point you want to prove, i.e. that everything that follows in
verses 25-27 are simply an expansion of
verse 24 which is not a simple overview, but rather a mission statement… thus, apples (pun intended) and oranges.
A great deal of your point hinges upon your assumption that the 70th week of
Daniel 9 is the Great Tribulation; however, without first begging the question on this passage, nowhere else in Scripture is the Great Tribulation said to be seven years. The other places where a period of time is mentioned it is explicitly said to be time, times, and half a time (
Daniel 12:7), one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days (
Daniel 12:11), and forty-two months (
Revelation 13:5). This is the main reason why typical futurists will place the Great Trib in the last half of the 70th week, which makes more sense if one is going to futurize said week at all.
But…. I demonstrated, and the text is painfully obvious, that Christ is crucified
after the 69th week, which only leaves the 70th week. You can say (and you try to) that He was crucified in the very first
moments of the 70th week,
but it is the 70th week nonetheless. You absolutely cannot place this event at all within the 69th week though you even try to do that.
It is textually impossible. I then demonstrated through the Hebraic parallelism present in the text (which you did not touch), that the text then goes on to explicitly state that the Messiah was cut off in the midst of the 70th week, and that the phrases “cut off” and “bring an end to sacrifice and offering” are equivalent. This interpretation of course is supported by the NT in
Hebrews 10:9 –
He takes away the first that He may establish the second,” which in context is speaking of the end of the sacrificial system in light of Christ’s work.
In an attempt to deflect the force of my point, you attempt to jokingly mock (and remember no offense, I like that style) the idea that there can be any period of time following the “after” and before the event that is said to follow the “after.” This is nonsense. However you do try and point out other verses where “after” is used to try and demonstrate that “after” cannot allow for any period of intervening time “after” but must imply immediacy... However, let’s go to other texts shall we?
Matthew 1:12 –
And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel, and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel. (oh my goodness! Jeconiah’s first order of business after he arrived was to have intimate relations…. He did nothing else before right?)
Matthew 22:25 –
Now there were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. (Egad!, this poor sap died
immediately after he said “I do” right?)
Lev 25:48 –
After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him. (a slave can only be redeemed immediately after he is sold?? Come on now….)
Jeremiah 12:15 – And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them out I will return, and have compassion on them, and will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land. (Really now?? God immediately restores a nation after plucking them out ?)
I could multiply passages, but I think I have embarrassed you enough 
The “normal flow of speech” as you say also allows for intervening time as well. If I say that I will return to work after I have my baby, I do not mean that I will get up off the delivery table and punch in. Your allusion that you can prove your case by calculating the crucifixion down to the exact month is also grossly misplaced and anti-contextual to the culture. The Hebraic mind only calculated down to the smallest unit of time mentioned, and in this case, that would be a week of years. We see the same thing with the resurrection which technically happened about 32 hours after Christ’s death, not three full days and nights.
You still also have not adequately answered my charge that you have made Christ’s earthly ministry and His public presentation to Israel as their Messiah textually invisible (which ignores John’s role as His harbinger (John 1:31). Verse 26 gives a period of time until Messiah the Prince.. your view has His ministry prior to His death completely irrelevant to the passage. However, I did mistakenly say that you believe that the events of verse 25 related to the 70th week only.. neither of us hold that, I meant to say that you hold that the events of verse 26-27 belong to the 70th week exclusively (or the last seconds of the 69th week which is textually impossible), so your attempted dramatics at claiming that the city must not have been rebuilt since it is textually invisible as well is just plain wrong. Verse 25 states that the first seven weeks were allotted for that task, so it is anything but invisible, quite unlike the yawning and wide stretch of 62 weeks that follow in which you would dump Christ’s earthly ministry.
You also made a comment about preterist reliance upon the timing of the destruction of the Temple and its relation to Daniel’s prophecy, and in so doing, you misunderstood the preterist position… however, I see that we are clearing up some of that confusion… so I will reserve comment until our discussion gets really into the Temple and the Discourse, which is very soon.
You have candidly admitted that you do not know who the “he” is in verse 27, but I would submit that the correct identity of the “he” is crucial to understanding this passage and the Hebraic parallelism already mentioned. I will not pursue it further to give you time to study it out. And on the last issue of the anointing of the Most Holy, you did concede that my position was possible (which of course then makes the rest of my position possible), but are unwilling to see the entire force. Just to recap on that one issue, you have sorely neglected the Jubilee imagery and Christ’s claim to have already been anointed by citing a Jubilee passage in Luke 4:18. This conclusively places His anointing prior to that time, and I would say conclusively at His baptism. This chronology gives full weight to His Messianic mission and proclamation leading to His crucifixion, and recognizes the weighty judicial effect of His death in rendering null animal sacrifices for sin.
Now to the point where you metamorphize into a typical futurist. I had brought up the fact that the “near” timing references do not stop after the point where you allege that the Tribulation was halted. So while you concede the force of such timing verses prior to that point, in a move which seems quite ad hoc, with regards to the very same type of verses after that point you say:
Since the plan has been put on hold. And since there are no prophesies to indicate when God will resume working with Israel, (except for the passage concerning the fullness of the gentiles), no one knows when it will happen. None of the apostles knew, including Paul or John, and neither do we. So they adopted the attitude that it would be soon, just as we should adopt the same attitude, acting as if it will come tomorrow so that we will be ever watchful.
Eeek!! Don’t make me choke! That is not what the texts say whatsoever which I find very ironic in light of what I see of certain hyperliteralizations you do of certain OT texts regarding God’s knowledge. Are you suggesting that the Greek language is devoid of means to express the concept that the events might be soon but no one knows?? The apostles were just as emphatic as Christ was on the soon approaching eschatological event, and you quite arbitrarily, because of an imposed grid, accept the face value statements of one and not the others. This error is quite transparent. Let’s look at a few of the more embarrassing ones for you, shall we?? (and I can prove later that Paul did in fact have an idea of the far timing of the Second Coming which you have improperly conflated with Christ’s “soon” judgment-coming in AD70)
Revelation 1:3 – Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.
Note that this verse tells us that the time is near. Near meant then exactly what near means now. Near does not mean could be near, might be near, or I don’t know if it is near so we should act as if it is. There is nothing equivocal or vague about this term at all. In order to further clarify this point…
Daniel 8:26 – Therefore seal up the vision, for it refers to many days in the future.
Daniel is told that his vision was for many days in the future, and in fact we know that the coming of Christ was hundreds of years into his future, thus, many days in the future. However, very similar phrasing appears in Revelation.
Revelation 22:10 – Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand.
John is told the complete opposite. If the Bible has any continuity, then this means exactly what that says. And it says “at hand,” not could be at hand, might be at hand, or I don’t know if it is at hand but we should act like it is.
And though I have many more to rub in on this topic… here is a bone-cruncher:
1 John 2:18 – Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
John is emphatic. While before apostles preached the “last days,” the event was now so near that it was the “last hour.” And John says not that he thinks it might be the last hour, or that they should act like it is the last hour, he says that WE KNOW it is the last hour. Ouch.
