Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Celsus · 04-06-2005, 10:49 AM

Does my breath smell? Or does Jim not want to answer any of my questions?

Joel

spin · 04-06-2005, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Does my breath smell?

Well, I can smell it from here across the internet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Or does Jim not want to answer any of my questions?

You have to have a go at him to get a reaction at all, then, when you try to go back to analysis, he tunes out.

spin

Wallener · 04-06-2005, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by post tenebras lux

...that from the going forth of the word to restore and to build Jerusalem unto one anointed, a prince, shall be seven weeks; and for threescore and two weeks, it shall be built again, with broad place and moat, but in troublous times.

This shows very nicely that the 7 and 62 are distinct periods seperated by the arrival of an annointed one - ie, the defining moment comes mid-term, not at the end of the 62+7 - which is supported by the Hebrew text. A large number of non-Jewish english translations are in concordance with this as well.

Another issue is that if one assumes too lengthy a "prophetic" definition of "week", the 62-long period covers more than a lifespan, meaning yet another "annointed one" has been added to the Tanakh mix since the period is (at least) bookmarked by annointed ones.

What an awful sentence. Hope I got my meaning across.

Jim Larmore · 04-06-2005, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Abrasive is a term used by the person who persistently avoids issues. Assuming is based on your apparent avoidance mechanism which are relatively well-known. You saw a person who has experienced your avoidance mechanism on C&E note that mechanism in operation. Your defensive stance has also been noted which your speed to go off on tangents rather than deal with issues. Your rhetoric about "offensive" is merely a further example.

No its not and I resent you saying what you just did , but hey we can start over based on what I have seen below you are trying to be more respectful.

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Now tell me this, if

the time between when the temple was polluted (9:27) and the end time is half a week of years, ie three and a half years,
the time between when the little horn attacks the temple (7:25) and the end time is three and a half "times", usually taken as years,

First off lets get back to what the book of Daniel to actually see what it says and what the prophecy really stands for. Before I do that I gotta say there is a current popular interpretation of this section of Daniel that associates it with the very end of time and the secret rapture. First off there is no such thing as a "secret rapture", the Bible says every eye will see Him when He comes. This is not a sound or accurate translation of this prophecy and it is a method to deceive in my opinion.

Daniel 9:25 specifically speaks of the time element and command to rebuild Jerusalem. We need to look at the decrees to do this: there were three to be exact.

1. In Ezra 1:1-4 which is the decree made in the first year of Cyrus around 537 B.C.
2. The second was during the reign of Darius 1 found in Ezra 6:1-12 and was in about 520 B.C.
3. The third was made in the 7th year of the reign of Artaxerxes found in Ezra 7:1-26 this was in 458/457 B.C. ( My source for all of this can be found in the Chronicles of Ezra, S.H. Horn and L.H. Wood Vol 3 pp. 100-104)

Now neither Cyrus nor Darius 1 made any provisions for this restoration to happen. Artaxerxes however gave them the bucks/money to make it happen. This also gave Israel some autonomy and put in motion the actual restoration. This is the decree that really made it happen so this is where we get our starting point and the "authentic decree" to rebuild Jerusalem.

Archeological finds ( i.e. a cuneiform tablet from the Ur of Chaldees and a papyri discovered at Elephantine) places the accession of Xerxes in December of 456 B.C. so according to Jewish reckoning Xerxes accession year would run from Dec 465 B.C. to the fall of 464 B.C. .Therefore the 7th year of Xerxes would extend to the fall of 457 B.C. So 457 which is our starting point for the 2300 year prophecy as well as the 69 week and 70 week prophecy of which Dan.9:25 is specifically addressing. What I mean by that is this date starts the time line of 2300 years but the start of this long prophectic time is the time given for the start of the Messiah's ministry to begin i.e. the 69 week prophecy and the end of the favored nation status given to the nation of Israel i.e. the 70 week prophecy. They are all running concurrently with the first consideration being the 69 week time line for the messiah.

Now if we take the "Seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks we get 69 weeks. This amounts to 483 years if we take a day for a year in prophectic time and multiply 69X7= 483. If we take this 483 years and add it to the FALL of 457 we come to 27 A.D. the time when Jesus was baptized which started His ministry. BTW, this is done without counting the zero year. Now we know that Jesus was 30 when He began His ministry so how does this all work out? Well, one fact is when the christian era was first computed an error of about four years occurred. So Christ was born in 4 B.C. not 1 B.C. . We know this to be a fact since Herod the Great was alive when He was born and Herod died in 4 B.C.

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the little horn in ch 8 stopped temple sacrifice and polluted the temple, with the prediction of the restoration of the temple in 2300 evenings and mornings, ie 1150 days, ie three and a quarter years, and

Dan 9 is an explanation of Dan 8. The angel was sent specifically to help Daniel understand all of this . Theres some confusion and justifiably so as to who this little horn actually is, lets look at some context and facts to solve our problem and resolve our confusion.

This vision is essentially a repetition and expansion of Nebuchadnezzar's dream that gives the succession of the four major world powers on the earth.
It starts out however with the ram being symbolized as the Medo-Persian empire, I say this because of verse 4 describing the directions this power would conquer. Cyrus conquered Lydia in 547 B.C. and Babylon in 539. Cambyses extended his conquests into Egypt and Ethiopia in 525. Darius Hystaspes went north against the Scythians in 513 So the Medo-Persain empire covered more territory than any of its predeccssors.

The He goat is definetly Greece because of the way Alexander is described to have conquered the world faster than anyone to this point, in verse 5 it describes him comming from the west ( which he did ) and " he touched not the ground" indicating swiftness. The same power is described by the leopard with four wings like a fowl, and four heads in Dan 7:6. The notable horn represents the first great king of Greece, Alexander. The four notable ones are the four macedonian generals that took over Alexanders kingdom when He died. This is again represented in Dan7:6 by the four heads on the leopard like beast.

The little horn is represented by none other than the Roman empire and specifically later the papacy, because if you look at Dan8:20-23 it fully describes the four kingdoms that Grecia fall into, in verse 22 " Now that being broken ( i.e. Alexander ) , whereas four stood up for it, ( i.e. the four generals of Alexander ) , four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power, and then in verse 23 it says "And in the latter time shall a mighty,(i.e. the next kingdom was Rome ) when the transgressors are come to the full and he shall destroy wonderfully, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.

This little horn power has power, but "not of its own" is very significant to help us identify it . The papacy eventually and essentially reduced the civil power back then to subservience and caused the sword of the state to fall in her behalf to subdue and conqurer many kings, ( ten to be exact )

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the king of the north (easily identifiable because of 11:30, Antiochus IV being forced out of Egypt) stopped temple sacrifice and polluted the temple (11:31b) with the end coming in 1290 days, about three and a half years, with a stop press extension to 1335 days.

I don't know how you can "easily" identify this as antiochus lV, the context is better fitted to indicate Constantine the Great since it specifically mentions the Holy Covenant. This is the plan of salvation that would be accomplished by Christ. It would only seem reasonable here to attribute this action to one who would be against this plan of salvation, Constantine was was a professed christian, but he was actually against the Holy Covernant and against the Holy Church, he supported the church but in return expected the church to suppor his political policies.

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Are these four situations not all dealing with one and the same context seen from different perspectives (with a little slippage for the end)? Is that context not the central events of the Hellenistic Crisis, when Antiochus IV tried to eradicate the Jewish religion, banning its practice and persecuting those who persisted, and tried to enforce the worship of the Athenian Zeus, Baal Shamim ("desolate" in Hebrew is very similar, shamem, while the abomination usually referred to an idol), in the form of his own statue to be worshipped every Greek month (hence the reference in 7:25b regarding changing the seasons and the laws)?

I don't think so, the desolation of the temple came about at the crucifiction of Christ when the veil was torn from top to bottom. The final desolation was accomplished by Titus in 70A.D. It remains desolate just as Christ said it would.

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[Note of course that I am referring only to the second part of Daniel, as the first part was written earlier, which the struggle between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies was not yet decided, ie the two legs of the statue in ch 2.

The legs of iron are plainly Rome and the feet of miry clay mixed with iron are symoblic of the ten kingdoms Rome collapsed into afte the barbaric tribes invaded from the north.

Quote:

And note also that the king who made the decree to restore the temple was Cyrus (Ezr 1:2-4) -- not Artaxerxes I --, the anointed prince in Dan 9:25 being Jeshua ben Jozedeq.]

The hebrew is plainly mashiach from the verb mashach, "to annoint" , Hence mashiach describes the annointed one . Theodotians Greek versions translate mashiach literally to be Christos a word that comes from the verb chrio, which means again "to annoint" . This is definetely refferring to the Messiah.

Referring to the rest of this quote I handled that in the above statements concerning th 7th year of Xerexes.

Jim Larmore · 04-06-2005, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack the Bodiless

Are you actually suggesting that we have a copy of the LXX, dated prior to the 2nd century BC, which includes the Book of Daniel?

I think not!

The historical account of the date the septuigint was translated as early 275 B.C. and yes it did indeed contain the book of Daniel.

Wallener · 04-06-2005, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Larmore

The historical account of the date the septuigint was translated as early 275 B.C. and yes it did indeed contain the book of Daniel.

I am unaware of any evidence that the original Septuagint contained anything other than Torah. Aristeas in particular specifically refers to The Law and to "Legislation". IIRC the earliest reference to Septuagint versions of non-Law, non-Prophet books is from Ecclesiasticus and dates from around 140 BCE. This matches quite well (again, IIRC) with the dating of the 4QE scroll.

If you have references showing otherwise, I would appreciate seeing them.

Jim Larmore · 04-06-2005, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Jim, that doesn't support your argument at all. In fact, it only provides an argument why the MT division might not have any say on Daniel, which is pure conjecture. Nor is Josephus' view on the matter much use because you were talking about a 2nd century BCE date (and hence must have been around for much longer before that). You do realise that Josephus wrote about 3 centuries after your purported date, right?

This is your opinion which is not based on a credible interpretation of what I posted.

Quote:

Again, you aren't answering any of the questions
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. There is another tradition of "Daniel" found in Ezekiel 14 who is grouped as a primordial character alongside Noah and Job, being "saved" but not including his sons or daughters. That raises the first doubt as to which "prophet" Jesus was refering to. Secondly, that doesn't support your 2nd century BCE date.

Its very clear which Daniel Jesus was talking about. The claim of another "tradition" of Daniel in Ezekiel 14 not being the same Daniel as the prophet that wrote the book is without sound proof. Some expositors think that the purported Daniel of Ezekiel is supposed to be the Daniel of the Ugaritic texts. These texts speak of Daniel as a righteous king of the dim past who pleaded the case of widows and orphans. Ezekiel didn't know of this king and he just placed Daniel before Job because he wasn't concerned with the chronological order of the mens lives.

Jesus plainly was talking about Daniel of the Babylonian and Medo-Persian era.

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Jim my man, I'm trying my best to be respectful, but you really have no idea what I've been saying. The Genesis Apocryphon is not the Biblical book of Genesis. It's got stories of Abraham that are similar to but distinct from that of Genesis. Enoch is a separate book, as is Noah, both found also at Qumran, among these "sacred writings" of yours. There are many much more besides, including pseudo-Danielic fragments. If you think the Essenes or whoever was responsible for the deposition of materials there considered the books at Qumran canonical, then that means there is a much bigger Bible than the one you bring to church with you each week. This demonstrates the problem of assuming something found at Qumran was canonical, a point you haven't addressed in the slightest.

Joel my man, I know exactly what you are trying to say. Please give me the source of your invalidation of the pentatuach or any other of the skeptical narratives you have and let me examine them. I'd be greatly surprized if they are not similar to the ones Ive already studied, but what the hey let me see them first before I render a verdict on that.

Celsus · 04-06-2005, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Larmore

This is your opinion which is not based on a credible interpretation of what I posted.

Ok, imagine I have reading comprehension difficulties, and that I am completely stupid to boot. Quote me the lines in your cut-and-paste that support a 2nd century BCE attestation to Daniel. Oh? I see.

Quote:

Its very clear which Daniel Jesus was talking about. The claim of another "tradition" of Daniel in Ezekiel 14 not being the same Daniel as the prophet that wrote the book is without sound proof. Some expositors think that the purported Daniel of Ezekiel is supposed to be the Daniel of the Ugaritic texts. These texts speak of Daniel as a righteous king of the dim past who pleaded the case of widows and orphans. Ezekiel didn't know of this king and he just placed Daniel before Job because he wasn't concerned with the chronological order of the mens lives.

Erm, how do you know what Ezekiel did or didn't know? The assertion game is a complete waste of time, so let's have some references, please. A neutral reading of Ezekiel puts his "Daniel" as a primordial figure alongside Noah and Job. Note that the Ezekielian "exile" of the Jews was pretty darned worthless, since Ezekiel manages to travel to Babylon and back without any problems. Most expositors don't buy your conjecture at all.

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Jesus plainly was talking about Daniel of the Babylonian and Medo-Persian era.

Which says nothing about the book of Daniel (are you sure you understand my points?). Does it include the additions to Daniel? Does it include other traditions like Ezekiel's, where Daniel can't save his own children?

Quote:

Joel my man, I know exactly what you are trying to say. Please give me the source of your invalidation of the pentatuach or any other of the skeptical narratives you have and let me examine them. I'd be greatly surprized if they are not similar to the ones Ive already studied, but what the hey let me see them first before I render a verdict on that.

Erm, how about you answer my question directly without raising this red herring (spin likes his fish, let him have 'em)? Does discovery at Qumran imply canonicity? Very simple:

Yes ( ) No ( )

If yes, are apocryphal/pseudepigraphical books like Noah, Enoch, the Genesis Apocryphon also sacred?

Yes ( ) No ( )

If no, on what basis do you distinguish these? Three posts, no answers, and you claim you've understood what I've been asking? Are you a politician or something?

From the first question, if no, how does that support your initial claim that having them used by "Assenes" have anything to do with whether it was canonical or not? Secondly... eh, why bother.

Here's your original claim again, before the goalposts decided to wander round the park:

Quote:

The book of Daniel was CANONIZED by the time the maccabean wars came along. This is confirmed by the fact that this book is part of the books found among the dead sea scrolls found at Qumran.

Since this is your argument, will I hear you say amen when I quote some of the Genesis Apocryphon back to you?

Joel

spin · 04-06-2005, 01:52 PM

Jim,

You didn't answer my questions.

Let me make my question clearer: are these four visions different aspects of one and the same set of events?

Code:

Chapter 7       Chapter 8         Chapter 9        Chapters 11-12
--------------------------------------------------------------------

    --          Alexander's           --           Alexander's
                kingdom                            kingdom
                divided into                       divided to four
                four horns                         winds, from one
                from one of                        of which (north)
                which came                         eventually came
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Little horn     Little horn       the prince       a contemptible
                                                   one

--------------------------------------------------------------------

king            king              (= king)         king

--------------------------------------------------------------------

room had to                                        not destined
be made for         --                --           to reign
his reign

--------------------------------------------------------------------

arrogant        arrogant              --           no respect to 
                                                   any gods

--------------------------------------------------------------------

    --          skilled in            --           seduce with 
                intrigue                           intrigue

--------------------------------------------------------------------

    --              --            make strong      seduce those
                                  covenant with    who violate
                                  the many         covenant

--------------------------------------------------------------------

    --          against the       anointed one     prince of
                prince of the     cut off          covenant swept
                host                               away

--------------------------------------------------------------------

a time, two     2300 evenings     three and a      three and a
times and a     and mornings      half years       half years, oops
half a time     =1150 days                         1290 days, oops
                                                   1335 days

--------------------------------------------------------------------

change the      stop regular      stop sacrifice   stop sacrifice
seasons and     sacrifice, holy   pollute temple   pollute temple
the laws        place abandoned                        

--------------------------------------------------------------------

    --          transgression     idol of          set up idol of
                of desolation     desolation       desolation

--------------------------------------------------------------------

There are others, but they'd need a little more explanation.

I'll be responding to your post when I can. I'm part way through.

spin

spin · 04-06-2005, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Larmore

The historical account of the date the septuigint was translated as early 275 B.C.

This is simply wrong. It is based solely on a literal interpretation of the pseudepigraphic letter of Aristeus. However there are a number of historical errors in the work which show that the writer didn't know the historical context, eg it was Demetrius of Phalerius who was responsible for the commissioning of the translation of the texts, yet he had been banished by the very king who was supposed to have taken his advice, banished for recommending to his father another son for king. Most scholars repudiate such a hopeful date.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Larmore

and yes it did indeed contain the book of Daniel.

There is absolutely no reason to think this. I'll let you justify yourself by explaining how you know.

spin

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04-06-2005, 10:49 AM	#111
Celsus Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Singapore Posts: 2,875	Does my breath smell? Or does Jim not want to answer any of my questions? Joel

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