Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: Since you said "It doesn't matter if God can predict the future," I find it to be quite odd that most of your posts indicate that it does matter if God can predict the future. Do you mind telling us which is the case? What you need are reasonable motives regarding why God predicts the future, and you don't have any. You once said that God used prophecy after the fact in order the strengthen the faith of Jews, and now you are saying that it doesn't matter if God can predict the future, or do you now have a new position?

No reasonably motives why God predicts the future = no God of the Bible. Anyone who has just a modest amount of common sense know that if a God exists, and wants people to believe the he can predict the future, he oculd easily convince everyone in the world that he can predict the future, but here you are wasting your time trying to convince people that Daniel could predict the future when in fact, if God wanted people to believe that Daniel could predict the future, he would have inspired Daniel to write some indisputable prophecies. You falsely claimed that indisputable prophecies would not convince anyone when in fact they would convince most people. If President Bush could predict anything that he wanted to predict, how long do you think that it would take him to convince 90% of Americans that he could predict the future? Using the national media is would surely take him less than one month to convince 90% of Americans that he could predict the future, possibly just a few days.

If Micah has predicted that the messiah would rule a heavenly kingdom instead of an earthly kingdom like the Jews were misled to believe, and that the messiah would heal people, and that the messiah would be crucified, and buried, and would rise from the dead on the third day, and that Pontius Pilate would become Governor of Palestine, are you going to tell us that not one single extra Jew would have become a follower of Jesus? Well, er, uh.......

Suffice it to say that if a God exists, he has not inspired prophets to predict the future. You are living in a fantasy world.

Even if I believed that God was responsible for the Partition of Palestine, I would still reject him because I do not approve of favoritism, including when God help Abraham persecute and kill the Canaanites, and steal their land instead of giving Abraham money to legally purchase the land.

It is an utterly absurd notion that God would have protected the Jews from their human enemies and refused to protect them from storms and parasites that he created. With parasites alone, God has killed more people than all of the wars in history, and he did so indiscriminately without any regard for a person's worldview, and that certainly included Jews.

arnoldo

Of course you are 100% wrong on how you "spin" your interpretation as always mixing half truths to try to make a point. The vision of the ram clearly is representative of the Medes and the Persian by the two horns. Please note that the writer stated "ONE OF THE HORNS WAS LONGER THAN THE OTHER BUT GREW UP LATER (PERSIA). The other shorter horn which came up first is the medes. Sorry, you are in the no-spin zone. :wave:

spin

Once again proving your attention deficit disorder.

In the same post immediately before what this sorry mess is attempting to respond to, I wrote the following, which deals with the two horns:

I think he has problems holding all what he reads in his head.

arnoldo's response is a case of historical denial. The Medes were spent before Babylon fell, despite what Dan 8 says. Dan 8 of course reflects the notion that after the fall of Babylon came the Medes, then the Persians as found in Dan 7.

What I notice in arnoldo's post is that after the logic fails, then the apologetic bluster fails, and the memory fails, the inerrantist jumps on the name games:

Of course you are 100% wrong on how you "spin" your interpretation... Sorry, you are in the no-spin zone.

spin

arnoldo

More spinning half truths. You are assuming that a "vision" is strictly "linear" when by definition it is interpreting something along various points in the future. In any event you are correct in your "half truth" that the medes were long gone, however as interpreted as part of the short horn in the ram (which grew first followed by the long horn which grew later (persians) it was still was part of the Persian empire. In any event the main point of Daniel 8 is to show how this ram is defeated by the goat with a prominent horn (alexander the great) which is a historical fact, no-spin

spin

Self-irony is always a virtue.

We're preparing to manipulate the text further here. It doesn't dawn that we are supposedly in the reign of Belshazzar immediately after whom Babylon falls to the Medes or is it the Persians.

Your statement is less than a half-truth. I said:

The Medes were spent before Babylon fell

There's nothing there about "long gone". That's just you manipulating the truth even further.

And so it was. The Medes paid tribute to Persia. They supplied armies for the empire. It's all there if you spent a little time reading what people say to you.

Rubbish. The "main point of Daniel 8" is that the little horn started a persecution against the holy ones of god, but god is well aware, knew beforehand, and an end of the persecution is coming with the overthrow of the little horn.


spin

arnoldo

[QUOTE=spin;5136768]So we agree that Daniel 8 is indicating Antiochus IV would arise from the Greek Empire, right? Now do you think that Antiochus IV was going to be the LAST person who would persecute the Jews. Of course not. Thus Daniel 7:24 lists a different king. Now please keep this in the context of chapter 7 without your "spin". In chapter 7 Daniel lists 4 beasts
1. Lion with wings = Babylon
2. Bear (raised to one side) = Medo/Persian, notice this bear is leaning to one side (the stronger is Persia) and it has 3 ribs in it's mouth (indicating the scope of this empire Persia-Media-Babylonia)
3. Leopard with 4 wings = Greece
4. Beast with ten horns (no it's not greece, your ten kings scenario is classic spin with half truths).

You must keep Daniel 7;24 (little horns) within the context of the 4 beast listed above.

makerowner

And that's why we can date Daniel to before 164 BC, because the author seems to have thought the end of the world would come around that time. He knew nothing about Antiochus's death nor the rededication of the temple.

spin

I'm glad you've caught up to that fact. There was never any doubt on my part.

Silly thought. The current persecution one hopes is the last. It doesn't mean it is.

Non sequitur. Just because you adduce that the persecution of the Jews was not the last, that is no reason why the persecution in Dan 7 is not the same one as that in Dan 8.



It is silly to repeat something without added content. You blunder on forgetting the fact that the writers of Daniel think that the Medes came after Babylon but before the Persians (see chapter eight).

There is one little horn. He comes after the ten Greek kings (already listed) after the fall of Persia, ie Antiochus IV. (And you notice you've got zippo to explain these ten kings, the last three of which were uprooted for the little horn. You simply can't explain any of what I've already explained through Antiochus IV. Doh! Why do you persist in ignorance?)

The little horn is arrogant in 7:8, just as Antiochus IV is in 2 Macc 5:21, 7:36, 9:4 and 9:7.

Your job is to show why the little horn is someone other than the obvious Antiochus IV.


spin

Sheshonq

The page you linked do did not have that text. In fact, the link goes to two different articles; it was unclear which one you meant.

As for the text above - yes, it is there. But unless a person has JSTOR access, they wouldn't see the text at all. You need to access JSTOR to get all three pages. I have JSTOR access, which is how I found it. Next time tell your audience where to find the text.

Please note the following items:

1. this is not a book, or an informative article. It's a book review you have found. The book review is not your friend, however, since it discusses the failures of trying to reconcile busted timelines and the gymnastics that people have undertaken in a failed attempt to do so.

2. Now let's look at the claim you made, the one connected to this link:

Biblical synchronisms are frequently used throughout the Old Testament making setting dates extremely complex.

You have also misunderstood what a "synchronism" is. A synchronism - a bible synchronism - ties together two points, one internal to the bible and another one that is external. Connecting the reign of a particular king to an external event (such as a battle in Egypt) in order to provide (or validate) a date marker. It has NOTHING to do with your attempt to try and say that an imaginary Darius ruled at the same time as Cyrus II.

As usual: your link does not prove the claim you are making.

arnoldo

Interestingly, the Aramaic that is used resembles the Aramaic used in 5 BC rather the Aramaic used in 2 BC.