My response below George's message:
----- Original Message -----
From: "george murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Sunday, July 07, 2002 6:38 AM
Subject: Re: Understanding Prophecy (was Re: Daniel)
> I agree about 99% with Bob here but the remaining 1% is important.
> The fact that Mk.13:14 & Mt.24:15 (explicitly) could interpret Dan.11:31
as a
> prediction of some still future event (probably connected with the Roman
seige
> of Jerusalem) provides some canonical warrant for seeing Daniel as yet
> unfulfilled prophecy.
> & this can be done if one sees apocalyptic texts like Daniel or
> Revelation as providing typical images of the sort of dangers that God's
> people will have to confront. This is perhaps clearest for Revelation.
It is
> _not_ a linear sequence of future history predicting Mohammed, the papacy,
the
> Reformation, Hitler, the Common Market &c. It really provides several
repeats
> of essentially the same type of "woe" in groups of 7, & in each series the
> world is destroyed. So one on hand there is no point in trying to
_predict_
> who the Beast &c is - it's imperial Rome. OTOH if one realizes what one's
> doing it's appropriate to identify current threats to God's people &
creation
> with these figures in a typological fashion. Cf. Aquinas, "In all tyrants
> Antichrist lies hidden."
> I say this with some hesitation because I want to give no
> encouragement at all to nutty apocalyptic speculations of the _Left
Behind_
> type. OTOH, Revelation &c are of more than purely historical interest.
>
> Shalom,
>
> George
>
I thank George for his note and entirely agree with his 1%. I think that
the most important meaning of both Daniel and Revelation are not the
predictions some people mine these text for, but a message to believers that
can be summed up in three words: "Keep the faith!" The stories in Daniel
1-6 tell the reader: "Even when you are put in danger of death (a fiery
furnace, a lion's den), if you remain faithful as the three Hebrew men and
Daniel did, God will rescue you." And the apocalypse in Daniel 7-12 and
The Apocalypse (Revelation) send an even more hopeful message to those whose
fate seems uttery hopeless: "When you are faced with an awful and hopeless
situation and suffering unto death awaits you, whether from Antiochus or
Nero or Domition or the SS or the warders of the Gulag--Don't lose faith!
God is still with you, and your reward will be the resurrection of the
saints, where you will stand in the presence of the Ancient of Days, where
in a new heaven and a new earth, God will dwell among you and wipe away
every tear, and the Tree of Life will give you leaves for healing." For
this message alone, I am grateful that these books ended up in the canon,
despite what they have suffered from religious prognosticators.
Grace and peace,
Bob
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