MikeSatterlee@cs.com wrote:
> George,
>
> You wrote: 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.
>
> When Christ referred to "the abomination which causes desolation, spoken of
> through the prophet Daniel," in Matt.24:15 and Mark.13:14,
En passant, only Matthew gives an explicit reference to Daniel.
> he was applying
> those words of Daniel to the Roman armies which would desolate Jerusalem in
> AD 66-70. These two verse's parallel passage, Luke 21:20, makes this fact
> quite clear. In doing so Jesus was referring to Dan. 9:26,27. For there
> Daniel prophesied of a "ruler who will come" who he said would will "destroy
> the city and the sanctuary." Daniel said this ruler would "set up an
> abomination that causes desolation." This ruler, the one who would lead
> Rome's armies in their desolation of Jerusalem, was General Titus who later
> became the Emperor of Rome.
The gospels do have this in view. However, Caligula's
proposal to erect
a statue of himself in the Temple - as part of the whole Roman occupation which
eventually led to the war - may also be involved. This imagery
corresponds more
closely - at least in intent - to the earlier action of Antiochus.
(It may also
have been in Paul's mind when he wrote II Thess.2:4.)
>
> Though Daniel 11:31 and 12:11 also refer to an "abomination which causes
> desolation," we cannot say with nearly as much certainty that Jesus was also
> referring to those passages of Daniel when he spoke the words recorded in
> Matt.24:15 and Mark.13:14. The "abomination that causes desolation" spoken of
> in Daniel 9:27 clearly refers to an abomination that would bring about a
> desolation after the time of Christ. It is not at all clear that the
> abominations spoken of in Daniel 11:31 and 12:11 refer to an abomination that
> would come after the time of Christ.
>
> The prophet Daniel may very well have been foretelling the coming of more
> than one "abomination," the first one at the time of Antiochus IV and the
> second one at the time of Rome's destruction of Jerusalem.
The desecration of the Temple by Antiochus is described in I Maccabees
1. "Now on the fifteenth day of the month Chislev, in the one hundred and
forty-fifth year, they erected a desolating sacrilege upon the altar of burnt
offering." (I Macc.1:54.a) Unfortunately this Greek text can't be compared
directly with the Hebrew of Daniel. In Maccabees the phrase bdelugma eremoseos
("abomination of desolation") is used, essentially as in Dan.9:27 & 12:11 LXX,
Mk.13:14 & Mt.24:15. The corresponding phrase in Dan.11:31 is bdelugma
ephanismenon. It seems very likely that all have a common reference
to the event
of "the 145th year" (167 B.C.), though the gospel writers clearly
intend a Roman
reference as well. Whether or not the writer of Daniel intended any other
reference is considerably less certain.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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