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[heavenly]

Has anybody heard about this seminar being conducted live in Silver Spring, MD and broadcasted throughout the world via satellite?

It's about the prophecies of Daniel and Revelations. Quite interesting. The message tonight is about the "Anti-Christ". I'm sure that's a highly, debated topic amongst christians, agnostics, and athiests.

The website is pretty decent too, and very informative.

www.prophecycode.org

 

[Dujour]

Hm, Doug Batchelor. I'll check it out.

 

[Boogie]

Actually, I'm sure it's not really a debated topic at all among agnostics and atheists

 

[Nintendo Ate My Children]

I'm going to rent a hotel ballroom, attach the word "code" to something from the bible, make up some bullshit, then watch the cash roll in.

I wonder if the "Jesus Code" is taken yet?

 

[Dice]

Don't need a special code to understand this...

2 Corinthians 2:17 "Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God."

2 Corinthians 4:1-2 "Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God."

 

[heavenly]

Hm, Doug Batchelor. I'll check it out.

I remember waking up one morning in school, and I flipped through the channel and saw him speaking on channel BET, I think. I was immersed by his presentation. He seems to have a knack for explaining the Bible in the vernacular of the people who have never set foot inside a church, imo. Also, I like the stories he tells to help convey a teaching of the Bible.

 

[pwn3d]

Has anybody heard about this seminar being conducted live in Silver Spring, MD and broadcasted throughout the world via satellite?

It's about the prophecies of Daniel and Revelations. Quite interesting. The message tonight is about the "Anti-Christ". I'm sure that's a highly, debated topic amongst christians, agnostics, and athiests.

The website is pretty decent too, and very informative.

www.prophecycode.org

The site subscribes to a futurist interpretation of Daniel which isn't what most Biblical scholars believe. We know from internal and external evidence that Daniel was written around 165 BC. At that time Judea was ruled by Antiochus IV, who committed many atrocities and outlawed Judaism. The book of Daniel was written to the Jewish people at that time to give them hope so they could survive the time. He wanted them to believe that their suffering was part of God's plan and that they would be delivered from it.

A good example of the website's bias is in their explanation of the fourth beast in Daniel 7, which they claim represented Rome. However, the fourth beast actually refers to the Seleucid empire. The ten horns are probably Alexander the Great, seven Seleucid kings, and Demetrius and Heliodorus. The little horn refers to Antiochus.

The claim that the ten horns were tribes of Western Europe seems weird as well. In order to make that interpretation work, they have to throw away other tribes which were important in Western Europe - for example, the Jutes. The connection of the Lombards with the fall of Rome is tenuous as well, since the Lombards invaded Northern Italy in 568 and they couldn't even conquer any walled cities.

The same thing can be said about the site's treatment of Revelations. Revelation is similar to Daniel in that it was supposed to give hope to Christians who were being persecuted under Nero. As the late Raymon Brown states (An Introduction to the New Testament):

Apocalypses are most often addressed to those living in times of suffering and persecution-so desperate that they are seen as the embodiment of supreme evil. If history is laid out in a pattern of of divinely determined periods (enumerated in various ways), the author is living in the last of them. (pg 776)

The identification of the Antichrist with Nero is pretty obvious. Using gematria the Hebrew letters from the Greek form of Nero Caesar add up to 666. A variant reading of 666 is 616, which is from the transliteration of the latin form of Nero Caesar. The wound of the beast likely refers to Nero's suicide, and the survival to Domitian's reign (see Brown pg 793 for reference).

 

[fse]

interesting.

 

[heavenly]

A good example of the website's bias is in their explanation of the fourth beast in Daniel 7, which they claim represented Rome. However, the fourth beast actually refers to the Seleucid empire. The ten horns are probably Alexander the Great, seven Seleucid kings, and Demetrius and Heliodorus. The little horn refers to Antiochus.

Any Scriptures to back this claim up? According to my study, the fourth beast does point to Rome.

Remember the statue in King Nebby's dream?

Dan 2:32 This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
Dan 2:33 His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.

The head of gold represented Babylon. The arms of silver represented Medo-Persia. And the midsection and thighs of bronze represented Greece. Lastly, the feet and 10 toes of iron mixed with clay represented both phases of Rome (pagan and papal).

God gave Daniel another vision in chp. 7 & 8 about the world empires through beasts and the ram and goat, and then the angel explains who are the ram and goat. However, in chp. 8 the vision starts with empire of Medo-Persia because by that time Babylon had already been conquered by the Medes and Persians.

// Babylon

- 1st Vision

Dan 2:38 ... Thou art this head of gold.

- 2nd Vision

Dan 7:4
The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it.

// Medo-Persia

- 1st Vision

Dan 2:39 And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee...

- 2nd Vision

Dan 7:5
And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.

- 3rd Vision

Dan 8:20
The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.

// Greece

- 1st Vision

Dan 2:39 ...and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.

- 2nd Vision

Dan 7:6
After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.

- 3rd Vision

Dan 8:21
And the rough goat is the king of Greece: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.
Dan 8:22
Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.

// Rome

- 1st Vision

Dan 2:40 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.

- 2nd Vision

Dan 7:19 Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet;
Dan 7:20 And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spoke very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows.
Dan 7:21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;

- 3rd vision

Dan 8:23
...a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.
Dan 8:24
And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.

 

[pwn3d]

Any Scriptures to back this claim up? According to my study, the fourth beast does point to Rome.

I'll do better than that, I'll also bring history to bear on the subject, which is something many Evangelicals seem loath to do.

Remember the statue in King Nebby's dream?

Dan 2:32 This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
Dan 2:33 His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.

The head of gold represented Babylon. The arms of silver represented Medo-Persia. And the midsection and thighs of bronze represented Greece. Lastly, the feet and 10 toes of iron mixed with clay represented both phases of Rome (pagan and papal).

Here is where we start running into problems. First, you identify the arms with the combined Medo-Persia. The difficulty with this is that Dan 2:39 states that the second empire would be inferior to the first. The Persian empire lasted about 100 years longer than the Babylonian empire, and was about 3 times as large in land area. Hence, it is contradictory to assume the second empire was Media-Persia. It makes the most sense for the second empire to be Media. This is consistent with the text since Daniel believes that Darius the Mede will conquer Babylon (see 5:30-31). Daniel is wrong here - we know that Babylon was actually conquered by Cyrus the great ca 539 BC. Daniel's author probably got this idea from Jer 51:11,28 and Isa 13:17-18, where the prophets predict Babylon will fall to the Medes. (see for reference The Interpreter's One Volume Commentary on the Bible, pgs 440,443).

The midsection and thighs represent Persia, which was very large and claimed rule over all the earth. The fourth empire represents Alexander the Great's Macedonian Greek empire. We know further that after Alexander's death his empire was divided among his four generals. The fact that Dan refers to the fourth kingdom divided is suggestive of this. Daniel didn't put any significance to the two legs - it is likely reading more into the text than the author intended to suggest that the legs represent Rome's eastern and western factions. The mixed iron and clay may represent the attempts of the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires to gain peace through intermarriage.

- 2nd Vision

Dan 7:5
And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.

- 3rd Vision

Dan 8:20
The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.

The bear only represents Media, not Media and Persia. I don't see why you are connecting the two visions in this way.

// Rome

- 1st Vision

Dan 2:40 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.

- 2nd Vision

Dan 7:19 Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet;
Dan 7:20 And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spoke very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows.
Dan 7:21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;

- 3rd vision

Dan 8:23
...a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.
Dan 8:24
And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.

As I stated above, the fourth kingdom and the fourth beast refers to the Macedonian-Greek empire. The little horn is Antiochus the 4th. As I stated in the previous post, the ten horns represent kings from Macedon and Seleucia. We know from history that Antiochus IV was a hostage in Rome while Seleucis IV, his brother, reigned. Seleucis IV, Heliodorus and Demetrius were killed in a conspiracy that the Jews may have believed to have been orchestrated by Antiochus IV. Seleucis IV, Heliodorus and Demetrius are therefore the 3 horns who were uprooted by the little horn, Antiochus IV.

For the last vision, the male goat is Greece. The four horns that split from the first horn (Alexander the Great) are the four generals among whom his empire was divided. The king with the fierce countenance is Antiochus. Dan 8:11 says the king will desecrate the temple and remove the daily sacrifices. We know that Antiochus did both of these things.

 

[JackFrost2012]

BIBLOWNED!

good job pwn3d

 

[pwn3d]

BIBLOWNED!

good job pwn3d

:lol Thanks man! It was a good opportunity for me to break out that Interpreter's Commentary - the thing is so heavy that carrying it around is as hard as writing the post was!