One of the most compelling attributes about the Bible is that it is full of prophecy. Christ Himself fulfilled three hundred and fifty-one of the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. One in particular is the prophecy of the seventy years in Daniel 9:24-27. Here we look not only to the foretelling of events leading up to the crucifixion of Christ and to the future of today, but also into the authority of the authorship of God’s sovereignty. When we examine the prophecy given to Daniel by the angel Gabriel, we start to see the time frame from which God gives redemption to mankind. But where does the hourglass begin to turn? Does it say what will happen in between the times? Let’s begin to systematically dissect the scriptures to find out. Daniel 9:24 “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.” We can first look at the first part of verse 24 and begin to understand what the “Seventy weeks” are referring to. It basically is translated to mean “seventy sevens” or seven periods of seven. The same description is used back in Leviticus 25:8, “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty- nine years.” Here the Lord is speaking to Moses about the timeframe of the Sabbath week of year. This is to be taken with according to the prophetic 70 weeks, or 490 years, in Daniel. Daniel knew this to be appropriate because he understood of the violation of God’s people that had been done to 490 years of unobserved Sabbaths. Next, it is obvious to whom Gab... ... middle of paper ... ... destruction and less of its desecration, for God will bring judgment on it. As we have seen, one of the most compelling attributes about the Bible is that it is full of prophecy. One of which we have looked deeply into is that of the prophecy of the seventy years in Daniel 9:24-27. Here we looked not only to the foretelling of events leading up to the crucifixion of Christ and to the future of today, but also into the authority of the authorship of God’s sovereignty. The task is great when deciding between the many views and interpretations, which is highly involved in asking hard and difficult questions when interpreting any biblical prophecy. But let us not forget that “in all of this it is crucial not to miss Daniel’s message for his audience, namely, that God has allotted the amount of time for these events, and therefore His people should trust and endure.”
LaHaye, Tim, and Ed Hindson. The Popular Encyclopedia of Bible Prophecy. Eugene, OR.: Harvest House Publishers, 2004.
N.T Wright (2008) stated that “When we read the scriptures as Christians, we read it precisely as people of the new covenant and of the new creation” (p.281). In this statement, the author reveals a paradigm of scriptural interpretation that exists for him as a Christian, theologian, and profession and Bishop. When one surveys the entirety of modern Christendom, one finds a variety of methods and perspectives on biblical interpretation, and indeed on the how one defines the meaning in the parables of Jesus. Capon (2002) and Snodgrass (2008) offer differing perspectives on how one should approach the scriptures and how the true sense of meaning should be extracted. This paper will serve as a brief examination of the methodologies presented by these two authors. Let us begin, with an
The final three chapters of Daniel consist of one long narrative. They record the final vision given to this prophet of God. Chapter 10 introduces the vision, giving an amazing "behind the scenes" look at the spiritual conflict of which Daniel was a part. The Bible plainly reveals that life in our universe exists on two planes: the material and the spiritual. The unseen world is just as real as that which we see.
Psalm 89 of the Book of Psalms, advocates the message of consequentialism, foreground by man’s relationship with God, with direct lin...
The Book of Daniel is the only full-blown apocalyptic book in the Protestant recognized version of the Canon. A literary device divides the book into two halves. Chapters 1-6 are a collection of stories that introduces the reader to Daniel and three other Israelites as unwilling guests of the Babylonia Empire ruled by Nebuchadnezzar. The second half, Chapters 7-12 consists of apocalyptic imagery of deformed beasts and the heavenly court. The focus of this paper will be on chapter 7, which serves as a bridge of the two halves. Chapter 7 is the earliest of the visions as it identifies with the genre of 8-12 while through language and content it reverts to Daniel chapter 2. The linguistic break down is not as neat as the literary divide in that Dan. 2:4b-7:28 was written in Aramaic while other portions of the book is written in Hebrew.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1989. Print. The. Russell, Eddie.
In the days of Christ’s life on this earth, believers did not have access to the Bible in its entirety as we know and are familiar with today. Believers in this ancient time period only had access to the Old Testament. However, through their access to the Old Testament, believers were provided a foundation for New Testament times. This foundation provided New Testament believers with the Lord’s established principles of right and wrong they were expected to follow. In addition, the Old Testament is overflowing with accounts of people whose lives exemplified the future life of Christ on this earth. These pictures allowed the Israelite nation to begin to have an understanding of why Christ needed to come as their Messiah and the work He needed to do on earth. Finally, there are common themes that are interwoven throughout the entire Old Testament. Three of these themes: transgression, redemption, and consummation point to the purpose of Christ’s atoning death on the cross. These themes portray God’s work both in the lives of Old Testament believers, but they also foreshadow God’s desire and plan for believers in New Testament times and beyond.
The 2,300 day prophecy in Daniel 8:14 is one of the more difficult prophecies in Daniel to understand. It reads, “For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.” (NKJV). From this verse, many questions arise: When does this prophecy begin and end? What sanctuary is represented here?
Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation. Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989. Mounce, Robert H. The Book of Revelation. Revised.
The first two parts of the book discuss the kind of theological-historical perspective and ecclesial situation that determines the form-content configuration of Revelation. The first section attempts to assess the theological commonality to and differences from Jewish apocalypticism. Fiorenza focuses of the problem that although Revelation claims to be a genuinely Christian book and has found its way into the Christian canon, it is often judged to be more Jewish than Christian and not to have achieved the “heights” of genuinely early Christian theology. In the second part of the book, Fiorenza seeks to assess whether and how much Revelation shares in the theological structure of the Fourth Gospel. Fiorenza proposes that a careful analysis of Revelation would suggest that Pauline, Johannine, and Christian apocalyptic-prophetic traditions and circles interacted with each other at the end of the first century C.E in Asia Minor. She charts in the book the structural-theological similarities and differences between the response of Paul and that of Revelation to the “realized eschatology”. She argues that the author of Revelation attempts to correct the “realized eschatology” implications of the early Christian tradition with an emphasis on a futuristic apocalyptic understanding of salvation. Fiorenza draws the conclusion that Revelation and its author belong neither to the Johannine nor to the Pauline school, but point to prophetic-apocalyptic traditions in Asia Minor.
The term millennium does not appear anywhere in Scripture. The idea originated from a thousand year period of time that characterizes the reign of the Messiah. In fact, the phrase “thousand years” is stated six times in Revelation 20. There are three main schools of thought based upon one’s view of the thousand-year reign of Christ. These views are: Amillennial, Postmillennial and Premillennial. Over the centuries these prophetic differences have caused conflict within the body of Christ and are still currently widely debated. Instead of the book of Revelation being the basis of comfort (1 Thess. 4:18) among Christians it has become a bone of contention. However, this controversy should not deter Christ’s disciples from receiving the blessings that Revelation has to offer (Rev. 1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14). Rather, one should study prophecy under the Spirit’s guidance and look at the data provided within the full context of the Word assessing each of the views for correct motives and presuppositions. Therefore, this paper will examine the nature, timing, and duration of the millennium as well as the occupants of the millennial kingdom and the relationship of Israel and the Church to the millennial kingdom. The aim of this paper is to address “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1, ESV).
Daniel was a prophet and also the author of the Old Testament book of Daniel. The time period in which this book took place was between 560 to 530 B.C. Smith. Daniel was a servant to King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar told Daniel to only worship the god of Nebuchadnezzar’s choosing, and that Daniel could only eat certain foods. Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refused to listen to the king.
The Bible shows God as active or caring, and the Bible demonstrates God as dominant. It is impossible for humans to evaluate and analyze God's plan and strategies. The disappointment of our misunderstanding to the God and his power should not lead us to the distrust his presence, and Providence means that God sign is the self-driver of the human events at the mighty night. Simply, God’s providence represents His seeing approximately ahead of time. It is not related only to time while our Creator ensures really understand the conclusion from the foundation.
Answering these questions is the purpose of this essay. I begin by arguing that the Bible cannot be adequately understood independent of its historical context. I concede later that historical context alone however is insufficient, for the Bible is a living-breathing document as relevant to us today as it was the day it was scribed. I conclude we need both testimonies of God at work to fully appreciate how the Bible speaks to us.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (Holy)." The word Sabbath is derived from the Hebrew word meaning to rest. On the first day, God created the heavens and the earth. Each day, something new was created which culminated with the sixth day when he created all creatures that live on dry land: this includes the creation of man. Afterwards, God declared his work to be good and decided to rest on the seventh day. This seventh day, known as the Sabbath Day, represents God's day of rest. The reason people celebrated this day was because it represented a covenant between God and his people. According to Jesus, the Sabbath Day was created for our own interest. On this day, we redirect our thoughts and actions towards God. A common misconception