A FORMAL INTRODUCTION TO DANIELS ESCHATOLOGY Is Daniel a conditional prophecy? Many acknowledge that classical OT eschatology was conditional and even share Daniels amazement that a new type of eschatology is introduced in his visions. And because apocalyptic imagery is used at times, some have blindly asserted that Daniels eschatology is universal in scope and therefore unconditional. But to argue that a prophecy must be fulfilled on the basis of a literary style is not very convincing. Conversely, it is rather easy to prove, in a very satisfactory and formal way, that Daniel is conditional because Zechariah is conditional. Proof: If it was truly possible for any of the classical OT prophecies to be fulfilled, then Zechariah, which was written after Daniel, could have been fulfilled. If Zechariah would have come true, then Daniel would have failed. Hence Daniel is conditional. There exists a vast spectrum of interpretations for Daniels prophecies. One school applies these visions to the acts and times of Antiochus Epiphanes and his defilement of the Jewish Temple, his interruption of its daily sacrifices, and his persecution of that people (165 BC). Others understand that the tyrant prince was Titus, who in 70 AD destroyed Jerusalem and its temple and slaughtered the Jews. Still others suppose that the papacy is meant, the persecution being that of N.T. saints in times past, and that the sanctuary in question is the one in heaven (Heb 8:2). Opposition to the work of Christ, our High Priest, they claim, is like that of suspending His infinite sacrifice for sin. Another slant is that the church is to be thought of as the sanctuary, defiled by the bringing in of pagan customs and relics in the early centuries. Thus the abomination that brought desolation. One should ask immediately: Why does a spectrum of interpretations exist? The answer is incredibly simple: The visions of Daniel actually portray two possible scenarios; Neither of them ever developed perfectly yet both of them resemble history and, in a limited degree, some part of each view mentioned above. Hence, what the text really says may be understood as an illusion, a patch-work of different historical periods blended together. There is some truth to this and it certainly explains why serious discrepancies are so often overlooked: Each interpreter rests, with confidence, on a small portion of the picture. But we want to emphasize the fact that the whole picture makes perfect sense, just as it appears, this and all the other scenarios of Scripture. This is the central purpose of this book to which we now return: Our task: To find out the strict meaning of the prophetic text, once the symbols are identified. And to accomplish this, we need a principle of interpretation that purposely ignores what might seem to be recognizable historical fulfillments and allows the book of Daniel to speak for itself. Consider first the unnecessary presuppositions in other systems of interpretation.
Preterism The preterist school demands that prophecy as foretelling is impossible and therefore views prophecy as a commentary on the time period in which the writer was living. They hold that the prophetic sweep of history in Daniel comes to a climax in the acts and time of Antiochus Epiphanes. They therefore conclude that the book must have been written at that time. The date of composition is very important and is alleged to be 165 BC. The predicted conclusion of history which failed to occur after this time (Daniel 11:40-45) is called true prophecy and is explained as the expectation of the writer. The apparent discrepancies before this time are explained as exaggerations and the writers lack of accurate historical knowledge. As our exposition proceeds, we will expose how extensive these discrepancies are and thus pose a simple question to critics and modern critical scholars: If Daniel did not see visions in Babylon as claimed (6th century BC) and if the book of Daniel was written after the fact, why would its writer purposely include such ridiculous history and distorted current events for a book that purports to unveil the future? And why was such a work placed in the sacred cannon? Unknowingly, the preterist argues most eloquently for Daniels divine inspiration.
Historicism / Futurism Historicists and futurists share an unquestioning trust in the presupposition which asserts that Daniels prophecy is unconditional. The futurists demand that the fulfillment is literal and mostly in the future while the historicists favor a uniform unfolding of the prophecy in order to make it stretch to the end time. For the historicist, the prophecy need not be literal but it cannot be parabolic. Hence, both of these conservative schools have several problems in common: 1. They universally ignore the fact that Daniel eventually understood the vision given him. See Da 10:1. The reason is that such an admission would be a death blow to their unsound interpretations. Daniel could not have actually understood the vision if the unworkably vague gap principle of futurism was to be employed and no historicist can even hope to explain the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation without depending on the history the prophecy is supposed to unfold. 2. They refuse to accept (or even acknowledge) the most obvious meaning of prophecy because the explanation so easily comprehended in terms of context and linguistics alone demands that many prophecies have failed. They ignore all evidence that proves that God had intended to end time much earlier. 3. Their preconceived preference for the predictions of Bible prophets to be absolutely unconditional lead them directly to the following characteristic patterns of interpretation to resolve the apparent dilemma: Futurists, by taking a literal meaning to the words of a prophecy, must ignore the context. That a prophecy appears as a unit and tells a complete story is completely disregarded in favor of a grab-bag collection of numerous and unrelated events. Their conclusion: a gap principle. They also see multiple meanings in prophecy. This is simply an excuse for the fact that, with futurism, not even one meaning is clear. No wonder many today hold to the false notion that prophecy is vague and ambiguous, or that the whole subject can only be understood by a select few, usually never including the prophet who gave the original message. Unfortunately, I offer no critique of a specific futurist position. The reason is simple. I know of no well established or respected futurists that dare to answer the obvious discrepancies in their school of thought. Historicists are guided by history. They use it often to define and interpret the prophecies. Thus, their exegesis is circular. In this system, often, and with great effort, a spiritual non-meaning must be imposed on Scripture; something mystical and far beyond the obvious reading of the text. As in futurism, there is never agreement among adherents. In a later chapter, we will witness the extremes to which historicists wrestle with scripture. In a critique of their view on Daniel 11, it will be demonstrated that the vast majority in this school are far more concerned about history and the forcing of history into the prophetic passages than letting the Bible speak for itself. We hold that to ignore or down-play what the Bible actually suggests as its own interpretation, because it does not fit history, and to insert in its place what it must say to achieve a perfect historical fulfillment, however well intended, is a method lacking in intellectual honesty. The apostle Peter would have agreed. He implies that just as prophecy was given by God, it should be explained by God, from the Bible itself, the revealed Word. See 2 Pe 1:20,21. The often employed methodology therefore, of making history define and interpret the word of God, in place of the Word of God, is heresy! Mans expectations imprison the Bible. It makes Scripture a product of his own ideas, a human creation. For this reason, we impose no demands on the word of God. We reject none of its mysteries. We allow Scripture to unfold its own message so that it may speak with the authority of God and not that of man. Only from the straightforward simple sense of Scripture comes power, life, comfort, and instruction. Only then is the word of God living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb 4:12).
CONTEXTUAL REALISM The time-honored grammatical-historical method of exegesis is here proven to be ideally suited to determine the authentic meaning of the book of Daniel. The implications of Daniel 2 best illustrate why we should focus our attention on the most natural meaning of the text (but we consider all the texts that follow as fundamental in the construction of the hermeneutical principle). See if you can guess our concluding argument from the following citations. DANIEL 2 DANIEL 8 DANIEL 9 DANIEL 10 Now I have come to give you an understanding of what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision pertains to the days yet future (10:14). There is essentially one argument. Once its idea is comprehended, the construction of the hermeneutical principle to full generalization is obvious. For specificity and clarity, I illustrate the method by narrowing the discussion to the facts supplied in Daniel 8. I reason as follows: Since the angel Gabriel was given a divine command to make Daniel understand the vision (8:16), we expect the angel-interpreter to have faithfully executed that command. It follows immediately therefore that the vision was explained to Daniel so that he might understand it. Hence, the very words and phrases employed were comprehensible terms meaningfully arranged and are to be accepted as Daniel understood them. Thus, we are to seek an understanding of the prophecy from Daniels perspective in history and not from a stand-point in the twentieth century. We are to assume no more than Daniel could have known. This hermeneutic is standard among exegetes and it serves most of our purposes. Yet it is not completely satisfactory, for it suffers at times from a serious draw-back: It may be unworkably vague. Ideally, we need a hermeneutic so precise that it may be carried out almost mechanically; a procedure so rigorous that it would require virtually no insight at all. With this goal in mind, we now introduce a complementary approach to the one above, an inductive method labeled: the universal hermeneutical algorithm. It is a rewording of the historical-grammatical method. Its idea is based on a simple definition: In the category of all possible interpretations of a prophetic vision, the best interpretation is the correct interpretation. It is the one that provides the strongest unity for all possible symbolic representations, normative word meanings, linguistic connections, and literary structures. We apply this definition as follows: Since conditional prophecy need not be fulfilled, we need to ascertain the intended meaning of a prophecy independently of the expected (i.e. desired) fulfillment. To accomplish this, consider the category of all the possible ways history might have developed. (To be objective, we do not suppose what course of events are reasonable so we include every imaginable past and future). This collection is the set of all possible interpretations to the prophecy. Simply choose that scenario which is the best of all possible interpretations according to the definition stated above. Let me summarize this hermeneutic by restating it in yet another useful form: If we can reconstruct history or imagine a scenario for the prophecies of Daniel that creates a far more harmonious fulfillment than any other possible interpretation, then this imaginary course of events is what Daniel predicted. (Clearly, if our imagined scenario fits the prophecy better than history and possible future history, then the prophecy is conditional and cannot be perfectly fulfilled).
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