a Christian...I did not mean to sound arrogant when said that the Christian messianic interpretation does not account for the sense of the text in the examples I provided. That was simply my conclusion after examining these examples in detail. I wanted to explain how this interpretation takes liberties with the text, ignores the surrounding context, and is less parsimonious than the Antiochene interpretation. To do this, I provided specific examples showing that the interpretation is at odds with the wording of the text itself and/or the context provided by the parallel oracles in Daniel. I do not claim that the Antiochene interpretation is flawless and I welcome criticism as well, just as I have critically analyzed your interpretation. What I do claim is that Antiochene interpretation is most parsimonious to the text of Daniel and best represents the point of view of the author (it is also the earliest attested interpretation). Note again that I don't claim to know exactly what was in the mind of the author, but that the Antiochene interpretation makes the most sense of the text as we have it today.
BTW, I do not deny the Christian messianic interpretation its own validity as a re-interpretation of Daniel. It has its own validity because the process of interpretation is frequently the source of new theological insights, as can be seen for instance in the development of christology in the NT and in patristic literature through midrashic reapplication of prior scripture. Texts often become meaningful in a new way when read in a different light or under new circumstances. But this meaning is usually quite distinct from the original sense of the passage in its literary context. For example, the language in Jeremiah 31:15, when read in its context, has a very different sense than it has in Matthew 2:17-18. I do not think it wrong to cite this sense as what the author originally intended, and not select the one offerred by the author of Matthew. This is done not to disrepect the author of Matthew; it done only to take the text on its own terms and see how it fits into its literary context. In the case of Daniel, one must read ch. 9 out of its context with ch. 11 and ch. 8, otherwise this would result in absurdities like the Messiah = the King of the North/little horn, and one must also impose things like parentheses on the text itself in order to make the interpretation work. It's a time-honored interpretation (or rather, family of interpretations) and has insights of its own, but for the reasons given before it is most probably not what the author of Daniel was trying to get across.
As for Ianone, all he has offered are ad hominem attacks (e.g. "mindless atheist agnostic skeptic", "Zionist", "deception", etc.), furnishing not one scintilla of consideration of any of the facts and evidence I carefully presented. His hostility is the flip side of the same coin that Qcmbr was complaining about in his recent thread:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/101855/1.ashx
And with all due respect, the Antiochene interpretation of Daniel is most definitely not "atheistic". Or were the Christians who continued to hold this interpretation into the third and fourth centuries atheists?