by Blue 13 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Good afternoon everyone,
Does anyone know what Daniel the Prophet meant when he talked about the abomination that causes desolation? The book says that when we come to understand what the abomination that causes desolation is to flee to the mountains. Does anyone know what that means?
It means I'm in trouble! There aren't any mountains where I live!
Of coure I could catch a flight somewhere that does and then run up one of those mountains... or maybe drive... I just hope that Jehover takes into account the time needed to get there while making his schedule.
Uh, yeah -
After Rome destroyed Jerusalem -
Follow me closely here...
A bunch of Jewish expatriates got together and decided to create a more portable version of their dead religion. Against the wishes, probably, of what remained of the religious leadership, they incorporated the charismatic figure of Jesus into a new version of Judaism, made to be acceptable to the Greek and Roman world.
Over time, aspects of the ancient babylonian solar cults crept into the religion. Ie. Jesus' virgin birth, the trinity, the myth of the resurrection.
After the fact they added the idea that Jesus warned his followers about the coming annihilation of the Jewish system. They made it up!
When the forgers of the book of daniel wrote the comment about the digusting thing, they were talking about current events - the Greek defilement of the temple by imposing an altar of Zeus and sacrificing pigs.
So the cultmakers of the 1st century were commissioned to create a prophetic statement about the destruction of Jerusalem. They did it here.
IT's all nonsense and has nothing to do with your life. Unless you want to worship some kind of aspect of the masonic / Babylonian / Egyptian Religious Continuum!!!
CZAR
The Jews probably felt there was a fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy in the days of Antiochus IV, the Seleucid king who ruled the Jews. As noted, he invaded the temple and installed an idol and polluted it by sacrificing pigs. Antiochus seemed to fit the description as he was "an abomination" and he did "cause destruction". Of course, what resulted was the revolt of the Maccabees and the overthrow of Antiochus.
The Jews would also probably see a parallel with Rome in the days of Jesus. The Romans erected their standards in the Temple precinct. Many Jews were killed trying to remove them. Of course, Rome eventually destroyed the Temple and its worship. It too was "an abomination that causes desolation." Jospehus gives a vivid account of both events.
Jesus did make reference to Daniel's prophecy. And many Christians felt that another fulfillment would occur in the "end days." It remains to be seen exactly how this will be fulfilled.
Don't worry,
The abomination that caused desolation in the mountain (God's Kingdom)are the teachings that destroy God is angry, God is vengeful, Armageddon and hell. The time that most people think is coming is great tribulations. The unconditional Love of God our Father will soon be manifested. Remember the story of Moses and the Burning Bush? Remember Moses said "I will go a little closer and see why the bush doesn't burn? God is showing us physical people an example here that the Spirit of God doesn't hurt physical beings. It is the latter rain, the rain of spiritual knowledge that God will give freely to all without price. Please do not fear the Spirit of God! He is 100% love and what he wants to destroy is wrong thinking and circumcise our hearts so we can think like he does! God is lonesome and wants to enlarge his family. There is no fear in love-perfect love casts out fear.
There is no fear in love-perfect love casts out fear.
I have to agree with that statement. I think most of "Christianity" is fear-based rather than love-based. By that I mean, the "Fear of God" is instilled into believers, and those who don't agree with the God of the religion will be cast into a fire of hell, or cast down with 99.9% of humanity according to the JW brand of religion we formerly adhered to.
The unconditional Love of God our Father will soon be manifested.
Well what is "God our Father" waiting for? If more people suffer and die while he waits and watches, does that somehow make him more loving, righteous or wise?
Surely enough time has passed, enough people have suffered. If God wanted to act, he would have done so by now.
Gopher:
The same questions were asked by Habakkuk. And I'm sure the same answers of God still apply.
Does anyone know what Daniel the Prophet meant when he talked about the abomination that causes desolation? The book says that when we come to understand what the abomination that causes desolation is to flee to the mountains. Does anyone know what that means?
I like your interpretation -- and I believe it's a very valid Christian principle. Unfortunately, it's extremely unlikely that this is what Daniel meant. As long as this thread is in the unlikely category of scandals and coverups, it might as well be pointed out by someone that there at least 10 lines of evidence that most current scholars agree with about Daniel. The scholarly agreement I refer to is even shared by excellent respected Bible translators as evidenced in the footnotes and introduction to Daniel in such translations as the Catholic Jerusalem Bible. That agreement is that Daniel was not written in Nebuchadnezzar's day, as purported, but that the writer of Daniel was using a very common literary "technique" shared by an entire genre of Jewish writings known as the Pseudepigrapha. Daniel was written in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and borrowed some of its authority by name-dropping the reputation of Daniel (who probably was already known to have been a famous Jewish captive in Babylon with the attending stories carried earlier in the first chapters of the book). Along with many separate pieces of textual and content evidence in the book, it is the best explanation for why Daniel pretends to prophesy about the Maccabean-Antiochus relationship with uncannily correct details right up until the time that he tries to truly prophesy about the real future, events that the writer was now guessing would (or should) happen next. Daniel's prophecies from that point on do not come true for the Maccabean-Antiochus relationship. This is a similar situation to what happened to Jesus prophecy about Jerusalem. Jesus may have been able to prophesy, even up to 40 years in advance, about what would happen when Rome was finally fed up with the Judean capital of Jerusalem, but was wrong about the sign in the heaven that would follow immediately after. That's the trouble with all end-times prophecies so far, they have always failed to come through completely and their defenders merely squeeze the unused portion further into the future. (ie, "Daniel" re: Greece's Antiochus, "Jesus" re: Rome's Titus Flavius Vespasianus, and, of course, Pittsburgh's Charles Taze Russel re: 1844, 1874, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1915.) Gamaliel
If God's love is unconditional why did he wipe out all those in the flood save for 8 souls, and why did he wipe out all the sexual perverts in Sodom and Gomorrah?.
God's love isn't unconditional. The 'once saved always saved' born againers like to imagine so, but one can't just go doing what one wants and expect God to overlook Wilful disobedience and rebellion against him....he is also a God of justice after all, which quality is in perfect balance with his other cardinal qualitys of love, wisdom, and power.
God is "lonesome"? Now that's a corker. The Milky Way alone contains billions upon billions of life forms, and that's just the local superuniverse. If you do the math, you end up with there being something like 9x10(250) live beings in just the Milky Way. Lonesome? I dunt thing so.
