Can anyone explain to me please about the statue in the Daniel prophecy coz I've always been curious about what people have discovered about it? Do the jws have the only explanation?
Daniel explanation
by Freedom rocks 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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OnTheWayOut
Personally, I believe that Daniel was written much later than it claims and much of the "dream" was already fulfilled. Like everything else in the Bible, theories abound.
The first four kingdoms have been identified as the Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman Empires. Daniel already said that Babylon, specifically Nebuchadnezzar, was the head of gold. Babylon fell to the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. Greece became the successor to the Medo-Persian Empire. The “iron” empire can only be Rome.
Opinions differ on the fifth empire. Some have tried to identify various periods in Europe’s history as the clay-and-iron feet; others claim the feet represent the divided remnants of Rome before supposedly being “conquered” by Christianity. Still others believe that the clay/iron empire is yet to come: the kingdom of the Antichrist will be a “revived Roman Empire.” -
Crazyguy
The original author that wrote about a second fulfillment or prophecy was john Aquila Brown. He’s where the millerites got their ideas from and the CT Russell plagiarized his work for his own book The Time at Hand. The reality is that the book of Daniel was not even written when were led to believe it was written.
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smiddy3
Do the jws have the only explanation?
Certainly not the only explanation though many other "End Of Times" sects will vary to the interpretation
Remember their are over 4000 sects of Christendom and "many" have their own interpretation of Daniels Prophecy .
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fulltimestudent
Freedom rocks: ":Can anyone explain to me please about the statue in the Daniel prophecy."
I think most scholarship would understand Daniel's dream, in much the same way as Revelation. Pretending to be prophetic in order to encourage the faithful ones to stand fast because one day YHWH will take action against the pagans.
I think there can be little doubt that it was written after Alexander the Great conquered Persia (who had previously ruled the area) and ushered in a long period of Hellenistic influence. You can find a clue to that Hellenistic influence in a Greek poem written by Hesiod. He wrote that around 700 BCE and while Greek influence was almost certainly being felt in the eastern Mediterranean before Alexanders time, after Alexander's conquest, Greek colonies were established in Jewish territory.
Anyway back to my point, Hesiod's poem was didactic - written to instruct and teach.
In the section called, "The Five Ages," the poet describes five ages of humans.
The first were golden, " Golden was the first race of articulate folk ... they had everything good."
Later there was a 'silver' generation, not as good as the frst ... then a third generation of bronze , not as good as the silver, who only cared about fighting and war. Then a fourth, and a fifth - the iron age - the age of trouble.
It would not take much imagination for a Jewish writer to adapt that to the dream of Daniel,
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Half banana
In keeping with much of the Bible's source material, the image in the Book called Daniel is a watered down version of an old piece of Greek literature from the eighth century BCE. It is first found in a work by the poet Hesiod in his "Theogony" which means the origins of the gods.
His metal image represents a fabled era of gold supplanted by silver, then inferior bronze etc. It refers to a golden race of a golden age and a decline down to inferior base metals; an exemplar of the the contemporary Greek "myth of the races" that there had been a number of step changes in civilization which had started from a perfect high point.
Socrates, "the father of Western philosophy" refers to Hesiod's account which shows that this meme from literature had survived two and a half centuries already.
The writer of the the Book of Daniel, was not Daniel but whoever he was, he was aware of Hesiod's image and probably learned of it through Socrates or his philosophic offspring, Plato or Aristotle. All three of whom make mention of it. The unnamed writer Of Daniel, soon before 167 BCE, certainly employed Hesiod's memorable literary image of the metal colossus, giving Nebuchadnezzar's dream a striking focus. With it, in the manner of a prophet, he was able to tell how he thought things were going to be for immediate future in the second century BCE game of thrones. Clearly with the language and learning of the Classical world at his fingertips he was in a position to manoeuvre his religious readership towards certain directions in Maccabean Judaism.
The prophetic tenor of Daniel has resonated with apocalyptic Christianity especially since 1840 and is responsible for gross "end times" hype and speculation, especially by Adventists and their progeny Jehovah's Witnesses-- none of which has had the scintilla of truth about it.
The book called the Wisdom of Sirach was written around 180 BCE and quotes all of the canonical Jewish texts omitting Daniel, which is one of the many reasons to understand the late dating of Daniel.
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venus
What is described in Daniel is the copy from other cultures which teach that history declines in quality as the time passes by, and its declining phases are symbolized gold, brass (or silver), copper and iron. Scriptures of different cultures differ only in details, not in essence. This is the common thread we see in all of them. God makes provisions for the enjoyment of life and leaves the work of their fair distribution to humans. (Luke 3:11) But humans leave greed to rule their lives which results in abundance in one place and deprivation in another place. This situation is the second part of the history. First part was perfect. (Gen 1:26-2:3). And God restores perfection in due course. Thus Jesus defines God as the one who “renews/recreates” the provisions for life’s enjoyment whenever humans deplete/destroy them. (Mathew 19:28)
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ttdtt
Well, what decade do you what that explanation from :)
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Freedom rocks
I am looking for another understandable and believable alternative to what jdubs teach about it so i can compare