Jehovah’s
Witnesses claim to find their own modern history foreshadowed in the ancient
prophecies of the Book of Daniel. In their 1999 publication Pay Attention to
Daniel’s Prophecy!, virtually every
vision in Daniel is applied to events surrounding the Jehovah’s Witnesses
organization. From calculating the end of the “Gentile Times” in 1914 to
identifying contemporary nations as the “king of the north” or “king of the
south,” the Watchtower’s interpretations are highly novel. A Catholic response
exposes these interpretations as unstable and eisegetical, contrasting
them with the stable, historically-grounded exegesis preserved in
classical Catholic commentaries and consistent Church tradition. The following
critique will address several key points of divergence: (1) the misuse of Daniel
4’s “seven times” to yield a 2520-year timeline ending in 1914, (2) the shifting
identifications of Daniel 11’s northern and southern kings to fit current
events, (3) the misapplication of Daniel 12:4 (“knowledge shall
increase”) to justify changing doctrine under the guise of “new light,” (4) the
egocentric reading of Daniel’s visions as if they all point to Jehovah’s
Witnesses themselves, and (5) a defense of the Catholic Church’s traditional
interpretation as theologically and historically sound in contrast to the
Watchtower’s speculative novelties.
The
“Seven Times” of Daniel 4: Unraveling the 2520-Year Calculation
Nebuchadnezzar’s
madness, as depicted by William Blake, illustrates the biblical king’s humbling
that lasted “seven times” – traditionally understood as seven literal years. In Daniel chapter 4, King
Nebuchadnezzar is punished for his pride by being driven insane, “eating grass
like an ox” for a period of “seven times” (Dan 4:16, 32). The Watchtower
claims this incident secretly encodes a 2520-year prophecy: they
interpret “seven times” as seven prophetic years of 360 days (total 2520 days),
then convert days to years, yielding 2520 years. Starting from 607 B.C.E.
(their asserted date for Jerusalem’s fall), they count 2520 years forward to
reach 1914 C.E., which they teach marks the end of the Gentile Times
and the invisible enthronement of Christ as King. This elaborate timeline is
the cornerstone of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ eschatology, yet it rests on
shaky foundations.
First, the chronological premise is
wrong. Historians, archaeologists, and indeed all standard biblical
chronologies, date the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem to about 587/586
B.C., not 607 B.C.. There is a 20-year discrepancy manufactured by
the Watchtower to make the math work for 1914. No independent evidence supports
607 B.C. as the date of Jerusalem’s fall – Babylonian records and numerous
scholarly sources place that event in 587/586 B.C., which would make 2520
years later fall in 1934/1935, not 1914. The Watchtower’s insistence on 607
B.C. is driven purely by prophetic scheme, not by historical fact. Starting a
prophetic countdown from an inaccurate date fatally undermines the 1914
calculation.
Second, the scriptural basis for
extending Daniel 4 beyond Nebuchadnezzar is untenable. In its immediate
context, the “seven times” are clearly the period of that Babylonian king’s
insanity – a judgment and later restoration meant as a lesson in humility
(Dan 4:24-34). Traditional Catholic commentators have always read this passage
in its straightforward sense: “seven times” in Daniel usually denotes
years, and thus Nebuchadnezzar’s madness lasted seven years
until God restored his reason. Nowhere does the text hint that these seven
times represent a much longer epoch or a second fulfillment. In fact, “each
prophecy in Daniel had only one fulfillment,” as one critical analysis
observes, yet the Watchtower asserts an unprecedented second fulfillment
for Daniel 4 that the prophet himself makes no mention of. This is eisegesis
of the highest order – reading a modern timeline into an ancient narrative.
Third, the Watchtower’s methodological
inconsistency becomes evident. Why should a tree dream about
Nebuchadnezzar’s humiliation encode the timing of Christ’s kingdom? The Society
selectively invokes the “day for a year” principle (drawn from Numbers
14:34 or Ezekiel 4:6) here, yet it ignores that principle elsewhere when
inconvenient. Even some Adventist groups (from whom JWs originally borrowed the
2520-year idea) have abandoned this interpretation as unscriptural. The Watchtower’s
2520-year doctrine actually originated with 19th-century Second Adventist
preachers, not from any apostolic or patristic source. It is a novel
invention, unknown to the Church Fathers or authentic Christian tradition.
Indeed, the early Church and Catholic magisterium have never taught that
1914 (or any date calculated from Daniel 4) had eschatological significance.
This stands in stark contrast to the Catholic approach, which sees Daniel 4
as a moral lesson about God’s sovereignty over proud rulers, possibly a type
of how God humbles the mighty, but not as a secret chronograph for Gentile
world dominion. Our Lord did speak of “the times of the Gentiles”
(Luke 21:24), but He gave no numeric duration – and certainly did not tie it to
Nebuchadnezzar’s seven years of madness.
In sum, the
Watchtower’s 1914 calculation is built on a faulty starting date and a
forced symbolic reading of Daniel 4 that finds no support in Scripture or
ancient Christian teaching. It is no surprise that outside observers
flatly reject this interpretation as unsound. For example, the ex-Witness
scholar Raymond Franz noted that if one must twist historical dates and
biblical text so much, perhaps the interpretation itself is misguided. The Catholic
believer can be confident that nothing in Daniel 4 validates 1914 –
instead, we uphold what the text plainly says and how it was consistently
understood: God’s power can reduce a king to a beast for seven years, to teach
him (and us all) that “the Most High rules the kingdom of men” (Dan
4:17). No further 2520-year puzzle needs to be imposed on this edifying
story.
Kings of
the North and South: Watchtower’s Moving Targets in Daniel 11
Map of
the Hellenistic world (c. 200 BC) showing the Ptolemaic Kingdom (Egypt,
south of Judea) and the Seleucid Empire (Syria-Mesopotamia, north of
Judea) – the original “king of the South” and “king of the North” in Daniel 11. Daniel chapter 11 vividly foretells
a series of struggles between two dynasties in the centuries after Alexander
the Great. Classical Catholic interpretation, along with virtually all
mainstream scholarship, recognizes these adversaries as the successors of
Alexander: the Ptolemies (based in Egypt, to the “south” of the Holy Land) and
the Seleucids (based in Syria and Babylon, to the “north” of the Holy Land).
Indeed, the Haydock Commentary notes that after Alexander’s empire
split, “the kingdoms of Egypt and of Syria are more noticed, as they had
much to do with the Jews… Seleucus Nicator, king of Asia and Syria, whose
successors are here called the kings of the north”. This historical
fulfillment in the 2nd century B.C. (culminating in the tyrant Antiochus
IV Epiphanes, a Seleucid “king of the North” who persecuted the Jews and
desecrated the Temple) is a stable interpretation found in Catholic
commentaries for many centuries.
In
contrast, Jehovah’s Witnesses have reinterpreted the “king of the north” and
“king of the south” repeatedly to apply to changing world powers in modern
times. What Daniel intended as a precise prophecy about specific ancient
kingdoms has been turned into a kind of theological chameleon by the
Watchtower, shifting its colors with the geopolitical landscape. In Pay
Attention to Daniel’s Prophecy! (1999), the Witnesses do acknowledge the Seleucid
vs. Ptolemaic struggle for the early portion of Daniel 11. But as soon as
verse 20 and onward, they leap forward in time, claiming the identity of
the kings changes multiple times. At various points in Watchtower teaching over
the past century, the “King of the North” has been interpreted as: the Roman
Empire (for the verses around Daniel 11:20), later imperial Germany
during World War I, then the Axis Powers during World War II, then the Communist
Bloc (Soviet Union) during the Cold War. The “King of the South” has
correspondingly been seen as the opposing power – at times Britain or the
Anglo-American alliance, at other times an entity like Egypt or the
allies. These identifications were altered whenever history rendered a
former interpretation implausible. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses once taught
confidently that the King of the North was the USSR and the King of the South
the Anglo-American world power; but when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,
the 1999 Daniel book candidly admitted “we cannot say” who the King of
the North is now, and that he “has changed identity a number of times
before… Only time will provide answers”. Such an admission highlights the inherent
instability of their approach.
This interpretive chaos is a clear sign of hermeneutical
error. The Watchtower’s method is to read current events into
prophecy (“newspaper exegesis”), treating Daniel 11 like a secret code about
the 20th and 21st centuries. But authentic interpretation respects context
and the sensus fidelium. Daniel’s original readers would have understood
the prophecy as concerning the near-future of their people under Greek
domination. Indeed, the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus IV (167 B.C.) is the
obvious climax of the chapter. The Catholic Church, in her tradition, often
sees Antiochus as a type or foreshadowing of Antichrist, which means
Daniel 11 may also mystically point to persecutions of the Church at the end
of time – but never has the Church taught that every verse
corresponds to a parade of modern political entities like Nazi Germany or the
Soviet Union. By contrast, the Watchtower’s “kings” of north and south have
become a slideshow of world powers: what was Papal Rome in one era of their
teaching became Hitler in another, then Stalin, and now some amorphous question
mark for the future. This inconsistency betrays a purely human attempt to
retrofit prophecy to unfolding events, rather than a divine insight.
Furthermore,
the Watchtower’s shifting interpretations carry a theological irony:
earlier in the 20th century, the Witnesses often identified the King of the
North with the Roman Catholic Church or its political influence (at
times claiming parts of Daniel 11 referred to a Catholic conspiracy or the
papacy). Later they abandoned that and fingered secular powers instead. Such
flip-flops underscore that there is no guiding Holy Spirit behind these
interpretations, only the exigencies of socio-political events pushing the
leadership to revise their commentary. Truth does not change, yet the
Watchtower’s version of prophetic “truth” has changed many times – a hallmark
of unreliable private interpretation. As Scripture says, “meddle not with
those who are given to change”.
By anchoring
Daniel 11 in its historical fulfillment, Catholic exegesis provides a consistent,
coherent understanding. The prophecy marvelously came to pass in the wars
between the Seleucid (north) and Ptolemaic (south) kings, and then (according
to many Fathers and scholars) it shifts to describe the reign of Antiochus
Epiphanes in detail – a cruel tyrant whose desolation of the Temple (Dan
11:31) prefigures the final Antichrist. This reading has remained essentially
the same from St. Jerome’s time through modern Catholic commentaries. We do not
wake up to find that the “King of the North” suddenly “really” means
some contemporary politician. Thus, the Catholic Church’s prophetic
interpretation is stable – rooted in historical fact and consistent
hermeneutics – unlike the Watchtower’s, which changes with the political winds.
This stability flows from the Magisterium’s guidance and the sensus
patrum (mind of the Fathers), who collectively guard against wild
conjectures. The result is that Daniel 11 strengthens our faith in God’s
providence (seeing how accurately it was fulfilled in antiquity and how it
foreshadows the ultimate victory of God’s people), rather than becoming a
speculative guessing game about tomorrow’s newspaper headlines.
“Knowledge
Shall Increase”: Is New Light a License for Doctrinal Flip-Flops?
Toward the
end of Daniel’s book, the angel says: “Seal the book until the time of the
end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” (Dan 12:4).
Jehovah’s Witnesses frequently cite this verse in connection with their
doctrine of “new light” – the notion that God progressively reveals
clearer understanding to their organization, thus justifying changes in
doctrine or interpretation. They argue that as we near the end times, the
fulfillment of “knowledge shall increase” means God is enlightening His
people more than ever before, often using this to excuse why their teachings
in, say, 1925 differ from those in 2025. An ex-Witness recounts how, in
Watchtower studies, “the knowledge” mentioned in Daniel 12:4 was
explicitly equated with “new light,” the idea that “we know more about the
Bible now than ever before”. The Witnesses see it as a Biblical mandate
that doctrinal knowledge will keep getting refined – or in practical terms,
that older understandings can be discarded in favor of newer interpretations
as part of divine illumination.
A Catholic
critique must respond on two levels: biblical context and principle
of doctrine. First, in context, Daniel 12:4 does not mean what the
Watchtower claims. The verse is speaking about the words of the prophecy
being “sealed” until the end – indicating that the full meaning of Daniel’s
visions would not be understood until the events occur or are imminent. “Knowledge
shall increase” likely refers to an increase in understanding of God’s
plans when the prophesied time arrives. Some commentators also see “many
running to and fro” as an image of people diligently searching the
Scriptures, or even an increase in general knowledge in the world. Nowhere does
the text imply a continual revision of doctrines by a central authority.
The Catholic Church, while acknowledging that our understanding of
revelation can deepen over centuries, rejects the idea that essential truths
once taught can later be reversed under the banner of “new light.” Public
revelation was completed with the apostles; what increases is our
insight into that deposit of faith, but never in a way that contradicts or
nullifies prior truth. The Church speaks of development of doctrine (as
Bl. John Henry Newman articulated), which is organic growth consistent with the
seed already planted – not a series of U-turns. By contrast, the
Watchtower’s notion of “new light” has often been used to paper over false
predictions or failed interpretations (1914 being a classic example: when their
expectation of Armageddon that year failed, “new light” was promptly spun to
redefine 1914 as an “invisible” event). This is not an increase in true
knowledge but a coping mechanism for error.
Indeed, an
examination of Watchtower history reveals that “new light” usually shines not
to illuminate previously unknown doctrine, but to correct old mistakes
that the organization had insisted were God’s guidance. The pattern of
frequent doctrinal changes – about the identity of prophetic characters,
the nature of Jesus’ presence, the understanding of “this generation,” and so
on – suggests not divinely guided progress, but human leaders scrambling to
adjust. For example, when their early teaching that Christ’s Second Advent
occurred in 1874 became untenable, “new light” was claimed to push it to 1914;
decades later, further “new light” tweaked the timeline again. Using Daniel
12:4 as a proof-text for such vacillations is a gross misuse of Scripture.
If anything, Daniel’s sealing of the words implies that God, not man,
reveals the meaning at the appointed time – and certainly the true meaning
would not involve repeated wrong guesses. The Watchtower’s 100% failure rate
in predictive prophecy up to now (numerous dates from 1878 to 1975 have come
and gone) is evidence against divine light. Truth guided by God does not
require multiple revisions and about-faces. Proverbs 4:18 (another verse
JWs cite: “the light grows brighter until full day”) indeed describes the path
of the just growing clearer, but it does not imply that light first goes
wrong or dim, which one would have to conclude if “new light” replaces “old
light” that was error. As one former Witness wryly observed, “new Light”
in Watchtower usage often functions as a euphemism for overturning
yesterday’s teaching – something fundamentally at odds with an unchanging
God of truth.
From the Catholic
vantage point, doctrinal development is cautious, anchored to the past. The
Magisterium, guided by the Holy Spirit, guards the deposit of faith so
that any development is harmonious. When controversies arise, the Church looks
back to Scripture, apostolic Tradition, and earlier magisterial statements to
ensure continuity. An authentic “increase of knowledge” (Dan 12:4) in the
Church might be seen in, say, the deepening understanding of Christ’s two
natures in the early councils, or the clarification of Marian doctrine – never
a wholesale reversal of what was taught. In contrast, the Watchtower’s “light”
has often behaved like a flickering lantern on a stormy night, swinging this
way and that. For instance, the identity of the “Superior Authorities” in
Romans 13:1 was taught as secular governments, then changed to God and Christ
(for decades), then changed back to secular authorities – all under claimed new
light. Such instability would be unthinkable in Catholic teaching, where even
non-infallible teachings are treated with reverence and not casually discarded.
Daniel 12:4 was never meant as a get-out-of-jail-free card for false
prophecy. Increasing knowledge should mean we come to more deeply
appreciate the truth once delivered, not continuously rewrite it. In the
Catholic view, the Watchtower’s appeal to “new light” is an attempt to sanctify
doctrinal chaos with a biblical-sounding rationale – but it fails, because God
is not the author of confusion (1 Cor 14:33).
Reading
Themselves into Scripture: Watchtower Eisegesis in Daniel’s Visions
One
striking feature of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Daniel commentary is how nearly
every vision or prophecy is applied to the modern history of the Watchtower
Society itself. Rather than seeing the Book of Daniel as centered on Christ
and the broader sweep of salvation history, the Witnesses interpret it as a
secret allegory about the rise of their own organization in the 19th and
20th centuries. This is a classic case of eisegesis – reading one’s own
story into the text. The Witnesses are far from alone in this tendency
(many sectarian groups have fancied themselves the fulfillment of Scripture),
but the extent to which they do this in Daniel is extraordinary and calls for
critical examination.
For
example, the Watchtower teaches that the “holy ones” persecuted by the
little horn (Daniel 7:25) represent the Bible Students (early Jehovah’s
Witnesses) who were allegedly oppressed during World War I, and that this
culminated in 1918 when their leaders were imprisoned by American authorities.
They go on to claim that Daniel’s prophecy of “a time, times, and half a
time” (3½ times = 1260 days) in that context was fulfilled literally in
the 1,260 days from late 1914 to early 1918, during which the preaching
work was impeded. In fact, Watchtower publications have boldly tied Daniel’s
days to specific dates: one book stated that the 1,260 days began November
7, 1914 and ended May 7, 1918, “when all the officers of the Watch
Tower Society…were arrested”. They similarly interpret the 1,290 days
and 1,335 days mentioned in Daniel 12:11-12 as literal periods in the
early 20th century, relating to events like their 1919 conventions and
organizational developments. The 1999 Daniel’s Prophecy book even
suggests that Daniel foresaw the exact years of certain Watchtower magazine
articles and assemblies in the 1920s! In the opening chapter, they
unabashedly ask the reader to see their own modern religious history in
Daniel’s writings. As one critic observed, “the organization sees those
prophecies as fulfilled in itself” – hence the wry remark that the chapter
titled “The Book of Daniel and You” would be more honest as “The Book of Daniel
and Us.”
This
approach amounts to a grandiose self-insertion into the Biblical
narrative. It is reminiscent of how certain extreme sect leaders (to give a
dramatic example, David Koresh with the Seven Seals) claimed that Scripture
spoke directly about their actions. While Jehovah’s Witnesses do not claim
their leaders are themselves written into Daniel by name, they come
close: they teach that Daniel foresaw the Watchtower Society’s Board of
Directors being jailed in 1918 and released in 1919, that he foresaw their
international conventions, and even that various beasts and horns in Daniel
symbolize conventions, proclamations, or organizational milestones of
the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Such claims find no support outside Watchtower
publications – no reputable biblical scholar (Catholic, Orthodox, or
Protestant) finds Rutherford’s 1919 convention or a 1931 Watchtower article in
the Book of Daniel! It is biblically unfalsifiable only because the
interpretation is so subjective. If one already believes the Watchtower is
God’s sole channel, one might accept these correlations; but to any objective
reader, they appear as arbitrary connections driven by confirmation bias.
Consider an
example from the Watchtower’s interpretive timeline-spinning: They
taught that the “2300 evenings and mornings” (2300 days) in Daniel 8:14
corresponded to a period from 1938 to 1944 during which the Watchtower
organization was “trampled” but then restored (“the sanctuary brought into its
right condition”) – supposedly fulfilled when Jehovah’s Witnesses reorganized
and experienced renewal after WWII. Yet previously, in the 1920s, they applied
the same 2300 days to a different time frame. It’s as if these prophetic
numbers are a lump of clay to be molded into whatever timeframe fits the
Society’s narrative of persecution and vindication. None of this is derived
from the text itself, which in context is speaking about the desecration of
the Jewish Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes and its reconsecration by the
Maccabees. Catholic commentators like Cornelius a Lapide, Bishop Challoner,
or modern scholars see in that verse a prophecy of the Maccabean period
(roughly 2300 days the Temple sacrifices ceased under Antiochus). The Witnesses,
however, lift it out of context and apply it to themselves – ignoring that
Daniel 8 clearly refers to the Greek king (the “small horn”) arising from the
breakup of Alexander’s empire (Dan 8:8-9, 21-25).
What drives
this interpretive pattern? Fundamentally, the Watchtower leaders have long
inculcated the belief that the Bible is an encoded map of Jehovah’s
Witnesses’ own divine mandate. They see their organization foreshadowed in
Scripture much as Christians see the coming of Christ foreshadowed. This stems
from a kind of theological narcissism – a conviction that God’s grand
plan from ages past was really about us, in our day. It is not
unique to JWs (we’ve seen similar attitudes in various sectarian movements
through history), but it is strongly pronounced in their literature. They
effectively place their organization at the center of eschatology: the
“holy ones” are their members, the “constant feature” (daily sacrifice) is
their preaching, the oppressors are governments that banned them, the
deliverance is the freeing of their president from prison, and the final
triumph will be their vindication at Armageddon. Missing in this picture is
Jesus Christ as the central figure – His Church, His sacraments, and the
universal story of salvation take a back seat to an almost bureaucratic
chronicle of Watchtower activities.
From a
Catholic standpoint, this is a tragic distortion. Daniel’s prophecies
ultimately point to the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of an
everlasting Kingdom of God (Dan 7:13-14, Dan 2:44, Dan 9:25-27).
Traditional Catholic exegesis sees Christ and His Church as the fulfillment of
the hopes in Daniel: for instance, the stone that becomes a great mountain (Dan
2) is interpreted as Christ’s Kingdom which is the Catholic Church,
growing to fill the earth. The “Son of Man” who receives dominion (Dan 7) is
our Lord Jesus, and by extension His saints who reign with Him – not a
corporation in New York. The trials of the Maccabean era (Daniel 8 and 11)
are seen as foreshadowing the trials of the Church under Antichrist, not as
foreshadowing legal troubles for a sect. The focus is the cosmic battle between
God’s kingdom and the powers of evil, centered on Christ’s victory.
Watchtower interpretation shrinks these majestic prophecies to parochial
proportions, making them about convention attendance figures and legal
victories in the 20th century. It would be as if one claimed the Acts of the
Apostles was secretly foretelling the founding of a 19th-century religious
publishing company – an absurd diminution.
Moreover,
this egocentric interpretation is dangerously self-validating. By
claiming the Bible itself prophesied the rise of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the
organization reinforces its followers’ belief that it is indispensable and
divinely guided. After all, if even Daniel spoke about our leaders, who would
dare leave “God’s organization”? It puts the Watchtower beyond critique –
because any failing or change can be spun as part of the prophetic story (“see,
Daniel foretold we’d have a period of refinement”). This circular reasoning
is the opposite of how the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church discerns
truth. The Catholic Church does not need to find vague references to popes or
councils in Scripture to prove its legitimacy; its legitimacy comes from
apostolic succession, fidelity to Christ’s teaching, and the witness of the
Holy Spirit through the ages. By their fruits you shall know them – not by
tortuous allegorical self-portraits in Scripture.
In summary,
the Watchtower’s application of Daniel’s visions to itself is a prime example
of private interpretation run amok. It lacks support from external
critical scholarship (which universally identifies Daniel’s prophecies with
either historical events of antiquity or the person of Christ and the
eschatological future, but not the history of any modern sect). Even
some fair-minded Protestants have criticized the Society for reading everything
as “prophecy about Jehovah’s Witnesses”, calling it a form of spiritual
pride. A healthy approach to Daniel recognizes God’s sovereignty and
faithfulness to all His people through time – culminating in Jesus –
rather than funneling everything into one narrow channel. The Catholic
Church’s reading of Daniel is God-centric and Christ-centric: it draws
moral lessons (e.g. Daniel in the lion’s den prefiguring perseverance in
faith), it upholds God’s providence in history (the rise and fall of empires
before Christ’s advent), and it looks ahead to the ultimate fulfillment in Christ’s
Second Coming and the resurrection (Dan 12). It does not reduce
Daniel to an encrypted yearbook of an organization. Thus, Catholics rightly
label the Watchtower’s Daniel commentary as eisegesis, foreign to the
text and foreign to how Christians have always understood Scripture.
Tradition
vs. Novelty: The Reliability of Catholic Exegesis
Having
scrutinized the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ eschatological interpretations in Daniel,
we find a common thread: novelty and instability. Dates that don’t align
with history, prophetic identities that shift with the times, doctrines that
reverse course and an insistence that an ancient Jewish prophet was forecasting
their relatively recent movement – all these are hallmarks of an interpretive
tradition that began in the late 19th century and has been in flux ever
since. Against this stands the weight of Catholic tradition, almost two
millennia of consistent scriptural interpretation guided by the Holy Spirit
through the Church. We maintain that truth is not reinvented in each era,
but handed down (in Latin, traditio, “handing on”) faithfully, even as
our comprehension deepens. The Catholic approach to Daniel exemplifies this
fidelity. It hews closely to the insights of the Church Fathers like St. Jerome
(who wrote one of the first extensive commentaries on Daniel), and it stands
the test of time.
One might
ask, why does this matter? It matters because Jesus founded a Church, endowed
with teaching authority (Magisterium), to “make disciples of all
nations… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt
28:19-20). This Church, led by the successors of Peter and the Apostles, has
the charism to safeguard the deposit of faith. So when the Catholic
Church interprets prophecy, it does so with a profound sense of responsibility
and continuity. The “prophetic word” is not of private interpretation (2
Peter 1:20) – and Catholic exegesis embodies that principle, avoiding
idiosyncratic readings. In Catholic tradition, Daniel is a beloved book that
affirms God’s lordship over history and gives comfort that despite tribulations
(whether under Antiochus, Nero, or the Antichrist to come), God’s kingdom
prevails. There is a remarkable consistency in how Church teachers have
understood Daniel’s major prophecies:
- The four beasts of Daniel 7 are
almost universally taught to be the four great empires of antiquity
(Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome), with the fourth beast (Rome)
giving way to the kingdom of the Messiah – a kingdom “not made by human
hands” (Dan 2:45) which Catholics recognize as Christ’s eternal
Kingdom, inaugurated in the Church. This interpretation goes back to
antiquity and is echoed in the Haydock Commentary, which draws on
patristic sources. The Watchtower, notably, also teaches four empires but
then inserts a twist that this prophecy continues beyond Rome into
Anglo-America and the United Nations – concepts entirely foreign to any
earlier Christian exegesis.
- Daniel 9’s famous prophecy of
the “Seventy Weeks” has been consistently understood by Catholics
as a prophecy of the coming of Christ the Redeemer. The Angel
Gabriel essentially gives Daniel a timetable pointing to the arrival of
the Messiah and the atonement (Dan 9:24-27). Every Catholic commentary
from the Douay-Rheims footnotes to modern Catholic scholars sees the
fulfillment in Jesus Christ’s ministry, death, and the New Covenant. The
Jehovah’s Witnesses, however, divert even this Christ-centered prophecy to
make it fit their 1914 chronology (they start the 70 weeks in 455 B.C. to
land at 36 C.E., and weave it into their narrative of when “anointing” of
Christians ended – missing the rich Messianic import that the whole
Christian world rejoices in). In defending the traditional interpretation,
we uphold that “to him [Christ] all the prophets bear witness”
(Acts 10:43) – Daniel is no exception.
- The Catholic Church doesn’t shy
away from saying some parts of Daniel remain mysterious or point to the
end times in a way we shouldn’t speculate about rashly. Daniel 12, for
instance, speaks of the resurrection of the dead (Dan 12:2) and a time of
great trouble. The Church teaches this will have ultimate fulfillment in
the future consummation of the age, under God’s providence. But what the
Church does not do is say, “Perhaps this refers to our church
president’s speech next year.” There is a reverence and sobriety in
the Catholic handling of prophecy – fulfilling the angel’s instruction to
Daniel to seal the words. Contrast this with the Watchtower’s dogmatic,
and often erroneous, attempts to pinpoint every last detail. The
result? The Watchtower has had to “un-seal” and re-“seal” their
explanations repeatedly, whereas the Catholic understanding, once
articulated, doesn’t need backpedaling. It is built to last, because it
wasn’t concocted to serve a transient agenda.
It is also
important to highlight the theological soundness of the Catholic
approach versus the theological pitfalls of the Watchtower’s approach. The
Witnesses, by focusing Daniel on themselves, foster a kind of organizational
messianism – the notion that loyalty to God is essentially loyalty to an
earthly organization that claims a monopoly on truth. Catholic interpretation,
grounded in Tradition, always directs the focus back to God’s action in
history and the person of Jesus Christ. Even when Catholic
commentators identify, say, the little horn of Daniel 7 with a persecuting
power, they usually see it as a symbol of all anti-Christian persecution
and ultimately of Antichrist. And who overcomes? Christ the King, whose
dominion is given him by the Ancient of Days. The Catholic Church sees herself
as the humble recipient of that kingdom (the “people of the saints of the Most
High” who receive the kingdom in Dan 7:27), not the object of worship or the
secret key to prophecy. The Watchtower, however, effectively teaches that salvation
history stalled after the apostolic age and resumed in the late 19th
century with C.T. Russell and his Bible Students, which is why they think
Daniel would leap over the Church age and speak directly about them. This is a
profoundly unbiblical notion – it ignores Christ’s promise to be with His
Church always and the continuous operation of the Holy Spirit throughout the
Christian era. It’s as if they believe the lamp of true religion was snuffed
out until their founders rekindled it. Catholic apologetics strongly refutes
that idea: the Church’s survival and consistent teaching through centuries
is itself a living miracle, a fulfillment of Christ’s words that “the
gates of hell shall not prevail” (Matt 16:18). Therefore we do not need a “new”
interpretation of Daniel that skips over the first 18 centuries of
Christianity.
Finally, to
bolster the credibility of the traditional exegesis, we can even turn to
neutral historical scholarship. Secular and religious historians alike note
that Jehovah’s Witnesses’ interpretations have had to be revised due to
failed predictions, undermining their claim to a unique channel of insight.
On the other hand, one might note that Catholic interpreters, by largely
sticking to time-tested understandings, have not needed to revise their
commentaries in embarrassment. The Haydock Bible Commentary from the
19th century reads just as sound and relevant today regarding Daniel as it did
then, because it wasn’t predicated on guessing a date for Armageddon or
identifying the King of the North as a current political regime. Its
explanations draw from ancient sources and consistent logic. It carried the
same identifications of Daniel’s symbols (the four empires, Antiochus as a
figure of Antichrist, etc.) that you will find essentially echoed in the latest
Catholic Study Bible. Truth doesn’t expire. As the Psalmist says,
“Thy word is true from the beginning”. This stability is a powerful
witness in itself. It is not that Catholic scholars cannot discover anything
new – they can uncover nuances and historically contextual details – but they
do so within the framework of the Church’s consistent teaching. The
Watchtower’s interpretations, by contrast, read like a chronicle of self-correction:
each decade brings a new tweak. Such an approach would cast doubt on any
secular theory, let alone a religious teaching claiming God’s guidance.
In
conclusion, a Catholic
assessment of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ eschatological reading of Daniel finds
it wanting on multiple counts: historically inaccurate, exegetically fanciful,
hermeneutically inconsistent, and theologically myopic. The Catholic Church
offers a saner, holier alternative: an interpretation rooted in the living
Tradition that gave us the Bible in the first place, illumined by the
collective wisdom of saints and scholars through the ages, and verified by
continuity and sound fruits. Daniel’s prophecies are indeed fascinating and
faith-strengthening – when read in union with the Church, they reinforce our
trust in God’s sovereignty and point us to Jesus Christ, the true center of
all prophecy. The Watchtower’s approach, however, turns Daniel into a
grab-bag of apocalyptic code to elevate their sectarian narrative. As
Catholics, we can confidently challenge those claims, armed with Scripture
(properly understood) and history. We invite Jehovah’s Witnesses to step back
from the intricate web of 607s and 1914s and shifting “kings,” and to see the
bigger picture of God’s plan – a plan that far predates Charles Taze Russell
and is securely grounded in the Church Christ established. In that Church, the
Book of Daniel finds its authentic home: not as an organizational blueprint,
but as a prophetic testament to God’s unchanging lordship over history
and the promise of the Messiah, fulfilled in Jesus and operative in His Church
until the end of time.
