The End Back Then, Part 4: Jesus' Return

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Background
We are tracing through the verses where Jesus described the events leading up to the end of the world. First He warned His disciples of upcoming false Messiahs, wars, and disasters. Then He explained that they would become witnesses to the world. He then went on to describe the ultimate in distress which would occur in the Siege of Jerusalem; horror which would never be equaled again. All of that terror would culminate in the return of Jesus...

This is Part 4 of a five part series entitled "The End Back Then." The series entries are:

• Part 1: Rumors of Wars
• Part 2: Worldwide Witness
• Part 3: Temple Tragedy
• Part 4: Jesus' Return
• Part 5: Be Ready

The End Back Then, Part 4: Jesus' Return

It would be impossible to mistake the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, right? I mean, that would be a major event worldwide... no, universe-wide! One way to mistake it would be to misinterpret metaphors; to change what the text means in order to suit your own beliefs. While some may accuse me of doing just that, I think we should turn to the text and let it define itself. And if that does not match reality, that does not necessarily mean that the interpretation is wrong. There is another possible outcome, as we will see while we examine the signs of Jesus' Second Coming.

In Matthew 24:23-31, Mark 13:21-27, Luke 17:22-24, and Luke 21:25-28 we find verses all describing when Jesus will return. Matthew 24:23, which is nearly a word-for-word copy of Mark 13:21, begins with a reference to timing:

"At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it." NIV

"At that time"? When was that? This is conjoined to the preceding text, where it was describing the Siege of Jerusalem, so we should logically conclude that this means at a point in time in relatively close proximity to then.

Matthew 24:24-25 and Mark 13:22-23 go on to warn not to follow miracle-working false Christs who will try to trick the Elect, which is impossible, but they will try anyway. Of course, if tricking the Elect is impossible, then why bother warning them not to follow these miracle workers?

Wait just a minute. Miracle-working false Christs? Who, exactly, is giving them the power to work miracles?

The knee-jerk Christian reflex would be to say that it is Satan who is behind this, but that is just because most Christians either do not know or selectively ignore parts of the Bible. The deceivers likely come from God Himself.

What?!?! Oh yes. First, from where does all power ultimately come? God. But if that is not enough proof, I should remind you that tests of deception, up to and including miracle-working prophets, are part of God's playbook (Deuteronomy 13:1-5). So when you read in 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11 that "God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie," you know what we are talking about here.

Now you may have noticed that I have been silent on Luke's account. There is a reason for that. While Luke does warn of being led to false Christs, he wisely edited out the thought that they would be able to work miracles (Luke 17:23). That is not all the editing he did. Luke apparently was not a fan of the concept of the Elect, because he edited out that reference from his Gospel; both here and everywhere else!

Moving on, we hit one of those really odd patches of verses where Matthew and Luke both have content that Mark does not have. In Matthew 24:27-28, Jesus told His disciples that His return would be visible all over the world like a flash of lightning, and that vultures gather around corpses. I am not really sure what that last part about the vultures is supposed to mean, and I am not particularly satisfied by any of the explanations given in the classic commentaries. However, Luke takes a crack at it for us.

In Luke 17:24, Jesus also explained about His lightning-like visibility on His return. Then, a little later in Luke 17:37, we find a similar vulture-related comment. Luke 17:35-36 does provide some contextual meaning for these vultures, because in those verses Jesus explained that when He returned, certain people would be "taken." So when we get to Luke 17:37, a disciple asked "Where?," as in where will these people be taken? It is then that Jesus replied about vultures gathering around corpses, which still leaves the verse a bit open for interpretation despite Luke's added context, because, for example, we do not know if it is the good people or the bad people who are "taken". The idea of the gathering of the Elect (which we will see a little later) would suggest it is the good ones who are taken, but then, metaphorically, they are the vultures gathering around the corpse, which seems exceedingly odd.

Next we come to the shared sentiment of Matthew 24:29 and Mark 13:24-25:

"Immediately after the distress of those days
  'the sun will be darkened,
    and the moon will not give its light;
  the stars will fall from the sky,
    and the Heavenly bodies will be shaken.'" NIV

Note the time frame again: immediately following those days, referring to the Siege of Jerusalem. Immediately is a relative term, for sure, and within the span of five or so years could be a reasonable interpretation, but two thousand years... not so much.

Besides the timing, what does the rest of that verse mean? Sun darkened? Moon not giving its light? (That, by the way, is another tell of bad Biblical science, given that the moon does not produce light of its own.) Stars falling? Heavens shaking? Sounds like some miraculous metaphysical manipulation! While this could be meant literally, like the Plague of Darkness on the Egyptians, this is most likely to be metaphorical, but what does the metaphor mean?

Classic Bible commenter John Gill suggests that the darkened sun refers to "...the Shekinah, or the divine presence in the temple...", i.e. God leaving the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and the darkened moon refers to "...the [Jewish] ceremonial law, the moon, the church is said to have under her feet, Revelation 12:1 so called because the observance of new moons was one part of it..." The problem is that Jesus already took care of this. God left the Temple when the curtain was torn (Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38, Luke 23:45), and Jesus allegedly ended ceremonial law too. So that is a nice try, but let us let Scripture guide the interpretation instead.

In Isaiah 5:30, Isaiah 13:10, Ezekiel 32:7, Joel 2:10, Joel 2:31, Joel 3:15, Amos 8:9, and Micah 3:6 you find similar references to these celestial signs. In fact, let us take a look at Ezekiel 32:7 for example:

"When I (God) snuff you (Egypt) out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light." NIV

Given that this language is applied to Egypt, we can know with some certainty that this is no allusion to God leaving the Temple or the end of Jewish ceremonial law. ;-) However, what you probably picked up on in this verse is God's judgement of condemnation.

Darkening the sun, the moon, and the stars is a metaphor which is connected with God's judgement, and it means that essentially that the subjects of this judgement are without hope. There is no sun to light their path by day. There is no moon to track the months to tell the seasons. There are no stars to guide them. In short: at that point, there is no way that they can escape their judgement.

You may have noticed the multiple references above in Joel. Take a quick read through Joel 2 and you will see that this metaphor here in the Gospels was most likely meant as a reference to the Judgement Day.

Continuing on, Matthew 24:30 and Luke 21:27-28 both share the sentiment of what Mark 13:26 concisely expressed:

"At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory." NIV

Again we see that this is to occur at "that time." By Biblical prophesy standards, all of these time references are pretty darn precise, and all point to the time around the Siege of Jerusalem and the time soon thereafter.

Now, what does that phrase "see the Son of Man coming in clouds" mean? Well, our friend John Gill thinks that it is a metaphor; that "...he (Jesus) shall appear, not in person, but in the power of his wrath and vengeance, on the Jewish nation which will be a full sign and proof of his being come." Indeed, there are other verses where God's vengeance came with clouds, such as Isaiah 19:1, Isaiah 30:27, Lamentations 2:1, and the above-quoted Ezekiel 32:7.

So Gill's suggestion on this verse is reasonable and closer to the mark, but he is still way off target. God's vengeance would be displayed, but in the much larger context Judgement day. The verse itself was likely inspired by and intended to allude to Daniel 7:13-14:

"In my (Daniel's) vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed." NIV

Does that sound like anyone we are supposed to know? ;-) Conveniently for us, this prophesy is explicitly explained in Daniel 7:23-27, with another reference to 3.5 years ("a time, times and half a time") like we saw in my earlier post on the Temple destruction which quoted a different prophesy from Daniel. Daniel's prophesy stated that at the end of this three and a half years there would be a swift act of judgement, and then God's eternal kingdom would be established!

Make no mistake. What Jesus allegedly prophesied here is the end of the world, and the timing was explicitly claimed to be shortly after the fall of the Temple. In fact, stepping up to the earlier verse with the celestial signs, there is the curious mention that the stars would fall from the heavens. There is only one Old Testament reference to stars actually falling: Isaiah 34:4. Isaiah 34 is a prophesy of judgement against all nations. This was an explicit reference to Jesus coming back, in person (Revelation 1:7), initiating the final Judgement Day.

Closing out this prophesy, that is why in Matthew 24:31 and Mark 13:27 you see that at that time Jesus would send forth angels to gather the Elect from the four winds (another bad Biblical science reference). The Elect would be saved from experiencing the intense tribulation of that dreadful day. This is but an echo of prior Old Testament prophesies, as we see in Ezekiel 34:12:

"As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I (God) look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness." NIV

The End Back Then, Part 3: Temple Tragedy

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Background
Jesus told the disciples who had been impressed by the Temple in Jerusalem that it would be utterly destroyed. Shocked, the disciples soon asked Jesus when that would happen, when would He return, and when would be the end of the world. Jesus replied in somewhat vague, but lengthy detail. First He warned them of upcoming false Messiahs, wars, and disasters. Then He told them how they would become witnesses to the world. The worst was yet to come...

This is Part 3 of a five part series entitled "The End Back Then." The series entries are:

• Part 1: Rumors of Wars
• Part 2: Worldwide Witness
• Part 3: Temple Tragedy
• Part 4: Jesus' Return
• Part 5: Be Ready

The End Back Then, Part 3: Temple Tragedy

Never again. Powerful, defiant words. They are a steadfast resolution and a promise of a better future. If spoken by God, they should have even more significance, because we know that God would never go back on His word. Ironically, that is how we know Jesus' words to be false, as we will see in this study.

In the sections of Matthew 24:15-21, Mark 13:14-19, and Luke 21:20-24 we find Jesus' "prophetic" words regarding the Siege of Jerusalem which would occur 70 CE. However, this was allegedly not prophesied by Jesus originally, as Mark 13:14 infers and Matthew 24:15 directly alludes to like so:

"So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— " NIV

An abomination that causes desolation? Mentioned by Daniel? What is that about? I went into this particular prophesy of Daniel's in detail in an earlier post, so check that out if you want a bigger picture, but let me give you a quick breakdown here of the esoteric prophesy to "let the reader understand":

This is a reference to Daniel 9, and particularly the prophesy contained in Daniel 9:24-27, which is known as the Prophesy of Seventy Weeks. The "weeks" are normally interpreted as groups of seven years, so we are referring to a prophesy of 490 years here. At the end of this time, sins would be atoned for and there would be everlasting righteousness.

Most of the exciting stuff in the prophesy occurs in the final "week," and that is precisely the time period Jesus referred to here. In those final seven years:

• The anointed Jewish ruler will be cut off, replaced by a foreign ruler (or at least a non-anointed ruler)
• That foreign ruler will rule for seven years
• That foreign ruler will make promises to many
• That foreign ruler will put an end to sacrifices and offerings in 3.5 years
• That foreign ruler will set up an "abomination which causes desolation" in the Temple which will remain there until the ruler's preordained end.
• Jerusalem and the Temple will be destroyed at some point by this foreign ruler's people
• At the end of this seven-year rule, God will make atonement for the Jewish people, put an end to sin, and establish everlasting righteousness.

Cognitive bias being the issue it is, most Christians focus on the foreign ruler (the Romans), the stopping of sacrifices (Jesus rendering sacrifices unnecessary), the promise with many (Jesus new covenant), the atonement for sins (Jesus' sacrifice), and the Temple's destruction by a foreign army (Romans, 70 CE) and think that this is a miraculously accurate prophesy.

And it does seem that way... if you ignore some very important details, such as the fairly major points that Roman dominion lasted far longer than seven years, that the Jewish sins would have been atoned for way back when Jesus died, and that there has yet to be any end of sin, or the start of everlasting righteousness for that matter, in roughly 2000 years afterward. :-)

As for what the "abomination which causes desolation" means, and what this "prophesy" is actually referring to, it probably has much more to do with what occurred under the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175 to 164 BCE) which lead to the Maccabean Revolt. In fact, in the Catholic canonical Bible book of 1 Maccabees, verse 54 explicitly refers to such an abomination:

Now the fifteenth day of the month Casleu, in the hundred forty and fifth year, they set up the abomination of desolation upon the altar, and builded idol altars throughout the cities of Judea on every side; KJV

Of course, that episode did not end with eternal righteousness either, but even a cursory glance over that history reveals a much better match with Daniel's prophesy overall than the siege in 70 CE.

Anyway, the rest of Matthew 24:15-21, Mark 13:14-19, and Luke 21:20-24 primarily describes just how boot-shakingly terrifying this time period will be, such that you are better off just fleeing the area without worrying about gathering up your prized possessions. Then, in Mark 13:19 we find an incredible statement, which is echoed more succinctly by Matthew 24:21:

"For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again." NIV

Did you catch that? This was going to be the absolutely most distressing event to ever occur! The Flood of Noah? The plagues on Egypt prior to the Exodus? Pssh. They were to be merely children's nightmares compared to the real distress of that time. Furthermore, and most importantly, Jesus said that the distress of that period would never be equaled again! So all of the horrific events prophesied in Revelation could not possibly take place unless it has already take place back during the siege of Jerusalem, because the terrors described therein from chapters 6-20 would undoubtedly cause not only equal, but outright greater distress than what happened during that siege.

From this, we can discern either that Scriptures, including Jesus' own alleged words, are wrong, or that God is a liar. Given that I am fairly certain that this God does not exist, I suspect the former option is the right one, but either one is not good for Christianity.

Just in case you think I am misunderstanding the scope of distress here, we should check out the next verse. Matthew 24:22 says essentially the same thing that we see in Mark 13:20:

"If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the Elect, whom He has chosen, He has shortened them." NIV

No one would survive! God would not even be able to keep His Elect alive! That is a time of some serious tribulation!

Curiously, Luke, "the editor" as I like to call him, wisely redacted this sentiment. Not only that, but if you really compare Luke 21:20-24 to Matthew 24:15-21 and Mark 13:14-19, you see that that is not the only important change Luke made. He also recast this event as "the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written." So this was to be a judgement day of sorts, where God unleashed His wrath on the Jews, but only on the Jews. This was not to be the Judgement Day. The fact that Luke could differentiate the Siege of Jerusalem from the real "end" suggests that Luke was writing his Gospel at some considerable amount of time after the siege and Temple destruction took place.

In contrast, the lack of discernment on this matter in Matthew and Mark suggests rather that they were written much closer to the time of the Siege. However, Matthew has not proven himself to be much of an editor in his Gospel, so he may have written it much later like Luke, but, like a high-school cheater, got caught copying the wrong answer off of Mark who was "sitting next to him," so to speak.

The Signs of the Times

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Background
After rebuking some Pharisees and contradicting God's Law, Jesus took a side trip to the region of Tyre and Sidon. There, He reluctantly healed a woman's demon-possessed daughter after He called her, and her people, dogs. Soon Jesus left that region to go back to Galilee, where He fed 4000 with seven loaves of bread and few small fish.

The Signs of the Times

To a large extent for us today, Biblical veracity comes down to prophesy. None of us were around to witness Jesus, and many of us lack the "feeling" of the presence of God, or the feeling we had once felt no longer exists. The only evidence which should be incontrovertible is prophesy. If words written long prior to Jesus accurately reflected His life and times, then faith can be renewed and even the most bull-headed skeptic must bow in contrition (at least if they are honest). Unfortunately, that is not what we find, such as we will see in this study.

Mark is theorized to be the earliest Gospel, and Mark 8:11-13 is a good example of why. There, the Pharisees test Jesus, asking Him for a sign, to which He tells them no sign will be given to this generation. Of course that is dead wrong based on the Biblical accounts of Jesus working many miraculous signs, but at least Mark's message is simple and short.

Matthew 16:1-4 records the same confrontation, but Matthew added the Sadducees to the group, and said that only one sign would be given; the oh-so-problematic sign of Jonah. But Matthew did not stop there. Proving himself to be somewhat of an aggregator of knowledge, Matthew spliced in a condemnation of the Pharisees and Sadducees; that they could interpret the weather yet could not interpret the signs of the times.

Luke does not exactly cover this episode, but Luke does contain Matthew's same condemnation about knowing the weather yet not knowing the signs of the times. If we remember from a previous study, it appeared as though Luke had edited the "sign of Jonah" the first time Matthew had mentioned it. It may be that Luke edited this anecdote as well due to the reference to the "sign of Jonah" again, and so we see in Luke 12:54-56 that he skipped the Pharisees' request for a sign and instead directed the condemnation at the crowds following Jesus:

He said to the crowd: "When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, 'It's going to rain,' and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, 'It's going to be hot,' and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don't know how to interpret this present time?" NIV

Wrap your head around this: Jesus, speaking to a highly illiterate crowd (literacy rates were well below 10% back then), calls these people hypocrites for knowing how to interpret the weather signs (which they would have encountered every day of their lives) but not knowing how to "interpret this present time" (which is an implied reference to prophesies in the Scriptures). These people had to rely on the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes to tell them what was in the Scriptures and to inform them what were the prophesied signs, if any, occurring in their times, but here we see Jesus berating them for not knowing something which they were obviously not taught. Luke made a major blunder here.

Now, we are in the meat of the text! I hope you are hungry, because there is a 24 ounce (0.68 kilogram) porterhouse steak of prophesy coming your way!

Going back to Matthew's version, where instead Jesus focuses His attack more rightfully on the Pharisees and Sadducees, it appears that Jesus had expected them to realize "the signs of the times," which implies a connection to prophesies not only about Jesus, but about the events which were then occurring at that time.

So which prophesies might this implied reference refer to? John Gill, one of the great Christian Bible scholars, suggested these signs in his exposition on this verse:

"the ending of Daniel's weeks, the various miracles wrought by Christ, the wickedness of the age in which they lived, the ministry of John the Baptist, and of Christ, the great flockings of the people, both to one and to the other, with divers other things which were easy to be observed by them"

Working from the end to the beginning, we have already discussed the inaccuracies in the prophesies of people flocking to Jesus, some of the issues with Jesus' ministry, and the issues with John the Baptist leading and preparing the way and representing the foretold reappearance of Elijah. The charge that the times were wicked enough to warrant being a sign is the essence of subjectivity. The recorded miracles of Jesus, such as the feeding of the 5000 and walking on water, have proven to be highly questionable. That brings us to "Daniel's weeks."

The reference to "Daniel's weeks" comes from a prophesy in Daniel 9. The big picture is in Daniel 9:24:

"Seventy 'sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy." NIV

The word for "sevens" is literally the word for weeks, but the content which follows makes literal weeks an obviously wrong translation. Another interpretation of "sevens" is years, making this a prophesy about 70 years, but given the lack of everlasting righteousness being established so soon after the building of the Second Temple, this interpretation seems wrong. So in this case, the context makes it reasonably clear that these weeks are actually sets of seven years according to the day-year interpretation. All of these things are supposed to be accomplished by the end of seventy sevens, or 490 years.

The phrase "to put an end to sin" is literally just that, and is applied specifically to the Jews as the phrase "for your people" establishes. How can we be certain? Minus the "weeks" timeline, this concept is echoed in other prophesies, such as Ezekiel 36:24-36 and Ezekiel 37:21-28. These prophesies state that the Jews (Israelites) will never sin again after some certain point of time, among other things.

The phrase "to anoint the most holy" sure appears to be a reference to Jesus, right? There are a couple problems with that interpretation. The first is semantics based, because "most holy" comes from a pair of Hebrew words which refer to a holy place or a thing, more like a temple, a sanctuary, or even the city of Jerusalem itself, than a god-man. The word "place" should come after "most holy." Coincidentally, this couples well to the coming Third Temple which was prophesied in Ezekiel 40-46. The second problem is even bigger...timing.

The Times
Daniel 9:25 tells us specifically that the starting time of the 490 years began from when the decree was given to rebuild Jerusalem. The Persian leader Cyrus the Great made that decree. Being extra generous, we will use the date in which the Second Temple of Jerusalem was completed, 516 BCE, although the decree was probably around twenty years before that.

So add 490 years to 516 BCE and you get 26 BC, that "BC" stands for "Before Christ" in Christian lingo. According to Daniel's prophesy, it was before Jesus that transgressions and sins would end, atonement would be made, and there would be everlasting righteousness. This is an epic prophesy failure.

These dates come from secular historians, but Jewish history states that the decree to build Jerusalem came much later, around 370 BCE, and vehemently maintain that the Second Temple stood for 420 years. Add 490 years to that and you get 120 CE. If you subtract seven years, 113 CE is when a foreign power conquered Israel. And since 120 CE, the Jews have never sinned and have had everlasting righteousness. Wait, that is not right either. Is this the actual prophesy failure?

No. Strangely enough, Jewish scholars, apparently contradicting their own Scriptures, suggest that the timeline instead begins with the destruction of the First Temple, and that Cyrus the Great was the anointed leader to come after 49 years. This trick aligns that fateful last seven years of prophesy with the start of the reign of the tyrannical High Priest Alexander Yannai (103 BCE). The problem is that Yannai's reign lasted twenty seven years, not seven, and we are again lacking an everlasting righteousness.

You might think that with all of these mixed up dates, Biblical scholars would shy away from associating this prophesy with Jesus, but they cannot do that, given that Jesus Himself referenced this specific prophesy in Matthew 24:15-20, Mark 13:14-18, and (a slightly modified version in) Luke 21:20-24. Jesus uses it to point out signs yet to come...

That leads to one more timeline theory: According to Nehemiah 2, Artaxerxes gave a commission to rebuild Jerusalem in 444 BCE (Jehovah's Witnesses claim 455 BCE instead, while Seventh Day Adventists claim 457 BCE). Add 490 years to that and you get 46 CE (or 35 CE according to the Jehovah's Witnesses or 33 CE via Seventh Day Adventists). Despite this timeline being essentially useless to Daniel such that it hardly seems to be an answer to his prayer (Daniel 9:20-23), at least this is in the right range. So let us review the signs.

The Signs
Daniel 9:25-27 is the rest of the prophesy; the events leading up to the perfection achieved at the end of those 490 years. These verses are written so haphazardly as to make it extremely difficult to assemble the proper meaning and timing, especially when translators throw in punctuations which are not in the original Hebrew. Here is how I would render it as clearly as possible:

From the time when the order is given to rebuild Jerusalem, in 49 years there will be an anointed leader (a.k.a. a messiah), and the city will continue on for another 434 years during turbulent times. After those 483 total years, the anointed ruler will be cut off. A foreign leader and his people will capture the city, and will rule it for 7 years until his per-ordained fate. He will make cooperative promises with many of the people during that time. Yet rebellions and blasphemes will be frequent during his reign. Approximately 3.5 years into his rule, he will stop the Temple sacrifices and set up an abomination in the Temple which will last until the end of his reign. At some point, he will destroy the city and the Temple, like a flood, in battle.

Where did Daniel come up with these numbers? Of course, it is difficult to say. Some secular scholars and liberal Christian scholars have suggested that this is an ex eventuex prophesy written after the events sometime in the second century BCE, and that it (the last week of the prophesy in particular) aligns to the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the associated Maccabean Revolt (171 BCE), but this requires Daniel to be really bad with dates; off by around 70 years in his timeline even with the most-favorable timeline given above.

I think that there may be a better fitting, but completely overlooked explanation.

If the authorship of the prophesy is much older than the second century BCE, written closer to the time when Daniel supposedly lived, maybe even by Daniel himself, I would suggest instead that it could be an echo of the Old Testament history. The 49 years could represent the time from when David was anointed to become the future king (1 Samuel 16:13) up to the end of his forty-year reign (1 Kings 2:10-11), but there is no specific date given for his anointing to be certain. More precise, however, is that from Solomon's reign to the time when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem was approximately 433.5 years according to the chronology in 1 Kings and 2 Kings, which is pretty darn close to 434 years. It could be that Daniel was forecasting that history would repeat itself. However this time, after a seven year tribulation period instead of a seventy year exile, the cycle of repeated history would end, and everlasting righteousness would be established.

Now, onto the signs:

• An anointed one (a messiah, a.k.a. a ruler chosen by God and anointed with oil, reference Exodus 29:7, 1 Samuel 10:1, 1 Samuel 16:13) will rule in 49 years
• There are anointed rulers for the next 434 years
• The anointed ruler will be cut off, replaced by a foreign ruler (or at least a non-anointed ruler)
• That foreign ruler will rule for seven years (Romans ruled it for well over seven years)
• That foreign ruler will make promises to many
• That foreign ruler will put an end to sacrifices and offerings in 3.5 years (Sacrifices continued to the Temple destruction in 70 CE)
• That foreign ruler will set up an "abomination which causes desolation" in the Temple which will remain there until his preordained end.
• Jerusalem and the Temple will be destroyed at some point by this foreign ruler's people
• At the end of this seven-year rule, God will make atonement for the Jewish people, put an end to sin, and establish everlasting righteousness.

Collectively, this is one huge failure of prophesy. Yet with so many tempting elements, and with Jesus Himself referencing this specific prophesy in Matthew 24:15-20, Mark 13:14-18, and (a slightly modified version in) Luke 21:20-24, Christians cannot ignore it and cannot accept that it is a failure. The product of this contradiction results in some of the most contemptible attempts at Biblical scholarship you will ever find.

For example, one scholarly view is that Jesus was the ruler of the final seven years, where the anointed Jesus was cut off (killed) during that seven years, He had made a covenant with many people, His sacrifice put an end to sacrifices, He had made atonement, He had established an everlasting righteousness, and the Temple was destroyed...eventually (30+ years later).

Contrast this with another popular Christian scholarly view where the ruler during that final seven years is actually the Antichrist, who will rule after the Church is Raptured. It is the Antichrist who will make a covenant with many, will stop the sacrifices and offerings (even though Jesus had already made them unnecessary and somehow even the Rapture of the Church does not convince the Jews enough that the Christians were right to make them stop sacrificing on their own), and will attack Jerusalem and the Temple. This view holds that the first 483 years of Daniel's prophesy has already happened (culminating with Jesus) and did happen sequentially, but that this final set of seven years is (obviously) still yet to occur, which makes absolutely no sense other than making people feel better about a failed prophesy.

For Christian scholars to study the same four verses of prophesy and come up with both Jesus and the Antichrist being represented in the same words is simultaneously hilarious and sad. Yet this shows you the lengths that believers will go to in order to mold these Old Testament prophesies into what they want them to be instead of simply believing what they are actually saying.