1. Answers to Objections Regarding 1844 Roy E. Gane Andrews University Adapted from Who’s Afraid of the Judgment? (Pacific Press, 2006), chapters 9, 10

2. Why do SDAs interpret the prophecies of Daniel from a historicist perspective? Simply allowing Daniel to interpret itself. Symbols refer to historical entities. Nebuchadnezzar as the head of gold (2:38). Ram and he-goat as kings of Medo- Persia and Grecia (8:20-21).

3. SDAs and Historicism Daniel presents sweeps of history leading to the end in chapters 2, 7, 8, and 11-12. Daniel belongs to the genre of “ historical apocalypses. ”

4. SDAs and Historicism Old Testament prophecy and theology are rooted in history as a continuum. This contrasts with the cyclical approach of the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians.

5. SDAs and Historicism Historicists, preterists, and futurists agree that there is history and eschatology in Daniel. The question is where past history ends and real prediction begins in relation to the time of the author of Daniel.

6. SDAs and Historicism Preterism (= past-ism) sees the predicted events as in the past from our perspective. “ Little horn ” = Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Historicism sees a sweep of history that begins in the past and reaches through our time into the future. Predicted events are in process of fulfillment. “ Little horn ” = Rome/papacy, already revealed but more to come. Futurism sees the predicted events as completely future from our perspective. “ Little horn ” = an unidentified future Antichrist.

7. SDAs and Historicism A big factor is whether or not an interpreter believes in the possibility of real predictive prophecy. If a prophet living in the 500s B.C. pinpointed the precise times when events would occur hundreds and even thousands of years in the future, rather than specifying only literal days, only God could have revealed this to him.

8. SDAs and Historicism Daniel 9:24-27 has 70 weeks of years that reach to the time of Christ, much later than any possible dating of the book of Daniel. So this book contains predictive prophecy and its prophecies cover a sweep of history that begins in the past and reaches through our time into the future to the end (see especially chapters 2, 7, 8, 11-12).

9. SDAs and Historicism Therefore, the historicist approach — which neither downplays the present-future as preterism does or downplays the past-present as futurism does — emerges from study of the book itself.

10. Day = Year Principle Objection: The day = year or year = day principle for interpreting apocalyptic prophetic time periods is invalid. The day-year (or year-day) principle for interpreting the time prophecies of Daniel is a key issue for the historicist sweep of history concept.

11. Day = Year Principle Answer: There is solid evidence for “ days ” representing literal years in symbolic time prophecies of Daniel. This is not a principle to be applied indiscriminately by the interpreter, but one that is discovered on a case-by-case basis where the context reveals it.

12. Day = Year Principle Hebrew word yom, “ day, ” can be used for a period of time other than a day of 24 hours. Scholars have recognized verses in which the plural of yom means “ year. ”

13. Day = Year Principle “ Then the man Elkanah went up with all his household to offer to the LORD the yearly sacrifice (literally “ sacrifice of the days ” ) and pay his vow ” (1 Sam 1:21). “ Dwell with me and be a father and a priest to me, and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year (literally “ for the days ” ), a suit of clothes, and your maintenance ” (Judg 17:10). “ And the number of days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year (literally “ days ” ) and four months ” (1 Sam 27:7).

14. Day/Year Principle In Numbers 14:34, God specified punishment for the rebellion of the Israelites, who refused to take the Promised Land: The punishment fit the crime: “ According to the number of days which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall bear your guilt a year, even forty years, and you shall know My opposition. ” So the Israelites would wander for forty years in the wilderness, one year for each day of the scouts ’ mission.

15. Day/Year Principle God told Ezekiel: As for you, lie down on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it. For I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their iniquity, three hundred and ninety days; thus you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year (Ezek 4:4-6).

16. Day/Year Principle The “ seventy weeks ” of Daniel 9:24-27 are seventy sabbatical year cycles of seven years each. These make up a total of 490 years, which include ten jubilee cycles of 49 years each (compare Lev 25).

17. Day/Year Principle Just as the symbolic animals in Daniel 7 and 8 are unusual, so also the symbolic times are presented with unusual terminology. For example, Daniel 8:14 specifies 2,300 “ evenings-mornings, ” an abnormal expression for 2,300 days.

18. Day/Year Principle Daniel 7:25 speaks of “ a time, times, and half a time ” during which the “ little horn ” power would persecute the people of God. Aramaic word ‘ iddan, translated “ time, ” is not a usual word for a particular unit of time, such as a day, week, month, or year. But its meaning is clarified by comparison with Daniel 4, where the same word is used for the “ seven times ” = years that would pass over Nebuchadnezzar before his mind would be restored (verses 16, 32, 34).

19. Day/Year Principle Compare Revelation 12, where the same persecution of three and one half years (verse 14) of 360 days each = 1, 260 days (verse 6). See also Revelation 11:2-3 and 13:5, where this time period is given as 42 months = 1,260 months of 30 days each.

20. Beginning of 2,300 Days Objection: Daniel 9:25 gives the beginning of the “ seventy weeks ” : “ from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem …” In Isaiah 44:28 it is Cyrus who says that Jerusalem shall be rebuilt. “ [It is I] who says of Cyrus, ‘ [He is] My shepherd! And he will perform all My desire. ’ And he declares of Jerusalem, ‘ She will be built, ’ And of the temple, ‘ Your foundation will be laid. ’” (NASB 1995 update).

21. Beginning of 2,300 Days If this is true, the word/decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem in Daniel 9:25 must refer to the decree of Cyrus (about 536 B.C.). If so, it would not refer to the decree of Artaxerxes I (458 B.C., going into effect 457), which SDAs use to begin the 70 weeks and 2300 evening-morning prophecies of Daniel 8 and 9. Therefore, no end-time event would begin in 1844.

22. Beginning of 2,300 Days Answer: However, the NRSV has the correct translation of Isaiah 44:28: who says of Cyrus, “ He is my shepherd, and he shall carry out all my purpose ” ; and who says of Jerusalem, “ It shall be rebuilt, ” and of the temple, “ Your foundation shall be laid. ” Here “ and who ” refers to God, not Cyrus. This preserves the pattern of Hebrew syntax that runs through verses 24-28.

23. Beginning of 2,300 Days Cyrus did play an important role in a process ordained by God that culminated with the decree of Artaxerxes (see Ezra 6:14). It was the decree of Artaxerxes that was concerned with restoration of Jerusalem as the civil administrative center, and therefore the capital, of the Jewish people (Ezra 7).

24. Beginning of 2,300 Days Objection: According to Daniel 9:25, the 70 weeks begin at the time when a word/decree goes forth to restore (literally “ cause to return ” ) and build Jerusalem. The decree of Artaxerxes I (458-457 B.C.; Ezra 7) did not call for rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, which happened later under Nehemiah.

25. Beginning of 2,300 Days Therefore, SDAs are wrong in using this as the starting point of the 70 weeks and 2300 day prophecies.

26. Beginning of 2,300 Days Answer: Comparison with similar terminology elsewhere. Daniel 9:25 has the Hiphil of shub = “ bring back, restore, ” combined with banah, “ build. ” Another verse where these two verbs are used together with a city as their direct object is 2 Kings 14:22 —“ He built Elath and restored it to Judah, after the king slept with his fathers ” (cf. 2 Chron. 26:2).

27. Beginning of 2,300 Days Here restoration of a city means restoration of its ownership to a political entity. This idea also appears in 1 Kings 20:34 — “ Ben-hadad said to him, ‘ The cities which my father took from your father I will restore, and you shall make streets for yourself in Damascus, as my father made in Samaria. ’”

28. Beginning of 2,300 Days Here, as in Dan 9:25, restoration of ownership by a king precedes a public works project by the party to whom the city is restored. It was the decree of Artaxerxes that handed Jerusalem back to the Jews in the sense of giving them civil control of the city, which led to restoration of the city ’ s public works infrastructure.

29. Antiochus IV Epiphanes Objection: The historicist SDA interpretation of the “ little horn ” symbol as representing the papacy (which agrees with the reformers) is wrong because the “ little horn ” was really fulfilled by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (165-175 B.C.).

30. Antiochus IV Epiphanes

32. Answer: Antiochus IV Epiphanes did not fulfill the “ little horn ” for the following reasons:

33. Antiochus IV Epiphanes In Daniel 7, the “ little horn ” arises from the fourth empire, which is Rome. The second century B.C. Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes came from one of the four branches of the Hellenistic empire, which came before Rome. Antiochus was only one king in the middle of a line of Seleucid rulers.

34. Antiochus IV Epiphanes To overcome this difficulty, preterist scholars split up Media and Persia, saying that the four empires are: Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece. This makes Greece the fourth empire, and Antiochus was Greek. But Media and Persia were already combined when they conquered Babylon, and Daniel speaks of one kingdom of the Medes and Persians, which shared one system of law (Dan 5:28; 6:8, 12, 15; 8:20; compare Esth 1:3, 14, 18, 19; 10:2).

35. Antiochus IV Epiphanes While Antiochus did persecute the Jews for a time, his forays into Egypt, Palestine, and elsewhere soon ended in failure. Although he enjoyed some initial success in Egypt, he left there with his army simply because the Roman ambassador, C. Popilius Laenas, told him that the Roman Senate wanted him to get out. Rather than conquering Palestine, Antiochus IV lost it to the Jews under the leadership of the Maccabees.

36. Antiochus IV Epiphanes Jesus interpreted the “ abomination of desolation, ” a blasphemous religious object or practice that Daniel said would be set up by the “ little horn ” power (Dan 8:12-13; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11), as still future from His perspective (Matt 24:15-16). The book of Revelation speaks of the same future period of domination by an evil power that is symbolized in Daniel by the “ little horn ” (12:6, 14; 13:5).

37. Antiochus IV Epiphanes Antiochus persecuted the Jews for 1,080 days, which does not match any of the prophetic time periods given by Daniel. Preterists try to fit this time with the “ 2,300 evening morning ” of Daniel 8:14 by saying that this verse refers to 2,300 burnt offerings performed “ regularly ” at the Jerusalem temple in 1,150 literal days, two sacrifices per day.

38. Antiochus IV Epiphanes But Daniel 8 does not mention burnt offerings, and the regular burnt offerings were morning and evening, not evening morning. In Daniel 8:14, “ 2,300 evenings-mornings ” appears to be an abbreviation for “ 2,300 evenings and 2,300 mornings. ” See verse 26 —“ the evenings and the mornings, ” that is, the 2,300 evenings and the 2,300 mornings, referring to 2,300 full days (compare Deut 9:25 —“ the forty days and the forty nights ” )