The Kingdoms of Daniel 2, 7, 8 and 9

A short while ago I put up a preterist reading of Daniel 2. Well, here it is extended to encompass Daniel 7-9 also.

All of these chapters are extrapolated by many into our time (try finding a picture on google which doesn't point to Rome or Obama!), such that the fulfilment is to be found in the very near future. While that is not wrong (Christian eschatology in a sense places the end tomorrow - Cf. Jesus' parable in Luke 12.13-21), it is not the plain reading of the text, and it is incorrect to interpret symbols as signs. What this diagram, and any preterist reading, sets out to do, is show the primary referent of the symbols before they are extrapolated to all powers and authorities which arrogantly set themselves up in opposition to God and their (his) people.

A quick note of explanation on Daniel 9 - Daniel is reappropriating Jeremiah's prophesied 70 years of exile as 70 weeks (literally 70 sevens), which this diagram shows as 70 non-consecutive 'weeks of years'.  This then encompasses not just the exile (which are completed in just 7 sevens), but from Nebuchadnezzar's ascension to  the rededication of the temple and the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the brutal reign of whom is the period especially focussed on throughout the second half of Daniel. Further information on this reading of the 70 sevens can be found in George Athas' article: http://www.jhsonline.org/Articles/article_104.pdf

Update: I can't count. Well, I can, so I fixed the picture.

Babylonian and Persian Kings Diagram

I've tried to work out the relationships between the different kings of the 6th to 4th Centuries. Here's my effort (thanks to the highly reliable information source of wikipedia).

The main reason is (going by the post two below) trying to understand what's happening in Daniel. The kings he mentions are Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar his son, Darius the Mede son of Xerxes (Ahasuerus), and Cyrus the Persian  (in that order).

To explain the diagram as it relates to Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar is the king who was at the head of the Babylonian Empire as the Assyrians were finally finished off. Three kings later, Nabonidus usurps the throne, and while hanging out in some desert oasis, gets his son Belshazzar to look after Babylon while he's gone. Calling Belshazzar Nebuchadnezzar's son is then a literary device, to make us compare father with son, to see if he would learn from his father's mistakes and humble himself before the one true God (he doesn't).

The gap into which the Danielic Darius should slot into is the one between Nabonidus/Belshazzar and Cyrus. The fact that there is no gap, that the Medes never ruled Babylon (although Cyrus was half-Median), and that the Dariuses we know of came much later means this is a literary riddle, rather than an historical one. That is, why 1) invent a kingdom and a king, and 2) why give him the name Darius and the father Xerxes (Ahasuerus)? I'll proffer my suggestions below:

1. According to commentators, a four kingdom model was quite the thing back in the day. Being in the time of the kingdoms of Alexanders successors (the Diadochi), yet using stories from the Babylonian era, leaves only three kingdoms - Babylon, Persia, Greece. Media was a kingdom north and east of Babylon, and were pretty big, so from a literary perspective, Media seems a pretty good idea.

2. Darius is a pretty well known name, there being three kings with that name, and the names Xerxes and Artaxerxes  (i.e. Xerxes with an 'Arta' tacked on) similarly so. So it's a pretty common name, but there has to be more. Well, Darius III, as you can see from the diagram, is an epoch finishing guy. He was the last of the line, and after him a new mob took over. Less importantly, his familial connection with the dynasty is a bit tricky/murky. Therefore, being relatively unattached, yet still important, his name would seem to be the most appropriate for a literary second kingdom.


Let me know what you think.

If I'm in a particularly masochistic mood I'll have a crack at the successors, that is, the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, to complete the table all the way to the 'abomination of desolation', that is, the misdeeds of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 2nd Century.

Daniel 2 - The Preterist Reading

For some reason it's impossible to find a picture of the statue in Daniel 2 labelled normally. So here's mine. It's not complicated, and it is what Daniel pretty much is about.

 

 Daniel is set in the 6th Century BC, but is written to a 2nd Century BC audience.

In his schema within the book, Daniel has three kingdoms - Babylon, Media and Persia. Historically we know that Babylon passed directly to Persia, when Cyrus took it (was given it) after Nabonidus was on the nose (Belshazzar was his son and ruler in his absence). So where Media came from is unclear - they did exist, but didn't ever hold Babylon (although Cyrus was half-Persian perhaps) - but that doesn't matter. In Daniel, the order is Babylon, Media, Persia. So, the statue starts off Gold-Babylon, Silver-Media, Bronze-Persia.

Now for the tricky bit. Well, not really.
In the second century, Alexander's kingdom took over from Persia, and more, and when he died, when asked about his successor, he (apocryphally) said 'the strongest'. So, next after Alexander was an AVP-style all-in, with the Diadochi (the successors) fighting it out amongst themselves.

Unfortunately for Jerusalem, they were smack bang in the middle. Lots of horrific things happened in and around Jerusalem, as the Seleucids battled the Ptolemies for centuries. This includes the 'abomination of desolation' - the slaughtering of a pig on the altar in the temple.

So for the writer/editor/compiler of Daniel in the 2nd Century, this was the end of the world. It was the last evil age, when all the evil powers were assembled against God and his people. So, the message of encouragement to them was - the rock - God's intervention - is coming any day now. The horror will end, because God will not leave us in the hands of these mad men forever.

That's the message of Daniel, that's the apocalyptic perspective, and that's really all the statue can mean, both literarily and historically. Enjoy the picture.

the first australian lutherans

enjoy this quick summary of an essay for australian church history. i haven't included any references, please ask if you would like to know how i know all this!

the east coast of Australia was first colonised by the British in 1788. South Australia was first colonised in 1836 (a convict-free zone).
the first Lutherans, fleeing the latitudinary Prussian union church, started arriving in SA in 1838.
they were led by their pastor Augustus Kavel, and named their two main settlements Klemzig, after their home-town, and Hahndorf, after Captain Hahn who piloted many of them to their new home.
the happy environment meant they invited others to join them, including another pastor, Gotthard Fritzsche, and his flock.
these were happy times, but schism was in the air:

• the group had entered into financial agreements with their sponsor, George Fife Angas (no relation), and some had second thoughts over arrangements to buy such large amounts of land. Kavel saw this reneging as a breach of faith, and considered withholding communion from the offenders.
  
• the doctrinal sloppiness in the Prussian union church meant Kavel saw Australia as a chance to start again, to be like the church of the apostles. in this vein he wrote the Apostolical Church Constitution, which among other things, was heavy on discipline. this would be another bone of contention; Lutheran missionaries in the colony refused to sign, and Fritzsche pushed for changes.
  
• the religious air in England, where Kavel had stopped over briefly, was one of expectant hope of the return of Jesus. Chiliasm, or millenialism, became an increasing feature of his preaching. one listener recalls him teaching that God would provide them with reeds with which to build an ark with which they could sail to Israel or Egypt! Fritzsche in response preached against chiliasm, forming another fault line for this infant church.

1845 synod - the two pastors thrust into the fore, despite warm feelings to one another, cannot agree. they decide to take the next year to think through their positions.

1846 synod - neither had the time to do what they promised. they both became firmer in their stances, and Kavel, rather than critiquing his views by the Lutheran Confessions he held as regulative, critiqued them, finding them at points decidedly unscriptural.
he brought to the 1846 synod his Protestations for discussion. the synod quickly became a yelling match, Fritzsche tried to restrain Kavel from walking out, but in the end Kavel and his group had to leave.

from 1838 to 1846 there was one Lutheran Church of Australia, which would take 120 years to unite once again.

as an outsider, having only been to a Lutheran church on several occasions, it seems that both Fritzsche and Kavel would be unhappy with the basis for the reunion. the doctrinal latitude of the LCA is probably wider today than even the union church which persecuted them.

how to read a narrative

here's a great list of 10 questions on how to read narrative (biblical or otherwise).

1. who is the hero?
   
2. what constitutes the quest?
   
3. who are the helpers and the antagonists? (this can include people as well as factors)
   
4. do you sense the presence of the narrator anywhere in the text?
   
5. what does the narrator do with the chronology of the events?
   
6. what happens with the narrated time? (does it speed up, slow down, stop, are there gaps?)
   
7. is the plot clear on its own, or is it only understandable within a larger narrative? (if the latter, what is the macroplot?)
   
8. what can you say about the dialogues?*
   
9. what word choices or other style/structure characteristics strike you?
   
10. how is the unit divided? are there further subdivisions?

* i don't think the order is important, yet it is interesting that this comes so far down.

This list is adapted from Jan Fokkelman, Reading Biblical Narrative: An Introductory Guide (Louisville, K.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1999 ET), as quoted in Provan, Long and Longman, A Biblical History of Israel (also Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), p90.

I was reading aBHoI as I think some more about narrative and history.

my question is: to what extent is it necessary to pursue/argue for/maintain the historicity of the claims to make sense of the text, particularly as one seeks to live a godly life in response to scripture? They (ch4 is mainly V. Philips Long's) argue that because biblical narratives make historical truth claims, 'ahistorical readings are perforce false misreadings' (p81).

i want to think some more on this.

the life-blood of the historian

Just as Odysseus found on his visit to Hades that the dead seer Teiresias could not speak to him until his inarticulate ghost had been brought to life by the blood of a sacrifice, so from the life-blood of his own sympathy the historian gives a blood transfusion to the ghosts of the past.

G.B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, 202-3, 1980 (1997).

the task of the historian is tough. it depends on what questions one asks of the past, and in some cases (of necessity?), creating the past. here is the understandable response:

It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.

Samuel Butler, Erewhon Revisited, ch 5.

it is clear that sympathy is required, empathy even better. it doesn't make doing history any easier, but it surely helps.

Jesus :: Man or Muse?

Something i was thinking through last year was how the theology of the gospels affected their historicity. it was interesting to read of the recent NT Wright conference via Mark Thompson's blog, particularly Richard Hay's criticism that Wright's approach makes the individual voices of the evangelists disappear (see the third paragraph of this summary of the conference).

and this was exactly my issue with the attention on the historical followed by Schweitzer, re-appropriated by Wright and even Paul Barnett - we can continue on our 'Quest'*, but what are we truly seeking to find?

the Jesus we are presented with is at once the historical man who lived, died, rose, and ascended; but we also meet him as the apostles knew him and convey him to us. and this is no tension, but elements that amplify each other.

image from schweitzer's book

*the abbreviated title of Schweitzer's 'Quest of the Historical Jesus' - also an abbreviated title for a longer English, for an even longer German title!

History versus Theological Intent

that's what my essay's on. i've done 8hrs of reading thus far, still not sure what my question is asking.*

but i keep coming back to Spike Milligan's introduction to his ground-breaking memoir, Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall.

“Of the events of the war, I have not ventured to speak from any chance information, nor according to any notion of my own. I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others of whom I have made the most careful and particular inquiry”.
          Thucydides, Peloponnesian War.

“I’ve just jazzed mine up a little”.
          Spike Milligan, WWII.

so is that what the evangelists have done? just jazzed it up a little?
are they historical fictions? are they based on a true story?

does it matter - it's all about faith, the Christ we apprehend by faith. but what's the point of a faith approachable only in a mythical fable?

* i mean, i do know what it's asking, the question is: The historicity of the synoptic gospels is compromised by their theological intent. discuss. i just don't know what it's asking. that's all.

Historic and Historical

been pondering MPJs words on tuesday - the gist being that the resurrection of Jesus is not remarkable because it is historical, but because it is historic. that is, we can well say that it did happen, and the importance of it having happened, and the historicity of the event. but in reflection, the fact that is is historical is only important because it is historic - epoch making, a new paradigm, a new way of understanding the world, a vindication of the promises of a creator God both fulfilled and beginning at this moment.

Badiou's book that i wrote about earlier in the year discussed this also - i was concerned because he didn't care so much about the historicity of the event, believing it was secondary. now i wouldn't want to go that far, in that it is causative (you can't have an historic moment without the historical event), but i think i get his emphasis a little more now.

i think i get too hung up on trying to convince people of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, rather than the difference that makes - i need to emphasise that it changes everything!

[i might add, i feel the former is what Driscoll did when he was here - tried to convince people of the death of Jesus for them, but not of the resurrection of Jesus as changing everything. so saying Jesus died for you, so you can be forgiven - but not challenging their world views, that Jesus being raised makes everything different. just a thought.]

The Mohammed that never was

a German Islamic scholar has obviously had a call from his superiors to get a bit of controversy generated, so he's come out and said that, as far as he can tell, the evidence would seem to suggest that Mohammed never existed. well, i wonder what he would say if someone told him HE didn't exist? probably not a lot - eh? not much you can say when you're gone in a puff of logic.

seriously though folks, i remember when the controversy (=bad history+james cameron television crew) about the misnamed 'Jesus' Family Tomb', and people remembered the comments by the west australian primate, saying that he didn't think finding the bones of Jesus would harm people's faith to any huge extent. now, whilst he may have some supporters in Spong and co, he obviously has a different conception of a God who reveals himself in history in the man Jesus Christ.

but what effect would it have on Muslims, i humbly enquire, if it were proved beyond reasonable doubt that Mohammed never were? Don Carson once said he thought, not much. at the end of the day, the Qur'an is the way Muslims know God. not thru their prophet. that he happened to use Mohammed is seen to be the physical conduit Allah chose to use is by the by - what matters is that Allah gave the Qur'an to all the Muttaqun that they may obey him in all righteousness.

sure, Mohammed may have been a good example of following Allah, but he was hardly the first - all the old testament prophets are listed as part of his forerunners in the faith.

it may be this will lead to anger, but i hope not. indeed, it may challenge Muslims to rethink about their functional deification of Mohammed, and to consider how it is they can truly know God - how it may be that he has made himself known.

an important quote about a man you don't know.

Barmen helped the church seek to be a faithful community of witness and service, but it did not require it to develop a prophetic, "watchman" or public theological role, shaping the moral and spiritual architecture of civilisation. [...] it distanced itself equally from all social theories and political systems. In asserting that the gospel stands far beyond all forms of human wisdom, Barmen limited the church's capacity to develop modes of discourse and social convictions necessary for creative participation in society.*
you may not know who Barmen is. in fact, it's maybe better if you don't. the question is one of relevance. what is the church? what does it seek? from what does it distance itself from? from what does it shirk from discussing, interacting with?

at my old church, i was really excited at the 'untouchable' series we did every year, as we do exactly what the quote above maintains of Barmen. it was a great testimony to God as we saw many people from the community drawn not to an irrelevant piece of architecture from another age, but to a church that speaks the truth in love.

* quote from Revisiting the church in socialism. Max L. Stackhouse, in Christian Century, 115 no 25 S 23-30 1998. p867

those crazy crusaders!

i came across this map at justin's blog, found it a really helpful resource for understanding the scale of the different waves of empires in asia-europe-africa

reading Outline History of the Christian Church by Dorothea Jane Stephen (1938)* i noticed that after the saracens won back the middle east from the turks, they were more than willing to go back to good old days of ready trade with and hospitality to the pilgrims to the 'holy lands'.

The Crusaders, however, would not listen to their offer, but were bent on conquering the country. (p45)

one cannot help wondering what shape the middle east and the view of it by certain 'christian zionists' would be in today had the crusaders been happy to live happily side-by-side as they had, to a large extent, been doing for the 400 years beforehand. it feels as if a large extent of the muslim view of the west is shaped by the abhorent goings-on 1,000 years ago.

God willing, there will be a time when a better mutual understanding can be had.

*which i must add, bears an uncanny relation to my history of christian mission course

eschatology and restoration

only two days away from my WaSaBI seminar on the above-mentioned topic, subtitled, is it right to say "the Christian hope is to go to heaven when we die"?

my plan is as follows:

why do we think what we think?
and take a look at world histories, and how we get to where we seem to have got to

what actually happens when we die?
we can think thru matrices(!) and a few passages that talk about the now and the not yet

what will be the characteristics of the new heavens and new earth?
looking at a few passages, working out what will be continuous, where the discontinuity is

what is God's goal for creation?
restoration

if we live now for the future because of the past, how does our thinking about the future affect how we live now?

it will be nice to get all this stuff out that has been swinging around in the monkey-bars of my head for so long.
and i hope it should be fun too!
Sunday 24th June, 2:30-4:00pm, Wild St Church Hall, Maroubra

really here

NEITHER presumtion of, nor resignation to, the future, allow us to truly embrace the present - we are able only to truly love and to serve, practically able to be involved when we have real hope.
Hope is nothing else than the expectation of those things which faith has believed to have been truly promised by God. - Calvin
FOR without that view of the future, we will become despondent with the lack of change, and will indeed become resigned to the downward trend of history, the decline of man.
BUT, being sure of our future in Christ, we can truly fix our eyes on him, unwaveringly following and serving him and his kingdom, toward the ends of his kingdom.

so, knowing the end is nigh, do we live presuming the coming, being resigned to the coming, OR are we realistically expecting his kingdom?

i say this to counter the thought that we live oblivious to the present, for i would suggest it is only in having this realistic expectaion of the future that we are able to properly grasp hold of the present.

(the vibe of these ideas were stolen off me by Jürgen Moltmann, long before i was born...)

Cyclic v Linear

once upon a time, i was reading Sophie's World.
the discussion was comparing the indo-european cyclical view of history, with the arab-semitic linear view of history.

the issue seems to be the view makind has of the beginning and end of history, as clearly seen in the Bible, and the way that view is intertwined with the rather futile cyclical view of the world in, for example, Hinduism, where the point is to escape this stupid cycle.

there are obvious cycles seen in the Bible, however, in the 'rebellion-> punishment-> repentance-> redemption' whirlpool.

this seems in contrast to the idea of us getting our perspective in life from where we are in the timeline, from creation to judgement day.