Was Revelation Written About The Distant Future?

sooda said:

There is NO Daniel.. Daniel is the character in a story that spans 500 years and had MANY authors.

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74x12 said:

It's unfortunate that you would think so. God gave us the book of Daniel and wants us to be faithful in it. So if we believe; He will show us greater things.

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sooda said:

It has nothing to do with what I think. There was no "Daniel". The story uses Daniel as a character in a story that begins in Babylon and ends after the Maccabean Revolt. Daniel is taken from Danel in a poem from the north coast Canaanites around 1500 BC.

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74x12 said:

That is not a fact. That is what you think. You think you're right; so you're coming across as if what you're saying is factual.

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sooda said:

All Bible scholars agree on this.

The Book of Daniel - Quartz Hill School of Theology
www.theology.edu/biblesurvey/daniel.htm
The Book of Daniel. I. Title. The book of Daniel is named after the main protagonist throughout; unlike his friends, who are remembered by their Babylonian names rather than their Hebrew names, and unlike Esther, who is likewise remembered for her Persian (or Aramaic) name, rather than her Hebrew name, Daniel, although given a Babylonian name, is not well remembered by it (Belteshazzar).


Excerpt:

The author of the book is Daniel, although many modern critics would try to date the book much later, to the fifth or fourth century BC; the reason for such a late date though is primarily a result of the presuppositional determination that predictive prophesy is not possible; therefore, the "prophesies" are so accurate in Daniel, not because he was inspired by God, but because the author (whomever he might be) wrote them after the events described had happened.

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74x12 said:

So ... all Bible scholars agree that the gift of prophesy is impossible and therefore the book of Daniel is not true?

Sorry, I'm not buying it. Some scholars actually do have a bit of faith.

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sooda said:

Most adults don't believe in the supernatural.

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sooda said:

It might be helpful to you to read up on what prophets do.. Its not like what we learned in Sunday school as children.

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74x12 said:

No wonder then, that Jesus claimed that unless you convert and become as little children you won't enter in the kingdom of heaven.

You think prophets went to school to become prophets. That may well have been the case for (so called) prophets from around the Palestine area. Obviously, we know that in those days a king in that area normally employed many "prophets" that would be able to tell him if it was a good idea or not to do x, y or z. These prophets would tell the kings the will of the gods. They did this for money or rewards.

However, we must differentiate between these pagan type of prophets and what we know of the true prophets of Yah. Who were loyal to no one but God and claimed to hear directly from God in visions, dreams, and by the Spirit(literally wind or breath) of God. So people in those days understood that we speak or vocalize words by our breath. Therefore, they surmised; that a prophet spoke the words of God by the breath of God being in them. And so it is.

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1. school of the prophets in the bible – Prophetic School ...
   www.propheticschooltraining.com/school-of-the-prophets-in-the-bible
   These are very good questions indeed. Before Samuel, there were prophets in the nation of Israel. The first undeniable prophet of Israel was Moses himself. But he wasn't the leader of the a company of prophets as Samuel was. This wasn't the only prophet school of prophet. There was another prophetic school at Bethel.
   
   
2. 21 Bible verses about School Of Prophets - Knowing Jesus
   https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/School-Of-Prophets
   All the prophets were prophesying thus, saying, "Go up to Ramoth-gilead and succeed, for the LORD will give it into the hand of the king." Then the messenger who went to summon Micaiah spoke to him saying, "Behold, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king.
   
   
   

sooda said:

LOLOL.. The schools for prophets began under Samuel.. nothing to do with pagans.

1. school of the prophets in the bible – Prophetic School ...
   www.propheticschooltraining.com/school-of-the-prophets-in-the-bible
   These are very good questions indeed. Before Samuel, there were prophets in the nation of Israel. The first undeniable prophet of Israel was Moses himself. But he wasn't the leader of the a company of prophets as Samuel was. This wasn't the only prophet school of prophet. There was another prophetic school at Bethel.
   
   
2. 21 Bible verses about School Of Prophets - Knowing Jesus
   https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/School-Of-Prophets
   All the prophets were prophesying thus, saying, "Go up to Ramoth-gilead and succeed, for the LORD will give it into the hand of the king." Then the messenger who went to summon Micaiah spoke to him saying, "Behold, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king.
   
   

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74x12 said:

Samuel having a school ... it's a theory, not a fact. But let's suppose there was a school started by Samuel. What does that prove? How does that mean prophets aren't what we thought they were which is according to the scriptures?

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sooda said:

All Bible scholars agree on this.

The Book of Daniel - Quartz Hill School of Theology
www.theology.edu/biblesurvey/daniel.htm
The Book of Daniel. I. Title. The book of Daniel is named after the main protagonist throughout; unlike his friends, who are remembered by their Babylonian names rather than their Hebrew names, and unlike Esther, who is likewise remembered for her Persian (or Aramaic) name, rather than her Hebrew name, Daniel, although given a Babylonian name, is not well remembered by it (Belteshazzar).


Excerpt:

The author of the book is Daniel, although many modern critics would try to date the book much later, to the fifth or fourth century BC; the reason for such a late date though is primarily a result of the presuppositional determination that predictive prophesy is not possible; therefore, the "prophesies" are so accurate in Daniel, not because he was inspired by God, but because the author (whomever he might be) wrote them after the events described had happened.

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sooda said:

All Bible scholars agree on this.

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sooda said:

Both popular and academic readings of Revelation still suffer from a need to find some future supposed reference to various features of the text. This is despite considerable evidence that the text would have made good sense to its first-century readers, and that many would have been able to understand it as a depiction of their own world, albeit in a highly symbolic form.

The development of this ‘futurist’ reading strategy arose from ignorance of the meaning of the text quite quickly into the second century. So (for example) we find Irenaeus (130–202) speculating about the meaning of 666 (Against Heresies 5), discussing textual variants that include 616, but knowing the correct reading from people he knows who knew John’s teaching. And yet he cannot decipher the reference, and speculates it might be ‘Teitan’ or ‘Lateinus.’

With the rise of an interest in the classical world in the late 18th and 19th centuries came the explosion of interest in archaeology and papyrology, which meant that we now know much more about the ancient world than previous generations did, even ones that were quite close in time.

This went hand in hand with the growth of historical critical ways of reading the New Testament, and with it the conviction that our interpretation of the NT must start and be shaped by the historical meaning of the texts, that is, what the text meant to the writer and first readers. For most texts, this has led to the displacement of allegorical or speculative readings—seen as just that: speculative—with its historical meaning.

But the one text where this has not happened is the Book of Revelation. Even though futurist readings came about to fill the vacuum left by the absence of historical understanding, Western commentators often simply add back the historical meaning, but retain the futurist reading, so the text now means or refers to two different sets of things. Robert Mounce (who wrote the Eerdmans NIC commentary) explains it like this:

The predictions of John, while expressed in terms reflecting his own culture, will find their final and complete fulfillment in the last days of history. Although John saw the Roman Empire as the great beast that threatened the extinction of the church, there will be in the last days an eschatological beast who will sustain the same relationship with the church of the great tribulation. It is this eschatological beast, portrayed in type by Rome, that the Apocalypse describes…

It seems quite acceptable to believe in the dual fulfilment of biblical prophecy whilst accepting that the Old Testament prophets did not necessarily have the second (main) fulfilment in mind, even though they may have been “trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing.” However the New Testament writers, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recognised the second fulfilment.

The same thing applies to New Testament prophecies. The writers made predictions which sometimes referred to 1st century events and did not necessarily have a second major fulfilment in mind. Similarly Jesus made predictions which his hearers may have applied only to 1st century events. But it is clear that some of these predictions do have a second major fulfilment which is still future. We have to be careful, though, in seeking a correct understanding of these predictions.

There is a fascinating move going on here. Because the OT prophetic texts have a ‘second fulfilment’ in the person of Jesus, then NT ‘prophetic’ texts will also have a ‘second fulfilment’ in the timetable of ‘last days’ events. Note that Mounce is not here talking of the kind of partially-realised eschatology we find in Paul, for example in Romans 8, where what we have now is the ‘first fruits’ of what we will experience when Jesus returns. He is talking about historical events referred to (such as the fall of the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70) having corresponding historical events in a ‘last days’ calendar.

He does not appear to notice that is actually the opposite of what is happening in relation to the OT. The fact that there is a ‘second fulfilment’ in Jesus is because Jesus is the ultimate expression of God and his purposes, and all his promises find their ‘yes’ in him. To say that there is a further series of events that are needed to fulfil the NT is to say that not all God’s promises find their ‘yes’ in Jesus. Futurist eschatological schemes actually undermine the centrality of Jesus in the NT, because they focus the fulfilment of God’s promises in a scheme, rather than in his person.

But more significantly (in relation to Revelation) there is no indication whatever in the text itself that the symbolic action has this kind of ‘double reference.’ There is repeated emphasis on the fact that this is all to happen ‘soon’. The primary genre of the book is of a letter; John is addressing people he knows who live in a particular historical and cultural context, and since the work of Ramsay and Hemer on the seven ‘messages’ in chapters two and three, we have appreciated that Revelation is firmly embedded in its historical and cultural context. And the function of the messages themselves is to root the action in the world of first-century Asia; the visions that follow are not detached from the world they live in, but describe and speak to their world very directly.

At the end of the book, there is a key phrase which reinforces all this:

Then he [the angel] told me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, because the time is near.” (Rev 22.10)

What does this verse mean? It cannot be read in isolation from the parallel verse in Daniel 12.4 and 9–10:

But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge….Go your way, Daniel, because the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end. Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.

(We can see the allusion to Daniel 12 in Rev 22 by the echo in 22.11 of the phrase from Daniel ‘the wicked will continue to be wicked.’)

continued

Was Revelation written about the distant future?​

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InChrist said:

The website you linked to Quartz Hill School of Theology states that "The author of the book is Daniel", It does not support what you said previously....

Do you know what taking the book at face value means?



Further it states that it is the... modern critics who try to date the book much later...
because the mindset of these critics is ...primarily a result of the presuppositional determination that predictive prophesy is not possible.

and you left out the rest of the quote which shows that the scholars at the Quartz Hill School of Theology take the book of Daniel at face value and believe it...

"One wonders, then, why such a book would have ever been accepted as scripture or as at all authoritative.
Taking the book at face value, then, Daniel was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar in 605 BC, during the first deportation recorded in 2 Kings 24:8- 17. Daniel continued to minister through the reign of King Cyrus, under whom the Israelites began to return to Israel (see Ezra 1:1-4 and 2 Chronicles 36:22-23)."

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InChrist said:

The website you linked to Quartz Hill School of Theology states that "The author of the book is Daniel", It does not support what you said previously....




Further it states that it is the... modern critics who try to date the book much later...
because the mindset of these critics is ...primarily a result of the presuppositional determination that predictive prophesy is not possible.

and you left out the rest of the quote which shows that the scholars at the Quartz Hill School of Theology take the book of Daniel at face value and believe it...

"One wonders, then, why such a book would have ever been accepted as scripture or as at all authoritative.
Taking the book at face value, then, Daniel was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar in 605 BC, during the first deportation recorded in 2 Kings 24:8- 17. Daniel continued to minister through the reign of King Cyrus, under whom the Israelites began to return to Israel (see Ezra 1:1-4 and 2 Chronicles 36:22-23)."

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sooda said:

There is NO Daniel.. Daniel is the character in a story that spans 500 years and had MANY authors.

Click to expand...