Abomination Of Desolation ~ The Preterist View

[random person]

The Abomination Of Desolation​

Accordingly, in April of A.D. 70 Titus invested Jerusalem. But so confident were the Jewish people of the invincibility of the city that on the very eve of its investment large numbers of Jewish pilgrims went up there as usual for the Passover festival. Their presence in the city once it was closely besieged added to the difficulties of the defence. The defence was already embarrassed by the rivalry between the three factions mentioned above. But the Zealot leader Eleazar was overcome by John at the Passover season; and thereafter John and Simon were united in defence of the city and temple.

As the siege wore on, the horrors of famine, and even cannibalism, were added to the hazards of war, but the defenders had no thought of capitulating, least of all when Titus, using Josephus as his interpreter, urged the advantages of timely surrender upon them. On July 24 the Romans captured the fortress of Antonia. Twelves days later the daily sacrifices in the temple were discontinued. On August 27 the temple gates were burnt; two days later, on the anniversary of the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 587 B.C., the sanctuary itself was set on fire and destroyed. By September 26 the whole city was in Titus' hands. It was razed to the ground, only three towers of Herod's palace on the western wall being left standing, with part of the western wall itself.

According to Josephus, Titus wished to save the temple, but was unable to prevent his soldiery from venting their vengeful wrath on the structure which had been the core of the resistance during the siege. This was no doubt the account which Titus wished to be believed in the cooler reflection of later years, and Josephus, the grateful client of the Flavian dynasty, gave it the required publicity. But an interesting variant has come down to us in a historical fragment preserved by Sulpicius Severus (c. A.D. 400):

Titus first took counsel and considered whether he should destroy so magnificent a work as the temple. Many thought that a building which excelled all mortal works in sacredness ought not to be destroyed, for if it were saved, it would serve as a token of Roman moderation, whereas its destruction would display an eternal mark of savagery. But others, on the contrary, including Titus himself, express the opinion that the temple ought most certainly to be razed, in order that the Jewish and Christian religions might more completely be abolished; for although these religions were mutually hostile, they had nevertheless sprung from the same founders; the Christians were an offshoot of the Jews, and if the root were taken away the stock would easily perish.​

Whatever Titus himself thought, there were no doubt many who cherished this hope. But they were doomed to disappointment. The temple outlived its usefulness. Christianity, of course, was essentially free from the trammels of the old sacrificial system; but so was all that was best in Judaism.

When the temple area was taken by the Romans, and the sanctuary itself still burning, the soldiers brought their legionary standards into the sacred precincts, set them up opposite the eastern gate, and offered sacrifices to them there, acclaiming Titus as imperator (victorious commander) as they did so. The Roman custom of offering sacrifice to their standards had already been commented on by a Jewish writer as a symptom of their pagan arrogance,* but the offering of such sacrifice in the temple court was the supreme insult to God of Israel. This action, following as it did the cessation of the daily sacrifice three weeks earlier, must have seemed to many Jews, as it evidently did to Josephus, a new and final fulfillment of Daniel's vision of a time when the continual burnt offering would be taken away and the abomination of desolation was set up.^

The capture and sacking of the city was accompanied by indiscriminate slaughter; large numbers of the population were enslaved, others were destined for gladiatorial games, while seven hundred were reserved for Titus's triumphal procession.

* The Qumran commentator on Habakkuk 1:16

^ Daniel 8:11 ff.; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11. Josephus evidently recognizes the fulfillment of these prophecies in the events of A.D. 70 (War vi. 94, 311, 316)

ISRAEL AND THE NATIONS by F.F. Bruce. Pgs 223-224.

 

[Danoh]

And so, there you have it - "the abomination of desolation" that "cometh with observation" in books supposedly "about the things of God" over where they are actually found - in Scripture.

Yeah, okay, Rev and company...

 

[random person]

And so, there you have it - "the abomination of desolation" that "cometh with observation" in books supposedly "about the things of God" over where they are actually found - in Scripture.

Yeah, okay, Rev and company...

Que?

 

[ebedmelech]

And so, there you have it - "the abomination of desolation" that "cometh with observation" in books supposedly "about the things of God" over where they are actually found - in Scripture.

Yeah, okay, Rev and company...

Actually it doesn't. Anyone with understanding of the Ceremonial Law KNOWS the temple was defiled in the mind of any Jew, when anyone that is not of the Levitical priesthood enters the temple. It was worse if that person was a Gentile...the temple became unclean.

Therefore when the Romans entered the temple you had the abomination of desolation! The temple was was defiled (unclean), in the mind of any Jew practicing the Ceremonial law. Since most Jews were still practicing Old Covenant Law, it's easy to see why so many of them died defending the temple.

When you read the word with understanding, it's not hard. King Uzziah was struck with leprosy for entering the temple to make an offering to God. He was disobeying God's word that only the Levites were to enter the temple.

The Romans committed the AoD when they entered the temple.

 

[Danoh]

Actually it doesn't. Anyone with understanding of the Ceremonial Law KNOWS the temple was defiled in the mind of any Jew, when anyone that is not of the Levitical priesthood enters the temple. It was worse if that person was a Gentile...the temple became unclean.

Therefore when the Romans entered the temple you had the abomination of desolation! The temple was was defiled (unclean), in the mind of any Jew practicing the Ceremonial law. Since most Jews were still practicing Old Covenant Law, it's easy to see why so many of them died defending the temple.

When you read the word with understanding, it's not hard. King Uzziah was struck with leprosy for entering the temple to make an offering to God. He was disobeying God's word that only the Levites were to enter the temple.

The Romans committed the AoD when they entered the temple.

My comment had to do with "the man of sin."

 

[ebedmelech]

My comment had to do with "the man of sin."

That doesn't matter. The man of sin was exalting himself against the church, which is the the "temple of God".

After Christ was raised the temple of God is not a structure! The temple is where God *dwells*. God dwells in His people by the Holy Spirit, which is why Paul said "God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands".

 

[Interplanner]

I don't share EbedM's view because the AofD needs to have been committed by someone in Israel. Now, if the passage meant that the cause of the Romans being there was the evil and manipulative actions of zealot leaders (who defiled the temple by being 'leistes' in the temple, Lk 19:46--rebels, insurrectionists), then he has a point. ('Leistes' is usually translated thieves, but that would miss the ugly, dictatorial, violent side). Sorry but I just can't imagine this act, with its vocabulary being based on Levitical terminology, being something the Romans did apart from anything Israel did.

 

[random person]

Whether it was Zealots committing murder within the Temple or Romans (being Gentiles, desecrating the temple by militarily overrunning it, committing further murders, and sacrificing to their eagle standards).

Who can deny the Abomination of Desolation in AD 70?

 

[Biblewriter]

Whether it was Zealots committing murder within the Temple or Romans (being Gentiles, desecrating the temple by militarily overrunning it, committing further murders, and sacrificing to their eagle standards).

Who can deny the Abomination of Desolation in AD 70?

No one would want to deny that an abomination of desolation was set up at that time.

But to argue that most of the prophecies in the Bible were fulfilled circa 70 AD requires ignoring most of the details of what the prophecies actually say.

 

[random person]

No one would want to deny that an abomination of desolation was set up at that time.

But to argue that most of the prophecies in the Bible were fulfilled circa 70 AD requires ignoring most of the details of what the prophecies actually say.

Do you believe Matthew 24 was completely fulfilled? I do.

And I also believe Revelation is a more detailed elaboration upon the Olivet Discourse using a lot of Old Testament symbolism and the Mosaic Covenant blessing and cursing.

The Book of Revelation is speaking about the Jewish and Neronic persecution of the Christians particularly the "144,000" 1st Century Christians that escaped Jerusalem's destruction as per instructed by Jesus (Matt. 24:15-21; Luke 21:20-24), "let them in JUDEA flee into the mountains"

Why must Judean Christians flee into the mountains? Because they would be safe from Roman pursuit.

According to the Pew Research Center, just 0.6 percent of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians now live in the Middle East and North Africa. Christians make up only 4 percent of the region’s total inhabitants, drastically down from 20 percent a century ago, making Middle East Christians the smallest regional Christian minority in the world.

Christians make up 2% of Israel's population and today, Christians comprise less than 4% of the Palestinian population of Israel and the Palestinian territories - approximately 8% of the Arab population of the West Bank, less than 1% in the Gaza Strip.

Christians are leaving Jerusalem and Bethlehem in droves:

Arab Christian communities have existed in the Middle East since the second century a.d. and perhaps earlier. These were Christians whose language was Arabic and who would leave a vast and rich literature of Christian thought and spirituality in their native language. Before the rise of Mohammed in the seventh century, Arab Christians constituted 95 percent of the population in West Asia and Egypt, numbering more than 15 million (9.1 million in Iraq, 4 million in Syria, and 2.5 million in Egypt).


But in Palestine today, the Arab Christian communities are slowly dwindling. The land of Jesus Christ and His first Church are in danger of becoming merely a tourist attraction for visiting Christians from other parts of the world.


According to Bernard Sabella, former professor of sociology at Bethlehem University, there are about 38,000 Christians remaining in the West Bank and Gaza. “The official number,” he told me in an interview, “always stays at 50,000, but there are nowhere near that many today.”


Sabella, who was born in Bethlehem in 1945, is an elected member of the Palestinian legislature. Six seats in the legislature, he explained, are set aside for Christians to represent the Christian population of Palestine. These seats are apportioned according to the percentage of the Christian population, which is actually much lower (1.2 percent) than the number of seats allotted. “This is another reason to keep the number artificially high,” Sabella said.


I asked Sabella if Muslim extremism is the reason for the decline in Christian presence. “No,” he told me, “Christians and Muslims have gotten along very well in the region until recent years.” I challenged him with the widely reported story of the Christian book seller, Rami Ayyad, slain in Gaza last October by Muslim extremists.


“Christians and Muslims have maintained good relations because we have an understanding not to proselytize each other. Ayyad had been kidnapped and warned not to proselytize, but he was part of an evangelical group from Bethlehem taking aid to Gaza and talking about Jesus Christ. It was too much, especially for the new extremists.”


When I pointed out that this story does provide evidence for a growing Muslim threat, Sabella agreed, but insisted it’s a recent phenomenon. “To understand the problem you have to go back to 1948, to the creation of Israel. Out of the 726,000 Palestinian refugees there were nearly 60,000 Christians, or 35 percent of all the Christians in Palestine.”


Everything that has happened to Christians in the Holy Land must be understood, Sabella argued, as the response of Christian communities to the creation of Israel and the series of wars following, especially the 1967 war ending in the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. That occupation just passed its 40th anniversary, the longest in modern history. The description of an “Israeli occupation” is strongly disputed. During his January 2008 trip to Israel and the West Bank, however, President Bush called for an end to “the occupation that began in 1967.”


The reasons for the ongoing departure of Christians from the Holy Land are summarized by Sabella:


1) lack of an economic and cultural future under Israeli occupation; 2) increased security measures since the 2nd Intifada starting in 2000 — the security wall, more Jewish settlements and Israeli-citizen-only roads in the West Bank; and 3) the lure of joining already-departed family members in other countries such as Brazil, Canada, and the United States.

In fact, on my last trip to the Holy Land in March 2004, nearly every family I met had sent their children to colleges in the United States. I was told that most of them, upon graduating, never return home. When I asked the parents if they wanted their children to come back, they would shake their heads and say, “There is nothing for them here.”



The story told by Sabella has been chronicled before, most notably in The Body and the Blood: The Holy Land at the Turn of the Millennium — A Reporter’s Journey by Charles M. Sennott. Sennott was the Middle East bureau chief for the Boston Globe from 1997 to 2001. He witnessed both the Muslim terrorism and the reaction from Israelis that increased the burden on Christians in the West Bank and Gaza already struggling to stay on their ancestral land.


Sennott described Christians as caught in a “cultural no-man’s land” where “the voices of Muslim and Jewish extremism were drowning them out, squeezing them out of the public space.”​

Why Are the Christians Leaving the Holy Land? - Crisis Magazine

You futurists and dispensationalists are Christians out of time.

 

[Yekcidmij]

Another possiblity is that the Abomination of Desolation in Daniel is actually during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes IV.

1 Macc 1:[39] Her sanctuary became desolate as a desert;
her feasts were turned into mourning,
her sabbaths into a reproach,

[43] All the Gentiles accepted the command of the king. Many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath. [44] And the king sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah; he directed them to follow customs strange to the land, [45] to forbid burnt offerings and sacrifices and drink offerings in the sanctuary, to profane sabbaths and feasts, [46] to defile the sanctuary and the priests, [47] to build altars and sacred precincts and shrines for idols, to sacrifice swine and unclean animals, [48] and to leave their sons uncircumcised. They were to make themselves abominable by everything unclean and profane, [49] so that they should forget the law and change all the ordinances. [50] "And whoever does not obey the command of the king shall die."

[54] Now on the fifteenth day of Chislev, in the one hundred and forty-fifth year, they erected a desolating sacrilege upon the altar of burnt offering. They also built altars in the surrounding cities of Judah, [55] and burned incense at the doors of the houses and in the streets.

4:[36] Then said Judas and his brothers, "Behold, our enemies are crushed; let us go up to cleanse the sanctuary and dedicate it." [37] So all the army assembled and they went up to Mount Zion. [38] And they saw the sanctuary desolate, the altar profaned, and the gates burned.

6:[5] Then some one came to him in Persia and reported that the armies which had gone into the land of Judah had been routed; [6] that Lysias had gone first with a strong force, but had turned and fled before the Jews; that the Jews had grown strong from the arms, supplies, and abundant spoils which they had taken from the armies they had cut down; [7] that they had torn down the abomination which he had erected upon the altar in Jerusalem; and that they had surrounded the sanctuary with high walls as before, and also Beth-zur, his city.
​

 

[Interplanner]

It is? So Christ was double speaking all along?

 

[Yekcidmij]

It is? So Christ was double speaking all along?

What do you mean by "double speaking?"

 

[random person]

Daniel's 70 Weeks and Jesus both spoke of a future fulfillment of the Abomination of Desolation, and that occurred in 70 A.D. with the destruction of the final Jewish Temple.

 

[ebedmelech]

I don't share EbedM's view because the AofD needs to have been committed by someone in Israel.

If that be true Inter, why is not King Uzziah entering the temple for sacrifice not being a Levite commiting the AoD? God gave Uzziah leprosy for that, but it didn't even come close to the AoD.

When Antiochus Epiphanes entered the temple he commited the AoD sacrificing a pig on the alter and erecting an idol in the holy place.

Now, if the passage meant that the cause of the Romans being there was the evil and manipulative actions of zealot leaders (who defiled the temple by being 'leistes' in the temple, Lk 19:46--rebels, insurrectionists), then he has a point. ('Leistes' is usually translated thieves, but that would miss the ugly, dictatorial, violent side). Sorry but I just can't imagine this act, with its vocabulary being based on Levitical terminology, being something the Romans did apart from anything Israel did.

You have to think about the time frame. The temple means nothing because Christ has been raised. Therefore the AoD is relevant to the Jewish mind only, because the temple is just a structure if one is a Christian.

 

[Rev20]

Another possiblity is that the Abomination of Desolation in Daniel is actually during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes IV.

1 Macc 1:[39] Her sanctuary became desolate as a desert;
her feasts were turned into mourning,
her sabbaths into a reproach,

[43] All the Gentiles accepted the command of the king. Many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath. [44] And the king sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah; he directed them to follow customs strange to the land, [45] to forbid burnt offerings and sacrifices and drink offerings in the sanctuary, to profane sabbaths and feasts, [46] to defile the sanctuary and the priests, [47] to build altars and sacred precincts and shrines for idols, to sacrifice swine and unclean animals, [48] and to leave their sons uncircumcised. They were to make themselves abominable by everything unclean and profane, [49] so that they should forget the law and change all the ordinances. [50] "And whoever does not obey the command of the king shall die."

[54] Now on the fifteenth day of Chislev, in the one hundred and forty-fifth year, they erected a desolating sacrilege upon the altar of burnt offering. They also built altars in the surrounding cities of Judah, [55] and burned incense at the doors of the houses and in the streets.

4:[36] Then said Judas and his brothers, "Behold, our enemies are crushed; let us go up to cleanse the sanctuary and dedicate it." [37] So all the army assembled and they went up to Mount Zion. [38] And they saw the sanctuary desolate, the altar profaned, and the gates burned.

6:[5] Then some one came to him in Persia and reported that the armies which had gone into the land of Judah had been routed; [6] that Lysias had gone first with a strong force, but had turned and fled before the Jews; that the Jews had grown strong from the arms, supplies, and abundant spoils which they had taken from the armies they had cut down; [7] that they had torn down the abomination which he had erected upon the altar in Jerusalem; and that they had surrounded the sanctuary with high walls as before, and also Beth-zur, his city.
​

One is. But the one in 9:26-27 was a prophecy of Titus and his armies, and those desolations were determined separately (over and above the 70 weeks.) Josephus wrote of both.

Jesus was referring to the one by Antiochus as a "type", since that was the one that had been fulfilled. The disciples and the early Christians (Jews) would have understand that one since it was written as history in the Maccabees and other books; but not the one from Daniel 9.

One other point: the soil of the entire holy land was considered sacred; so it was an abomination for the pagan armies to step foot on that soil carrying their idols. Hence, Luke 20:21.


.

 

[Interplanner]

do you think the disciples would have understood that, just as there were old sacrifices (an actual lamb) and new ones (praise, helping a widow), there was an old abomination and a new one?

 

[Rev20]

do you think the disciples would have understood that, just as there were old sacrifices (an actual lamb) and new ones (praise, helping a widow), there was an old abomination and a new one?

The Abomination of Desolation of Antiochus IV was well-known amongst the Jews (the children of Israel.) The Hanukkah celebration (the Feast of Dedication--John 10:22; 1Mac 4:59; 2Mac 2:19) was established to celebrate the (re)dedication of the altar after the defeat of Antiochus, and was written in the Talmud. So, when Jesus told the desciples to look for the Abomination of Desolation, that would be the one they were familiar with.


.

 

[ebedmelech]

The Abomination of Desolation of Antiochus IV was well-known amongst the Jews (the children of Israel.) The Hanukkah celebration (the Feast of Dedication--John 10:22; 1Mac 4:59; 2Mac 2:19) was established to celebrate the (re)dedication of the altar after the defeat of Antiochus, and was written in the Talmud. So, when Jesus told the desciples to look for the Abomination of Desolation, that would be the one they were familiar with.


.

I've stressed this many time to no avail Rev20. I just don't get how this is missed...