You have repeatedly said Dan 11:5-35 are detailed accounts. I agree with you. What about Dan 11:2? How many years does that cover?
Which power is introduced in Dan 11:30?
Roughly 90 years were involved in verse 2, but that is not significant. What is significant is that this statement is precisely accurate, and it happened exactly as stated. The fourth king of Persia was the exceedingly wealthy Xerxes I, son of Darius, who stirred up all against the realm of Greece, Then the third verse skips over about 130 years to Alexander the Great.
I always say such things as “approximately,” or “about,” because, having devoted around forty years to a detailed personal study of the what the ancients actually wrote, (as opposed to simply rreading what modern historians think,) I have very little confidence in the dates assigned to various historic events. For although there is generally a fair amount of agreement among the ancient sources about the events themselves, there is very little agreement about when they happened.
Another difficulty with the standard interpretation of dan 11:31 is Matthew 24:15. Did Jesus refer to the abomination of desolation as past or future? Clearly Jesus put that in the future, and how did the disciples respond to Jesus' warning of Matt 24:15? They fled in 70AD when the Romans surrounded Jerusalem. So the church from 30 AD to 70 AD somehow linked the prophecy of Dan 11 with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. How could that be? Lucky you weren't there to tell them how wrong they were. I guess Jesus broke your rules of interpretation too.
In Daniel 9:27 the "prince who is to come" will make a seven year covenant with “many,” which appears to mean the people of Judah. But Isaiah 28:18 warns them that "Your covenant with death will be annulled, And your agreement with Sheol will not stand;" How? The Lord says "But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate." (Daniel 9:27) We also read of "the transgression of desolation" in Daniel 8:13 and of "the abomination of desolation" in Daniel 12:11. These passages all seem to refer to the time when "the man of sin... the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, ... sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)
This term "the abomination of desolation" is also found in some English translations of Daniel 11:31. But the Hebrew word translated desolation in this verse is “meshomem.” This word form literally means “desolator,” not “desolation.” The form of this word which means “desolation” is “shomem.” This form was used in both Daniel 8:13 and Daniel 12:11. As these are both forms of the Hebrew word “shamem,” Strong's Hebrew Dictionary lists them both under the same index number (8074). But such slight variations are significant in Bible prophecy. Daniel 11:31 refers to a different event than the one in Daniel 8:13 and 12:11.
Daniel 11:21-32 describes the actions of the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes. History says this "vile person" (Daniel 11:21) desecrated the altar with the sacrifice of a pig. Verse 31 literally calls this “the abomination of the desolator.” But Daniel 8:13 and 12:11 refer to an event which was still future when our Lord spoke of it approximately two hundred years after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Jesus called it "the ‘abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet." (Matthew 24:15)
You are like many Jews in the first century who were so locked in to how they thought the prophecies about messiah should be fulfilled that they failed to recognise Him when he came. You have read many books about prophecy but have you ever asked the author what He meant? He may surprise you. I know I was surprised and amazed when I asked Him to show me something fresh, because I had read many books too. I knew everything our church taught about prophecy. One of His replies to my prayer about Rev 9 was the August 1969 National Geographic which had a report about the 67-68 plague in North Africa. The maps and quotes in that article pointed straight to Islam.
Actually, my doctrine comes from the word of God, not from the words of men. I have found some very old teachers very helpful in understanding it, including some that wrote as long ago as plus or minus twenty years from the year 200. But I have seen very little that is even helpful that has been written later than the first few years of the twentieth century.
