Are the 2300 mornings and evenings in Daniel 8:11-14 pointing to the Maccabee uprising or to the inv

[PeterDona]

Hope you are all doing well

I am posting this discussion in “controversial theology”, because I believe it is controversial. I am not here to break down anyone’s faith, yet dogma do interest me, and bible study is one of my preferred leisures. So after having a conversation with my good friend who is SDA, and has several times presented their doctrine, we agreed to dig into it.

The passage is,
Daniel 8:11-14 kjv
11 Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of the sanctuary was cast down. 12 And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practiced, and prospered. 13 Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? 14 And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

SDA view
The passage is very important in SDA theology, as one of their pillars is that Jesus returned invisibly in 1844, calculating the 2300 mornings and evenings as 2300 day-years, to be counted from a specific time before Christ.

Orthodox (?) view
The only counter-view I could find on the net is, that the passage is a prediction of the maccabean revolt, happening from 168 bc to 165 bc. In this view, the 2300 mornings and evenings are considered to be 2300 morning and evening sacrifices combined, and thus to last for 1150 days, being a little more than 3 years.

The conversation with my SDA friend ended being me arguing for the “orthodox” view, and my friend putting forth arguments for the SDA view.

(1) my first argument: OT prophecy is written for the jewish people, and NT prophecy is written for the christian people, it would be incongruent to find a prophecy related to a specific christian event in the old testament prophecy.

(2) his first argument: “sacrifce” is a word not found in the original text.
My answer was to look up the word for “daily sacrifice”, Strongs 8548 tamiyd, and find that indeed it usually had some noun attached, either “bread” or “meat” or “sacrifice”. Hebrew Concordance: hat·tā·mîḏ -- 24 Occurrences I observed however, that this word had a very limited usage, only used in Numbers, Nehemiah, and Daniel. There was another word for “daily” that was used more widely, namely 3117 yown, that means “day”. Going back to 8548 tamiyd, Strong's Hebrew: 8548. תָּמִיד (tamid) -- 104 Occurrences ,I found that it was in most cases translated “continual” or “regular”, and only in a few select cases translated “daily”. It could therefore be considered a bit misleading to translate it “daily” in all the occurences in Daniel.

(3) my second observation was, that “evenings and mornings” could point to evening and morning sacrifices, rather than being an unconventional way of invoking the day-year idea. I do feel, that there is enough other words to indicate, that the topic under discussion is related to ceremonial sacrifices.

 

[PeterDona]

thread title should be "Are the 2300 mornings and evenings in Daniel 8:11-14 pointing to the Maccabee uprising or to the invisible return of Jesus"

 

[SuperCow]

Take this for what it's worth, but I argue for a different interpretation of that prophecy in my book. The 2300 days becomes confusing since many of the adventist wing of Christianity try to use numbers in Daniel as years, notably in Daniel 4 where 7 times becomes 2520 days (360x7) which becomes 2520 years. SDA, JW, BI, DBS and some independents use this number of years in various ways, but there is nothing in the chapter that indicates this. They stretch this from two other scriptures that reference a day for a year in totally different contexts. Daniel on the other hand provides the interpretation as literally 7 years.

For the 2300 years, SDA uses this as years as you mention. You have to go back 60 years to find a JW publication that tries to interpret this. (Which strangely they interpret as days of events that occurred for during the time of their second president in 1918, but I digress.)

Personally, I believe 2300 years is wrong. I also believe 1150 days is wrong. I think it quite clearly says 2300 evenings AND mornings, so it is really 2300 days. I think that they are correct in that it is most likely referring to the Maccabean revolt, as this was the most serious threat to Jewish culture between the time of Esther and Jesus. So what is it referring to?

Verse 13: How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice (from verse 11), the transgression of desolation (Which is clearer from Daniel chapter 11 where it talks about the disgusting thing that causes desolation), and the sanctuary and the host to be trodden underfoot? (from verse 10 and 12).

Verse 14: ...Until 2300 days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.

In 1 Maccabees 4:52, there is an exact date when the sanctuary was cleansed. Year 148, 9th month and 25th day. (Apparently counting from the year of the peace treaty that broke Alexander the Great's empire into four divisions.) This translates to December 14th, 164BC. If this is the end of the 2300 days, we can count back 6 years and a few months to late August of 170BC. (26th to 28th or so of the month depending on how to count leap years)

This was not the start of the war. That began in 167BC, which is why those that attempt to confirm this prophecy try to count it as 1150 days. However, there was a very significant event that lead up to the actual war. (Keep in mind that details about everything after this point is disputed by modern historians and Josephus writings differ from the details in the Maccabees.)

All high priests of the temple, according to Mosaic law, had to come from the tribe of Levi. The high priest in 175BC was Onias III. A man named Menelaus desired to be high priest and tried to bribe the Greek nobles in Syria with temple items. Onias publicly accused him of robbing the temple; however, because of Menelaus popularity with some high ranking Greeks, the accusation eventually forced him to flee Jerusalem. His brother Jason took over duties in Jerusalem in the meantime. Menelaus conspired with a greek governor to have Onias murdered. He then continued to take treasures from the temple for bribes. Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Emperor of Greece) felt he had the right as emperor to install who he wanted as high priest, and gave the title to Menelaus. Jason contested the title, was supported by the Jews and forced Menelaus out while Antiochus was fighting a war in Egypt.

Antiochus took offense to this and came back and attacked Jerusalem, killing many inhabitants and plundered the temple, forcing Menelaus back to the title. (Who was rumored to help Antiochus against Jerusalem.) All this happened in 170BC. The problem (other than the murders and treachery) was that Menelaus was of the tribe of Benjamin, and not eligible under Jewish law to be High Priest. So for 2300 days (and I can only prove the year, not the month) the temple was plundered, ruled and controlled by Menelaus as a puppet of the Greek emperor Antiochus. This was not restored until the end of the war.

So the 2300 days is the time period from the plundering of the temple lasting for the time that a non-Levite was High Priest. Only then could it be spiritually cleansed.