Concerning Daniel:
"Prophecy is the word of Yahoveh (2Peter 1:21); and, as Jehovah is He Who was, and is, and is to come, prophecy must partake of, and relate to, the past, present, and future also; and must have this threefold interpretation or application. The prophecy first quoted by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament will show us how He uses the prophecy which He had Himself inspired; and therefore will furnish us with the principles on which we are to interpret other prophecies.
It will be seen that a prophecy may have (1) a reference to the time and occasion on which it was first spoken; (2) a reference to a later event or circumstances (when it is quoted as having been "spoken", or "written"); and (3) a reference to a yet later or future or final event, which exhausts it (when it is quoted as being "fulfilled;" i.e. filled full).
Hence, instead of speaking of "praeterists" and "futurists", we must sometimes take a larger view, and be prepared to see both a
past, present and
future interpretation." (From
here)
Concerning Criticism:
During the 16, 17, and 1800's, a movement started that would eventually be known as the "Higher Criticism". They were the ones who began to question the Divine Authorship of the Bible, questioned the authorship of Isaiah, the Pentatuech, etc.
"Regarding the views of the Continental Critics, three things can be confidently asserted of nearly all, if not all, of the real leaders.
1. They were men who
denied the validity of miracle, and the validity of any miraculous narrative. What Christians consider to be miraculous they considered legendary or mythical; legendary exaggeration of events that are entirely explicable from natural causes.
2.
They were men who denied the reality of prophecy and the validity of any prophetical statement. What Christians have been accustomed to consider prophetical, they called dexterous conjectures, coincidences, fiction, or imposture.
3.
They were men who denied the reality of revelation, in the sense in which it has ever been held by the universal Christian Church. They were avowed unbelievers of the supernatural. Their theories were excogitated on pure grounds of human reasoning. Their hypotheses were constructed on the assumption of the falsity of Scripture. As to the inspiration of the Bible, as to the Holy Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation being the Word of God, they had no such belief. We may take them one by one. Spinoza repudiated absolutely a supernatural revelation. And Spinoza was one of their greatest. Eichhorn discarded the miraculous, and considered that the so-called supernatural element was an Oriental exaggeration; and Eichhorn has been called the father of Higher Criticism, and was the first man to use the term. De Wettes views as to inspiration were entirely infidel. Vatke and Leopold George were Hegelian rationalists, and regarded the first four books of the Old Testament as entirely mythical. Kuenen, says Professor Sanday, wrote in the interests of an almost avowed Naturalism. That is, he was a free-thinker, an agnostic; a man who did not believe in the Revelation of the one true and living God. (Brampton Lectures, 1893, page 117). He wrote from an avowedly naturalistic standpoint, says Driver (page 205). According to Wellhausen the religion of Israel was a naturalistic evolution from heathendom, an emanation from an imperfectly monotheistic kind of semi-pagan idolatry. It was simply a human religion."
Since since the beginning of wisdom is reverence for God (Pro. 1:7), the knowledge of these atheists is incomplete, no matter how much study in the Bible they have done.
Please note, I am
not saying that any of
you guys are atheists!
But unfortunately, much of this atheistic teaching has seeped into the church.
