Antiochus was in 167 BC.
Jesus proves you wrong.
He said: So when you see the abomination of desolation, of which Daniel spoke, standing in the holy place......Matthew 24:15
Both Daniel 9:27 and 2 Thess 2:4 make it clear this will happen in a Temple.
The historical record; the Bible and Josephus; have no indication that this has happened yet. Titus never desecrated the 2nd Temple, he tried to save it.
You see, this is where you fail basic comprehension.
The disciples exclaimed to Jesus "Look at these stones" and your 'theological blinkers' make them ask not about THOSE stones that they could see with their own eyes, but about stones 2000 years later? Really? PULL THE OTHER ONE - because that's just hilarious! Ha ha ha ha.
Honestly - and Jesus even describes how the Romans would besiege the city. They were to get out of town when they heard the Romans were coming.
Daniel 9:27 is notoriously difficult - and that you (someone who despises reading theology) think you've cracked it makes me wince. You're loading it with YOUR assumptions - NOT coming to it objectively - and ripping it out of context and throwing it away into your CME packed future. (2026 hey, according to your genealogies? Yeah, right.
)
As for 2 Thess 2:4, a friend of mine wrote:-
MAN OF LAWLESSNESS
John writes that “many antichrists have come”, reminding us that there has been great opposition to Christ ever since he was born (remember how Herod killed all the babies in Bethlehem trying to get to Jesus?). Throughout the whole Bible, we find characters who are ‘anti’ God’s plans—wicked men, foreign kings, false prophets and ‘the beast’ who features in
Revelation 13. Even in Deuteronomy, there are warnings about the rise of prophets who lie and preach rebellion against the true God.
But is there going to be one mega-evil ruler who will deceive the world and lead millions astray and do things like brand ‘666’ on their foreheads?
Probably not. There are passages in the Bible which talk about a particular being who is Christ’s foe (e.g., “the man of lawlessness” in
2 Thessalonians 2 or the dragon of
Revelation 12-13 who is identified as the Devil).
But this kind of symbolic language is used to describe an attitude or spirit of evil rather than a single evil person. The fact that some parts of Scripture bring ultimate evil to a head by using an individual character to identify it probably says more about how dramatic literature operates than it does about predicting history.
The worst thing about antichrists is that they have come from
within the church! The apostle John wrote that they “went out from us, but they did not really belong to us”. This is what antichrists do. They get among believers and try to deceive them, persuading them to believe lies and getting people to follow them and their deceptions rather than Jesus and his truth. They teach that Christ did not come in the flesh (
1 Jn 4:1-3); they say it doesn’t matter whether you sin or not (
1 Jn 1:5-10); and they neglect their Christian brothers and sisters (
1 Jn 4:19-21).
According to God’s word, the antichrist might have sat next to you in the church pew. This isn’t a scene from a horror movie; quite the opposite-it is an everyday event. In this final age before Jesus returns, plenty of opponents of Jesus will arise. And they may even be in church, trying to deceive us and lead us into error. But Christians can be confident and at peace, because there will be a day when all ‘antichristness’ will be done away with.
It’s a bit of a waste of time trying to work out whether the antichrist is Boris Yeltsin, the Dalai Lama, Bill Gates or the Pope. It’s just as likely to be your granny or your next door neighbour, if they are promoting lies about our Lord.
Just make sure it isn’t you …
See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us—even eternal life. (
1 John 2:24-25)
The devil you know
DANIEL 9
It's not literal but literary, and what it means to convey is hard for modern theologians to unpack. Many think it is Antiochus. Many think it could be Jesus. It depends on how the reader decides to measure - which decree from which Persian emperor letting the Jews go home, or various figures in Jewish rule go home, that the reader counts from.
People play a few games with the weeks and when to count from and to - but none of them quite work.
But quite frequently the number 7 applied to time means the fullness of time, and 70 is multiplied by 10 - the complete, overflowing fullness of God's perfect time.
In this case, it's I'm wondering if it is not so much about actual years and not numerically fixated. Rather, the years represent rough fractions of time. There are many examples of Jewish number symbolism not actually counting things but meaning things. 6 is man's number, the day of the week we were made on, the number of days we work, and short of God's perfection in the 7. Or take a third, used in Revelation. "A third were burned but the rest remained" - which does NOT mean a numerical third, but a scary big amount - but more survived that judgement than were killed by it. Like today's Covid pandemic.
Or take 3.5 years - times times and half a time. That's a limited, finite period of time. It does not matter how long specifically - because it's just saying a 'short' time - not God's fullness of time. 1000 is figurative for a 'gazillion'. There are many numerical SYMBOLS that are just NOT literal in Jewish number symbolism when referring to time. So maybe these 'weeks' are chunks of time illustrating roughly
what order things will happen in God's perfect time. But what does it all mean? I don't know. It could be that it refers to Antiochus, and his trashing of the temple. Or it could be Jesus - who is cut off - and then the timing in the last verses is open ended and refers to Romans destroying the temple and then ... we're left in a long but finite period of time at the end of things. In other words, there's a 3.5 there - a finite period of time. And we're in it.
26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the
Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.
(Jesus is killed)
The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.
(Romans)
The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.”
(Romans destroy the temple, Rome rules Judea for a while but eventually destroys the temple, and we are left in the last figurative 3.5 years.)
What Daniel's sevens mean is disputed. It's not terribly clear. But we get the message that God was in control, promising Daniel that his people would be rescued from their sin, an Anointed one would die, and there would be rough times ahead. And it roughly works either way - even if it refers to Antiochus - Jesus himself calls the end of the temple an "abomination that causes desolation." This is not a timetable for the future, but about events in our past. We should read the clearer parts of the New Testament for descriptions of our future - which are glorious - but hidden behind the secret of when Jesus will return like a thief in the night.