Pre-Tribbers are not Pre-Tribbers because of 'escapism' - but because of how they interpret the Scriptures - I used to be one.
I came to reject the idea of a "GAP" between 69th and 70th week of Daniel -- the idea that "the Prophetic Clock STOPPED" and awaits a resuming and final shauvim with a rebuilt temple and renewed animal sacrifices was eventually more than I could take in.
Forecasted times for Israel - such as sojourn in Egypt (about 400 years) and the 70 years captivity in Babylon -- they ran CONCURRENTLY and CONSECUTIVELY, no gaps.
Why shouldn't Daniels entire 70 shauvim be viewed the same way?
Interesting post.
I had a website saved from way back in 2008 concerning Daniel, [but it is no longer available].
Here is all I copied from it [LLoJ head slaps himself for not copying the whole page]:
quote:
You see if you read Daniel's prophecy it states that 'an anointed prince' would be swept away and then the one who killed him would 'enter a seven year covenant' and practice all sorts of abominations, and, as it states in an even more jarring and incongruous fashion, 'the end of the world would come swiftly like a flood.'
All this is rather 'jarring' to read, and does leave a person scratching their heads, wondering what is wrong with this picture.
A doctrine of the 'revived Roman empire' was then concocted, and at the time this happens,
the clock will start ticking again and that last bit of prophecy will finally be fulfilled.
This might explain
chapter nine, if you choose to accept such nimble interpretation, but another excuse would have to be cooked up for
chapters 10 to 12, for it is self evident that in this source (written in the second century in response to Antiochus IV)
the world did not end immediately after Antiochus despoiled Jerusalem and the temple, Michael was not outraged enough to promptly end the world.
This 'clock' must have 'stopped ticking' as well, awaiting the awakening and the rise of the 'revived Selucid Greek empire' at which time it will finally be fulfilled.
This would, of course, require
ending the world twice (once to Revive the Romans and thus salvage chapter 9, and a second go at it to revive the Greeks and salvage chapter 12.
Whether or not
we can all tolerate suffering through two ends of the world is a good question, but this would be required to salvage the doctrine of 'Biblical inerrancy.'...................
As a final point I have to ask how, after those early churches embarrassed everyone by reading Daniel in an uncritical way and being gullible about the Bible, and prophecy in particular, you really have to wonder why any other modern church would want to do the same thing,
repeat the same mistake, and embarrass themselves in the same way as those early churches did.
It turns out that there are certain things you can learn by not taking the Bible
literally all the time, and this lesson is certainly one of them.
