See.. that is what I mean by interpretation rather than translation.
They believed it represented Greece and so they inserted Greece, rather than leaving the translation of Javan.
I have similar disagreement with translating Cush as Ethiopia and Put as Libya. That kind of thing should be footnotes rather than inserted in the text.
I think if Greece was in the mind of the author, and the word 'Yavan" covers it, then inserting Greece seems perfectly acceptable to me, just as any foreign word gets translated differently when it uses an equivalent word in another tongue. In this case, a word for word translation might misrepresent both the intention and the meaning.
Your own problem seems to be that Greece does not fit your own preconceived belief about what the passage means. "Yavan," then, becomes a means of changing what the author actually intended to say. When he meant to imply "Greece," you want to think the implication excludes Greece, which is obviously untrue based on what I quoted to you.
Yavan apparently did refer to a region that included Greece, and not an area that excluded Greece. The context, then, indicates that the reference was to a part of Yavan that would fulfill the prophecy, which we now know to be Greece.
The context is not changing the meaning of Yavan--it is only suggesting to those at the time that Yavan would identify a people we now know to be Greeks. Translators felt the need to explain that with their translation, which is a translation by context more than a corruption of the translation.
the 4th Kingdom before the Kingdom of God comes in Daniel 2 would be accurate, but Daniel 7 is talking about the return of Christ, and there are 2 more Kingdoms after the Roman Empire involved in that in Revelation 17.
I don't think you understand what I was saying, though I don't blame you. It's difficult to say. Let's say I have 2 hands with 10 fingers, in which 3 of the fingers are partly cut off. So now I have 10 fingers with only 7 full fingers.
And let's say that Rome was stamped on those hands, and I couldn't tell anybody what was stamped on the hands. I had to use a cryptic device to explain that it was Rome to people who would understand the cryptic language.
So I tell them, to confuse those outside, that the 7 full fingers represent 7 cities, with the 6th city being Rome, currently having the dominance. That is a hint to those on the inside that the 2 hands represent Rome.
To provide a 2nd witness I add a 2nd cryptic puzzle. I said the 7 full fingers represent 7 hills. Those on the inside know that Rome has 7 hills. Again, the identification of the name stamped on the hands is Rome.
John was imprisoned by Rome, and couldn't tell his readers that Rome was a Prostitute and a Beast that would be defeated by Christianity. So he knew that they had been taught from Dan 7 that the Beast was the 4th Kingdom, Rome, with 10 horns and 7 heads, 3 of the heads having been defeated.
Then John used the 7 heads as a cryptic device to represent 2 figures that Christians would recognize as Rome. 1st was a set of 7 biblical kingdoms in the Bible, with the 6th kingdom representing Rome. And then he used the figure of 7 hills, which Christians would again recognize as Rome.
Beyond that, Christians would note that Rome was the city that presently rules, as John said in Rev 17.18.. And they would also know that Rome was a pagan Prostitute, who sold pagan peoples on false religions that worship people and creatures and persecute the saints.
If you have Daniel 2 and 7 just being repeats of each other, you have a dispute with Revelation 17. But if they are talking about different things, Daniel 2 being Historical to the time of Jesus, and Christianity conquering the Roman Empire and the entire world.. but have Daniel 7 being a vision of the End Times... then it's not necessarily a dispute. The statue being the 4 empires from Daniel's time to Jesus' time, and the 4 beasts being 3 empires that exist around the time of the end that become a 4th beast that becomes global. Remember, Babylon had already arisen and it's time was nearing its end. It wasn't a "shall arise"
An amalgamation of the 4 kingdoms contained in a latter day appearance of the 4th Kingdom does involve a 7th kingdom and an 8th king, and is not inconsistent with the introduction of all 4 kingdoms as a set. Though Daniel portrays this set of kingdoms as 4 in number, they could also be presented in a set of 7 kingdoms.
The 4th Kingdom has both an ancient and a latter-day manifestation, as evidenced by the breakup of the Kingdom into 10 states and their re-unification in the latter days. And so John is shown the Roman Kingdom as the 6th kingdom in succession and in the 7th Kingdom, with the 8th king being the King over this Kingdom.
It was normal for the Prophets to distinguish, at times, between a king and the kingdom over which he presides. In the case of Antichrist he appears as both a king and a kingdom. The "Beast" represents both the man and the Kingdom he rules over, because in him is the satanic leadership.
Rome is not the prostitute in the text, that's an interpretation.
It's an interpretation that seems to be intended to be understood by the use of subtle language.
A key detail about the prostitute is that she is not the beast herself.
I would differ. Yes, the prostitute rides the Beast. But it may be the relationship of a capital city to the Kingdom it presides over. In effect, Rome is the capital of the Roman Empire.
Rather she rides the beast, she controls it initially, and the 10 kings hate and destroy her, and then prop up the beast.
If Rome is the capital of the Beast Kingdom it makes sense that the Kingdom itself would hate her, because she is the vestige of an apostate Christian religion. It had corrupted itself with paganism, and just like ancient Israel, who corrupted herself with paganism, the result would be the pagan kingdom turning upon the apostate city.
Rome was not an Amalgamation of Babylon or Persia, it did absorb a lot of Greek culture but was distinct from Babylon and Persia.
The imperial tradition over the Mediterranean region was inherited by imperial Rome. That control has not been given back.
Whatever the 3 previous kingdoms had ruled over, Roman Power came to control the same. That was the amalgamation of power of all 4, having the same qualities that those previous powers held.
In the endtimes those 4 beasts reflect leopard, bear, and lion, which are predatory animals like ancient Babylon, Persia, and Greece. Latter-Day Rome will, I believe, continue to dominate Europe and the Mediterranean world, and maintain its imperial control under Antichrist.
There's literally nothing to be gained by claiming "well he meant Rome but couldn't say it was Rome" Why? They were already trying to kill him because of his illegal religion. They already killed all of the other apostles.
Don't agree. The Prophets were given to conceal things from unbelievers at times. That's why Jesus told parables.
