Who are the seven heads of Revelation 17?

[Martn]

[Martn]

[Martn]

[Pickle]

24 minutes ago, MCBGM said:

All scripture which is inSpired is profitable.

But, not all scripture is inSpired.

If everything ever written throughout history were inSpired, then even Shakespeare would be profitable for doctrine.

I was referring to the Old and New Testaments.

[Pickle]

23 minutes ago, MCBGM said:

Yes. It does.

Then it won't work. The textual connections between ch. 8 and 9 are there, and thus the idea that the last 3 1/2 years are future can't be valid.

You would agree that the "mar'eh of the evening and the morning which was told" is the 2300 evening-morning? And that Gabriel in ch. 9 where he told Daniel to "consider the mar'eh," that he was referring to the "mar'eh of the evening and morning"?

[Pickle]

21 minutes ago, MCBGM said:

Yes. They certainly did.

The beast image and mark existed in Jesus's day as well. History repeats itself.

You think that the little horn of Daniel 7 had already arisen by the time of Christ? Or are you saying that the beast of Rev. 13 is something other than the little horn of Dan. 7?

[Pickle]

17 minutes ago, MCBGM said:

That's what you think.

No. That's what I know. 1 Kings 6:1 says that Solomon built the temple in the 480th year after the Exodus. The Exodus occurred 400 and 430 years after certain events. The genealogies of Genesis then take us back from there to creation. There's some wiggle room, but not as much as what you are proposing.

[Pickle]

19 minutes ago, jackson said:

 So why in chapter 9 does Daniel say the people of the prince, and who is the prince whose people destroy the sanctuary?

There is another possibility other than Titus.

One's people. That can refer to family, fellow citizens, subjects, or, similar to the last one, a god's followers. "I shall be their people, and they shall be my God."

Before I go further, I assume that when it says that he shall confirm the covenant, that "he" you take to be Christ. Futurists say it's the antichrist or a Roman prince because the last mentioned person is the prince whose people destroy the city and sanctuary. Thus we need to have some reason to change the antecedent back to Christ, or have that last mentioned prince be Christ too.

Bill Shea in the DARCom series pointed out what I mentioned, that the literary structure of the passage points to the second prince being Christ as well.

Jesus told a parable in which the king sent forth his armies to destroy a certain city. Thus in that parable the Roman armies that destroyed Jerusalem are the armies of God. This would permit the prince of Dan. 9:26 to be Christ while still having the people be the Romans.

But it is also true that the covenant people of God, the Jewish nation, destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, as Josephus and Great Controversy make fairly clear. Josephus notes that the first to start burning the temple complex were Jews, for example.

Given all the references to God's covenant with His people throughout Dan. 9, do you see any reason why "people of the prince" could not be referring to the covenant people of God?

I found two later prophetic references to a coming Messianic King that also refer to a covenant:

Zechariah 9:9-11  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. ... As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.

Malachi 3:1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

[JoeMo]

2 hours ago, Pickle said:

Can you state anything in the Torah that Christian Jews of the first century, including Paul, did not adhere to or rejected? Please include Christian Jews before the word "Christian" was coined.

I don't know if the epistle was written before or after the believers were first called Christians in Antioch; but Paul wrote:

"You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ² I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? ³ Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?^{[a] 4} Have you experienced^[b] so much in vain—if it really was in vain? ⁵ So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?" (Gal. 3:1-5)

" It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  ² Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. ³ Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. ⁴ You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. (Gal. 5:1-4)

 

[Pickle]

2 hours ago, JoeMo said:

I don't know if the epistle was written before or after the believers were first called Christians in Antioch; but Paul wrote:

"You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ² I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? ³ Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?^{[a] 4} Have you experienced^[b] so much in vain—if it really was in vain? ⁵ So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?" (Gal. 3:1-5)

" It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  ² Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. ³ Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. ⁴ You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. (Gal. 5:1-4)

That would be written after. But note that Paul says nothing about not adhering to the Torah in this passage.

1. The Torah does not require Gentiles to be circumcised in order to be saved, and thus the Judaizers of Acts 15 were trying to add to the Torah something that was never there.
2. Paul is clear in Gal. 5:19-21 that those who do the works of the flesh will not go to heaven.
3. Since Paul then states that there is no law that is against the fruit of the Spirit, he is saying that it is the law that bars such folks from heaven.

What is Paul's issue in Galatians?

Galatians 2:21 ... for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

For the Bible-believing Christian, the law is the standard that tells us what righteousness is. But it cannot make us righteous. Only the re-creation David speaks of in Ps. 51, and the imputed and imparted righteousness of Christ, can do that.

This is quite different than saying that Paul rejected the Torah.

A Karaite Jew, I think one who does not consider himself to be a believer in Jesus, wrote a book about the Gospel of Matthew. Another Karaite wasn't too happy about that, but after he read the book, he was surprised to find out that Jesus was like the Karaites in that He rejected tradition in favor of Scripture. Rabbinical Jews who read the book were surprised to find out that Jesus wasn't out to do away with the law.

I don't know how MCBGM will respond to some of this, but I think that Christians misconstruing what Paul taught about the law has been a reason why more Jews haven't accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior. For MCBGM to suggest that Paul wasn't even a Jew because he was a Christian, because he thinks Paul somehow rejected the Torah, illustrates just how big the misunderstanding is.

Caiaphas ripped his priestly robes, a crime for which the Torah commanded death, but we don't hear him being denounced as a non-Jew. So there seems to be a bit of a disconnect. Note that Stephen, in his defence of his faith in Acts 7 stressed that the Messiah would be a prophet like Moses, the Moses who was rejected by the people and yet was still made Israel's deliverer by God. So rather than rejecting the Torah, Stephen used it to show that Jesus must have been the Messiah.

I think, therefore, that the real question is if a Jew can adhere to the Torah without accepting Jesus. If not, then MCBGM's logic would lead one to conclude that if a Jew does not accept Jesus, he ceases to be a Jew.

I'm not necessarily comfortable with his logic.

[Pickle]

1 hour ago, jackson said:

Pickle,

i believe the 70 week prophecy and the 2300 day prophecy are of the same vision that the angel is helping Daniel understand. I believe this prophecy is interpreted historically , with the day for a year principle.. To me that eliminates preterist and futurist interpretations. There is only one starting date so splitting the 70 weeks into past and future events would make the starting date useless for determining both  the time line. for the 70 weeks and the 2300 days

Daniel's people are the Jewish nation. Their probation closes in 34 AD, after which sentence is passed  that their city and temple are to be  destroyed.

Titus was a prince. His people, not he, destroyed the city and the sanctuary. These are historical facts and they fit the time line of the prophecy.  

These events already happened. Why look for this to occur at some future time . Remember Daniel is inquiring about the fate of his people and the 70 weeks culminates in their house being left to them desolate forever.

It is also an historical fact that the people of Messiah the Prince destroyed Jerusalem. So how do we decide who the prince is when we have two possible choices?

[Pickle]

6 hours ago, jackson said:

Pickle,

Messiah's people are those that love Him.; not those that rejected Him. 

Matt 12:50    For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother

Titus and his people fit the prophecy in every particular. Only Titus' people, against his wishes, destroyed the temple, and God made this fact prominent and worthy of note in the the writings of Daniel, Josephus and the SOP. It makes the 70 week prophecy amazingly accurate and give solid evidence the the Bible is indeed inspired by Him who knows the end from the beginning, even down to the last detail. 

So are you saying that the Jews who started burning the temple were in fact the people of Titus? I'm certain you're not, but I did point out that Josephus records that the Jews were the first to start burning the temple complex. This was before the fateful night when a Roman soldier lit the temple itself.

And Josephus tells how the three gangs took control of the three parts of the city, the temple, the upper city, and the lower city, and fought each other, even using catapults and firing missiles at each other.

Because 1SAT 5.1 and Ms8-1874 capitalize "Prince," it would seem that they identify the Prince of the phrase "people of the Prince" as being Christ.

Suppose we have the prince in "people of the prince" be Titus. How do you then get the "he" in Dan. 9:27 to be Christ?

Note that if the "he" of vs. 27 is Christ, then it is Christ that destroys Jerusalem in vs. 27, not the people of Titus.

[Pickle]

2 hours ago, jackson said:

The blind obstinacy of the Jewish leaders, and the detestable crimes perpetrated within the besieged city, excited the horror and indignation of the Romans, and Titus at last decided to take the temple by storm. He determined, however, that if possible it should be saved from destruction. But his commands were disregarded. After he had retired to his tent at night, the Jews, sallying from the temple, attacked the soldiers without. In the struggle, a firebrand was flung by a soldier through an opening in the porch, and immediately the cedar-lined chambers about the holy house were in a blaze. Titus rushed to the place, followed by his generals and legionaries, and commanded the soldiers to quench the flames. His words were unheeded. In their fury the soldiers hurled blazing brands into the chambers adjoining the temple, and then with their swords they slaughtered in great numbers those who had found shelter there. Blood flowed down the temple steps like water. Thousands upon thousands of Jews perished. Above the sound of battle, voices were heard shouting: "Ichabod!"--the glory is departed.  {GC 33.1} 

Pickle,

I have given you what appears reasonable to me and violates neither scripture, the SOP nor history. , I am not the final word. If you want to disagree so be it

You didn't address Josephus' story about Jews being the first to start burning the temple complex, a story that doesn't conflict with GC at all. Could you please address it?

It's always possible that I misread Josephus, so feel free to correct me. See ch. 2 para. 9 through ch. 3 para. 2 at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/war-6.html .

[Martn]

[Martn]

[Martn]

[Martn]

[Pickle]

15 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Not everything there is inSpired. Only the parts which prove to be inSpired are profitable for doctrine.

Paul specifically says he is talking about the scriptures which Timothy knew since childhood. Which could only mean the Hebrew scriptures, since Christian scripture didn't even exist at that time. Christian scripture isn't mentioned at all.

Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform) does not hold any of the texts found in the Writings section of the Bible to be authoritative. Individual Jewish thinkers in some cases do, but the religion itself does not and never did.

"To the Law and to the Prophets," it says, but never does it say 'to the Writings.'

2 Peter 3:16  As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

I take this text to say that Paul's epistles are Scripture. So we do have a text that identifies NT writings as being Scripture.

Luke 24:27  And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

Looks like "all the Scriptures" includes more than just Moses and the prophets, and thus should include the Writings.

John 10:34-35  Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;

Here's Jesus quoting Psalms and calling it part of the Jewish law. Indeed, John Gill quotes the Talmud as calling Psalms part of the law as well. So I think you are incorrect that Judaism has never considered the Writings as part of Scripture and inspired. "Cannot be broken" means to me that it has considerable authority.

Luke 24:44  And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

Does this not refer to the three divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures?

[Pickle]

14 hours ago, MCBGM said:

It seems that way, to you, because you are held back by Adventist theory on this point.

No, rather, my statement was based on what Dan. 8 and 9 plainly say.

 

14 hours ago, MCBGM said:

The 2300 years (the Age of the Fish --the Christian era) did not begin at the same time as the 70 weeks.

Tell me, then, why Gabriel said, "Consider the mar'eh" just before he started talking about the 70 weeks?

 

14 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Daniel plainly says the 70 weeks end in destruction of the temple.

Where does Dan. 9 say that?

 

14 hours ago, MCBGM said:

However, the 2300 years (the Age of the Church), he also plainly says, begin with the destruction of Herod's temple, at the tearing of the veil.

Where does it say that?

[Pickle]

14 hours ago, MCBGM said:

I knew you were going to say that. Very predictable.

There are things you don't know, however. And you don't even know that you don't know them.

There's a lot more wiggle room than you realize. The genealogy in Genesis is repeated elsewhere in the Bible, and in those other instances we find that whole entire generations were omitted from the Genesis account. We also see this when we compare the Genesis genealogy with parallel genealogies recorded in the histories of other ancient peoples such as the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, and Greeks, who speak of hundreds and maybe even thousands of generations which are missing in the Genesis record.

In every single one of these parallel histories it is said that human beings, as we know them, first appeared around 500,000 years ago --the exact same number given in the Hebrew Bible as well, though it has been overlooked.

So we have one single generational difference in the Genesis genealogies between the Masoretic text and the LXX, amounting to only a difference of 130 years, and that means we can leap to the conclusion that there are thousands of missing generations amounting to a difference of 100's of thousands of years? I don't buy that.

Those Genesis genealogies says that so and so was x number of years old when his son so and so was born. That wording, in a book Judaism considers to be inspired, does not allow for what you are suggesting.

I would be interested in looking at a parallel genealogy. Are there any online?

[Pickle]

14 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Accepting Jesus isn't a problem for Jews. The real Jesus is not at odds with Judaism.

The problem is accepting Jesus as represented (actually misrepresented) by Christians. Doing that is what makes one not Jewish. Because it is a violation of the Torah to do so.

And by Torah, Jews mean the whole Law. Not just the Ten Commandments.

Of course there are some parts of the Torah which no longer apply (what Adventists call ceremonial). But that is only because the things to which they apply no longer exist.

Are you trying to say that accepting Christ's divinity would be a violation of the Torah? If so, I think this is incorrect because we have a lot of passages in the OT where a person sent from God is also called God.

[Pickle]

12 hours ago, jackson said:

 The fires that ensued in the courtyard were being put out by the soldiers, but the Jews fought against them .Whether the Jews set fires in the courtyard or hindered their extinguishing  is not clear.

Maybe I've misunderstood part of it, but did you read the part where the Jews lit one of the cloisters in order to burn Roman soldiers to death? That's in the beginning of ch. 3.

In ch. 2 is where the first burning occurs:

"9. In the mean time the Jews were so distressed by the fights they had been in; as the war advanced higher and higher, and creeping up to the holy house itself, that they, as it were, cut off those limbs of their body which were infected, in order to prevent the distemper’s spreading farther. For they set the northwest cloister which was joined to the tower of Antonia on fire: and after that brake off about twenty cubits of that cloister: and thereby made a beginning in burning the sanctuary. Two days after which, or on the twenty fourth day of the fore-named month, [Panemus, or Tamuz, A.D. 70] the Romans set fire to the cloister that joined to the other: when the fire went fifteen cubits farther."

Josephus here compares "they set ... on fire" to cutting off one's limbs, which cutting off of limbs he says that the Jews did, as it were. So I think it fairly clear that he is saying that the Jews were the ones who started "burning the sanctuary." Two days later, the Romans set first to something more.

[Pickle]

12 minutes ago, jackson said:

Pickle,

I gave you the account of the last hours before the sanctuary was consumed. I will give it to you again. Josephus is clear that the Jews did not want their sanctuary destroyed and were distraught at its  burning. 

But these Romans put the Jews to flight; and proceeded as far as the holy house it self. At which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking; and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire: and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were round about the holy house, on the north side of it. As the flames went upward, the Jews made a great clamour, such as so mighty an affliction required; and ran together to prevent it. And now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered any thing to restrain their force, since that holy house was perishing, for whose sake it was that they kept such a guard about it.Chap 4.5

If you want to believe otherwise or still have doubts about the account above by Josephus, the GC account by Mrs White and the Bible's account of the "people of the Prince to come" then do so. 

What seems clear to me  does not seem clear to you. So let's leave it at that. We just disagree.

I doubt we disagree. I said the Jews were the ones that started burning the temple complex. I never said they were the ones who started burning the temple building.

I think a case can be made from Ellen White that the people of the Prince were the Roman armies, and that the Prince was Christ. Would you not conclude from 1SAT 5 and Ms 8, 1874 that this is the case?

[Lysimachus]

MCBGM, nowhere in Daniel 9:24-27 does it even hint that the 70 weeks end with the destruction of the temple.

It simply implies that the destruction of the temple is a subsequent external consequence of rejecting and killing the Messiah during the last of the 70 weeks.  The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple transpires 39 years after the termination of the 70th week. 

[Pickle]

18 hours ago, jackson said:

If you mean Messiah the Prince was Christ  and the Prince to come was also Christ then I disagree. 

I would say the Roman army was God's hammer as well as Titus' people, just as Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were God's hammer in the burning of the first temple. But I don't think you could say either the Babylonians were God's people or the Roman Army was Christ's people.

What we don't disagree about is that the Romans, not the Jews, lit the temple building. And we never have. We also probably don't disagree about the Jews being the first to start burning the temple complex, because that's what Josephus says.

As far as I know, we also agree that Dan. 9:27 says that "for the overspreading of abominations" Jesus "shall make it desolate."

"But the King sendeth forth His armies and destroys those murderers and burns up their city, and we are told in the ninth chapter of Daniel, the 26th verse, that 'the people of the Prince that shall come shall destroy the city; and the end thereof shall be with a flood.'" (1SAT 5.1)

"But the King sendeth forth His armies and destroys those murderers and burns up their city, and we are told in the ninth chapter of Daniel, the 26th verse, that “the people of the Prince that shall come shall destroy the city ...; and the end thereof shall be with a flood.” (Ms8-1874)

Would we not also agree that the way this is worded and capitalized, that a case can be made for Ellen White believing the "Prince" to be Christ and the people to be the Roman armies? This was the specific point I made that you did not comment on. You said above what you thought the "people" and "prince" were, but you did not comment on what these two statements suggest about what Ellen White thought. I don't think it's definitive, and that's why I said "suggest."