SRR #78 | The Danielic Imperative - The Last 45 Days

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Justification by Faith Alone and Polemical Ministry

I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone. When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the air and combating the air.

We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make, I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style.

I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing. It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible.

Jesus said, woe to you when men speak well of you. For their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way. As opposed to, blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle.

The Danielic Timeline, the 2,300 Days, and the 1,290 Days

In this week's episode of Simple Riff Armando Radio, Timothy Kaufman continues with his discussion on the 2 ,300 and the 1 ,290 and the 1 ,335 days of the 70th week of Daniel. After summarizing our previous discussion on the 2 ,300 evenings and mornings and the three and a half year period that was 1 ,290 days long, we proceeded into a discussion of the 1 ,335 days and why there was an additional 45 days of difficulty for the Jews even after the 70 weeks were over and the sanctuary had been cleansed and the altar had been rededicated.

After completing the discussion on the 1 ,335 days, we turn our attention to Jesus' warning in the Gospels that the abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel would return within one generation. The abomination of desolation was a statue of Jupiter erected by Antiochus IV in 167 BC and within one generation of Jesus' prophecy, the statue of Jupiter returned to Israel and from that point, the situation in Judea began to deteriorate rapidly just as Jesus warned.

Thank you, Tim, for that introduction. It's great to be back again. We appreciate the patience of our listeners as they go through this series on the Danielic imperative, a study on the Danielic timeline.

A few weeks back, we completed our discussion on the 70 weeks of Daniel as described in Daniel 9, 24, 27, but as we noted in our previous episode, there were still more time periods to discuss within that 70th week, like the 2 ,300 evenings and mornings of Daniel 8, 14, and the time, times, and a half of Daniel 12, 7, which we take to be a literal three and a half year period of 1 ,290 days as described in Daniel 12, 12.

To understand those time periods, and particularly to understand how a three and a half year period could be 1 ,290 days instead of 1 ,260, we studied the concept of intercalation in the Hebrew calendar, which is the practice of adding an extra month every few years to keep the monthly calendar in sync with the solar calendar.

That is something the Jews would have had to do from the beginning since the calendar revealed to them in the Pentateuch is a lunar-solar calendar. Every few years, the Jews had to add an extra intercalary month, which would bring the normal three and a half year period to 1 ,260 days, but occasionally, there would be even two intercalary months added within only a few years, and in those periods, the three and a half years would be 1 ,290 days long instead of 1 ,260.

Importantly, it is only necessary to add those intercalary months if we are talking about literal solar days, which is one of the reasons we took the 1 ,290 days as literal solar days, rather than as prophetic days of years as some take them.

We showed last time that 1 ,290 days prior to the cleansing of the temple and rededication of the altar on Hanukkah would have been the 13th of June on the Roman calendar. Which means that Antiochus IV's decree prohibiting anyone from offering sacrifices to anyone but Jupiter would have occurred on the Ides of June, or June 13th in 167 BC, the Feast of Jupiter Invictus.

And as we know, Antiochus IV had forsaken his Greek gods to worship Jupiter while he was being raised as a hostage in Rome as a child under the terms of the Treaty of Apamea. Additionally, we've studied the concept of the Akedah, which is the celebration of the binding of Isaac, based on Genesis 22, a memorial the Jews celebrated using a makeshift altar of stone, wood, and ashes to symbolize the ashes of the ram as if they were the, quote, ashes of Isaac, unquote.

In the centuries before Christ, it was celebrated on Rosh Hashanah. The importance of that celebration and intercalation is important to our study because the Jews cleansed the temple and rededicated the altar on the 25th of Kislev, the very first Hanukkah, in 164 BC.

The first armed assault on the Jews and the temple during the reign of Antiochus IV was during an Akedah celebration on Rosh Hashanah in 170 BC, and the only weapons the Jews had available to defend themselves and the temple were stones, wood, and ashes from the Akedah celebration.

From Rosh Hashanah one year to Hanukkah six years later can be either 2 ,268, 2 ,269, or 2 ,270 days, if there are only two intercalary months in that period. But there would have been three intercalary months in that time under discussion because the second half of the 70th week was 1 ,290 days, as described in Daniel 12.

In that case, there are three intercalary months in that period, and therefore the time period from Rosh Hashanah in one year to Hanukkah six years later can be 2 ,298, 2 ,299, or 2 ,300 days in length, depending on the length of each individual year.

Thus, the narrator of Daniel 8 .14 explains to Daniel that the trampling of the sanctuary and the host would be 2 ,300 days until the sanctuary is cleansed. We take these to be literal days because the text actually says 2 ,300 evenings and mornings, a reference to the literal solar days, like the days of creation in Genesis 1.

Okay, so that's the 2 ,300 days of Daniel 8, and the time, times and a half, or three and a half years, are 1 ,290 days of Daniel 12. But then there is an extra 45-day period that goes beyond the 1 ,290 days, beyond the 2 ,300 days, and in fact beyond the 70 weeks, because after describing the events within the 1 ,290 days, there is a blessing for those who persevere to the 1 ,335.

So even though things are resolved to some extent at the end of the 70 weeks, there is still another 45 days beyond that, where there is still some remaining difficulty for the Jews during a 45-day period, and that is where we pick up today.

Daniel 12, the Scattering of the Holy People, and Leviticus 26

The 1 ,335 days are revealed to us in the context of the people of God being trampled down and scattered. Here is the passage from Daniel 12 where the 1 ,290 days and the 1 ,335 days are discussed. Starting in Daniel 12, 7,.

And when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished. Now picking up with Daniel 12, 10, it says,. The context here is the scattering of the power of the holy people, a concept that derives from Leviticus 26, 19 -33, where God says he will scatter the people and break the pride of their power until they repent of profaning the sanctuary.

As the scriptures say, that scattering is over when the sanctuary is cleansed and the altar is rededicated. Then what happens after that? Well, we need to remember that one of the sins of the Jews leading up to the 70-year exile is that they allowed Gentiles to enter the sanctuary and did not respect the difference between the holy and the profane.

In Ezekiel 43, verses 10 -11, in the 25th year of their captivity, the Lord told the Jews that if they were ashamed of what they have done, they would learn the pattern of the house, and the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof.

And all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof. In Ezekiel 44, verses 6 -7, the Lord reminds them and chastises them for what they have done. And thou shalt say to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel,.

Thus saith the Lord God, O ye house of Israel, let it suffice you all of your abominations, in that you have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house.

So the disciplinary action for those offenses under Leviticus 26 is that they that hate you shall reign over you, that's Leviticus 26 -17, and I will make your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, Leviticus 26 -31, and I will scatter you among the heathen, Leviticus 26 -33.

And part of the offense was that the Jews had not properly separated the holy from the profane and had let Gentiles and unbelievers into the sanctuary. And that means that after the sanctuary and the altar are repaired, something needs to be done to protect Jerusalem and the people and the sanctuary from the Gentiles.

And that takes a little bit longer. So what we're going to show today is three significant things from the historical record. First, while the Jews were repairing the altar and the sanctuary, there was no defensive barrier between them and the Gentiles.

For the wall had been torn down. Second, when the Jews rededicated the altar and cleansed the sanctuary, the sole focus of their work was on the inside of the sanctuary, not the outside. Only after the altar was rededicated and the sanctuary was cleansed did the Jews then focus on the outer wall and the priestly chambers in order to regulate the goings out thereof and the comings in thereof.

Third, there were Jews scattered among the neighboring Gentiles, and they not only had to be rescued, but they also had to have a place of safety to return to. So the Jews stationed a garrison on the temple mount to rebuild and fortify the walls and divided the rest of the soldiers to go out to the neighboring nations and bring back their scattered brethren.

So let's walk through these three main points. First, recall that when the temple was being cleansed and the altar was being rededicated, there was as yet no actual defensive protection for the Jews, because earlier Antiochus IV had torn down the wall.

1 Maccabees 1 .31 says, He plundered the city, burned it with fire, and tore down its houses and its surrounding walls. So the Jews had to maintain a steady offense until they had more time later to focus on defensive fortifications.

It says in 1 Maccabees 4 .41 that Judas Maccabeus detailed men to fight against those in the citadel until he had cleansed the sanctuary. The point here is simply that there was no wall of protection and therefore no wall to keep out the Gentiles.

Second, when we read carefully the narrative of the cleansing of the sanctuary, it is clear that the Jews focused solely on the sanctuary and the altar in their initial rebuilding effort. Everything they described is within the sanctuary.

This is a reading from 1 Maccabees 4 .47 -51. Then they took unhewn stones, as the law directs, and built a new altar like the former one. They also rebuilt the sanctuary and the interior of the temple and consecrated the courts.

They made new holy vessels and brought the lampstand, the altar of incense, and the table into the temple. Then they burned incense on the altar and lighted the lamps on the lampstands, and these gave light in the temple.

They placed the bread on the table and hung up the curtains. Thus they finished all the work they had undertaken. Now you'll notice that the entire focus of their work is on the interior of the temple, the altar, the sanctuary, the curtains, the showbread, the lamps, the holy vessels.

When it says, Thus they finished all the work they had undertaken, it is clear that what they had finished was the interior, and that is the work they had completed by the 25th day of Kislev, the first day of Hanukkah.

It is only after this that they focused on the outer courts and, importantly, the walls and chambers that regulate the entrance into and out of the sanctuary, that is, the goings-out thereof and the comings-in thereof.

Now, a few weeks back we talked about the mistranslation of 1 Maccabees 4, verses 56 -58 that says that after completing the rededication of the altar and the rebuilding of the sanctuary, the Jews decorated the front of the temple with golden crowns and small shields.

As we discussed, if you think about it, no devout priest would have decorated the temple with golden crowns and shields because the Law of Moses did not prescribe such decorations. What the Law of Moses called for was the golden wreaths and breastplates for adorning the priestly chambers and garments which were outside the sanctuary, but within the wall of separation.

That's from Exodus 22 -24. This matters to our discussion because when the narrative is read carefully, it is clear that the Jews focused only on the sanctuary and the altar in their initial rebuilding efforts.

It is only after the rededication of the altar and the cleansing of the sanctuary and the great celebrations that they returned to the work at hand, which was to complete the construction of the whole structure.

And what we want to focus on here is that they did not arrange the exterior of the temple with wreaths and breastplates until after the rededication was complete. The significance of that fact is that the wreaths and breastplates are fixed to the exterior wall of the court of the priests outside the sanctuary near the outer court of the women where the priests don their garments and through which they must pass in order to access the sanctuary.

In other words, at the time of the celebration of the rededication of the altar, the repairs to the wall in the outer court still had not yet been finished or even begun. And in particular, the wall of separation was therefore not yet built either.

Having completed the interior of the temple, the Jews still had to focus on the entering in the house with every going forth of the sanctuary as Ezekiel prescribed in Ezekiel 44 -5. And that means they still needed to finish the priestly chambers on the wall of separation.

In fact, that is what the authors of Maccabees described next after the Jews celebrated the rededication of the altar. And in this reading, I am translating this as wreaths and breastplates instead of golden crowns and small shields.

So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days and offered burnt offerings with gladness. They offered a sacrifice of deliverance and praise. They arranged the front of the temple with golden wreaths and breastplates.

They restored the gates and the chambers for the priests and furnished them with doors. There was very great gladness among the people and the reproach of the Gentiles was removed. That's 1 Maccabees 4, 56 -58.

So our point here is simply that the restoration of the priestly chambers and the doors that regulate entrance into the sanctuary were important. In fact, they were necessary in order to restore the order of the temple operations.

But took place after the sanctuary was dedicated. Some of the time immediately following the rededication of the altar would have been spent on rebuilding and restoring the outer wall. Okay, so that was our second point.

Our third point is that after the cleansing of the sanctuary and at the time they were restoring the priestly chambers and walls and doors separating the outer courts from the inner courts, the Jews also needed to fortify the whole temple mount and also to go and rescue their brethren who had been scattered among the surrounding nations, which is what the authors of 1 Maccabees describe next.

During the persecution, many Jews had been scattered among the Gentiles around them and when the news reached the surrounding Gentiles that the Jews had rededicated the altar and cleansed their sanctuary, the Gentiles became worried about such a significant change in the status quo and started killing some of the Jews they held in captivity.

So after recovering the temple mount, the Jews turned their attention to rescuing some of the Jews who had been scattered and it would be a little while longer before everyone was restored to safety. Here is the extended narrative from 1 Maccabees 5 verses 1 to 19.

When the Gentiles round about heard that the altar had been built and the sanctuary dedicated as it was before, they became very angry and they determined to destroy the descendants of Jacob who lived among them.

So they began to kill and destroy among the people. But Judas made war on the sons of Esau and Idumea at Acrobatin because they kept lying in wait for Israel. He dealt them a heavy blow and humbled them and despoiled them.

He also remembered the wickedness of the sons of Bain who were a trap and a snare to the people and ambushed them on the highways. They were shut up by him in their towers and he encamped against them, bowed their complete destruction and burned with fire their towers and all who were in them.

Then he crossed over to attack the Ammonites where he found a strong band and many people with Timothy as their leader. He engaged in many battles with them and they were crushed before him. He struck them down.

He also took Jazir and its villages and then he returned to Judea. Now the Gentiles and Gilead gathered together against the Israelites who lived in their territory and planned to destroy them. But they fled to the stronghold of Dathima and sent to Judas and his brothers a letter.

Which said,.

The Gentiles around us have gathered together against us to destroy us. They are preparing to come and capture the stronghold to which we have fled and Timothy is leading their forces. Now then, come and rescue us from their hands for many of us have fallen and all our brethren who were in the land of Tob have been killed.

The enemy have captured their wives and children and goods and have destroyed about a thousand men there. While the letter was still being read, behold, other messengers with their garments red came from Galilee and made a similar report.

They said that against them had gathered together men of Ptolemaeus and Tyre and Sidon and all Galilee of the Gentiles to annihilate us. When Judas and the people heard these messages, a great assembly was called to determine what they should do for their brethren who were in distress and who were being attacked by enemies.

Then Judas said to Simon his brother, Choose your men and go and rescue your brethren in Galilee. I and Jonathan, my brother, will go to Gilead. But he left Joseph, the son of Zechariah, and Azariah, a leader of the people, with the rest of the forces in Judea to guard it.

And he gave them this command, Take charge of this people, but do not engage in battle with the Gentiles until we return. Okay, so our point in reading this lengthy citation is simply to show that the trampling of the people, the city, and the sanctuary had ended but there were still people scattered among the nations around them.

And they were now being attacked because the temple had been restored. So Judas Maccabeus and his men had to go out in different directions to save them and gather them back in. And it is at this time that the Jews also turned their attention to fortifying the temple mount.

As I mentioned earlier, when the temple was being cleansed and the altar was being rededicated, there was no actual defensive protection for the Jews, so they had to maintain a steady offense. It was only after they had celebrated the rededication of the altar that they turned their attention to defensive fortifications.

1 Maccabees 4 verses 60 to 61 says,. At that time they fortified Mount Zion with high walls and strong towers round about to keep the Gentiles from coming and trampling them down as they had before. The significance is simply that several important activities began immediately following the rededication of the altar and the furnishing of the sanctuary.

Those Jews scattered among the surrounding nations had to be rescued and not all of them survived. The outer walls and priestly chambers had to be refurnished in order to manage properly the entering into the house with every going forth of the sanctuary, as Ezekiel instructed.

And the fortification of the temple mount with high walls and high towers to keep the Gentiles from coming and trampling them down was also necessary as well. To give you an idea of the length of time this might take, Nehemiah rebuilt the wall in 52 days under similar duress.

That's from Nehemiah 6 .15. So we don't have any data that would fix the date on which all of this was completed, but we can say that not everyone was out of danger at the completion of the 1 ,290 days.

And 45 days is not an unreasonable number of days to construct the wall of separation, gather up the scattered people, and fortify the temple mount. Our point is simply that the prophecy of Daniel was that a lot of great things were going to happen at the end of the 70th week, at the end of the 2 ,300 evenings and mornings, at the end of the 1 ,290 days.

And those good things always centered around the rededication of the altar and the cleansing of the sanctuary. But there was still more to be done, and what was left to be done was rebuilding the outer walls, fortifying the temple mount, and rescuing their brethren from the surrounding nations, something that the Lord had promised he would do once the Jews finally repented of profaning the sanctuaries, worshiping false idols, and profaning the Sabbath.

And that's exactly what happened at the end of the 70th week. The reason that those who survived to the end of those extra 45 days were blessed is that some of the people were still scattered among the Gentiles when the sanctuary was cleansed, and some of them got killed.

It's not until everybody was rescued and brought back to Mount Zion that people were truly safe, and those 1 ,335 days.

Would have been over.

Why the 70th Week of Daniel Is Not a Messianic Prophecy

So, that's our completion on the discussion of the 1 ,335 days. Now, with that said, we have spent more than a month working through the prophecy of Daniel 9, showing that at its core it focuses on the original profanation of the sanctuary by the Jews, and the Lord's indignation at the time of Jeremiah, and the 70 years of desolations as a punishment for those offenses under the Leviticus 26 protocol, and the scriptural evidence that the Jews had not repented during those 70 years, and the Leviticus 26 requirements for multiplying punishment sevenfold, and Gabriel's announcement of the Lord's continued indignation against the Jews in Daniel 8, and Gabriel's sevenfold multiplication of the punishment in Daniel 9, as well as the judgment of even more desolations for the people, the city, and the sanctuary in accordance with Leviticus 26, and Gabriel's prophecy in Daniel 8 that the trampling of the Jews in the sanctuary would end when the sanctuary was cleansed, and Ezekiel's prophecy in chapter 43 that reconciliation would finally occur when the altar was rededicated properly, and Gabriel's prophecy in Daniel 9 that the 70 weeks would not end completely until the altar was anointed, and that altar is called the Most Holy in Scripture.

We have also discussed that the prophecy was about restoring the perpetual righteousness or the everlasting righteousness of the law, and particularly the ordinances of the sanctuary, and the fact that the objective of the Leviticus 26 protocol was to end the sinful behavior of the Jews and bring about reconciliation, explicitly stated in Leviticus 26 and Ezekiel 43, and implicit within the context of Daniel 9.

We have also discussed Gabriel's division of the 70 weeks into three sets of seven, 62 and 1, highlighting the fact that Cyrus, king of Persia, who is indeed an anointed ruler, according to Isaiah 45 .1, came in 538 B .C., 49 years or seven sevens after the Lord promised in the year 587 B .C. that he would restore Jerusalem, and in fact that Cyrus came as a fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy according to 2 Chronicles 36 .22 as well as Ezra 1 .1.

Additionally, we showed that an anointed high priest, Onias III, was murdered 434 years or 62 sevens after the initial punishments began.

In 605 B .C.,.

And highlighted the fact that the 70th week was to occur not after the 69 sevens, but after the 62 sevens, according to Gabriel's own words, and further, that Antiochus IV indeed confirmed the covenant in 171 B .C., the same year the high priest Onias III was murdered.

Antiochus IV prohibited sacrifices three and a half years later, and also placed a statue of Jupiter on the altar, and further, that the Jews took the temple back, removed the statue, cleansed the sanctuary, and rededicated the altar three and a half years after that.

We have also showed that within the seven-year period, there was a literal 2 ,300-day period during which the people, the sanctuary, and the city were trampled, and a 1 ,290-day period or time times and a half or three and a half years during which sacrifices were prohibited and during which an abominating desolation was set up on the altar, and that the 2 ,300 days and the 1 ,290 days ended with the cleansing of the sanctuary and the rededication of the altar, but that the priestly chambers, the wall of separation, the fortification of the temple mount, and the rescuing of the scattered Jews recorded a little more time, as shown by the 1 ,335 days, the 45 days beyond the 1 ,290.

And in summary, the prophecy is entirely mosaic, dealing not with the coming of a Messianic king to pay for our sins, but rather with the rebuilding and rededication of the temple and the sanctuary and the restoration of lawful sacrifices under the law.

It was a mosaic prophecy all along, not a Messianic one. Now, some of our listeners are justifiably wondering why on earth we have set out on such a hopeless task of overturning 2 ,000 years of tradition.

Why bother trying to correct the tradition that predates this current critic by two millennia? The 70 weeks of Daniel have been interpreted as a Messianic prophecy since time immemorial. Why attempt now to take away from the glory of Christ's first advent and to take our eyes off of Christ and put the attention back on the law?

After all, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy according to Revelation 19 .10, so you are contradicting Scripture by interpreting a prophecy as not Messianic. Well, in answer to that, let me offer an illustration.

Suppose I were to come to you and say, Elisha's prophecy in 2 Kings 4, 16 -17 was a prophecy about Christ. It says, And he said, About this season, according to the time of life, thou shalt embrace a son.

And she said, Nay, my lord, thou man of God, do not lie unto thine handmaid. And the woman conceived and bare a son at that season that Elisha had sent unto her, according to the time of life. Now, if you read the story, it is the promise of a son to a woman who objects that it is not possible, and then the woman conceives and bares a son.

The son is born, grows up, and is killed, and then after a few days is resurrected. How is this not about Jesus? All the key aspects are there. Conception, birth, death, and resurrection. Besides, it is a prophecy, and the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

How could this not be a prophecy of Christ? Well, you might respond that the context militates strongly against that interpretation. And the text appears to say that the child would come from the Shunammite woman within her lifespan, and that it was really a promise to her that she would have a son, and just because it has some elements that are familiar to us in the context of our knowledge of Christ does not make the prophecy about Christ.

No matter how good it might make me feel.

To think that way.

So, my response is the same. Even though the narrative of the 70th week of Daniel contains some elements that are familiar to us in the context of our knowledge of Christ, that is, reconciliation, the end of sin, everlasting righteousness, the end of sacrifices, the coming of an anointed ruler, etc., it does not make the prophecy about Christ.

In fact, the prophecy, as we have examined it here, very clearly points to something that would happen under the Greek Empire, not under the Roman, and no matter how good it might make us feel to think about the 70th week as a prophecy of Christ, that does not make the prophecy about Christ.

The specific time frame and the particular details of the prophecy militate strongly against a Christocentric prophecy and instead point us to a Mosaic fulfillment under the law. And that gets us back to the main point of our series on the Danielic imperative, which is that the Lord has established a timeline in Daniel, and Jesus and John, from whom we have most of our New Testament eschatological literature, both defer to that timeline when they reveal the future to us.

If we have misunderstood the 70th week, then we have misunderstood the timeline, and therefore we do not have the proper lens through which to interpret Jesus' own words. And in particular, his prophecy that the abomination of Daniel foretold would return within one generation.

So that is where we will now turn our attention. Matthew 24, 15 says,. The historical approach to these passages has been to assume that Jesus was saying that the 70th week of Daniel had not yet occurred.

And yet the context of the 70th week is entirely Greek, as we showed from Daniel 8, 9, 11, and 12. That is when it was supposed to happen, not during the Roman period or later. The 70th week of Daniel is a Greek phenomenon under the law, not a Roman or later phenomenon under the Messianic age.

And therefore, when Jesus referred to the abomination of desolation, he was referring not to some future fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy, but to its past fulfillment, because if we understand that past fulfillment, then we know the sign to which he referred, the statue of Jupiter, which was the abominable, desolating sacrilege that Antiochus IV erected on the altar, and to which Antiochus IV forced people to make sacrifices.

It was etched in the corporate memory of the Jews. And when Jesus referred to it, they all knew he was talking about the statue of Jupiter. In fact, when the first century Jewish historian Josephus recorded the oppression of Antiochus IV and the Maccabean revolt, he understood that it was the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecies.

He wrote,. And indeed, so it came to pass that our nation suffered these things under Antiochus' epiphanies, according to Daniel's vision, and what he wrote many years before they came to pass. That's from Flavius Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, 10 chapter 11, paragraph 7.

So the question is, did the statue of Jupiter return as Jesus said it would? The answer to that question is yes, and it returned to Israel just 10 years after Jesus' prediction. So let us now briefly turn back to Matthew and Mark where Jesus' words are recorded for us.

Jesus warned that the sign of the impending doom of Judea would be when we see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, according to Matthew 24, 15, or in Mark 13, 14, standing where it ought not.

Two millennia of eschatologists have assumed that Jesus was saying that the abomination of desolation, as the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy, must stand within the sanctuary, and so they have been looking for something to occur inside the temple as the fulfillment of Jesus' words.

To be sure, Daniel prophesied that the abomination of desolation would stand within the sanctuary. He prophesied that in Daniel 8, 13, 9, 26 -27, 11, 31, and 12, 11. And for this reason, we have for centuries assumed that Jesus was saying that Daniel's prophecy of the abomination would finally be fulfilled after Jesus' time, and the abomination he foretold would finally be placed in the sanctuary.

But that is not what Jesus said. Daniel said the abomination would be placed in the sanctuary, and it was in 167 B .C. under the reign of Antiochus IV, and that was the fulfillment of the prophecy. But Jesus only said that the abomination Daniel foretold would stand in a holy place, not in THE holy place.

It is noteworthy that Jesus did not actually refer to the temple in Matthew 24, 15. What is translated as THE holy place lacks in Greek the definite article. Therefore, what is recorded for us in Matthew 24, 15 should actually read, When ye therefore see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in a holy place, or standing on holy ground.

In other words, neither Matthew nor Mark renders Jesus' words as THE holy place in reference to the temple. By way of comparison, look at Hebrews 8, 2, 9, 1, 2, 3, 8, 12, 24, 25, 10, 19, and 13, 11, where all those references are clearly to the temple.

Or see Acts 6, 13, which says THIS holy place, and Acts 21, 28 that says THIS holy place, where the definite article is not lacking in the Greek. Both of those references are to the temple. Yet the weight of tradition has caused most translations to render Matthew 24, 15 as if Jesus was referring to THE holy place and referring to the future fulfillment of Daniel 9 by the placing of the abomination in THE holy place, something the text does not say.

Jesus' warning was simply that the abomination of desolation would return and stand where it ought not be, in a place that is considered holy. Tradition aside, we must defer to what the text actually says.

On that note, all of Israel is holy to the Lord, according to Zechariah 2, 12, and all of Israel is a place where an idol ought not be. In fact, the stated objective of the Hebrews' occupation of the Holy Land was to drive out the people and their idols.