The North in Daniel 11 is Turkey not Syria

That is IF it has End Times application at all.  

The most mainstream view among Futurists has been that Daniel 11 up to verse 35 is about the Hellenistic Era, but then 36-45 jumps forward to the End Times and is Antichrist relevant, and then within that is an internal debate on if the "Willful King" who is the subject of those verses is still a King of The North or if the North is a separate entity in verse 40, I was when I held the standard view in the Willful King being separate camp.

I have on this blog broken with Futurist orthodoxy and argued that the Willful King is Augustus Caesar (with the King of the North in verse 40 being Anthony and his Son by Cleopatra who was given the former Seleucid domains).  But I've found on YouTube those who brake with the orthodoxy in the opposite direction have been increasing in popularity, most of them still see some connection to the Hellenistic Kingdoms but see it's leap forward to the "End Times" as being more amorphous.  But those who reject any connection to the Hellenistic era do exist.

So I've decided to play Devil's Advocate with those types as well as the standard view.

The Seleucid Kingdom is by historians sometimes treated as synonymous with "Syria" the same way Ptolemy is with Egypt, so that's why trying to map any part of this chapter onto the borders of the modern Middle East tends to involve identifying the North with Syria.  But at it's greatest extent the Seleucid Empire also controlled almost all of modern Turkey, Iraq and Iran, stretched even into Pakistan and Afghanistan, held sway over Lebanon and Jordan and even for a time of course had Israel.

To the Ancient World a Civilization's Capital City was even more important to understanding it's identity then it is in our modern Cosmopolitan way of thinking.  And the Seleucid Kingdom's Capital was Antioch which was still part of Syria during Roman times but in the initial post WWI redrawing of the Middle East was part of Hatay which became a province of Turkey.

When one attempts to trace the royal genealogical legacy of the Seleucid Dynasty beyond when the Seleucid Kingdom proper ended, it very heavily involves the ruling dynasties of regions in modern Turkey like Pontus, Commagene, Cappadocia, Pergamon, Galatia and Cilicia. Also two of the cities that housed the Seven Churches in Asia of Revelation were founded or renamed by Seleucid Kings, Laodicea and Thyatira, and most of them were part of that kingdom at some point in their history.

Then there is the view of The Little Horn I've been developing, that it never represented an individual per se, in Daniel 8 it's the Seleucid Empire with the bigger horn it came out of being Ptolemy, then in Daniel 7 it's the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire which was in many ways the legacy of the Seleucid Empire continued.  Then the Ottoman Empire was simply the Byzantine Empire with a change in Religion and Language, and then at the end of WWI what was left of the Ottoman Empire became modern Turkey.

But the Key Argument for the North being Turkey and not Syria in modern geopolitics is the very word "North" itself.  In the Hellenistic Context why was the Seleucid Kingdom the North when it wasn't actually the most northern since there were rivals based in both Macedon and Thrace?  

It's because the Hebrew word translated "North" here is Zaphon which was also the Semitic name of a mountain the Greeks and Romans called Kasios/Casius but is today called Jebel Aqra/Acra.  This mountain was just south of the city of Antioch and Seleucus I Nicator decided to found Antioch where he did after performing a Sacrifice to Zeus on that mountain, at least that was the city's official founding myth.

Today it is officially right on the Syria-Turkey border, but due to Turkey's involvement in the Syrian Civil War it's functionally all under Turkish control.  But also just think about it poetically, the Mountain Named "North" is the Sothern most tip of Turkey.  For the small group who want to throw the Hellenistic Kingdoms out of how to interpret Daniel 11 entirely, this mountain is the only clue we have and it favors Turkey.

And yes the word for "South" in this chapter is also the name of a specific Geographical location, the Negev Desert which was under Ptolemaic Control when the wars between the Ptolemies and Seleucids that Daniel 11 is talking about started.  I think the Ancient definition of the Negev was a bit broader then how it's properly defined today and might have overlapped with The Sinai to include places like Ras Kouroun and so was to some extent still Ptolemaic even after the Seleucids took Judea/Jerusalem.

I now believe the Image of The Beast is going to be an NFT project of some sort.

And the Mark of The Beast and Number of the Beast will also be connected somehow.  

I am NOT identifying it with anything specific that already exists, it probably doesn't already exist, so don't just throw Chris White's little flowchart at me, I disagreement with aspects of that anyway but regardless that's only applicable when someone is pointing at something specific that's already in operation.

Why have I come to believe this?  It builds naturally off theories I've always leaned towards about the Mark being a Microchip and the Image being at least in part an A.I. on the Internet.  As well as my Whore of Babylon is Capitalism position

Folding Ideas has a great video on NFTs and how dystopic it would be if they succeeded call Line Goes Up, he's a Secularist, but that video has informed what I no suspect about the role NFTs will play in the Destiny of Capitalism.

I'll genuinely be surprised if I no Bible Prophecy internet scholars have already considered this possibility.  I have no predictions on details or anything.  I just now feel this is a possibly we need to start considering.

Assyria was the Asshurim of Genesis 25 rather then Asshur of Genesis 10?

In Genesis 25 we learn that after the passing of Sarah Abraham took a new wife named Keturah.  In verse 2 one of the sons by Keturah is named Jokshan.  In verse 3 Jokshan has two sons named Sheba and Dedan, and then Dedan's descendants are referred to as the Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.  

Asshurim is the plural form of Asshur the second born son to Shem in Genesis 10:22 but also the name of a region in northern Mesopotamia and south-western Turkey.  Asshurim is the exact same spelling as what's translated "Assyrians".

The modern Assyrians who tend to be members of one of three East-Syriac Churches (The Assyrian Church of The East, The Ancient Church of The East, or The Chaldean Catholic Church) actually claim to descend from the Asshurim of Dedan.  One could dismiss that as Christian Assyrians wanting to take an opportunity to strengthen their ties with Abraham.  However the Assyrian Kings List does list a Didanu among the "kings who lived in tents" which is a memory of when they were a more nomadic people before settling in the area of Nineveh.  The Assyrian people in Assyria don't securely enter recorded history till around 2000 BC, I currently date the death of Joseph to about 2036 BC, 430 years before my date for the Exodus.

Now it's possible both Genesis Asshurs are relevant to the early history of the civilization that history would come to know as Assyria.  Asshur son of Shem founded a settlement on the Tigris river roughly contemporary with Nimrod founding his three cities there and thus the region around it became named after him, later one of the nomadic tribal groups to come from Dedan migrated to that region and become called Asshurim because they were dwelling in Asshur.  In time both of them along with other descendants of Arphaxad and Aram contributed to the population of Northern Mesopotamia but the Dedanites became numerically dominant, at least among those identifying as Assyrians, because YHWH did promise Abraham's Seed would be Numerous like the Stars of Heaven and Sands of the Sea.

As far as the other two tribes of Dedan go, Leummin I think is a form of the Lihyan the people who controlled the cities of Dedan and Hegra at the start of classical Antiquity.  So it's only the Letushim who are a mystery, I am personally hoping for a way to link them to the Lakhmids, that would result in them sharing the Assyrians' connection to the Church of The East..

I found this discussion on Reddit of the Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups of the Assyrians.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Assyria/comments/at5332/the_most_common_ydna_haplogroups_among_assyrians/

They are mostly either the same as or related to the Haplogroups prominent in Jewish and Arab populations (as well as those I've argued descend from the Lost Tribes), R1b, J1, J2,, E1b1b, and even T and G show up in a few Jewish populations.  

The below digression is a tangentially related theory I may abandon it, everything above holds together perfectly without it..