I no longer believe in Gaps in Daniel chapters 9 and 11

I've held that view in the past, but I've slowly come to abandon it.  For that reason I changed the name of this blog, I sadly don't know a way to create a full new URL without rending all existing links to this Blog dead.

I had cited Hippolytus as an early source on Gaps in Daniel.  Thing is he's the only Early Church Father to hold this view, he seems to have invented it.  And while I still agree with him more then most Church Fathers on a number of End Times issues, his bizarre views on the Song of Solomon hurts his credibility.  And his view on when the 69th Week ended does not agree with anyone today, he ended it at Jesus Birth.

I first started work on this 70th Week study when I was still against seeing the 70th Week as already fulfilled.  But as you can see my open minded study of the evidence lead me to become convinced that yes the 70th Week was fulfilled from 30-37 AD.  I talked more on that subject here.

I have also shown that Daniel 11:36-45 was about Augustus.

Gaps have nothing to do with making Daniel 2 or 7 End times, they are in nature incredibly broad symbolic visions of all history.  But the visions in Hebrew Daniel are usually more narrow in scope.  The way in which Revelation draws on Daniel is only really explicitly to Daniel 7 and to some extent 12.  That Daniel 12 is jumping from the first to second Advent isn't a Gap really, it is again a broader in scope prophecy.

Matthew 24 is indisputably End Times.  The basis for making material from Hebrew Daniel end times relevant is Jesus saying "The Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel The Prophet".  Thing is while terminology similar to that is arguably used in the last verse of Daniel 9, the exact phrase is used in Daniel only in 11 and 12, and in 11 it's not the part any reasonable person argues is before the gap but in the part clearly about Antiochus Epiphanes.

Now I do think it's possible that the 70th Week and Daniel 11:36-45 could have end times relevance via Double Fulfillment.  And I think to an extent even Daniel 12's End Times relevance is via double fulfillment.  But the only thing I see absolutely required to happen again is what Jesus specifically refereed to.

But in the case of the 70th Week I've come to view that as only being applicable if the entire 70 Weeks is fulfilled twice, which I have argued a possible model for on this blog.  If that model doesn't bear out, then Daniel 9 is not End Times relevant.

If Daniel 11's relevance is via double fulfillment  Then when it starts being End Times relevant may have to be pushed sooner, because again it's the phrase "Abomination of Desolation" that is the key to Daniel's End Times relevance.

One thought I just started considering is that maybe two End Times Abomination of Desolation events will happen, one that seems more like a direct repeat of what Epiphanes did at the start of the 70th Week, and then what II Thessalonians 2 and Revelation 13 depicts at the Midway Point.  (Update Sept2016: I've now considered an entirely new take on the Abomination of Desolation in Daniel 11.)

Going back to Daniel 9:24, let's look again at what the purpose for the 70 Weeks are.

Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

It is commonly argued that the Second Advent is required for this to be fully fulfilled, that certain aspects of this clearly aren't fulfilled already.   In fact I've even seen some Christians try to remove the First Advent from this altogether, like Chris White.  To me that grossly undervalues what happened in 30 AD in a way no Christian, no matter how Futurist and Premillennial they are, should be willing to do.

If you think "make an end of sins" means no one will be sinning anymore then you have to move the end of the 70 Weeks to after the Millennium, not before it.  I would be curious to hear someone argue such a theory.  This is referring to Jesus paying the price for Sin on The Cross, when He said "It Is Finished".

Some take "seal up the vision and prophecy" to mean no more Prophecies left to be fulfilled.  Again you have to move the 70th Week to after the Millennium in that case.

I think that the anointing of the most Holy can be seen as fulfilled at Pentecost.

Every argument that the first advent wasn't enough to fulfill that requires an interpretation that places the fulfillment after not before the Millennium.

I feel there is a perfectly very real sense in which all those details were satisfied in 30-37 AD.

In my past study on the first 69 Weeks proving they ended in 30 AD.  I justified the gap concept not with the usual Pre-Tirb/Dispensationalist the Gap is the Church Age logic.  But by arguing that since it revolved around The Temple, the Gap was from when the Second Temple lost it's Holy Anointing when the Veil was Torn till when the future Temple will be consecrated.  I brought that up in some other posts too.

I feel ashamed of that argument now, because it implies what the Veil being Torn achieved is gonna be undone.  I won't remove that argument from that post because it's intent was to refute Chris White which it still does  At any-rate when studying the possible dual fulfillment I realized it didn't revolve around The Temple as much as I thought.  In fact it's barely mentioned at all.

Hippolytus of Rome (170–235), and Jewish sources on Gaps in Daniel

Hippolytus of Rome (170–235), was the only one of the Early Church Fathers to really write in depth on Eschatology.  He was indisputably Futurist and Premillennial .  But his understanding of the Return of Christ was also what we'd call today Post-Trib.  I'm sorry Pre-Tirbbers but your desire to make it sound like the Church Fathers were pre-trib by taking their quotes on "imminence" out of context simply fails when reading everything they wrote.

I'm not bothered by the Church Fathers being wrong on the Rapture.  Daniel 12 foretells that Knowledge of God's word would increase.  And the Post-Trib error is the unavoidable consequence of replacement theology.  Jesus returning more then once simply makes no sense if you don't understand there are two Covenant peoples he's returning for.  This replacement theology was born out of the Church's reactions to the persecutions they faced from Jews during the Bar-Kochba revolt.  These latter Christians weren't able to follow the example of Stephen.  I said this before in my post on Ephream the Syrian.

Hippolytus like most early Christians believed the Witnesses were Enoch and Elijah.  He believed Rome had to fall first and the 10 Horns were Kingdoms that would arise out of Rome's fall. Those are things I feel he was right on.

He also believed The Antichrist would be a Jew of The Tribe of Dan, and would claim to be The Jewish Messiah.  He may be right on that too.

But he was also a date setter.  He had an understanding of Chronology (partly based on the problematic Septuagint) that told him Jesus was crucified in the 5500th from Creation.  And so he believed the Sabbath Millennium would start in 530 AD.  That he didn't date set within his own life time shows a lack of personal bias.  His date was wrong of course, but admittedly during the time period leading up to that date, the Western Empire had just fallen, and there were Messianic Samaritan and Jewish Revolts in the Holy Land.  If there were people at the time familiar with him, it might have seemed like his predictions were coming to pass.

Among the ideas that critics of Dispensationalism like to accuse of being made up by Darby and others in the 1800s, is the idea of gaps in certain Old Testament Prophecies, particularly Daniel 9 and 11.  And I've seen them abuse quotes from Hippolytus to try and back that up.

However reading his commentary on Daniel shows, that he viewed the first 69 Weeks as ending with Jesus, but that the 70th was yet Future.  And likewise in Daniel 11, he viewed the first 35 verses as being The Hellenistic age, but that verses 36-45 were about a yet future Antichrist.

39. Thus, then, does the prophet set forth these things concerning the Antichrist, who shall be shameless, a war-maker, and despot, who, exalting himself above all kings and above every god, shall build the city of Jerusalem, and restore the sanctuary. Him the impious will worship as God, and will bend to him the knee, thinking him to be the Christ. He shall cut off the two witnesses and forerunners of Christ, who proclaim His glorious kingdom from heaven, as it is said: "And I will give (power) unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth." As also it was announced to Daniel: "And one week shall confirm a covenant with many; and in the midst of the week it shall be that the sacrifice and oblation shall be removed"--that the one week might be shown to be divided into two. The two witnesses, then, shall preach three years and a half; and Antichrist shall make war upon the saints during the test of the week, and desolate the world, that what is written may be fulfilled: "And they shall make the abomination of desolation for a thousand two hundred and ninety days."

The source I copied that from has apparent typos I chose not to correct.  I assume "Test of the week" should mean "rest of the week".

What might surprise one even more is to discover some Rabbinic Jewish sources who agree the 70th Week could be yet future, as well as the last part of Daniel 11.

Britam is a Rabbinic Jewish website that supports it's own unique form of British Israelism, but without any of Christian aspects of the idea.  I don't desire to endorse British Israelism, but the site's commentaries on Daniel 9 and 11 are interesting.

[Daniel 9:27] AND HE SHALL CONFIRM THE COVENANT WITH MANY FOR ONE WEEK: AND IN THE MIDST OF THE WEEK HE SHALL CAUSE THE SACRIFICE AND THE OBLATION TO CEASE, AND FOR THE OVERSPREADING OF ABOMINATIONS HE SHALL MAKE IT DESOLATE, EVEN UNTIL THE CONSUMMATION, AND THAT DETERMINED SHALL  BE POURED UPON THE DESOLATE.

These verses are also applicable to future events leading up to the Messianic Age.

And

Until now the account has quite faithfully followed the historical developments that did indeed occur exactly as described. From here on Scripture seems to depart somewhat and enter another future realm.
In effect we may say that this present chapter of Daniel although apparently dedicated to the Maccabee Period and what preceded it in effect is proto-typical. It is referring to the end times and using historical events as a pattern for future end-time prophecy.

They don't see Jesus in the first 69 weeks of course, but that's not the point I'm seeking to prove here.

Update September 2015: I no longer agree with the message of this post.  A I have explained here.