Some unique lines of Descent from Charlemagne.

 Charlemagne is the ancestor of all European Royalty and a good percentage of people who aren't royals at all.  Thought lines we can't document some thing pretty much all people who's ancestors were in Western Europe in the past 500 years descent from Charlemagne.

I already did a post on Charlemagne's ancestry.  But this also begs the question of who is the most Senior descendent of Charlemagne, who's the theoretical head of this huge family?  UsefulCharts has some videos trying to deduce this through standards that Medieval Europe would have actually used.  But today society is more enlightened on Gender and so we should consider some less Patriarchal standards.  And so that's what I have compiled today.

Gender Neutral Primogeniture Succession from Charlemagne

If you count Bernard of Italy

Charlemagne

Pepin of Italy

Bernard of Italy

Pepin, Count of Vermandois

Herbert I, Count of Vermandois

Beatrice of Vermandois

Hugh the Great

Beatrice of France

Theodoric I, Duke of Upper Lorraine

Frederick II, Duke of Upper Lorraine

Sophie, Countess of Bar

Theodoric I, Count of Montbéliard

Sophie († 1148), married in 1128 to Richard II, Count of Montfaucon

Amadeus II of Montfaucon

Walter of Montbéliard

Eschiva de Montfaucon

John II, Lord of Beirut

Eschive d'Ibelin

Rupen of Montfort

Jeanne of Montfort

Maria of Ibelin

Guy

Hugh

Charlemagne

Pepin of Italy

Bernard of Italy

Pepin, Count of Vermandois

Herbert I, Count of Vermandois

Beatrice of Vermandois

Hugh the Great

Beatrice of France

Theodoric I, Duke of Upper Lorraine

Frederick II, Duke of Upper Lorraine

Sophie, Countess of Bar

Theodoric I, Count of Montbéliard

Sophie († 1148), married in 1128 to Richard II, Count of Montfaucon

Amadeus II of Montfaucon

Walter of Montbéliard

Eschiva de Montfaucon

John II, Lord of Beirut

Eschive d'Ibelin

Hugh IV of Cyprus

James I of Cyprus

Janus, King of Cyprus

Anne de Lusignan

Amadeus IX, Duke of Savoy

Anne of Savoy

Charlotte of Naples

Anne de Laval, Viscountess of Thouars

Louis III de La Trémoille

Claude de La Trémoille

Henri de La Trémoille

Henri Charles de La Trémoille

Charles Belgique Hollande de La Trémoille

Marie Armande de La Trémoille

Marie Hortense Victoire de La Tour d'Auvergne

Jean Bretagne Charles de La Trémoille

Charles Bretagne Marie de La Trémoille

As far as Wikipedia allows me to trace it

If you don't count Bernard of Italy

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Lothair I

Louis II of Italy

Ermengard of Italy

Louis the Blind

Charles-Constantine

Constance of Vienne

Rotbold I, Count of Provence

Rotbold II, Count of Provence

Emma of Provence

Pons, Count of Toulouse

William IV, Count of Toulouse

Philippa, Countess of Toulouse

William X, Duke of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Marie of France, Countess of Champagne

Henry II, Count of Champagne

Alice of Champagne

Mary of Lusignan, Countess of Brienne

Hugh, Count of Brienne

Joanna of Brienne

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Lothair I

Louis II of Italy

Ermengard of Italy

Louis the Blind

Charles-Constantine

Constance of Vienne

Rotbold I, Count of Provence

Rotbold II, Count of Provence

Emma of Provence

Pons, Count of Toulouse

William IV, Count of Toulouse

Philippa, Countess of Toulouse

William X, Duke of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Marie of France, Countess of Champagne

Henry II, Count of Champagne

Alice of Champagne

Isabella of Cyprus

Hugh III of Cyprus

Amalric of Lusignan

John of Poitiers-Lusignan

Leo V of Armenia

Marie of Lusignan

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Lothair I

Louis II of Italy

Ermengard of Italy

Louis the Blind

Charles-Constantine

Constance of Vienne

Rotbold I, Count of Provence

Rotbold II, Count of Provence

Emma of Provence

Pons, Count of Toulouse

William IV, Count of Toulouse

Philippa, Countess of Toulouse

William X, Duke of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Marie of France, Countess of Champagne

Henry II, Count of Champagne

Alice of Champagne

Isabella of Cyprus

Hugh III of Cyprus

Guy, Constable of Cyprus

Hugh IV of Cyprus

From here on it's the same as the Bernard of Italy line

Gender Neutral Primogeniture Succession from Eleanor of Aquitaine's Marriage to Henry II of England.

Eleanor of Aquitaine + Henry II

Matilda of England, Duchess of Saxony

Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine

Irmengard of Baden

Herman VI, Margrave of Baden

Agnes of Baden, Duchess of Carinthia

Catherine of Heunburg

Frederick I, Count of Celje

Ulrich I, Count of Celje

William, Count of Celje

Anna of Cilli

Hedwig Jagiellon

As far as I could trace it on Wikipedia.

UsefulCharts also has a video on Matrilineal Descent from Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Gender Neutral Primogeniture Succession from Charles The Bald who inherited France

Charles The Bald

Judith of Flanders

Baldwin II of Flanders

Adalulf Count of Boulogne

Arnulf II of Boulogne

Baldwin II of Boulogne

Eustace I of Boulogne

Eustace II of Boulogne

Eustace III of Boulogne

Matilda of Boulogne

Marie I Countess of Boulogne

Mathilde of Flanders

Margaret of Brabant

Otto II Count of Guelders

Reginald I of Guelders

Reginald II of Guelders

Marie of Guelders

Joanna of Jülich

Maria van Arkel

Arnold of Egmond

Mary of Guelders

James III of Scotland

James IV of Scotland

James V of Scotland

Mary Queen of Scots

James VI of Scotland and I of England

Elizabeth Stuart Queen of Bohemia

Charles I Louis Elector Palatine

Princess Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate

Philippe II Duke of Orléans

Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans

Maria Teresa Felicitas d'Este

Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon Duchess of Orléans

Louis Philippe I King of The French

Ferdinand Philippe Duke of Orléans

Prince Philippe of Orléans Count of Paris

Princess Hélène of Orléans

Prince Amedeo Duke of Aosta

Princess Margherita of Savoy-Aosta

Archduchess Maria Beatrice Anna Felicitas Zita Charlotte Adelheid Christina Elisabeth Gennara

Charles The Bald

Judith of Flanders

Baldwin II of Flanders

Arnulf I, Count of Flanders

Hildegarde

Arnulf, Count of Holland

Dirk III, Count of Holland

Floris I, Count of Holland

Bertha of Holland

Constance of France, Princess of Antioch

Bohemond II of Antioch

Constance of Antioch

Maria of Antioch

Alexios II Komnenos

Charles The Bald

Judith of Flanders

Baldwin II of Flanders

Arnulf I, Count of Flanders

Hildegarde

Arnulf, Count of Holland

Dirk III, Count of Holland

Floris I, Count of Holland

Bertha of Holland

Constance of France, Princess of Antioch

Bohemond II of Antioch

Constance of Antioch

Bohemond III of Antioch

Raymond IV, Count of Tripoli

Raymond-Roupen

Maria of Antioch-Armenia

Humphrey of Montfort

Rupen of Montfort

Jeanne of Montfort

Eventually this too arguably converges on Hugh IV of Cyprus

Female Preference Primogeniture Succession from Charlemagne just for the fun of it

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Gisela

Judith of Friuli

Gisela (mother of Regelinda)

Regelinda of Zürich

Bertha of Swabia

Adelaide of Italy

Emma of Italy

Louis V of France

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Gisela

Judith of Friuli

Gisela (mother of Regelinda)

Regelinda of Zürich

Bertha of Swabia

Adelaide of Italy

Matilda, Abbess of Quedlinburg

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Gisela

Judith of Friuli

Gisela (mother of Regelinda)

Regelinda of Zürich

Bertha of Swabia

Adelaide of Italy

Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor

Adelaide I, Abbess of Quedlinburg & Sophia I, Abbess of Gandersheim

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Gisela

Judith of Friuli

Gisela (mother of Regelinda)

Regelinda of Zürich

Bertha of Swabia

Adelaide of Italy

Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor

Matilda of Germany, Countess Palatine of Lotharingia

Richeza of Lotharingia

Richeza of Poland, Queen of Hungary

Sophia of Hungary

Richardis of Carniola

Otto III (d. after 15 December 1130), Eckhard III (d. after 11 July 1183), Bernard II (d. c. 1135), unnamed son

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Gisela

Judith of Friuli

Gisela (mother of Regelinda)

Regelinda of Zürich

Bertha of Swabia

Adelaide of Italy

Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor

Matilda of Germany, Countess Palatine of Lotharingia

Richeza of Lotharingia

Richeza of Poland, Queen of Hungary

Sophia of Hungary

Wulfhilde of Saxony

Sophia of Bavaria

Ottokar III of Styria

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Gisela

Judith of Friuli

Gisela (mother of Regelinda)

Regelinda of Zürich

Bertha of Swabia

Adelaide of Italy

Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor

Matilda of Germany, Countess Palatine of Lotharingia

Richeza of Lotharingia

Richeza of Poland, Queen of Hungary

Sophia of Hungary

Wulfhilde of Saxony

Judith of Bavaria, Duchess of Swabia

Bertha, Duchess of Lorraine

Alice of Lorraine

Odo III, Duke of Burgundy

Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy

Margaret, Lady of Molinot

Marie, Viscountess of Limoges

Guy de Penthièvre

Joan, Duchess of Brittany

Marie of Blois, Duchess of Anjou

Louis II of Anjou

Marie of Anjou

Magdalena of Valois

Catherine of Navarre

Isabel d'Albret of Navarre

René II, Viscount of Rohan

Catherine de Rohan

Countess Palatine Magdalene Catherine of Zweibrücken

Countess Palatine Dorothea Catherine of Birkenfeld-Bischweiler

Countess Anna Catherine of Nassau-Ottweiler

From this point Wikipedia doesn't say one way or the other if any daughters had children

This line is disputed actually but if true it's more senior then the Judith of Friuli lines.

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Gisela

Ingeltrude

Hedwig of Babenberg

Henry the Fowler

Hedwig of Saxony

Beatrice of France

Ida of Lorraine

Werner I, Count of Klettgau

Otto II, Count of Habsburg

Werner II, Count of Habsburg

Albert III, Count of Habsburg

Rudolf II, Count of Habsburg

Albert IV, Count of Habsburg

Rudolf I of Germany

Matilda of Habsburg

Agnes of Bavaria, Margravine of Brandenburg

Agnes

Adelaide of Nassau

Ulrich IV, Lord of Hanau

Ulrich V, Lord of Hanau

Elisabeth of Hanau, Countess of Hohenlohe

Elisabeth wife of Louis V, Lord of Lichtenberg and Hugo XIII, Count of Montfort-Rotenfels-Langenargen

Below is a line I first documented from Berengar I of Italy because Gisela's own page didn't mention her daughters

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Gisela

Berengar I of Italy

Gisela of Friuli

Berengar II of Italy

Rozala of Italy

Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders

Judith of Flanders

Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria

Judith of Bavaria, Duchess of Swabia

Bertha, Duchess of Lorraine

Alice of Lorraine

Odo III, Duke of Burgundy

Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy

Margaret, Lady of Molinot

Marie, Viscountess of Limoges

Guy de Penthièvre

Joan, Duchess of Brittany

Marie of Blois, Duchess of Anjou

Louis II of Anjou

Marie of Anjou

Magdalena of Valois

Catherine of Navarre

Isabel d'Albret of Navarre

René II, Viscount of Rohan

Catherine de Rohan

Countess Palatine Magdalene Catherine of Zweibrücken

Countess Palatine Dorothea Catherine of Birkenfeld-Bischweiler

Countess Anna Catherine of Nassau-Ottweiler

From this point Wikipedia doesn't say one way or the other if any daughters had children

Female Only Primogeniture succession from Gisela

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Gisela

Judith of Friuli

Gisela (mother of Regelinda)

Regelinda of Zürich

Ida of Swabia

Mathilde, Abbess of Essen

Charlemagne

Louis the Pious

Gisela

Ingeltrude

Hedwig of Babenberg

Oda of Saxony

Oda of Metz

Female Prefrence Promigenture descent from Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Marie of France, Countess of Champagne

Marie of Champagne, Latin Empress of Constantinople

Margaret II, Countess of Flanders

John I, Count of Hainaut

John II, Count of Holland

Mary of Avesnes

Marie de Bourbon, Princess of Achaea

Hugh of Lusignan

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Marie of France, Countess of Champagne

Marie of Champagne, Latin Empress of Constantinople

Margaret II, Countess of Flanders

John I, Count of Hainaut

John II, Count of Holland

Mary of Avesnes

Beatrice of Bourbon, Queen of Bohemia

Wenceslaus I, Duke of Luxembourg

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Marie of France, Countess of Champagne

Marie of Champagne, Latin Empress of Constantinople

Margaret II, Countess of Flanders

John I, Count of Hainaut

John II, Count of Holland

Mary of Avesnes

Peter I, Duke of Bourbon

Joanna of Bourbon

Charles VI of France

Isabella of Valois

Joan of Valois, Duchess of Alençon

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Marie of France, Countess of Champagne

Marie of Champagne, Latin Empress of Constantinople

Margaret II, Countess of Flanders

John I, Count of Hainaut

John II, Count of Holland

Mary of Avesnes

Peter I, Duke of Bourbon

Joanna of Bourbon

Charles VI of France

Joan of France, Duchess of Brittany

Isabella of Brittany

Jeanne de Laval

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Marie of France, Countess of Champagne

Marie of Champagne, Latin Empress of Constantinople

Margaret II, Countess of Flanders

John I, Count of Hainaut

John II, Count of Holland

Mary of Avesnes

Peter I, Duke of Bourbon

Joanna of Bourbon

Charles VI of France

Joan of France, Duchess of Brittany

Francis I, Duke of Brittany

Margaret of Brittany

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Marie of France, Countess of Champagne

Marie of Champagne, Latin Empress of Constantinople

Margaret II, Countess of Flanders

John I, Count of Hainaut

John II, Count of Holland

Mary of Avesnes

Peter I, Duke of Bourbon

Joanna of Bourbon

Charles VI of France

Joan of France, Duchess of Brittany

Francis I, Duke of Brittany

Marie of Brittany, Viscountess of Rohan

Anne, Viscountess of Rohan

René I, Viscount of Rohan

René II, Viscount of Rohan

Catherine de Rohan

Magdalena Catherine, Countess Palatine of Zweibrücken

Dorothea Catherine of Birkenfeld-Bischweiler

Anna Catherine of Nassau-Ottweiler

Charles, Wild- and Rhinegrave of Salm-Dhaun

John Philip III, Wild- and Rhinegrave of Salm-Dhaun

A Millennium already past

This post shall be me playing Devil's Advocate with Post-Millenialists and Partial Preterists, by arguing that their eschatological position does not necessarily require allegorizing the time period of The Millennium.

There is a common misnomer out there that believing in a Literal Thousand Years means believing The Kingdom of that time period ends at some point, which is why you occasionally see an argument that the Nicene-Constantinople Creed's quotation of Gabriel in Luke 1:33 somehow was specifically a refutation of Pre-Mil.  However the only thing Revelation 20 explicitly says happens exactly a Thousand years later is Satan being let out of the Abyss, he then stirs up Gog and Magog and they besiege the "Beloved City" however their siege fails.  Revelation 21 and 22 are about the separation between the spiritual and physical finally completely ending, not about a completely New Messianic Kingdom starting.  The Greek word translated New in those chapters isn't Neo which I wrote an entire post on already.

Now at face value it seems like everything from Satan being let loose to the White Throne Judgment happens pretty rapidly.  But that's because we're reading a summary, maybe it will happen quickly but it could theoretically all take decades, centuries or maybe even another thousand years to play out.

So Post-Mils and Partial Preterists do have the option to consider identifying The Millennium with an exactly one Thousand year time period of recorded Church Age history, and placing us right now in Revelation 20:9 with the "Camp of the saints" being understood spiritually rather then tied to a specific geographical location.

And in that context I have a few hypothetical models to propose, because even though I'm not Post-Mil currently I have considered it.  

But first I want to address how most of these models implicitly identity the "Hoards of Gog and Magog" with principally the Turks and perhaps by extension other Altaic peoples like the Mongols.  This part of Revelation is among the Bible passages that have been abused by White Supremacists so I want to make myself clear, IF any of these interpretations are true it's about the Turks having a specific role to play in God's plan, however I believe in Universal Salvation meaning all of them are still Children of Adam who God Loves as much as everyone else.  So do not use this material to justify being Racist.

Now on to the hypothetical Millenniums.

I place the end of the 70 Weeks of Daniel in 37 AD one Week following the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Pentecost in 30 AD, which I argued for on this blog years ago.  Low and behold 1037 AD is the beginning of the reign of Tughril the first Sultan of the Seljuk Turks.  It was under his leadership that the Turks first moved south of the Gates of Alexander into Persia.

However it was under Alp Arslan and Malik Shah that the Seljuk Turks first came into conflict with "Christendom" around 1070 AD.  The significance of 1070 minus 1000 I shouldn't need to explain to Preterists.

In 1135 AD a thousand years after the defeat of the Bar-Kochba Revolt Seljuk Ruler Imad Al-Din Zengi crossed the Eurphrates River.  1137-1144 contained other notable events.

Later in the early 1300s a Thousand years after Constantine is when the Ottomans under Osman I and Orhan and other Turkic Tribes conquered deeper into Western Anatolia capturing what had long been core Byzantine territories including the cities that housed the 7 Churches of Revelation 2-3. They besieged Nicaea just a few years after the one thousand year anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.  324 was the year Constantine defeated Licinius and began the founding of Constantinople, 1317-1326 was the Seige of Bursa which secured Ottoman control of most of Asia Minor with only the core area around Constantinople still free.

The decade from 380-390 is when Theodosius I firmly established Christianity as the State Religion of the Roman Empire.  Ticonius published the first real Post-Millennial interpretation of Revelation in 380.  A thousand years later 1380-1390 would be when the Ottoman Empire really began entering Europe.

The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans was in 1454 BC, about 3 years following the Millennial Anniversary of the Council of Chalcedon.

There isn't a single event in the reign of Emperor Justinian that doesn't have it's Millennial anniversary during the reign of Suliman The Magnificent.  I actually already made a post on arguing for Bible Prophecy being fulfilled in the time of Justinian, that was mainly in the context of playing Devil's Advocate with Historicism, but it can be adapted for this purpose.

Some people have an odd fixation on viewing Bible Prophecy from an Anglo-Centric POV.  Interestingly the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons was pretty complete by 640.  One thousand years later and 1640 is when the English Civil War starts.

Hebrew and Base Number Systems

I did a study once called Languages of The Table of Nations where I argued that the language we now call Hebrew was a Canaanite language in origin and the original language of Abraham and his family wasn't one we classify as "Semitic" at all.

Recently I watched videos on alternate Base Number Counting systems by jan Misali, videos titled a better way to count and seximal responses.  They consider the best system to be Base 6 or Seximal, but a lot of discussion of Base 12 aka Dozenal comes up.

Why is this relevant to that earlier post of mine?  Because the Hebrew Language is clearly the product of a Base 10 culture, Ten is the highest number with it's own unique word, when you see "eleven" or "twelve" in English Bibles it's a translation of words that strictly speaking mean 10+1 or 10+2.  That fits the Canaanite origin, like their Alphabet the Greeks seem to have gotten their Base 10 bias from the Phoenicians then passed it on to Rome and modern Europe.

But a lot about the Culture of the Hebrew Bible suggests a more natural affinity for something else.  At first glass it would seem like Hebrew was somewhat chaotically using both Base 12 and Base 7, a Dozen and a Week.  Overall there is more apparent base 12, 12 tribes, 12 months in a year, contexts where a year is thought of as 360 days even though that doesn't astronomically perfectly fit, 24 courses for the Priesthood.  While 7 is used a lot multiples of 7 are only used by itself and by 10.

Thing is 7 as an important number can make sense in a Base 6 system, indeed the origin story of The Sabbath is God creating The World in 6 days then resting.  And then all the base 12 looking stuff can also come from doubling up Base 6. And then going back to the calendar 30 months is better explained by a Base 6 system being 5 times 6.

10 is likely to be a common number even in a non Decimal based culture just from the influence of having 10 fingers.  But symbolically speaking some of the most notable uses of 10 in The Bible seem to represent incompletion, like the Northern Kingdom being 10 of the 12 tribes.  But if 12 was the Base 11 would be the more natural number of incompletion, 10 as a doubling of 5 makes sense as an association with incompletion in a Base 6 culture.  

And then in Daniel 2, Daniel 7 and Revelation the number 10 is associated with the Kingdoms of the Beast's Empire.  And the modern dominance of Base 10 does come from Rome's influence, including the Metric System coming from the French Revolution's fetishization of Roman ideas.  That's why it annoys me how the most popular alternative to Metric is called "Imperial", it's misleading, metric is what actually comes from the original Evil Empire.

Now in that original post I theorized that Abraham and his family were originally Hurrians.  I've googled to see if any historians or archeologists think they know what the Hurrians original base counting system was, but all that comes up is discussion of how they adopted the Mesopotamian system later.

The Dual Fulfilment Fallacy

I'm someone who is still at the core of my Eschatology a Premillennial Futurist, but who does interpret a good number of individual Prophecies in ways that fit how a Preterist and/or Historicist could interpret them.  

When I try to argue to a fellow Futurist that a certain Prophecy was clearly meant to be the near future of when the Prophecy was given, or even that at least how it begins was, that Prophets can't really be considered confirmed Prophets at all if nothing they predicted was fulfilled in their lifetime.  I occasionally get responses about the Dual Fulfilment concept, making it sound like it's an absolute that every prophecy has at least 2 fulfilments, near and far.  Understanding it this way makes it almsot impossible to definitively argue for anything.

Nathan's Prophecy about the Son of David building The Temple in 2 Samuel 7 is the core foundation upon which the dual fulfilment concept is based, and the reason why it can't even be called inherently Christian, every Jew who believes in a yet future Messiah Ben-David believes this Prophecy has a second fulfilment in addition to Solomon.

But the thing about this most undisputed case of a second fulfillment being needed, is that the first fulfilment failed.  Now make no mistake God always knew what was gonna happen, but the fact still remains that in theory Solomon alone could have been all this Prophecy needed, but he failed, the entire history of the divided kingdom is the legacy of Solomon's failure.  When you properly add that context it's not a dual fulfilment at all, it's only kind of applicable to Solomon at all because of what could have been.

That's why in my opinion dual fulfilments are possible and occasionally worth speculating on.  But to start building doctrine on some absolute expectation that no Prophecy is properly fulfilled till it's fulfilled twice is in my opinion foolish.

A lot of other almost undisputed examples of dual fulfilments are also ones where the second or final fulfilment is Jesus.  But in a lot of those cases it's typology, to Christians the applicability to Jesus is what matters most because we view everything through the lens of Jesus. But I would still call it wrong to act like that Prophecy wasn't actually fully fulfilled till Jesus.  The sense in which Jesus repeats it is a nice bonus for our Christian view of The Bible's metanarrative, but it often isn't at all what the original Prophet was concerned with.

Any Prophecy where I do feel that Prophecy was always chiefly about Jesus, I generally seek to, like with the failure of Solomon thesis, deconstruct the near fulfilment, which for example is how I currently treat Isaiah 7-8.  

However I no longer desire to treat the "antichrist" the same way.  I actually think we're bordering on Dualism heresy when we treat that figure like a mirror image.  So yes in a sense every Hero of The Hebrew Bible is a foreshadowing of Christ, but that doesn't make every villain a similar type of the "Antichrist".

And the thing about a lot of the Prophecies I do think are about the fall of Jerusalem to Rome in 70 AD. 70 AD was in a sense itself the second fulfilment, it was a repeat of the history of the fall to Nebuchadnezzar in 588 BC. so saying it must happen again in the future is arguing for a full on third fulfilment.

What I'm criticizing here is partly stuff I've been guilty of myself in the past on this very blog.  This is a product of how I feel I've grown wiser as a student of Prophecy.

In The Case of the Abomination of Desolation, Jesus tells us that an already fulfilled event will happen again.  However that doesn't mean every detail of Daniel 11-12 (or 9) is going to happen twice, the context of the next Abomination of Desolation could be very different.  I try to define what the AoD is based on the initial fulfilment of those prophecies, but that's it, everything leading up to and following it could and probably will be different.

Passion Week Chronology Completely Rethought

 I decided to post this new Chronology on my Main Bible Blog, but I'll also promote it here.

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2022/04/passion-week-chronology-completely.html

Asher and Phoenicia

The first mention of Tyre in The Bible is in Joshua 19:29 as a City in the Allotment of Asher.

There is a lot of overlap between what the Greeks and later Romans called Phoenicia and what was allotted to the Tribe of Asher in the days of Joshua.  Zidon/Sidon itself is listed in Joshua 19:28.  Dor was basically the southernmost city of what they called Phoenicia and Joshua 17:11 lists it as a City originally meant for Asher but that Manasseh wound up taking.  And Aphek/Aphik of Joshua 19:30  is Apheca up in the Jibel district of Lebanon east of Byblos and west of Baalbek.

I also have a hunch the name of the nearby Jezzine District of Lebanon comes from the Jesuite clan of Asher from Number 26:44.  Of course a few verses later there are a couple clans of Naphtali with arguably more similar names but I feel Jezzine is to far east to be Nephtali.

Of course many of these are cities the Canaanites weren’t chased out of, as we’re told of Dor in Judges 1:27 and five proper Asher allotted cities in Judges 1:31, and the five in that verse weren’t even made tributaries like the others, they were fully independent.  That verse lists Zidon, Acco/Acho (the city known today as Akka and to the Crusaders as Acre but in Acts was Potlemias), and Aphek.  The Asherites are also described different then the tribes preceding them in Judges 21, they dwell among the Canaanites rather then the Canaanites dwelling among them.

But it doesn’t mention Tyre, and that gets me to wondering, was Tyre an Asherite city for more of its ancient history than we usually think?

Hiram was the King of Tyre contemporary with David and at least the early reign of Solomon.  1 Chronicles 22:4 and 1 Kings 5:6 refers to Hiram and his kingdom as distinct from the Zidonians, not from Sidon as a city but from the Sidonians as a tribe.  It seems weird that he is merely allied with the House of David and not part of their Kingdom if he’s an Israelite, but maybe being surrounded by so many Canaanite cities cut them off.

Isaiah 23 refers to Tyre as the Daughter of Sidon, meaning the population of Tyre had become Sidonian by then.  And other Prophets like Joel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah constantly pair Tyre and Zidon together as practically twin cities, but all these are much later, so when did the change happen?

Ethbaal/Ithobaal the father of Jezebel you may have seen referred to as a King of Tyre, but The Bible in 1 Kings 16:31 calls him king of the Sidonians and never mentioned Tyre in its Ahab & Jezebel narrative at all.  The source for him being a King of Tyre is chiefly the Phoenician Historian Meander as quoted by Josephus in Against Apion.  These sources also tell us he did not descend from Tyre’s prior Kings but founded a new Dynasty, he was a Priest of Astarte who killed the previous king Phelles implying this was a Coup d'etat perhaps religiously motivated.  

But that also wasn’t the first time this happened, Phelles’s own dynasty gained power the same way decades earlier.  According to Meander Hiram/Hirom was succeeded by a Son then a Grandson but then his Dynasty ended.  Meander’s names for the Father, Son and Grandson of Hirom seem to imply Tyre was already worshiping Baal and Astarte even then, but those names could have been altered by the later Baalist record keepers.

When you study the Etymology of Phoenicia and why the Greeks gave that name to this region, you'll discover it's tied to a Greek word for Purple and to Phoenicia being a source of Dates and a rare Purple Dye, and that this is also tied to how Purple became a color associated with Royalty, this Purple is even specifically associated with Tyre being called Tyrian Purple.  

So Jacob's blessing for Asher in Genesis 49:20 is arguably fulfilled by Asher being Phoenicia, the Royal Dainties are the Dates and Tyrian Purple Dye.  Moses' blessing from Deuteronomy 33:24 can fit as well.

I also think the Rehob paired with Aphek in Joshua 19:30 and Judges 1:31 is probably the same as the Bethrehob in Judges 18:28, and I suspect that site is Yanouh north of modern Afik in the Byblos District.  The Asherites never drove out the Canaanites there but Dan after leaving their original allotment did.  This region is also where The Greeks believed the Adonis mythology happened, the Canaanites preferred Baal to Adonai as a word for Lord applied to the Divine, so I think the Adonis cult had its origins in Polytheistic Israelites.

1 Kings 15:18 in the Hebrew and Young's Literal Translation says Giblites (people of Byblos) were involved in building The Temple.  These were workers supplied by King Hiram of Tyre and led by the very similarly named half Danite Architect.  That architect's Danite mother was also a Widow of Naphtali.

Just as Asher was allotted Western Lebanon up to the Byblos region, Naphtali included Eastern Lebanon directly parallel.  I think the Bethshemesh allotted to Naphtali in Joshua 19:38-39 that they didn't drive the Canaanites out of in Judges 1:33 is Baalbek, because the Greeks called Baalbek Heliopolis like they did the Bethshemesh of Egypt, simply changing House of The Sun to City of The Sun.  As for the Bethanath of those verses, of the already proposed sites for Beth-Anath I favor Aynata or Safad El Battikh both in the Bint Jbeil District of the Nabatieh Governorate of Lebanon.

The Phoenicians had a major influence on the early Prehistory of Ancient Greece.  The Greek Alphabet is basically an adaptation of the Phoenician Alphabet, Aphrodite was basically just Astarte coming to Greece via Phoenician colonies on Cyprus.  This is reflected in Greek mythology in a number of ways but with the Aeolians specifically linking themselves to Tyre, Thebes was supposedly founded by Cadmus (credited with inventing the Alphabet) son of Agenor and brother of Phoenix King of Tyre, while the Heroes of Thesely descend from a woman named Tyro.  

Later in the Hellenistic era Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus of Cios were Hellenized Phoenicians who were core to founding the Stoic School of Philosophy which would be the dominant Theistic school of Greek Philosophy during the era of The New Testament.

I don’t believe in British Israelism so I don’t see this as evidence that the Ancient Greeks as a whole literally primarily genealogically descended from Asher or Dan.  But the cultural influence is interesting, and perhaps adds some poetic symmetry to how, if my theories are correct, the modern Descendants of Asher follow liturgically Greek Rites of Christianity.

As I discussed in my last Lost Tribes post, DNA research seems to show that the Christians of Lebanon are kin to The Jews.  My focus in that post was on arguing for the Maronites being Dan.  But I also think the Christians in the Tyre, Sidon, Jezzine and Nabatieh Districts of Lebanon, as well as the Haifa and Akko districts of Israel mostly descend from Asherites who converted to Christianity at some point in the first four centuries AD.  Those that follow Greek Rites from Asherites who were Hellenized by the First Century, and the Syriacs those who were not Hellenized.  The Melkite Greek Catholics are the largest Christian group in these districts followed by the Greek Orthodox as a somewhat close second.

Acts 11:19 tells us that one of the regions the Hellenized Jewish Christians we met in chapters 6-7 were scattered to during the persecution following the Martyrdom of Stephen was Phenice in the KJV which is a well known shortened form of Phoenicia, these Christians in Phenice are mentioned again in Acts 15:3, 21:3-7 and 27:3-12 where in this time Acco was called Ptolemais.

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, all of 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 and in the initial post WWI redrawing of the Middle East was original in the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon but as part of Hatay which became briefly independent and then 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 Hellenistic 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.