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.
Interesting. The more study I do on Daniel the more I think it really is sealed until the End Times.
ReplyDeleteDaniel 8 can't be about our past. Gabriel says multiple times the vision is about the End Times. Alexander was not the first king of Greece.
That being said, Daniel 11 must also be about our future, because it reiterates in Daniel 10 the following chapter is about what will happen to Israel in the last days.
Antichrist comes in at Daniel 11:21 immediately succeeding the previous king. It isn't Antiochus at all. These kings are future to us. Probably by many generations.
Even with all the crazy stuff going on now, I think the End Times are not as near as most Christians think.
The nation Antichrist comes from doesn't even exist yet. I think it will be either Turkey or a Grecian division as the king of the north.
But Daniel 8 says Antichrist arises in the latter time of one of those divisions. So the kings of the north leading to Antichrist in Daniel 11 21 will take decades at least.
I know your thoughts are it may not be End Times, but Daniel 11:21-45 are clearly the same guy. I'm assuming the Abomination of Desolation will be some kind of super AI idol we haven't even fathomed yet. If you trace the path from 21, it is the same guy who sets up the Abomination of Desolation in verse 31. Meaning all of 36 to 45 is also the same guy.
Hebrew and Greek expression that get translated things like "Time of the End" and "Last Days" do not have the absolutely must be the end of everything meaning we keep reading into them. I am essentially a Futurist still, but we should recall most of what we Futurists means by "End Times" when we use the term now is actually what happens before the Millennium and thus at least a Thousand years before the actual final episodes of human history.
DeleteThe scope of Daniel 11 is itself clearly multiple generation so there is no getting around a somewhat broad sense of what it means by "End Times?. My view of Daniel 11 has it ending at the time of Christ, and no Christina should have trouble accepting that form a certain point of view the Time of Christ was a Time of the End, the End of the Old Covenant which was "until John", the end of the dispensation of the Law in Galatians, the culmination of all Biblical history up to that point.
Alexander does have to be the absolute first King who can ever be said to have ruled Greece, just the first Greek King who ruled the lands The Bible is focused, Israel/Jerusalem first then her neighbors and then to some extent Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Even if I viewed all of Chapter 11 as yet future verse 36 is still introducing a new Willful King not a continuation of the prior Monarch, stylistically everything about that verse reads like an introduction to a new character.
My view on Daniel 11 is still quite likely to change. If v. 36 was introducing someone new I would expect something like v. 2's introduction: "Then a mighty king will arise."
ReplyDeleteHowever, if the Futurist view is correct, then perhaps a provoked NATO could take up the "king of the north" role?
If the world stage doesn't change between then and now, an attack on Turkey would provoke the entirety of the alliance and NATO certainly has "many nations" to "sweep through." I cannot imagine a superpower strong enough to dominate NATO, gain control over North Africa, and then still have enough power to "set out in a great rage to destroy and annihilate many."
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