GOD'S NEW WORLD, DAY 18 (the Most High's most wanted)
“As for the ten horns,
out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise,
and another shall arise after them…
He shall speak words against the Most High,
shall wear out the holy ones of the Most High,
and shall attempt to change the sacred seasons and the
law;
and they shall be given into his power
for a time, two times, and half a time.
Then the court shall sit in judgment,
and his dominion shall be taken away,
to be consumed and totally destroyed.
The kingship and dominion
and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole
heaven
shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the
Most High;
their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,
and all dominions shall serve and obey them.” (Daniel
7.24-27)
Understandably enough, the Judeans had
always resisted the attempts of pagan empires to assimilate them into imperial
culture. In fact, this is precisely why
the Jews have succeeded in maintaining their identity as a distinct people down
through the ages.[1] That is not to say that some pagan rulers didn’t
do their utmost to destroy Jewish distinctiveness, all in the name of the
cohesion of the empire. Antiochus IV
(215—164 B.C.) was one such tyrant. He
passed laws forbidding the circumcision of (male) children, as well as the
observance of the Sabbath and the kosher laws.[2] Not content to ban the public practice of
Judaism, Antiochus also insisted on transforming Jewish monotheism into a form
of Hellenic syncretism; to that end, he set up a statue of Zeus in the
Jerusalem Temple and sacrificed a pig on its altar (referred to as the “abomination
of desolation”: Dn. 8.13, etc.). Of
course, it was common practice for conquered nations to integrate the gods of
their new rulers into their local pantheon.
Of course, for the Judeans, this was unthinkable (cf. Ex. 20.1-6). Finally, the people of Yahweh had had enough;
a certain Mattathias killed a fellow Judean who had acquiesced to the demand of
a local Hellenic official to offer sacrifice to the gods of Greece. The “Maccabean[3]
revolt” was underway! Against all odds,
the sons of Mattathias and their troops defeated the forces of Antiochus, cleansed
the Temple in the year 164 (thus inaugurating Hanukkah[4])
and established the Hasmonean dynasty, which would rule over a renewed Jewish
state for a century.[5]
During this momentous period of Judean
history, the book of Daniel was composed.
This “apocalyptic” text (esp. chapters 7—12) seeks to understand Yahweh’s
purposes for both his people Israel and for the nations of the world, who, ever
since the Babylonian exile, seem bent on the destruction of the people of God. When will Yahweh act to deliver his
people? This is the burning question of the
figure of Daniel, the main character in the narrative, himself said to have
been exiled during Nebuchadnezzar’s first deportation of Jerusalem nobles in
the year 605 B.C. (cf. Dn. 1.1-7). In
chapter 9, Daniel stands in for the entire Jewish people as he reads the book
of the prophet Jeremiah, who had predicted that the exile in Babylon would last
70 years (cf. Jer. 25.8-14; Dn. 9.1-2).
Of course, by the end of the reign of Antiochus IV, around 420 years had
passed since the beginning of the exile.[6] Daniel’s concern is rooted in the fact that
though a small minority of exiles had indeed returned from Babylon and had
rebuilt the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, the prophetic promises (cf. Jer. Chapters
30—33; Is. 40—66) of the glorious restoration – not only of Israel, but of the
entire creation! – that would surely follow the release from Babylonian captivity
had (to put it mildly) not quite been fulfilled (cf. Neh. 9.36-37). In many ways, those Judeans who had returned
to their homeland remained in a state of “exile”, fighting for their life
against pagan empires. After a prayer of
repentance and petition for understanding (Dn. 9.3-19), Daniel is granted a
revelation from the angel Gabriel, who informs him that the “exile” will last,
not for 70 years, but rather for 70 “weeks of years” (i.e., 70x7=490 years: Dn.
9.20-27). This places the “time of the
end” (cf. Dn. 12.4, 9) approximately 70 years after the end of the Maccabean
revolt[7]. This is interesting; Gabriel tells “Daniel”
that there is yet another “period of exile” to undergo before Yahweh’s plan for
his people and his world will be fulfilled.
[1] From the year AD 135 to the year 1948, Jews (by and large) did not
have access to their homeland. Of course,
most of the world’s Jews do not currently live in Israel/Palestine. This has been the case ever since the Assyrian/Babylonian
deportations of the 8th-6th centuries B.C. Famous Protestant theologian Karl Barth (1886—1968)
is said to have quipped that the continued existence of Jews was the best argument
for God.
[2] I.e., those aspects of the Mosaic Law which distinguished Jews from
other peoples. Many New Testament
scholars believe that it is precisely these 3 practices which lie behind the
expression, often found in the letters of Paul, of “the works of the law”. If this is indeed the case, then Paul’s
critique of Judaism didn’t consist of a blanket condemnation of Jewish morality
(or “moralism”), but rather of either the continued practice of these customs by
Jewish members of early Christian communities or the belief that such things
(especially circumcision for men) were necessary for one to join the church
(cf. Acts 15; Gal. 1-5; Rom. 4, etc.).
All this to say that if Paul (and his opponents!) seems uptight about
such things, it is understandable considering the historical backdrop of Jewish
resistance to imperial cultural genocide.
The policy of Antiochus IV and its aftereffects also help us understand why
Saul of Tarsus was so “zealous” in his attempts to destroy the community that
he perceived as flouting the very traditions that faithful Jews had died
defending not so long before… (cf. Ac. 7-9).
[3] Named for Mattathias’ son Judas, whose nickname was “Maccabeus”,
i.e., The Hammer. Compare this with the moniker
of Charlemagne’s grandfather, Charles “Martel”, king of the Franks (AD 688—741).
[4] Not surprisingly, the date of the cleansing of the Temple, if we
project our Western calendar back to the 2nd century B.C., was
December 25. Hence the falling of Hanukkah
close to Christmas on the calendar… Similarly, the Festival of Purim was established
after the attempt of Haman, a Persian official, to initiate a genocide against
the Jews living in the 5th-century B.C. Persian empire (cf. Esther 9.26-32). As it has been said, every time someone tries
to eliminate the Jews, a new feast is inaugurated! (cf. Passover and the exodus
from slavery in Egypt).
[5] Until sibling squabbling led to one aspiring Hasmonean king to
appeal to Rome for help, which of course Rome was all too happy to
provide. In the year 63 B.C., Pompey “the
Great” arrived in Jerusalem at the head of his legions, and the rest is history…
The Romans had a vested interest in maintaining control over Judaea, since it
was the backdoor to their breadbasket, Egypt.
Indeed, a certain Idumean warlord by the name of Herod (who would also
come to be known as “the Great”) recaptured Jerusalem from the invading
Parthians in the year 37, and for his service, was granted the title “King of
the Jews” by Rome, in whose name Herod ruled Judaea until his death in the year
4 B.C. During his reign, Herod undertook
to expand the Jerusalem Temple and, appropriately enough, named the Fortress
adjacent to the Temple precincts “Antonia”, in honour of his patron, Mark Antony. The Antonia Fortress would serve as the home
of Jerusalem’s Roman garrison.
[6] The Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem and conducted their final
deportation of Judeans to Babylon in the year 587 (earlier deportations had
taken place in 605 and 598). Upon his
defeat of Babylon in 539, Cyrus the Persian issued his famous edict allowing
Jews to return and rebuild their temple and their capital (cf. Ezra 1.1-2).
[7] I.e., around the year 95 B.C.
Modern televangelists are not the first to try and calculate the “time
of the end”! Of course, nothing “earth-shattering”
occurred around the year 95 B.C., but that didn’t prevent people at the time
(like today) from simply readjusting their starting-points and algorithms in
order to set a new end-date…
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