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Daniel 8: by Douglas Becker |
Byker Bob relates: Allen Dexter responds:
It wasn’t good enough once, it has to be done all over again — yet it is just stated, without one shred of evidence from the Bible or history to validate the premise. This time though, for Daniel 8, it’s even worse as the Armstrongists insult God and the Bible as His Word by denying history and inventing a future fantasy. Some refer to Daniel 8 as the 2300 year prophecy. What a stupid idea. It is so amazing that people come up with such nutty ideas and they become the standard for decades and even centuries. Let us see what happens when we apply the 2300 years: It takes us to 1844! And what, do pray tell, happened in 1844 that might be of prophetic interest? There was one event: The William Miller prophecy of the Return of Christ became The Great Disappointment [it should be pointed out that he was a Protestant minister at the time and did not keep the Sabbath -- he began keeping the Sabbath and preaching it after this event]. So nothing happened then, but let us consider the silly trick of cutting the time in half to 1150 years, based on the morning and evening sacrifices (two sacrifices per day, therefore we have to count one-half the years). This brings us to the year 794. Well, in fact, there were a number of events worth noting in 794: Significant events, sure enough, but as fulfillment of prophecy, pretty much a spectacular bust. Herbert Armstrong had another approach: It isn’t years, it is days and it isn’t 2300 days, it’s 2300 morning and evening sacrifices, leaving us with 1150 days — and it hasn’t happened yet: It’s a prophecy for the future a short time ahead in the Twentieth Century. For those who are still alert, it should be clear that we’ve already missed that one. The description of the wonderland of bad assumptions leading to bad circular logic may be found in: and as recycled garbage in: Both of these articles are basically the same. You may find some other interesting things in the magazines like “How to Know You Are ‘Called’” by Bryce G. Clark (leader of another weird Armstrongist cult today) in the Good News [and truly, we ask the question, "How do you know anyone in the WCG was ever called, let alone chosen"] and yet another homophobic puff piece of raw manhood by Roderick Meredith in The Plain Truth, “Christian MANHOOD — Is It a ‘Lost Cause’?” [and truly, we ask the question, "Could Roderick Meredith be a Real Christian and not just a False Prophet?"]. The most amazing thing is the statement:
Do you feel like you’ve just been punked?! I feel like I’ve just been punked! What a bunch of… baloney! It’s embarassing–almost as embarassing as reading 1975 in Prophecy once again! Herman L. Hoeh certainly knew how to embarass himself: How could he know about the 6 Day War in 1967? I guess that God wasn’t interested in letting the Radio Church of God knowing what He was doing. It’s going to be difficult to untangle this mess, so let’s get started (and in case you are an atheist or agnostic and / or don’t believe in the Bible, stay tuned, because this isn’t about Scripture, it’s about proving that Herbert Armstrong and the Armstrongist ministers are nutcases, which many of you may want to stay around to experience as we dismantle the Armstrong Delusion piece by piece — and, anyway, whether believer, atheist or agnostic, you can declare yourself a winner!). Here the Armstrongists deny the fulfillment of prophecy in Scripture, acknowledged by every Bible Commentary on Daniel 8, by claiming history never happened! Here is what the Bible Commentaries have to say on the topic: Chapter 8 gives details of that which takes place from another side of Judea, with reference to the Jews. The two empires of Persia and Greece, or of the East, which succeeded that of Babylon under which the prophecy was given, are only introduced to point out the countries in which these events are to take place, and to bring them before us in their historical order. The Persian empire is overthrown by the king of Greece, whose empire is afterwards divided into four kingdoms, from one of which a power arises that forms the main subject of the prophecy. The prophecies of Daniel 8 actually came to pass. Now the Believers have the victory saying that God brought the prophecy to pass. The atheists and agnostics say that it was written (or at least modified) after the historical events actually came to pass. No matter how you look at this, it is a win-win. Or you would think so — unless you believe what Dr. Herman L. Hoeh declared that it didn’t. The Devil, as they say, is in the details, and some of the details here hold more intrigue than a season of Dallas on TV. The main character in this drama isn’t the kings of Media and Persia, nor is it Alexander the Great. The real central character to all of this is Antiochus Epiphanes. First, though, let us go through the history represented by Daniel 8 (assumed to have been written 531 BC or so) upon which the commentators seem to agree: As it turns out, from the time of the execution of Onias III as the Jewish High Priest in 171 BC until the Maccabean revolt and restoration in 165 BC, the time is 6 years and 136 days, which equals 2,300 days. Thus it is that the prophecy in Daniel 8 is fulfilled. There is no antiChrist mentioned there. There is no future “shadow” fulfillment. There isn’t 2,300 years or 1150 years involved. There’s no Roman Empire (which began more or less officially in 50 BC) of any type mentioned in Daniel 8 — only two kingdoms are covered. And even though Jesus mentions the abomination of desolation like that in Daniel 8, the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel 8 was fulfilled by Antiochus Epiphanes. Since the Archangel Raphael told Daniel that he was sent to cause Daniel to understand the prophecy, Daniel did not have to wait until John wrote the Book of Revelation to interpret the events — else Raphael lied and God failed.
Dr. Herman L. Hoeh was a sycophant intellectual who took the ideas of those he served and fabricated support for those ideas. He did it for Herbert Armstrong. He did it for Joseph Tkach, Senior. He was the hired academic gun who assassinated the truth in order to fulfill the lusts of his masters, while hiding away from the dangers of the organization he supported. |
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