As he came near the place where I was standing, I was terrified and fell prostrate. "Son of man," he said to me, "understand that the vision concerns the time of the end." – Daniel 8:17

Today's Scripture Reading (September 21, 2023): Daniel 8

I love to talk to people about "End Times Theology," as long as I don't have to drink the Kool-Aid in the process. That might surprise some of my friends. I know that some people genuinely hate the "End Times" conversation. And that is okay, too. But I think the real problem is the talking heads on television who preach their guesses about the future as if they are reporting on events that have occurred that day. The result is a generation of people who genuinely believe that you can draw a straight line between the Bible's prophecies and today's events. But prophecy doesn't work that way. And so, all of my friends who have built up this kind of relationship between prophecy and the day's news are doomed to be frustrated.

Daniel sees a man, and that man speaks to the Angel Gabriel and tells the Gabriel to unwrap the mystery of the vision. In response, Gabriel begins with, "The vision concerns the time of the end." And that might not be all that much of a surprise. It is so clear to some that they have moved the words of the prophecy from being written in the later years of the sixth century B.C.E. to being written in the middle years of the second century B.C.E. The reason? The description is so close to the events that actually took place in the second century under the rule of Antiochus Epiphanes.

But that also introduces a problem. If this is about the end times, how could it be about Antiochus Epiphanes? Some have even argued that, according to these visions, Antiochus Epiphanes is the Antichrist. Maybe the existence of several characters in history who seem like they could have been the Antichrist is the basis for the Italian Theologian Joachim of Fiore (1130-1202 C.E.) to speculate that there are a series of Antichrists that lead up to the Great Antichrist of which the Bible speaks. For Joachim, these Antichrists would have included Antiochus Epiphanes, Nero, Muhammad, and even Joachim's contemporary, the Islamic general Saladin.

What we need to understand from this passage is that this prophecy concerns the end of all things. It is what God wanted Daniel, and by extension, us, to understand. And prophecy is shrouded with mystery, but at the same time, when the prophecy takes place, well then, we will understand.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Daniel 9