I do find it a bit amusing that people want to think that AD 70 was the fulfillment of Daniel's 70th week. If you look at the passage itself, Gabriel says the purpose of the 70 weeks (total) is to "finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy."
God must not be very good at prophecy, because, so far as I see it, there is still transgression and sin. And, as our post- and a-mill friends will gladly admit, this prophecy relates to Israel as a nation, and not to the Church. So, that makes the problem even worse, because in AD 70, transgression and sin were not ended!
Even funnier, they want to chastize dispensationalists for inserting a 2000 year gap, and yet they insert a gap themselves of about 40 years. Funny . . . if the 70th weeks started in AD 29, as we all recognize it did, then it should have ended no later than 36! WHERE DID THAT GAP COME FROM? Oh wait, my bad . . . the 70th week is allegorical, unlike all the rest. Look at this:
1. Seventy 'sevens' : 430 literal years
2. are decreed for your people: the literal Jews
3. and your holy city: The literal Jerusalem
4. to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy: the literal purpose of the 70 weeks
5. From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem: literal decree by Artexerxes
6. until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes: Literal Messiah, Jesus
7. there will be seven 'sevens,': 49 years literal years taking us to the last book of the OT
8. and sixty-two 'sevens.' 434 literal years, taking us to 29 or 30 AD
9. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble: which literally happened
10. After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing: literal crucifixion of Christ
11. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary: literally happened
12. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.: Literally happened.
13. He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.
So, 13 isn't really all that literal, even though 1-12 are. And, to top it off, even though the first 69 sevens are literal sets of literal seven years, that last year, where everything is focused, is allegorical! It has to be, of course, because that is the only way to have the Temple destruction of AD 70 be the fulfillment!
There is no way around this simple fact: if we refuse to see a gap, then that prophecy should have ended in 36 AD. Period. Silly preterists . . . don't you just love how they insert these gaps just to support their theology
The entire theology is off base, BW. I wish people would realize that it is thoroughly rooted in anti-semitism
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