Segment 4 -
Daniel 8
The Antichrist
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Scofield’s
Understanding of the 2,300 Days
Chart 4.3
x =
December 6, 167 B.C. Antiochus IV
desecrated temple.
y =
December 16, 164 B.C. Temple cleansed
and services resume.
z = March
27, 160 B.C. General Nicanor killed.
The 2,300 days
are calculated as follows:
360 + 360 + 360 + 360 + 360 + 360 +
110 = 2,270
Add 30 days per seven years for
calendar adjustment
30
Total time
2,300 days
Here are five major
problems with Scofield’s
interpretation:
Problem 1: 1 Maccabees
4:52 says the temple in Jerusalem was
cleansed and services restored years
before General Nicanor was killed.
Therefore, Nicanor’s death has
nothing to do with the cleansing of
the temple!
Problem 2: The
calendar presented in Chart 4.3 is
based on the supposition that the
Jews observed a 360-day year.
Advocates of this dating scheme
calculate the time between December
6, 167, and March 27, 160, B.C., to
be 2,270 days. Then thy add one month
of 30 days for calendar adjustment
because a solar year is 365.242 days
in length. The total time, according
to this formula, adds up to 2,300
days. This view of the 2,300 days has
no merit. First, there is no
historical evidence showing the Jews
ever observed a 360-day year. The
Jewish year is either 354 or 384 days
in length depending on the cycles of
the moon – never 360 days. Even
if the Jews did observe a 360-day
year, the adjustment of 30 days every
seven years does not resolve the
problem of solar alignment with the
arrival of Spring requires an
adjustment of 36.7 days, not 30 days
if one is using a 360 day calendar.
If the Jews used a 360-day calendar
with a 30-day correction every seven
years, their calendar would be 27
days out of alignment with the sun in
28 years. No agricultural nation
could survive this kind of error in
their calendar.
Problem 3: Dr.
Scofield knew the time frame between
the desecration of the temple and the
death of General Nicanor was not
precisely 2,300 days, so he declared
God’s prophetic time-period to
be “indeterminate” (not
very precise). Scofield, commenting
on the seventy weeks of Daniel 9:24,
wrote these word: “In this
connection it should be remembered
that, in the grand sweep of prophecy,
prophetic time is invariably so near
as to give full warning, so
indeterminate as to give no
satisfaction to mere curiosity.”
(See the Scofield Reference Bible,
commentary on Daniel 9:24.) Does
Scofield mean that once we find
something “close enough” to
fit within a prophetic time-period,
we can declare a prophetic mystery
solved? How can an omniscient God not
know the actual number of days
between two events? In Daniel 12, God
mentions two specific time periods
having 1,290 days and 1,335 days.
Revelation 20 speaks of 1,000 years.
Revelation 13:5 speaks of 42 months
and Revelation 11:9 speaks of 3.5
days. Does God regard these
time-periods as indeterminate? Of
course not! Scofield
“imposed” a bad
interpretation onto Daniel 8:14 and
then justified a poor fit for the
2,300 days by declaring God’s
Word to be “indeterminate.”
If God can number the hair of our
heads, if God can number the stars of
the sky, if God created the precise
pulses of atomic energy in billionths
of a second, surely He can accurately
count the span of days between two
events.
Problem 4: An issue
affecting the 2,300 days in Daniel
8:14 exists which Scofield did not
resolve. We know that the “time,
times and half a time” in Daniel
7:25 represents 1,260 years. The
Bible confirms this point. (See
Revelation 12:6,14.) Bible history
confirms that God sometimes
translates a day for a year so that
1,260 days represent 1,260 years.
This is not unusual. Most scholars
agree that the “seventy
weeks” in Daniel 9:24 have to be
translated as 490 years because of
the day/year principle found in the
Jubilee Calendar. Because the 2,300
in Daniel 8 and the seventy weeks in
Daniel 9 begin at the same time (this
point will be demonstrated in our
study on Daniel 9), they share the
same translation. In other words, the
2,300 days represent 2,300 years
because the seventy weeks represent
490 years. In fact, the seventy weeks
of Daniel 9 are “cut off”
from the 2,300 days in Daniel 8! The
matrix is at work and the timing in
Daniel and Revelation fits together
like hand and glove. God measures
time-periods in Daniel 7, Daniel 8
and Daniel 9 according to the
day/year operation of the Jubilee
Calendar. (Leviticus 25) This is why
Rule Four states: “God
measures apocalyptic time according
to the presence or absence of the
Jubilee Calendar.” Scofield
should have translated the 2,300 days
as 2,300 years.
Problem 5: Scofield
claims the bitter persecution of the
Jews under Antiochus IV ended with
the death of General Nicanor. History
says just the opposite. In fact, life
for the Jews only became worse after
Nicanor was killed. For example, King
Demetrius killed Judas Maccabeus (1
Maccabees 9:18) about 2 months after
Nicanor died. Then, about a year
after the death of Nicanor in May,
159 B.C., “Alcimus ordered the
wall of the inner court of the
sanctuary to be torn down, thus
destroying the work of the
prophets.” (1 Maccabees 9:54)
The book of 1 Maccabees records that
many wars were inflicted on Israel
after Nicanor’s death. Thus, the
persecution of the Jews did not cease
with the death of General Nicanor.
History discredits Scofield’s
explanation of the 2,300 days.
Given the evidence
presented so far, advocates of
Antiochus face insurmountable issues:
The temple in Jerusalem was not free
from threat after the death of
Nicanor. The length of time between
the Antiochus’ desecration of
the temple and Nicanor’s death
was not 2,300 days. Jewish
persecution did not end after Nicanor
died. The 2,300 days of Daniel 8:14
cannot begin with the conduct of
Antiochus IV and end with the death
of General Nicanor. Nicanor’s
death does not have anything to do
with the cleansing of the temple in
Jerusalem. When the
“interpretation” of
Antiochus is closely examined, claims
of fulfillment do not even come close
to meeting all the specifications
given in Daniel 8. Given the
specifications in Daniel 8, it is
amazing that millions of Christians
accept Scofield’s position
without question.
Section V –
Heaven and Earth Linked Together with
2,300 Days
With God Timing Is
Everything
God created the orbit
of the electrons spinning around the
nucleus of the cesium atom. This
demonstrates that He is very capable
of measuring time. If the cesium atom
can be used to create an atomic clock
that does not vary by more than one
second in a hundred million years,
surely God can measure time! I make
this point because when it comes to
timing and punctuality, no one in the
universe is more precise than God!
The God who said there would be 2,300
evenings and mornings before the
sanctuary would be cleansed is the
same God who said seventy weeks would
be granted to Israel in Daniel 9.
Surely, the Lord knows what He is
talking about! Look at the
punctuality with Israel at the
Exodus: “At the end of the 430
years, to the very day, all
the Lord’s divisions left Egypt.
Because the Lord kept vigil that
night to bring them out of Egypt, on
this night all the Israelites are to
keep vigil to honor the Lord for the
generations to come.” (Exodus
12:41,42, italics mine) Consider the
timing of the birth of Jesus: “But
when the time had fully come, God
sent his Son, born of a woman, born
under the law, to redeem those under
the law, that we might receive the
full rights of sons.” (Galatians
4:4, italics mine) God is never late.
God is never wrong. With God, timing
is everything!
Look up! The Event Is
Not on Earth
The 2,300 days is
placed in Daniel 8 for a very good
reason, if you are aware of two
prerequisites. First, you need to
know about the historical matrix that
the four rules produce. Second, you
have to understand the essential
doctrine that explains God’s use
of parallel temple services. (See the
study on parallel temple services in
the Bible study room of this site.)
When these two prerequisites are
combined, we can determine when Jesus
began to cleanse Heaven’s temple
and why it must be cleansed.
God connected the cleansing of
Heaven’s temple with the ram
(the kingdom of the Medes and
Persians). The connection between the
ram and the cleansing of
Heaven’s temple is precisely
2,300 years in length. The countdown
of 2,300 years began when the
Persian, King Artaxerxes, issued a
decree to restore and rebuild
Jerusalem in 457 B.C. (Ezra 7)
Because God tied the decree of
Artaxerxes to a yardstick that was
2,300 years in length, we can easily
calculate the date when the cleansing
of God’s temple began in Heaven.
Even though we cannot see the
event-taking place in Heaven, we know
it began in 1844. We will also see,
when we examine the seventy weeks of
Daniel 9 and the seven seals in
Revelation, that the dates of 1798
and 1844 are highly important dates
in Heaven’s sequence of events.
1,150 Days?
Some people have tried
to divide the 2,300 evenings and
mornings so that this time-period is
1,150 literal days (1,150 evenings +
1,150 mornings = 2,300 evenings and
mornings), but, this time scheme does
not work for several reasons. First,
the Hebrew words ‘erab and
boger go together to form one
unit of time. They literally mean
“evening and morning,” as
in one day. Notice how ‘erab
and boger are used on the
first page of the Bible. “And
God called the light Day, and the
darkness he called Night. And the
evening [‘erab] and the morning [boger]
were the first day.” (Genesis
1:5, KJV) According to God’s
method for measuring time, a
“day” has an evening and a
morning. A day begins at sundown
(evening) and the midway point
through the day is sunrise (morning).
(Leviticus 23:32) Translators of the
Kings James Version recognized this
fact and they translated the 2,300
evenings and mornings of Daniel 8:14
as 2,300 days. New
International Version translators
were more literal with the text,
translating it as “2,300
evenings and mornings.”
Unfortunately, most
Christians do not understand the
doctrine of God’s use of
parallel temples. If a person does
not understand the cleansing of
Earth’s temple, he cannot
understand the cleansing of
Heaven’s temple, then the timing
of this event is of no value. If
God’s use of parallel temples
was better understood, Christians
could understand that the temple to
be cleansed is not on Earth, but in
Heaven! Bible students tend to
interpret Bible prophecy as though
Earth was the center of prophecy, but
this is not the case. Daniel was
directed to view a great convocation
in Heaven. He saw a service when the
Ancient of Days took His seat and
billions of angels were in
attendance. This heavenly meeting is
profoundly important because it marks
the beginning of the services in
Heaven’s temple that lead up to
the end of the world. The services in
Heaven’s temple are directly
linked to the final events that
occur on Earth. Remember the
Heaven-Earth-Linkage-Law?
Five clues in the
Bible indicate the temple to be
cleansed in Daniel 8:14 is in Heaven:
First, the doctrine of
parallel temples teaches there were
two temples. The one on earth was a
shadow of the real temple in Heaven
where our Jesus serves as High
Priest. (Hebrews 8:1-5) We know the
earthly temple was destroyed by the
Romans in A.D.70. The only temple
remaining is in Heaven.
Second, the cleansing
of the earthy temple occurred at an
appointed time every year – on
the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16),
but the heavenly temple is cleansed
only once – at the appointed
time of the end! (Hebrews 9:24-26)
Third, the 2,300
evenings and mornings must be
translated as 2,300 years because God
uses the Jubilee Calendar to
translate a day into a year. (This
point and the Jubilee Calendar will
be discussed at length when we
examine the seventy weeks of Daniel
9.) The 2,300 years began in the
Spring of 457 B.C. and they ended in
the Spring of 1844.
Fourth, the cleansing
of Heaven’s temple began in
1844. This date aligns with 1798 that
marks the year the great convocation
in Heaven’s temple began. (See
Chart 4.4.) In fact, the timing of
the great convocation in Daniel 7
(1798) and the cleansing of the
sanctuary in Daniel 8 (1844) align
with the seventy weeks in Daniel 9
(457 B.C.), and these three events
align with the opening of the third
seal in Revelation 6. The matrix is
building!
Chart 4.4
Fifth, the remark that
follows do not begin to cover the
scope and breadth of the subject of
parallel temples (Hebrews 8:1-5), but
a few words may be necessary about
the annual servive of cleansing the
earthly temple, so you can understand
the marvelous parallel that exists
between the earthly and the heavenly
temple. Again, the doctrine of
parallel temples is a prerequisite
doctrine for understanding Daniel 8.
The angel said, “…
Unto two thousand three hundred days,
then shall the sanctuary be
cleansed.” (Daniel 8:14, KJV)
Why does the sanctuary in Heaven need
cleansing? The answer to this
question is found in the cleansing of
the earthly temple. The cleansing of
the earthly temple was an annual
event that occurred in the tenth day
of the seventh month. This day was
called the Day of Atonement. Jews
today call it Yom Kippur, which means
Day of Judgment. The cleansing of the
earthly temple was necessary because
it was defiled by sinners bringing
sin offerings to the temple. The
sinner, standing at the Altar of
Burnt Offering, confessed his sins
over the head of the sacrifice. Then,
he cut the jugular vein of the
sacrificial animal with his own
hands. The priest then captured some
of the lamb’s blood and
sprinkled this blood on the horns of
the altar. This procedure shadows a
divine truth. The sinner’s guilt
was transferred away from
himself and his family to the Altar
of Burnt Offering by the blood of the
Lamb.
This earthly
process was a shadow or pantomime of
a reality that was coming. The guilt
of sinners could be transferred to
Heaven’s temple through the
death of Jesus (the Lamb of God).
When the blood was applied to the
horns of the altar, the altar became
defiled because the guilt of the
sinner had been transferred to it. The
process of setting sinners free of
the guilt of sin defiles the temple
because the sinner’s guilt is
transferred to the altar. Because
the altars of the temple were
depositories of guilt, the earthly
temple was defiled until the Day of
Cleansing (the Day of Atonement)
arrived. For a single day, the
earthly temple was restored to an
undefiled state. (Leviticus 16) Then,
on the following day, sacrifices
resumed and the temple was defiled
because the annual cycle started
over.
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