Jesus' prophecy of the abomination of desolation
Books of magic from the dark ages have demons being conjured up and told, "I conjure you by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ that is daily in the chalice". This invokes the power of the Catholic Mass where bread supposedly becomes Jesus' body and wine becomes his blood when the priest commands them to. This shows that the current notion that crosses and wafers scare off demons which comes from the horror films is just a recent fantasy. Tradition says different. That marks the sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus as heavy occult in principle and often in practice.
James Calfhill who followed Calvinism stated, "the vilest witches and sorcerers of the earth" were the Catholic priests. John Canne warned in 1634 against priest style use of the sacraments as charms and sorceries. The sacrament of confirmation was referred to as "plain sorcery, devilry, witchcraft".
The book of Daniel and the apocryphal books of the Bible seem to talk about Antiochus dedicating the Jewish Temple to Jupiter. He put harlots to work in it. He sacrificed a pig on the sacred altar and the pig was a forbidden animal. He put an idol up in the Holy Place in there. He replaced the High Priest with his brother Jason.
That was the abomination of desolation. However many think that prophecies can have dual predictions. So if Daniel meant Antiochus it does not follow he only meant him. They only say that for Jesus treated Daniel's prediction as pending.
New Testament prophecy mentions a religious abomination that appears after the sacred sacrifices of the Jews are prevented. This can be understood to refer to the Mass which appeared after the end of Jewish sacrifices. The temple cult ended in 70 AD. The abomination lasts until the end of time.
The majority view is that the prediction refers to the violent and degrading end of the Temple. Some feel it is about an earlier attack on the Temple but Christians cannot accept that view for it contradicts Jesus.
It is clear that Jesus got his information from the book of Daniel. Here is the prophecy.
And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of
the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease; and upon the
wing of abominations shall come one that maketh desolate; and even unto the full
end, and that determined, shall wrath be poured out upon the desolate.
Daniel 9:27 (ASV)
And forces shall stand on his part, and they shall profane the sanctuary, even
the fortress, and shall take away the continual burnt-offering, and they shall
set up the abomination that maketh desolate.
Daniel 11:31 (ASV)
And from the time that the continual burnt-offering shall be taken away, and the
abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand and two
hundred and ninety days.
Daniel 12:11 (ASV)
It is possible to argue that Jesus himself was the abomination.
Here is Daniel 8.
8 Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn
was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of
heaven.
9 And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great,
toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.
10 And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the
host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.
11 Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the
daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of the sanctuary was cast down.
12 And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of
transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and
prospered.
Let me repeat some things.
Jesus predicted the coming of the abomination that causes desolation. He was
referring to Daniel 11:31 which says it will take place during a time of
distress that is so severe that its like has never been seen. It says too that
it will happen after the sacrifices end in the Temple of Jerusalem. These
sacrifices ceased in 70 AD after Jesus' time. Mark 13:14 tells the reader of
Jesus' saying to understand it meaning he can look it up in the Old Testament
book of Daniel. So we are talking about the greatest abomination ever.
It is supposed the abomination refers to the sacrilegious murder of Jesus Christ the Son of God. But Jesus' death did not take place in the time of the worst suffering. And Temple sacrifices did not cease with the death of Jesus.
The abomination in Daniel is described in the context of something blasphemous and idolatrous being done to God's shrine and his religion. The Catholic Mass which purports to make the killing of Jesus present took place in times of great suffering and is done in places consecrated to God and by a religion supposedly founded by God. It is the real candidate for being the abomination of desolation. And even more so when the climax of the abomination was the slaying of a pig as sacrifice on God's altar in the Temple. The Mass and the pig are parallels. The Bible says that the abomination will be destroyed by God and the saints will then rise from the dead. It is talking about something that happens between the ending of sacrifice in 70 AD and the end of the world when the saints rise. The Mass is the best candidate and the best fit for the data.
APPENDIX
When you know how the Book of Revelation condemns Nero so brutally you would think Jesus is predicting his sacrilegious activities. But Nero did not do the things to the Temple that Antiochus did. Nero is not assumed to be an antichrist for he did not know Christian belief like an insider would. The Bible seems to say that only a former disciple of Jesus can become an antichrist.
His predecessor Caligula had his statue put up in the Jewish Temple about 40 AD. Is that the abomination? Maybe.
Paul writes of the man of sin who sits in the Temple to be worshipped as a God. Do we want to think Paul predicted that the Roman Emperor would sit as a god in the Temple? Caligula did not claim to be an all-powerful god who knew the hearts of his people. Thus he was really a symbolic god. He was more like a saint - a being who has powers but within strict parameters.
Jesus' prediction does not really fit what the Roman emperors were doing.
The WWW
www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_lippard/fabulous-prophecies.html
The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah by Jim Lippard
This site argues that Daniel’s prophecy if punctuated by the Masoretic method
gives a totally different meaning from the one Christians want it to have and
which eliminates all attempts to make the prophecy predict the year of Jesus’
death. It shows how Gleason Archer misrepresented a verse from Jeremiah as
referring to Judas betraying Jesus for money and left out bits that proved that
it did not refer to that event. For example, he deliberately hides the fact that
Jeremiah said 17 shekels while Jesus was betrayed for 30 shekels. The Christians
now say that Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled in Ahab’s time but was meant to be a
double-fulfilment prophecy meaning that it predicted Jesus’ virgin birth as well
or that it could be applied to Jesus’ birth too and was meant to be. That is
ridiculous. You could say that Isaiah 53, where the suffering and death of
Christ is allegedly predicted, is geared towards a double fulfilment too. And
how could either it or Isaiah 7:14 be double prophecies when they each speak of
only one event? The double-fulfilment idea is just imagining prophecies of Jesus
where there are none and ignoring the wording of Isaiah. The site also tells us
how silly the claim that the contradictory genealogies in Matthew and Luke that
were given for Jesus that they can be reconciled is. The Catholic Church claims
that both lists are accurate but the differences are down to levirate marriage.
Levirate marriage is when a childless man dies his brother is obliged to take
his wife and impregnate her with babies that are considered to belong to the
dead man. So each gospeller just chose different people as part of the line.
This is garbage for they differ in the number of ancestors. And my comment is
that there would not have been that many levirate marriages.
www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/prophecy.html
Prophecies: Imaginary and Unfulfilled by Farrell Till
This site points out that in the original Hebrew, Micah 5:2 says that the
Messiah will come out of the house of Ephrathah in Bethlehem meaning the clan or
family of Ephrathah. Matthew thought it meant land. Since there is no evidence
that Jesus came from this family, there is therefore no evidence that the
prophecy was about him though the Gospel of Matthew tries to make out that it
was. Therefore it is an abuse of scripture to say that the prophecy means Jesus.
Also Matthew misread Zechariah and thought he said that the king would ride on
both an ass and her colt. My comment is that for Jesus to fulfil that he had to
be a proper king anointed and enthroned but Jesus was never anointed or sat in a
throne. He claimed to be a king but that was not much to go on. Otherwise
anybody would do as a fulfilment as long as they claimed to be king. God also
promised the land to the Israelites no matter what evil they did on account of
his having promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Deuteronomy 9:3-6) and indeed gave
them the land though he considered them totally undeserving (Exodus 33:1-6). His
promise was unconditional and yet many times they lost the land. My comment is
that in the last millennium the Jews were no better or worse than any other
nation and were good enough people and still their land was not theirs any more.
God broke his promise or the Bible is slandering him. But with Christians the
Bible will come first.
www.mindspring.com/~bab5/BIB/lessons.htm Daniel 9:17-27 Seventy Weeks of Years
This page argues regarding Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy that since the author of
Daniel knew Jeremiah pretty well and how Jeremiah’s prophecy that Israel would
be exiled for 70 years proved false for it was 48 years that he probably assumed
that the 70 years were not literal and so he might have not meant his 70 weeks
to give a specific time span. It also points out how the conservatives often add
the before the word anointed in verse 25 to make it seem that Jesus is being
referred to and even go as far as to pretend that the seven weeks and the
sixty-two weeks add up to sixty nine weeks when they could be running
concurrently and indeed must be for the writer could have written 69 weeks
instead of 7 and 62 weeks. It shows that the Jewish year was not 360 days long
for they had reason to add on a month every three years which means that Jesus
would have died about 38 AD which Christians cannot accept for Pilate was axed
in 37 AD.
www.infidels.org/library/modern/steven_carr/non-messianic.html, Steven Carr,
Critique of Josh McDowells Non-Messianic Prophecies This Site cannot be overly
recommended. It is superb.
www.mindspring.com/~bab5/BIB/lessons.htm, The Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53
www.mindspring.com/~bab5/BIB/lessons.htm, Isaiah 53’s Suffering Servant Israel
http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsTwo.htm, Challenging the Verdict
www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/bp/890/interpretation.html, The Infamous Isaiah
Scam
http://web2/airmail.net/bennoahl/isa53no7.htm, What You Were Never Taught in the
Christian Church…The Truth About Isaiah 53
