Click or Tap Icons to Share! Thank you!

Author	: Bill Kochman
Publish	: Aug. 5, 2016
Update	: Jul. 10, 2025
Parts	: 04

Synopsis:



Continuing our discussion from part three, as we have seen, while the Romans honored, respected and viewed the eagle as a sacred symbol, to the Jews it was a filthy, disgusting, detestable abomination which was prohibited according to the Mosaic Law. However, it might interest you to know that when Herod the Great -- the very first King Herod -- was chosen as the first puppet king of Judea by the Roman Senate, one of the things he did to demonstrate his loyalty to Rome was to place a golden eagle over the gates which gave entrance to the outer courtyard of the temple. The Jewish population was greatly offended by Herod's actions. Eventually, two Jewish men tore down the golden eagle. After rebuking the people, Herod had several dozen of them burned alive. The story is in Book 1 Chapter 33 of "The Wars of the Jews", as we see by the following excerpt:

----- Begin Quote -----

Now the king had put up a golden eagle over the great gate of the temple, which these learned men exhorted them to cut down, and told them, that if there should any danger arise, it was a glorious thing to die for the laws of their country; because that the soul was immortal, and that an eternal enjoyment of happiness did await such as died on that account: while the mean spirited, and those that were not wise enough to show a right love of their souls, preferred a death by a disease, before that which is the result of a virtuous behaviour.

At the same time that these men made this speech to their disciples, a rumour was spread abroad, that the king was dying, which made the young men set about the work with greater boldness; they therefore let themselves down from the top of the temple with thick cords, and this at midday, and while a great number of people were in the temple, and cut down that golden eagle with axes. This was presently told to the king's captain of the temple, who came running with a great body of soldiers, and caught about forty of the young men, and brought them to the king. And when he asked them, first of all, whether they had been so hardy as to cut down the golden eagle? they confessed they had done so; and when he asked them by whose command they had done it, they replied, at the command of the law of their country; and when he farther asked them, how they could be so joyful when they were to be put to death, they replied. Because they should enjoy greater happiness after they were dead.

At this the king was in such an extravagant passion, that he overcame his disease [for the time,] and went out, and spoke to the people; wherein he made a terrible accusation against those men, as being guilty of sacrilege, and as making greater attempts under pretence of their law, and he thought they deserved to be punished as impious persons. Whereupon the people were afraid lest a great number should be found guilty, and desired that when he had first punished those that put them upon this work, and then those that were caught in it, he would leave off his anger as to the rest. With this the king complied, though not without difficulty, and ordered those that had let themselves down, together with the Rabbins, to be burnt alive, but delivered the rest that were caught to the proper officers to be put to death by them."

----- End Quote -----

If you are a student of Biblical history, you may possibly know that insofar as Jewish history is concerned, the first and second centuries BC coincided with the various Maccabean revolts against the Seleucid kings of Syria. These revolts were instigated in large part when Jewish religious worship in the temple -- and throughout Israel -- came to an abrupt end, and was replaced by forced Hellenistic idol worship, by Antiochus IV Epiphanes during the mid-2nd Century BC. In the First Book of the Maccabees, after explaining how Antiochus came to power, conquered and destroyed much of Jerusalem, defiled the temple and stole many sacred things from it, the writer describes how this heathen king then forced the Jews to forsake the God of Israel, and to worship the pagan gods of Greece, as we see here:

"Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, and that each should give up his customs. All the Gentiles accepted the command of the king. Many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath. And the king sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah; he directed them to follow customs strange to the land, to forbid burnt offerings and sacrifices and drink offerings in the sanctuary, to profane sabbaths and feasts, to defile the sanctuary and the priests, to build altars and sacred precincts and shrines for idols, to sacrifice swine and unclean animals, and to leave their sons uncircumcised. They were to make themselves abominable by everything unclean and profane, so that they should forget the law and change all the ordinances. 'And whoever does not obey the command of the king shall die.' In such words he wrote to his whole kingdom. And he appointed inspectors over all the people and commanded the cities of Judah to offer sacrifice, city by city."


Only a few verses later, this same writer informs us of an event which occurred in the temple at Jerusalem, which some Bible scholars believe may have been a direct fulfillment of the Abomination of Desolation. Consider the following verses:

"Now on the fifteenth day of Chislev, in the one hundred and forty-fifth year, they erected a desolating sacrilege upon the altar of burnt offering. They also built altars in the surrounding cities of Judah, and burned incense at the doors of the houses and in the streets. The books of the law which they found they tore to pieces and burned with fire. Where the book of the covenant was found in the possession of any one, or if any one adhered to the law, the decree of the king condemned him to death. They kept using violence against Israel, against those found month after month in the cities. And on the twenty-fifth day of the month they offered sacrifice on the altar which was upon the altar of burnt offering."


Personally, the problems I have with embracing this Antiochus IV Epiphanes interpretation is fully explained in the series you have just read. It should be very obvious to many of you that if we believe that Jesus Christ lived during the early part of the First Century AD, and was crucified around the year 30 AD, then we cannot accept the Antiochus IV Epiphanes interpretation concerning the Abomination of Desolation. As this article has made perfectly clear, Jesus was prophesying a future event, and not a past event which occurred almost two hundred years before His time.

If, on the other hand, you accept that the Prophet Daniel was prophesying about the defilement of the holy temple by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, when his people offered swine and other unclean animals on the altar in the temple, amongst all of the other evil things that they did, then how do you resolve the obvious conflict with what Jesus stated in the Gospels about the Abomination of Desolation being a future event?

Another very big problem with accepting the Maccabean period interpretation, is that we clearly know who all of the Roman and Jewish political leadership were, and the Jews' religious leadership as well, from the time of Christ up to the time that Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed in 70 AD. Those people, and all of the events which occurred during that same period, serve as historical markers. None of those people had even been born yet at the time of the Maccabean revolts. So because we know who these people were, as well as what events transpired, we can place Jesus Christ at a specific point in history, and that is squarely in the first half of the First Century AD. Thus, when Jesus talks about the Abomination of Desolation being a future event, we know without a doubt that it could not possibly have occurred two hundred years before that time. It is totally out of the question as far as I can tell.

When I first considered this doctrine a few years ago, the only way I could think of in which we could try to bring harmony between what both Daniel and Jesus prophesied, and what the First Book of the Maccabees reports, was by making Jesus' lifetime considerably earlier than what Christians have supposed during the past two millennia. In other words, we would have to move Jesus' life to the very early part of the Second Century BC, so that His future prophecy regarding the Abomination of Desolation could have been given before the events that were perpetrated by Antiochus IV Epiphanes and his followers, in the mid-2nd Century BC. But you see, we run into the very same problem, and we just can't do it, because we know who was alive and ruling during the time of Christ, and they certainly weren't alive during the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

The most that I personally am willing to say is that there are some similarities between Antiochus' defilement of the temple compound, and what occurred with the Romans hundreds of years later. However, they are two very separate events, and Jesus was clearly talking about the one in 70 AD. That was the true Abomination of Desolation, I believe. At any rate, if you are interested in learning more about these events which occurred before the time of Christ, please consider reading my article entitled "Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas?".

With these thoughts, I will bring this article to a close. It is my hope that you've found it informative and enlightening, and I pray that it has been a blessing in your life as well. If you have an account with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or with any other social network, I would really appreciate if you'd take the time to click or tap on the corresponding link that is found on this page. Thanks so much, and may God bless you abundantly!

For additional information and further study, you may want to refer to the list of reading resources below which were either mentioned in this article, or which contain topics which are related to this article. All of these articles are likewise located on the BBB Bible web server. To read these articles, simply click or tap on any link you see below.

Are You Flexible?
As a Thief in the Night
Fight Against Futurism!
Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas?
He That Shall Endure Unto the End
In the Ages to Come
It Is Time to Wake Up!
Jesus Christ's Return: Have We Been Deceived?
Modern Deception: Shall a Nation Be Born at Once?
Modern Deceptions: Return to Israel, the Fig Tree and This Generation
Please Stop Misinterpreting the Scriptures
Prophetic Comparisons: Moshiach, Mahdi and Messiah
Seventy Weeks Prophecy: What It Means
So, You Have Got It All Figured Out, Do You?
Sorry, Jesus Is Not Coming at Any Moment
The 70th Week of Daniel Error: Are You Guilty?
The Day I Am Waiting For
The Day of the Lord: What It Really Means
The Fall of Masada
The Great Tribulation and the Rapture
The Last Seven Years Chart
The Triumphant Touchdown of Jesus Christ
The Two Sackcloth Witnesses of Revelation 11
The Woman in the Wilderness and the 144,000
Tradition or Truth? Old Wine or New Wine?
Understanding the Bible in Context
Vespasian, Titus and the Fall of Jerusalem
When Was Satan Cast Out of Heaven?
Who Hindered the Antichrist?
Who is Babylon the Great?
Who is Moshiach ben David?
Who is Who?: Defining Important Prophecy Terms

Click or Tap Icons to Share! Thank you!

---

---

Please avail yourself of other areas of the BBB Bible website. There are many treasures for you to discover.