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  • From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Four Beasts in Daniel
  • Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:14:50 -0700

One question is: are all the visions of Daniel complementary, i.e.
working together while each has some details not in the other, or are
they each unique and to be taken separately?

If the former, then a clue to the identities of the beasts in chapter
seven would be found in chapter eight, where it is clear that one
beast was for the Medo-Persian empire, and another for the Hellenistic
kingdoms. Further the Hellenistic kingdoms are shown to be four. In
fact, throughout Daniel's prophecies, Alexander's kingdom is shown as
splitting into four.

By putting the clues from all of Daniel's prophetic chapters together,
the third beast in chapter seven would then be Greece, leaving the
fourth beast .... ?

Karl W. Randolph.

On 9/12/06, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com> wrote:
On 9/12/06, Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net> wrote:

...
I was not discussing Daniel's points of view regarding Rome. I was
discussing views of interpretation of the text of Daniel.

... But this doesn't mean that Daniel is speaking of Rome
or Christianity in his fourth beast. In fact, Daniel seems to speak of
several centuries before the end of days and we are now a couple of
millenia afterwards. Daniel's several centuries end before the Roman
conquest of Israel. Daniel explicitly names Babylon, Media, Persia,
and Greece. He never mentions Rome. The one place where Edom
(often in later Jewish writings taken as a name for Rome) is named is
in Dan 11:41 where it is described as a nation saved from Greece,
far from an influential empire to be. He describes how Babylon is
conquered by Media (Daniel 9:1), and how Media gives way to Persia
(Daniel 11:1-2) which in turn gives way to Greece (Daniel 11:2). After
Greece, no one else comes up. We may also ask how are we today
under distinctly Roman influence, rather than Greek influence? You are
invited to read the two pages I gave you for more information leading to
identification of the fourth empire as Greece.


Yitzhak Sapir




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