It’s time to wrap up Daniel 7, but first we should talk a little bit more about the little horn. The little horn appears in two of Daniel’s visions: chapters 7 and 8. In the first, it is an eleventh horn on the fourth beast, displacing three horns when it appears. In chapter 8, we’ll…
The dermatologist recently took a sharp (but sterile) instrument to my foot and then ordered me to elevate it as much as possible and not to exercise for two weeks. These haven’t been hard orders to follow since not even sandals are comfortable when you have stitches on the top of your foot. You’d think…
Pictures this past week of ISIS taking sledge hammers and power tools to ancient artifacts like the magnificent winged-lion here made my heart hurt. Then this weekend I finally got around to reading a sobering article about ISIS ideology, a system rooted in the belief that their fighters will bring in the apocalypse. I don’t…
The greatest barrier to Christianity for Jews is the claim that Jesus is God. Worshiping more than one god got them into a lot of trouble in the Old Testament, so, understandably, they aren’t interested in entertaining the blasphemy that Jesus’ divinity appears to present to monotheism. But what if “monotheism” according to the Old…
Poor Daniel has been languishing in his beastly vision for more than a month while I’ve been doing whatever it is I do instead of blogging…Where does the time go? And more importantly, where were we…? Ah, right. The churning great sea. The “Great Sea” is a common Old Testament way of referring to the…
Last night was National Turn-Back-the-Clock night, which is widely embraced by most people I know (so long as they don’t have small children at home). Hooray for an extra hour to do something (Read: sleep!)! What I can’t figure out is how, with that extra hour of sleep, I ended up yawning my way through…
When I’ve taught Daniel 7 in the past, I’ve often started with some comic relief since I know what’s ahead in the chapter and the rest of the book. That comic relief looks like this: These critters (three of which are currently on craigslist sale – “lion, tiger, and bear! Oh my!”) are ridiculous representations…
I keep thinking the next post will (finally) get us into Daniel 7. But then I think of something else that I should talk about first. Today’s “something else” is a big picture view of chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10–12. I could just have said “chapters 7–12,” but that would deprive you of seeing…
A nerdy friend once suggested I get a tattoo (wait, would this disqualify him from being nerdy?) that says “I heart Daniel,” and, from the trenches of commentary writing, I have to say Daniel is the man who gets most of my time these days. Though, let’s be clear: I’m not writing a commentary about…
That’s not one of my most creative titles for a blog post, but at least it’s clear. No luring in disinterested readers today... We’re trying to get a handle on the strange (to us) beast that is apocalyptic literature. It might be easiest to describe it by contrasting it with prophecy, a genre that’s all…
