The Times of the Babylonians

 

David and Solomon ruled over a united kingdom, the core of which was the land of Palestine. The kingdom split in 933 BC following the reign of Solomon. The northern kingdom took the name Israel and the southern kingdom, the name Judah.


Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC by capturing its capital city of Samaria. Some Israelites were exiled to other parts of the Assyrian empire. At the same time, non-Jewish colonists were settled in Israel. The intermarriage of the Israelite remnant with the settlers produced a people called Samarians and the land came to be known as Samaria.


The southern kingdom of Judah was a country between the borders of Babylon and Egypt. Therefore, it was subjected to pressure from both of those superpowers. Consequently, its allegiance swung in both directions. Unfortunately, when it swung towards Egypt, the results were disastrous, for Egypt's zenith had passed and it was a nation in decline.


Babylon demanded payments of tribute from its vassal states while Egypt encouraged them to refuse to make their payments and offered assistance in the event of a Babylonian military strike. Such was the political climate that confronted Judah’s kings.


In 606 BC, Nebuchadnezzar, son of the king of Babylon, invaded Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar deported the most intelligent, good-looking youths from Judah including the prophet Daniel and the miraculous Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. He also took some sacred vessels from the temple and put them in the house of his god.


Upon his father's death, Nebuchadnezzar became king of Babylon. Jehoiakim, king of Judah, reigned for three years in servitude to Nebuchadnezzar before he swung his allegiance back to Egypt and refused to pay his tribute to the Babylonian king. Consequently, Nebuchadnezzar laid such a beating on the Egyptians that Pharaoh never ventured outside of Egypt again.


Jehoiakim's reign ended in 598 BC. Some believe he died in chains while being transported to Babylon however the historian Josephus wrote that he was slain by Nebuchadnezzar and his body left unburied, far outside Jerusalem's walls. In either event, the words of the prophet Jeremiah were fulfilled: "They shall not lament for him. He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem, cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night."


The prophet Jeremiah also predicted that none of Jehoiakim's descendants would prosper while sitting on the throne of David. Thus Nebuchadnezzar again laid siege against Jerusalem. He captured King Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim, in the fourth month of his reign and led him into exile along with 10,000 others including the prophet Ezekiel, the bravest soldiers, and the tradesmen who were strong and fit for war. He also ransacked the temple cutting into pieces all the golden vessels made by Solomon.


The last and final siege was during the reign of Zedekiah who was installed as a vassal by Nebuchadnezzar after he deposed Jehoiachin. Egged on by Egypt’s pharaoh, Zedekiah refused to pay his tribute to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar and his armies surrounded Jerusalem about 588 BC. They besieged Jerusalem for a year and a half with a short hiatus for fear of the Egyptian army which intervened on Judah's behalf. After finding Pharaoh's army to be of little consequence, Nebuchadnezzar re-activated his siege wall around Jerusalem.


As the Jews reached the point of starvation, their enemy breached the city's wall and Zedekiah and his army fled from Jerusalem. The Babylonian army caught up with them on the plains of Jericho. Judah's army scattered and Zedekiah was captured. The ruthless Nebuchadnezzar made Zedekiah watch as he slaughtered his sons. Then he plucked the king of Judah's eyes out of their sockets. Thus Zedekiah's last horrific vision was indelibly etched in his memory while he was exiled in Babylon.


In 586 BC, Nebuchadnezzar's captain, Nebuzaradan, was sent to Jerusalem to destroy the city. He and his army broke down the walls around Jerusalem and burned all the houses including the king's palace. Before burning the temple of the Lord, they stripped it of anything and everything of value, including articles of gold, silver, and bronze.


Babylon had totally annihilated Judah. Only the poorest of the poor remained. Everyone else had been deported to Babylon or had scattered in fear for their lives.

The Conquest of Babylon

 

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb,
“It is I who says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited!’
And of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built.’
And I will raise up her ruins again.
It is I who says to the depth of the sea, ‘Be dried up!’
And I will make your rivers dry.
It is I who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd!
And he will perform all My desire.’
And he declares of Jerusalem, ‘She will be built,’
And of the temple, ‘Your foundation will be laid.’”

Thus says the Lord to Cyrus His anointed,
Whom I have taken by the right hand,
To subdue the nations before him,
To open the doors before him so the gates will not be shut:
“I will give you the treasures of darkness,
And hidden wealth of secret places,
In order that you may know that it is I,
The Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.
For the sake of Jacob My servant,
And Israel My chosen one,
I have also called you by your name;
I have given you a title of honour
Though you have not known Me.

“I have aroused him in righteousness,
And I will make all his ways smooth;
He will build My city, and will let My exiles go free,
Without any payment or reward,” says the Lord of hosts.

Isaiah the prophet (710 BC)


The Medes and the Persians emigrated from the great plains of Russia in the 9th century BC. Shortly after 700 BC, the Persians took control of the city of Anshan.


Cyrus the Great was born about 600 BC, the son of a Persian king and a Median princess. The Medes had dominated the Persians since the two had settled in the area between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea.


It was revealed to the king of Media in a dream that Cyrus would eventually eclipse him as a ruler should his grandson be allowed to live. A man by the name of Harpagus was assigned the task of assassinating the young prince. When he failed, the vindictive king served him the flesh of his own son as a ruthless punishment.


Cyrus ascended the throne of the tiny state of Anshan in 559 BC to begin a reign that lasted 30 years. His first course of action was the conquest of Media. Cyrus capitalized on dissent in his grandfather’s army scoring a decisive victory over the Medes. Then he marched into Media’s throne city confiscating its treasures and capturing his grandfather for transport back to Anshan.


In 540 BC, Cyrus set his sights on Babylon. During that period, Babylonian morale was at a low ebb. King Nabonidus was more interested in the study of foreign religions and history than in government. Nabonidus took a ten year hiatus in Arabia and left his son Belshazzar at the helm. He returned in 543 BC with the hopes of winning back the favour of his subjects and the priests who preferred a monarch that restricted himself to the established religion of Babylon. Although he brought all the idols from the surrounding cities into Babylon and celebrated the New Year's feast, he was unable to win the approval of his people.


Cyrus was able to convince Gubara, a Median governor, to defect to the Persian side. (The Medes had been allies of the Babylonians since the two defeated Assyria in 612 BC.) After taking the cities of Opis and Sippar, the Persian army moved towards Babylon. The throne city was dissected by the Euphrates River and its tributary canals. The dry season coupled with an annual shortage of precipitation caused the river to reach its lowest level in years. Furthermore, this was the time of a great Babylonian festival when the entire city of Babylon was accustomed to revelling all night long:


When Belshazzar tasted the wine, he gave orders to bring the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his forefather had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives, and his concubines drank from them.
They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
Suddenly the fingers of a man’s hand emerged and began writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, and the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing.
Then the king’s face grew pale, and his thoughts alarmed him; and his hip joints went slack, and his knees began knocking together.
Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the inscription or make known its interpretation to the king.

Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Are you that Daniel who is one of the exiles from Judah, whom my forefather the king brought from Judah?
“Now I have heard about you that a spirit of the gods is in you, and that illumination, insight, and extraordinary wisdom have been found in you.
“Now if you are able to read the inscription and make its interpretation known to me, you will be clothed with purple and wear a necklace of gold around your neck, and you will have authority as the third ruler of the kingdom.”
Then Daniel answered and said before the king, “Keep your gifts for yourself, or give your rewards to someone else; however, I will read the inscription to the king and make the interpretation known to him.

“But you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see, hear or understand. But the God in whose hand are your life-breath and your ways, you have not glorified.

“Then the hand was sent from Him and this inscription was written out:
‘MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.’
“This is the interpretation of the message:
‘MENE’–God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it.
‘TEKEL’–you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.
‘PERES’–your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”


That night, while the inebriated Babylonians celebrated, Gubara diverted the flow of the Euphrates and entered Babylon's impregnable walls through a water channel. On October 12, 539 BC, Gubara captured Babylon without a battle. On October 29, he opened the city’s gates and welcomed his benefactor, Cyrus, king of Persia. Cyrus entered Babylon peacefully and was hailed by its inhabitants as a liberator. Belshazzar was slain, Nabonidus exiled, and Gubara, a.k.a. Darius the Mede, was made king of Babylon to act as a vassal under Cyrus the Great.


In 538 BC, Cyrus released Judeans from their captivity in Babylon. His proclamation was recorded by Ezra the scribe:


Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying,
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
‘Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem.
‘And every survivor, at whatever place he may live, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.’”

Also King Cyrus brought out the articles of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and put in the house of his gods;
and Cyrus, king of Persia, had them brought out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and he counted them out to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.
All the articles of gold and silver numbered 5,400. Sheshbazzar brought them all up with the exiles who went up from Babylon to Jerusalem.


Babylon's seventy year mandate had expired and an assembly of 42,360 survivors of the Babylonian captivity, accompanied by their servants, arrived in Judah in April, 537 BC, under the leadership of Zerubbabel, to rebuild their temple.

Jerusalem's Modern History

On the 14^th day of May, 1948, sanctioned by a resolution adopted by the United Nations, the state of Israel was reborn.

Later, that same year, the Arab-Israeli War began.  The Arab nation of Jordan annexed the West Bank (of the Jordan River & Dead Sea) including East Jerusalem.  That meant the sacred sites located within the Old City were under Jordanian authority.  They included Temple Mount, the Western (Wailing) Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  Palestinians living in the West Bank were granted full Jordanian citizenship.

Jordan governed the West Bank until 1967.  During the Six Day War that same year, Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.  They took Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank including East Jerusalem from Jordan, and Golan Heights (east of the Sea of Galilee) from Syria.  East Jerusalem was liberated and the sacred sites belonging to Jews, Muslims, and Christians came under Israeli authority.  Notably, Jews were no longer prohibited from entering the Old City. 

In 1980, Israel proclaimed Jerusalem its eternal, "undivided” capital.  Although Palestinians have declared East Jerusalem as their capital, Ramallah is the de facto capital city of Palestine.

Israel returned Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1982.

Jordan renounced its claims to West Bank in 1988 and recognized the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole representative of the Palestinians.

In November, 2012, the United Nations recognized the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza Strip as the State of Palestine.

However, Israel will never relinquish East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.  Why?  Because East Jerusalem is the location of Temple Mount, sacred to religious and secular Jews alike.  And let’s not forget that Temple Mount will be the site of Jerusalem's Third Temple which is at the very forefront of End Time prophecy.

 

Crying Wolf for the End Times

Many commentators, including myself, believe that the final week of Daniel's Messianic Prophecy will consist of three and a half years of prosperity followed by three and a half years of extreme suffering, called the Great Tribulation.  The Abomination of Desolation, also called the antichrist or beast, will be at the helm of those seven years.  He will control a global empire, not unlike ancient Rome, Greece, and Persia.

However, let's not raise false alarms about the End Times.  We are not at the end, or even the beginning of the end, but perhaps we are nearing the end of the beginning.  The Holy Scriptures coupled with current events bear this out.

Matthew was a tax collector when Jesus called him to be an Apostle.  He was an eyewitness to Christ’s earthly ministry which he recorded in his Gospel.  In Matthew 24, he quoted the very words of Jesus Christ who stated emphatically that wars and rumours of wars, famines, and earthquakes are not the end but merely the beginning.

Despite third party peace efforts, the wars continue between Russia and the Ukraine, Israel and Hamas.

On March 28th, Myanmar (Burma) was struck by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake.  To put that in perspective, the 1960 Chilean earthquake had a magnitude of 9.5, the greatest magnitude ever recorded.

Christ went on to say that there will be martyrdom, apostasy (falling away from the faith), false prophets, and an increase in lawlessness.  People's love will grow cold and the Gospel will be preached throughout the entire world, “and then the end shall come”.

And then Jesus said, "Therefore when you see the Abomination of Desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place...then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall."

The Apostle Paul relayed the same message.  He said that the day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy (abandoning the faith) comes first "and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God".

The “holy place” mentioned by Christ and the “temple of God” mentioned by the Apostle Paul are references to Jerusalem’s Temple.  But, at the present time, there is no Temple in Jerusalem.  And of course, a Temple is crucial to the fulfillment of the aforementioned prophecies. 

Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.  It was rebuilt by Zerubbabel during the reign of the Persian emperor Darius the Great.  Zerubbabel’s Temple didn’t approached the magnificence of Solomon’s Temple.  However, it was renovated by Herod the Great with such lavish splendour that it became one of the wonders of the Roman Empire.  Herod’s Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.  There has never been a Third Temple in Jerusalem.  In fact, Temple Mount a.k.a. Mount Moriah is now the site of Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, two Muslim holy places.

Observant Jews would never share the Temple Mount with Muslims.  The building of Jerusalem’s Third Temple would require removal of the two Islamic sanctuaries followed by the cleansing of Temple Mount by qualified Levitical priests.

The construction of Jerusalem’s Third Temple will be a sign that the end is near.  The building of the Third Temple will occur prior to the final week of  Daniel’s Messianic prophecy.  Exactly when they will break ground, nobody knows.  But one thing for certain.  When Jews start construction on the Third Temple, it will be the time for Christians to stand up and take notice.  And that will be the moment to sound the alarm for the End Times.

“For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.  For in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.”

Will Believers Be Judged?

Will "believers" or, more precisely, "the righteous in Christ" be judged?  The answer is no; not with respect to their salvation.  And what is salvation?  Spiritual rescue from the consequences of sin; to be saved from eternal damnation.

Make no mistake about it.  We are justified by faith in Jesus Christ.  God says it; I believe it; that settles it.

My statement of faith is described in the article entitled "Justification By Faith”.  A short synopsis:  "Only the act of justification by faith in Christ can save a man's soul.  That is, the righteousness bestowed by God through faith in Christ by whom a sinner is freed from the penalty due for his sins."

The Apostle Paul says:

"I may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith."

According to civil law, if a man is convicted of a crime, he is sentenced by the courts to pay a debt to society.  That could result in a prison term or even capital punishment.  In much the same way, according to God's Law, a sinner owes a debt to God because of his sins.

And again, the Apostle Paul says:

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

And once again:

"He has cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."

And let's not forget the Apostle John:

"He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

Now believers will stand before the judgement seat (2 Corinthians 5:10) and some have said that their works will be judged.  However, the word "judged" can be confusing, especially to babes in Christ.  More correctly, their works will be "put to the proof”.  The NAS uses the word "test," the KJ the word "try," and the Douay the word "assay" and this is by fire.  The Apostle Paul gives a vivid description in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15:

"The fire itself will test the quality of each man's work.  If any man's work which he has built upon the foundation remains, he shall receive a reward.  If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire."

Translations of the Old Testament Canon

"Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of God."  Romans 10:17

The remarkable Holy Scriptures of Judaism: written by the sacred writers who were legends in their own time and for generations beyond; inspired by Almighty God, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, in whose hand is our very life's breath; culminating with the unfolding of Jesus the Christ from its sacred pages by which the prophetic mystery was concealed and then revealed at the fulness of time.

The Protestant Old Testament is identical to the Holy Scriptures of Judaism.  It consists of the 39 protocanonical books.  The Catholic Old Testament includes seven additional books as well as additions to Esther and Daniel.  Catholics call them the deuterocanonical books or second canon.  Protestants call them the apocrypha, meaning of doubtful authenticity or authorship.  However, Protestants recognize the historical value of some of the apocryphal books because they fill the 420 year gap between the prophet Malachi and the Gospel of Matthew.

The two most noteworthy translations of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism are the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate.

When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, he built the city of Alexandria to showcase the superiority of the Greek culture.  The Diaspora was encouraged to settle there and Alexandria became a haven for Hellenists—Jews who adopted the Greek culture.

By the time Ptolemy II took the throne, the Jews in Alexandria spoke Greek rather than Hebrew.  Because there was a need for a Greek translation of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism, Ptolemy II commissioned 70 Palestinian Jews to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in the third century BC.  In recognition of their work, the translation was dubbed the Septuagint (from the Latin, septuaginta, meaning seventy).

Fast forward to the fourth century AD and the Golden Age of the Church Fathers.  A scholar named Jerome was one of the most able Fathers in the early Christian Church.  A superb translator and commentator, he was fluent in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.  He was a contemporary of Augustine who was an extraordinary theologian, perhaps second only to the Apostle Paul.  Augustine praised Jerome’s talents by remarking, “What Jerome is ignorant of, no mortal man has ever known.”

Jerome's greatest accomplishment was a Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate.  The New Testament was his revision of the old Latin versions which were translated from the Greek.  About 390 AD, he began his work on the Old Testament.  However, he went beyond the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament and created a new Latin version translated directly from the Hebrew Scriptures.  It was completed about 405 AD.

The Douay Bible is the English translation of Jerome's Latin Vulgate.  The New Testament was published in 1582; the Old Testament was published in two volumes, the first in 1609 and the second in 1610.  It was the only official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church until well into the twentieth century.

The King James Bible was published in 1611.  It was authorized by King James I of England.  Twenty-five gifted translators were involved in the creation of its Old Testament.  That translation was based on  the Masoretic Text, abbreviated MT.

The MT is the official Hebrew version of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism.  It was copied, edited, and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 8^th and 11^th centuries AD.  Codex Leningrad is the oldest copy of  the MT.  It is dated to 1000 AD.

The King James Bible is probably the most widely read Bible in the English-speaking Protestant world.  For a few decades, it has been available in modern English as the New King James Bible.

"All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness."  2 Timothy 3:16    

Cherry Picking God's Word

How can the pastor of a prominent Toronto church claim there is no Hell?  Did she not attend a seminary before being ordained as a minister?  Is the cross displayed on her church not a symbol of Christ's crucifixion?  For if there is neither sin nor punishment for sin, then Christ died needlessly.  While believers are freed from the penalty due for their sins through faith in Jesus Christ, unbelievers will be judged according to their deeds.  Because all men are sinners and Christ's crucifixion is the only sacrifice that atones for sinful deeds, how shall unbelievers escape if they ignore so great a salvation?

Orthodoxy declares that the Bible is the word of God; liberals believe that the Bible contains the word of God, a dangerous philosophy indeed.

"For a time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths." 

Liberals are tailoring the Bible to their own liking; cherry picking the word of God; rejecting those parts of the Bible that aren’t compatible with their lifestyle.

"Holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied it's power; and avoid such men as these.  Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

We must remain "all in" with the Lord.  We can't be deceived by the devil or those who distort the Gospel.  We must fight the good fight, finish the course, keep the faith.

How Was The New Testament Canon Created?

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

The creation of the New Testament canon was a slow process largely completed by 175 AD.  Admission of a book to the canon was based on three criteria:  Was it written by an Apostle or a person who was a close associate of the Apostles; Did the words of the book have the power of edification when read before a congregation; Was the book in agreement with the established doctrines of faith?

"The historical verification of apostolic authorship or influence and the universal consciousness of the church, guided by the Holy Spirit, resulted in the final decision concerning what books should be considered canonical and worthy of inclusion in what we know as the New Testament."

The Epistles of the Apostle Paul were the first books collected for the canon. They were gathered together by the elders of the Ephesian church.

Paul's Epistles were followed by a collection of the Gospels sometime after 100 AD:

Matthew was a tax collector at Capernaum when Jesus called him to become a disciple and later an Apostle.  Hence, he was an eyewitness to the events described in his Gospel.

Mark was a convert of the Apostle Peter and a companion of the Apostle Paul.  His mother Mary had a house in Jerusalem that was a gathering place for Christians.  Mark finally settled in Rome where he documented the memories of the Apostle Peter.  Both Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome. 

Luke was a physician who never actually saw Jesus.  A pagan by birth, he was an early convert who became a companion and co-worker of the Apostle Paul.  He wrote his Gospel for Theophilus who was a cultured Greek.  Therefore, Luke carefully examined the evidence and assigned  precise dates to the events which occurred in his Gospel.  Luke was also the author of Acts of the Apostles.

John was at first a disciple of John the Baptist.  He was the Apostle most loved by Jesus and an eyewitness to the events described in his Gospel.  John also wrote three Epistles and then the book of Revelation while exiled on the barren Isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea.  After the death of the Roman emperor Domitian, John was allowed to return to Ephesus where he died at an advanced age.

In 180 AD, the so-called Muratorian Canon contained 22 New Testament books.

About 324 AD, Eusebius the Father of Church History determined that at least 20 books were worthy of inclusion in the New Testament canon.  The books of Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, Jude, and Revelation were still under consideration because of authorship uncertainty.

Finally, in 367 AD, Athanasius the bishop of Alexandria listed as canonical the same 27 New Testament books that we have today.  That same Athanasius was the champion of the orthodox view when it was challenged about 325 AD.  He believed that Christ was coeternal, coequal, and consubstantial with God the Father, a belief for which he was exiled five times when he was a young man.

While some have thought the New Testament canon was a product of the Roman Catholic church, that was not the case.  About 170 AD, the church was calling itself the "catholic" or universal church.  The term was coined by Ignatius, an early church father who was arrested because of his Christian testimony and sent to Rome where he was killed by beasts in the imperial games.

According to historians, the Old Catholic Imperial church existed between 100 and 590 AD.  As that period ended, the Old Catholic Imperial church virtually became the Roman Catholic church.                         

Inspiration Incompatible With Error

Can faith in the Holy Scriptures be restored in the third millennium since the beginning of the Christian era?  Is it possible to re-establish the belief that the 39 traditional books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament are inerrant in their original manuscripts as left by the hagiographers?

There are two schools of thought: those who believe the Bible is the word of God and those who believe the Bible contains the word of God.  The former believe that the sacred writers were inspired by Almighty God and that divine inspiration is incompatible with error.

Augustine was a Church Father who was esteemed by Catholics and Protestants alike.  If he came across an apparent discrepancy in Scripture, he didn't attribute it to the sacred writers.  Instead, he concluded that it was a copying error, a translation error, or that he himself had failed to understand the passage in question.

Augustine as quoted by Leo XIII:  "On my own part I confess to your charity that it is only to those books of Scripture which are now called canonical that I have learned to pay such honor and reverence as to believe most firmly that none of their writers has fallen into any error.  And if in these books I meet anything which seems contrary to truth, I shall not hesitate to conclude either that the text is faulty, or that the translator has not expressed the meaning of the passage, or that I myself do not understand." 

The Great Tribulation

"And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation, and the desolation shall continue even to the consummation and to the end.

"For there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until this time, nor ever shall.

"And the man of lawlessness will be revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.

"And all who dwell on earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.

"How long shall it be until the end of these wonders? It shall be for a time, times, and half a time.

"And from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that maketh desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days.

"How blessed is he who keeps waiting and attains to the 1,335 days!"


The seventy weeks in Daniel’s Messianic prophecy were often interpreted as seven year cycles which were fashioned by God and recorded by Moses in the Books of Exodus and Leviticus.

Chapter 9 of the Book of Daniel tells us that after sixty-nine weeks, Messiah will be slain and the people of the prince shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Those prophecies were fulfilled in 30 AD when Christ was crucified and in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and Herod’s Temple.

Week seventy will come during the reign of the “abomination of desolation” spoken of by Daniel the prophet and re-introduced by Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew.

The “abomination that maketh desolate,” also called the antichrist or the beast, will capture the popular imagination and inspire allegiance and devotion. He will strike up a covenant with rabbinical Judaism allowing them to perform animal sacrifices and grain offerings in Jerusalem’s Third Temple. Notably, for that agreement to be realized, Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque would have to be eliminated and the Third Temple erected on Mount Moriah in their stead.

However, in the middle of the seventieth week, the beast will break the covenant and prohibit the Jews from making sacrifices and oblations to their God. It is then that he will sit in Jerusalem’s Third Temple declaring himself to be God. This will mark the beginning of the Great Tribulation, a time of unprecedented suffering, the likes of which has not occurred since the beginning of time, nor ever shall.

Daniel measures the length of the Great Tribulation as “a time, times, and half a time.” That’s the equivalent of 1260 days or 42 months according to the Book of Revelation. Hence, the Great Tribulation will span the last three and a half years of Daniel’s seventieth week or “a year, two years, and half a year” in prophetic parlance.

Many believe that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur 30 days after the Great Tribulation. Forty-five days later, following the Battle of Armageddon, Christ will establish His Millennial Kingdom. (1260 + 30 = 1290; 1290 + 45 = 1335)

Will believers suffer through the holocaust known as the Great Tribulation? Many think not. The following passages are examples of scriptural evidence supporting a rapture of the saints prior to the Great Tribulation:


“Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I will also keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell upon the earth.”

“And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued.”  (That is, the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain; Revelation 13:8.)