The Preterist Blog ~ 100% Hyperpreterist Free|we can haz rezurekshun?

(originally posted 11/15/07)

I have finished The Four Kingdoms of Daniel: A Defense of the “Roman” Sequence with AD70 Fulfillment by John S. Evans and this is my review of sorts. There are certain points about this book that I can completely recommend, but I fall short of giving it an unqualified recommendation for the following:

1. The author is cagey about his “preterism,” and in fact appears at times to be solidly a hyperpreterist without coming right out with it which is a typical hyperpreterist tactic when attempting to blend in with the brethren
2. Hyperpreterist or not, his consistent fawning over hyperpreterist authors, specifically John Noe, is repulsive. By Evans’ own admission he plugs Noe’s book Beyond the End Times “shamelessly” in this book (page xii)
3. He is inconsistent on some key points in areas having to do with hyperpreterism
4. The book is longwinded and rambling
5. He boasts close theological ties with hyperpreterists including those at Planet Preterist, David Green, John Noe, Don Preston and Ward Fenley

Of note, he breezily quotes DeMar along with Preston and Noe feeling no need to distinguish DeMar from hyperpreterist views…. oh wait! DeMar does that himself. Shame.

The good points:

1. Excellent historical background and treatment of liberal nonsense on the Maccabean theory of Danielic authorship
2. Thorough investigation into the specific subject of the four kingdoms without going into unnecessary tangents

One thing of extraordinarily interest to me is that this is the first hard-published in-depth book that I have read that so heavily relies on Internet sources, as much or more so than on traditional sources. Several people that I know and can recommend were utilized such as James Patrick Holding of Tektonics Apologetics Ministry and Bob Pickle of Pickle Publishing, both of whom were given high praises. While I enjoy my friends having such praise, Evans when dealing with Internet sources seems to ooze effluent genuflections which just seems a bit odd.

The hyperpreterist connection is enough for me to be very very reserved in recommending this work to other than those very alert to the dangers of that heresy, especially since Evans is not completely upfront about exactly what this entails - i.e. rank heresy.

The main strength of the book is its extensive interaction with liberal scholars and thought. It will prove to be very helpful for anyone involved in refuting the liberal contention that the fourth kingdom of Daniel is Greece and not Rome and that Daniel is solely about events in the Maccabean era and contains no genuine prophecy at best, and at worst several failed attempts at failed prophecy mixed with ex eventu “prophecy”. Essential to the liberal argument is the idea that Media and Persia were separate kingdoms and not considered by Daniel as one entity - the Medo-Persian kingdom - and Evans does a very convincing job of refutation, including consideration of the “Darius the Mede” problem. Although not the thrust of the book, there is a good discussion on Daniel 9, which interests me much more than the other passages.

He does a very admirable job of exposing the typical liberal Ancient People Were Stupid^tm fallacy, and in fine form, quips that the liberals should erect a statue to the Unknown Glossator that ever-lurks in the shadows, quill in hand.

His inconsistency concerns the issue of the “resurrection” in Daniel. He is unwilling to forthrightly state his position claiming it is irrelevant to his main purpose of studying the four kingdoms, yet dances around the subject enough to arouse suspicion and curiosity.

For example:

The critics tell us that the Book of Daniel was added to and edited during the Maccabean Revolt to instill hope among the faithful. This implies that it must have been circulating among its intended audience by the time that the news arrived of the death of Antiochus; i.e. no later than the first half of 163. If it did not so circulate, then what was the point of writing it? But if the completed Book of Daniel was being read by early 163, how was it possible for people whose hopes for apocalyptic deliverance were so suddenly aroused and then dashed to the ground to shrug off their disappointment and collectively say, “Maybe next time”? Such an outcome seems miraculous, yet it is the critical-historical scholars who assure us that it is they who do not believe in miracles!

A more plausible scenario is that the completed Book of Daniel circulated in Judea well before the advent of the Maccabean Revolt and had become familiar to those Jews who remained loyal to their traditional beliefs. When the revolt broke out, there were probably some among them who hoped that the end-time prophecies might apply to their day. But when the resurrection and last judgment failed to occur [emphasis mine], most believers had no great difficulty in transferring their hopes for the arrival of the eternal kingdom of God to the not very distant future because they had not expected the immediate coming of the end times in the first place.

***

A belief in resurrection and judgment shows up several times in 2 Maccabees (See, for example, 6:26 and 7:9), yet that book contains no references to the Book of Daniel. Theologically, 2 Maccabees is much closer to Daniel than 1 Maccabees, and one might think that if Daniel had succeeded in bringing many of the faithful to believe that the apocalypse would immediately follow the death of Antiochus IV, that fact might have been noted so as to indicate that the time of the end was not yet at hand.

Pages 194, 195

Interesting… seems that Evans’ loves his cake so much that he wants to stuff it in his mouth and keep it in the fridge for the next party. That will not do. He cannot appeal to the Jewish resurrection belief in 2 Maccabees (and admit it is close theologically to Daniel) and then later claim that it is quite possible that resurrection isn’t really resurrection as it was commonly believed to be. In other words, why couldn’t it have happened? What didn’t happen that the Maccabean Jews would know that the it hadn’t? Oh yeah, bodies didn’t physically rise up out of their graves en masse, which is what they believed and is what Evans apparently denies (and thus is no better off then the liberals he skewers, in fact, he shares that denial with them - they are quite certain that it is ridiculous to expect a physical resurrection.) Oh sweet irony!!!

Even more ironic is his slap against Philip Mauro for challenging that “this verse actually means what it appears to indicate” (see below) - when that is precisely what Evans is himself doing!!!

Continuing with his resurrection inconsistency, in referring to the difficulties in Daniel 11, specifically the conservative position that there is a change in rulers from verses 21-35 to verse 40:

It must be conceded that the lack of a subject change that Collins (a prominent liberal commentator) underscores is a real problem for conservatives. It is true that the Book of Daniel sometimes skips over time from one verse to the next. For example, both Daniel 2 and 7 treat Babylonia and Nebuchadnezzar as if they were identical, thereby ignoring the interval between the death of Nebuchadnezzar and the fall of Babylon to the Medes and Persians. Also, between verses 2 and 3 in Daniel 11, there is an interval of well over a century if you accept the idea that [the] king of Persia “who will be far richer than all the others” in verse 2 is Xerxes. The first case deals, however, with changes of kingdoms, not kings, while in the second case, the context makes it clear that there is a change of rules since verse 3 begins with “Then a mighty king will appear.”

Page 213

Compare with

Because both liberals and conservatives almost universally interpret Daniel 12:2 as forthrightly asserting the doctrine of resurrection, indeed, as the most emphatic passage in the entire Old Testament on the matter, it may seem surprising that Philip Mauro challenged whether this verse actually means what it appears to indicate. Referring to this verse, Mauro wrote: “there is nothing said here about either death or resurrection,” and he then stated that “it can be abundantly shown that the words ’sleep’ and ‘awake’ are common figurative expressions for the condition of those who are at first oblivious to the truth of God, but who are aroused by a message from Him out of that condition.”

Why did Mauro adopt such a position, which seems clearly at odds with the plain meaning of Daniel 12:2? He surely did so because he associated the resurrection that it seems to depict with an end-time scenario that places the Second Coming (Parousia) in the future rather than with events that transpired in the first century AD. He therefore let his training as an attorney (and he was a very good one) get the better of him and cause him to try to extricate himself from what he saw as a difficult theological position by resorting to the lawyerly technique of arguing that words do not necessarily mean what they appear to mean. If one accepts, as I do, that the Book of Daniel and many passages in the New Testament present an eschatology that finds its fulfillment in events that climaxed in AD 70, then it follows that Daniel 12:2 points to a resurrection that must have been realized about that time. It is beyond the scope of this book to explore the theology of this first-century resurrection in these pages, but it is a matter that can readily be investigated by spending a few minutes on the Internet.

He then footnotes a recommended link of http://www.preteristarchive.com/Preterism/silvestri-daniel_da_02.html

Ack! I just ate. That article is a prime example of what Dan Trotter called the consistent application of stupidity to the eschatological problem and is an explicit and putrid denial of the bodily resurrection. If this is what Evans believes, he is a rank heretic. If not, he is guilty of the worst sort of peddling of damnable heresy to unsuspecting brethren (and DeMar bears some guilt in this since he promotes this book without any cautionary note on his website bookstore.) And while I am sure that Mauro appreciates Evans’ free post-mortem psychological assessment, Evans does the same thing when HE finds it convenient, i.e. finding a change in rulers in Daniel 11 because the historical facts cannot be aligned without such a change. Well, my pretty, Mauro does no differently - a physical resurrection DID not occur (and one will), thus he analyzes whether he is interpreting the passage properly. Mauro finds that his apprehension of the timing sequence is valid but finds DIRECT Biblical warrant to finding that “resurrection” language is used figuratively and that such would fit in to a first century reality. He has MUCH more warrant than Evans does for his “change in ruler” thesis in Daniel - so Mr. Evans, Mr. Pot would like to say hello and make a pigmentation determination. I agree with Evans that there is a change in rulers in Daniel 11 - and I agree with Mauro that his interpretation is possible. I certainly don’t act like I know the Gospel in a way that two thousand years of Church history denies (the resurrection IS foundational to the Gospel) as Evans seems content to breezily do.

For the curious reader, I haven’t entirely made up my mind on what is going on with the resurrection of Daniel 12. Here are the three possibilities:

1. The text does not say “all” will be resurrected as the NT teaches, only that “many” will. Throughout Daniel, “many” is used to refer to the Jewish people, and thus, since ethnic Israel is removed from the soteriological center of history in the first century, the next important event for the Jewish people is the general resurrection at the end of time, so Daniel 12 skips to the next important event to sum up Old Covenant history.

2. The use of “many” is a big clue, and Matthew purposefully uses the same terminology by stating that “many came out of their tombs” after Jesus’ resurrection. That is the fulfillment of Daniel 12, with its ultimate fulfillment at the end of time.

(note that items one and two are not mutually exclusive and can be very satisfactorily combined for an answer)

3. Mauro is correct, this is the “first resurrection” of spiritual awakening

(this also is not mutually exclusive of the first two)

Much later in the book (page 399) a bit of cognitive dissonance rears its fuzzy head in the same way. Evans states in the context of the “little horn“ of Daniel 7 and the other “beasts“:

I therefore conclude that the text of Daniel 7 allows for the inference that all four beasts survive the little horn. I conclude therefore that the text does not pursue the matter of the successor kings to the little horn because it was irrelevant to Jewish history - and it should be kept in mind that the history of the Jewish people is central to Daniel 7, as well as to the other three visions of Daniel.

I would say as to almost the entirety of the book of Daniel, and thus Evans’ own reasoning dovetails beautifully with option number 1.

And page 413:

I argued in Chapter 4 that the striking of the rock (in Daniel 2 - DDW) can be viewed as the advent of the Christian religion in the first century AD and that the process of the rock growing into a moutnain that fills the earth has continued into our day. I took my cue there from Allan McRae, who argued that it is legitimate to view the prophecy of the rock as being “not a sudden catastrophic change but rather a slow development in which the rock grows slowly and overcomes the statue gradually.” He justified this interpretation with the observation that “prophecy is often foreshortened.” This “evolutionary” view of Christianity readily accommodates itself to the historical fact that the Roman Empire survived past the first century, as did the three preceding kingdoms, at least in a cultural sense. Against the objection that many other earthly kingdoms have arisen in the interim you can argue - I believe with great plausibility - that the prophetic “periscope” of Daniel was not concerned with the identity of specific earthly kingdoms beyond the first century, the most crucial century in human history.

Again, dovetails with option 1. But after all this, I think Evans owes Mauro an apology for his accusation that Mauro simply pulled a slick lawyerly move with regards to Daniel 12.

And get this on page 422:

While it is correct to say that the visions of Daniel present the future of the Jewish people, that future must be understood as one that merges the destiny of the Jews with the destiny of the human race.

Amen! Can I get a witness?

And lastly, just an observation that there are some areas in which Evans clearly does not explore some common linguistic possibilities. For instance, in speaking about the multiple times that the “abomination of desolation” is mentioned in Daniel and trying to place these various events in history and to identify which one is being referred to by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse, he notes that in Daniel 9:27, the better translation is “abominations” and not “abomination” thus when Jesus refers to “the abomination that causes desolation” in Matthew 24:15, he was referring to Daniel 12:11 and not Daniel 9:27 because Jesus uses the singular word and not the plural - though He could be referring to one of the “abominations” (plural) of Daniel 9:27. Okay that is possible, but why not even mention what appears to be the more obvious solution - that is that Hebrew often pluralizes a word to indicate intensity not necessarily multiplicity. Considering that Daniel 9 deals with a hugely important covenantal shift, this interpretation seems all the more probable, and is line with other Messianic passages. For instance Isaiah 53:9 in speaking of the death of the servant literally says “in his deathS” (plural). Jesus didn’t die more than once - it is a plural of amplification and this is not uncommon.

So in conclusion, if you have your hyperpreterist baloney detector on and are a mature Christian go ahead and get the book, Evans has done a tremendous job in background research and there is much wheat amongst the hyperpreterist chaff.