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DANIEL Described JESUS 500 YEARS BEFORE with a DETAIL That No Other Prophet Gave · truthunedited

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  Speaker 1: 500 years before Jesus of Nazareth was born, a Hebrew
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  Speaker 1: exile in Babylon described him with a level of detail
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  Speaker 1: that no other prophet in human history ever provided. Isaiah
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  Speaker 1: foresaw his suffering. Micah named his birthplace. Zechariah described his donkey.
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  Speaker 1: Daniel did something far more dangerous. He revealed what the
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  Speaker 1: Messiah would be, the mathematical countdown to the exact day
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  Speaker 1: he would arrive. and the forbidden throne he would occupy
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  Speaker 1: beside Almighty God. Five centuries later, Jesus stood bound before
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  Speaker 1: the Sanhedrin and quoted a single 20-word sentence from Daniel's scroll.
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  Speaker 1: The high priest tore his sacred robes in horror and
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  Speaker 1: demanded his blood before sunrise. This is the story behind
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  Speaker 1: the verse that changed history. Subscribe to Bible Origins. Let
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  Speaker 1: us begin. Chapter 1 The Rule of Heaven To understand
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  Speaker 1: why that verse carried such power, you first have to
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  Speaker 1: understand what every other prophet saw when heaven opened in
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  Speaker 1: front of them. Because there was a pattern, an ancient pattern,
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  Speaker 1: repeated without variation, and that pattern held for centuries, until
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  Speaker 1: Daniel broke it. Many years before Daniel, in the days
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  Speaker 1: of King Ahab, there lived a prophet named Micaiah, son
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  Speaker 1: of Imlah. He was an uncomfortable man. Kings despised him
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  Speaker 1: because he never said what they wanted to hear. One day,
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  Speaker 1: they dragged him before two monarchs seated on ivory thrones,
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  Speaker 1: dressed in their royal robes, surrounded by 400 prophets, screaming
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  Speaker 1: promises of victory. And Micaiah, standing in the middle of
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  Speaker 1: that spectacle, described what he had seen in vision. 1
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  Speaker 1: Kings chapter 22 records his words. he said he had
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  Speaker 1: seen the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the
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  Speaker 1: host of heaven standing beside him, on his right hand
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  Speaker 1: and on his left, standing, thousands of celestial beings, creatures
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  Speaker 1: of fire and light, not one of them seated, not
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  Speaker 1: one with a chair of their own, all upright, waiting
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  Speaker 1: for orders like servants in the court of an eastern king.
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  Speaker 1: Because in ancient Hebrew thought, Sitting in the presence of
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  Speaker 1: the king was a privilege almost no one possessed. Sitting
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  Speaker 1: meant belonging. Sitting meant shared authority. A servant stood. An
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  Speaker 1: official stood. Even the highest counselors of the kingdom stood.
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  Speaker 1: In the heights, only one sat. Decades later, in the
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  Speaker 1: year King Uzziah died, another man entered the temple of
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  Speaker 1: Jerusalem and the ceiling opened above him. His name was Isaiah.
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  Speaker 1: He saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and
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  Speaker 1: lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the
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  Speaker 1: entire temple. The smoke rose until it covered the doorposts.
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  Speaker 1: Above him flew seraphim, burning creatures with six wings, covering
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  Speaker 1: their faces, covering their feet, crying to one another that
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  Speaker 1: the Lord of hosts was holy, holy, holy. They flew.
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  Speaker 1: They covered their faces. They did not dare to look.
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  Speaker 1: Not one of them had a seat. And then came Ezekiel,
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  Speaker 1: a priest, deported to Babylon, standing beside the Chebar Canal
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  Speaker 1: when the sky tore open above his head. He saw
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  Speaker 1: a storm coming from the north, wheels within wheels, creatures
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  Speaker 1: with four faces, a firmament like terrible crystals stretched above them.
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  Speaker 1: And above that firmament, the likeness of a throne in
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  Speaker 1: appearance like sapphire and seated above the likeness of the
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  Speaker 1: throne was a likeness with a human appearance. One seat,
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  Speaker 1: one occupant, the glory of God himself. Ezekiel fell on
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  Speaker 1: his face and did not get up. Three prophets, three
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  Speaker 1: visions separated by centuries and by thousands of miles. A
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  Speaker 1: courtier in the northern kingdom, an aristocrat in Jerusalem, a
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  Speaker 1: priest exiled in Mesopotamia. None of them knew the others.
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  Speaker 1: None copied the one before, and all three saw exactly
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  Speaker 1: the same thing, one occupant seated, everything else standing around him.
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  Speaker 1: That was the order of heaven. That was the rule
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  Speaker 1: the Hebrew Scriptures repeated without a single exception. The distance
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  Speaker 1: between the Creator and all creation was absolute, and it
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  Speaker 1: was expressed in something as simple as a chair. No
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  Speaker 1: one else ever sat. And then, in Babylon... an old
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  Speaker 1: man lying on his bed in the first year of
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  Speaker 1: King Belshazzar opened his eyes inside a dream and saw
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  Speaker 1: something that broke the rule. But before Daniel saw the throne,
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  Speaker 1: he had already witnessed something else, a furnace, three men,
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  Speaker 1: and a single Aramaic word that will detonate four chapters later.
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  Speaker 1: Remember the word. Chapter 2. The Break Daniel was already
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  Speaker 1: old by then, It had been nearly seventy years since
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  Speaker 1: they tore him from Jerusalem as a teenager, seventy years
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  Speaker 1: serving in palaces that were not his, speaking a language
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  Speaker 1: that was not his mother's, watching the kings who had
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  Speaker 1: taken him captive grow old and die. He still remembered
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  Speaker 1: the sound of Jerusalem's gates closing behind him, and the
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  Speaker 1: smell of cedar in a temple that was now a
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  Speaker 1: heap of black rubble. He had outlived his youth, his friends,
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  Speaker 1: and the empire that had conquered his homeland. He had
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  Speaker 1: interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the great statue, head of gold,
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  Speaker 1: chest of silver, belly of bronze, legs of iron, four
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  Speaker 1: empires rising and falling in succession. He had watched that
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  Speaker 1: same king lose his mind and eat grass like cattle.
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  Speaker 1: He had survived the lion's den, and now lying in
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  Speaker 1: his bed, With a body worn down by decades of exile,
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  Speaker 1: Daniel dreamed. The dream began with wind. The four winds
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  Speaker 1: of heaven hurled themselves against the great sea. The water
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  Speaker 1: rose in black waves. The roar was deafening, like a
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  Speaker 1: massive creature thrashing beneath the surface. And out of the
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  Speaker 1: sea came beasts. The first was like a lion with
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  Speaker 1: eagle's wings. The wings were torn off, and it was
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  Speaker 1: made to stand like a man. and given a human heart.
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  Speaker 1: The second was like a bear, raised on one side,
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  Speaker 1: three ribs clenched between its teeth, a voice commanding it,
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  Speaker 1: Devour much flesh. The third was like a leopard with
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  Speaker 1: four wings on its back and four heads, and dominion
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  Speaker 1: was given to it. And then came the fourth. The
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  Speaker 1: prophet could find nothing on earth to compare it to.
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  Speaker 1: It was dreadful, terrible, and exceedingly strong. It had great
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  Speaker 1: iron teeth. It devoured, it crushed, it trampled whatever remained
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  Speaker 1: under its feet. It had ten horns, and among them
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  Speaker 1: rose another horn, a small one, and three of the
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  Speaker 1: first horns were torn out by the roots to make
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  Speaker 1: room for it. That small horn had eyes, human eyes,
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  Speaker 1: and a mouth speaking arrogant things. And then the sea
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  Speaker 1: went silent. The wind stopped the beasts froze in place
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  Speaker 1: as though time itself had been held. And the scene
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  Speaker 1: moved upward. Daniel wrote that he kept watching until thrones
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  Speaker 1: were placed. Thrones, plural. In Aramaic, the word is korsevan.
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  Speaker 1: It is not a scribal error. It is not a
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  Speaker 1: translation ambiguity. It is a plural noun written with full
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  Speaker 1: clarity in a text that was copied with obsessive care
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  Speaker 1: for centuries. by scribes who counted every letter to make
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  Speaker 1: sure they made no mistakes. Thrones were placed, and the
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  Speaker 1: Ancient of Days sat. His garment was white as snow.
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  Speaker 1: The hair of his head was like pure wool. His
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  Speaker 1: throne was a flame of fire, its wheels blazing. A
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  Speaker 1: river of fire issued and flowed from before him. A
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  Speaker 1: thousand thousands served him. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood
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  Speaker 1: before him. Stood. the pattern held, millions of beings upright
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  Speaker 1: in the posture of servants. The court was seated, the
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  Speaker 1: books were opened, and yet the prophet kept watching. Because
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  Speaker 1: if the Ancient of Days had already sat down, if
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  Speaker 1: the court was already assembled, if millions were already on
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  Speaker 1: their feet, then there was a question floating in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the vision without an answer. Who was the
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  Speaker 1: other seat for? The answer came from above. Daniel wrote
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  Speaker 1: that he saw in the night visions one like a
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  Speaker 1: son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. The clouds,
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  Speaker 1: that detail is not decoration. In the entire Hebrew scriptures,
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  Speaker 1: riding the clouds is an exclusively divine prerogative. Psalm 104 says,
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  Speaker 1: God makes the clouds his chariot. Isaiah chapter 19 describes
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  Speaker 1: the Lord riding on a swift cloud. The cloud rider
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  Speaker 1: is the deity, never a human being, and yet this
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  Speaker 1: figure had human form. Daniel used a precise Aramaic expression, Baranash,
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  Speaker 1: son of man. He did not say it was a man.
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  Speaker 1: He said it resembled one, had the appearance, the likeness,
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  Speaker 1: the form. The figure comes as God comes, but looks
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  Speaker 1: as man looks. He approached the ancient of days. He
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  Speaker 1: did not fall on his face like Ezekiel beside the
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  Speaker 1: Chabar Canal. He did not cover himself with wings like
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  Speaker 1: the seraphim in the temple. He did not stand at
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  Speaker 1: a distance like the heavenly host Micaiah had seen. He
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  Speaker 1: was brought near, the formal presentation of a dignitary conducted
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  Speaker 1: into the presence of a king. And there, before the
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  Speaker 1: throne of fire, before the river of flame, before the
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  Speaker 1: millions standing in silence, Scripture records what happened next. To
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  Speaker 1: him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that
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  Speaker 1: all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. Serve. The
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  Speaker 1: Aramaic word is pelach. And now the furnace comes back.
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  Speaker 1: Daniel chapter 3. Nebuchadnezzar had built a golden statue, 90
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  Speaker 1: feet tall, 9 feet wide, on the plain of Dura
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  Speaker 1: in the province of Babylon. He summoned the entire empire.
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  Speaker 1: A herald screamed the order. When the music plays, Every
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  Speaker 1: creature that breathes falls to the ground and gives palach
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  Speaker 1: to the golden image. Whoever refuses is thrown into a
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  Speaker 1: furnace of blazing fire. The music played. A plane full
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  Speaker 1: of thousands dropped to their knees at once. The sound
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  Speaker 1: of bodies hitting the dust. The smell of hot earth rising.
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  Speaker 1: Three men stayed standing. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Jewish exiles arrived.
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  Speaker 1: colleagues of Daniel. They were reported immediately. Nebuchadnezzar summoned them
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  Speaker 1: and offered a second chance. They refused with one of
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  Speaker 1: the most courageous sentences ever written. They said their god
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  Speaker 1: could deliver them from the furnace, but even if he
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  Speaker 1: does not, they would not give Palash to the king's
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  Speaker 1: gods nor worship the golden image. Even if he does not,
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  Speaker 1: the furnace was heated seven times beyond its normal temperature.
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  Speaker 1: The soldiers who carried them to the opening were killed
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  Speaker 1: by the heat before they could step back. Now, here
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  Speaker 1: is the point almost no one explains. The word those
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  Speaker 1: three men used when they said they would not serve
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  Speaker 1: the gods of Babylon is exactly the same word Daniel
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  Speaker 1: used four chapters later to describe what all nations would
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  Speaker 1: do before the Son of Man, Pelach. It appears nine
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  Speaker 1: times in the book of Daniel. In every single occurrence
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  Speaker 1: outside of chapter 7, it describes cultic worship, religious service
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  Speaker 1: directed at a deity, whether the true God or a
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  Speaker 1: false one. It is never used for service to a
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  Speaker 1: human king, obedience to a superior, or respect for an official.
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  Speaker 1: It is a word of temple, not of palace. In
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  Speaker 1: chapter 3, three men chose to burn alive rather than
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  Speaker 1: give pelach to a statue. Their argument was simple and absolute.
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  Speaker 1: Palak belongs only to God. In chapter 7, all peoples, nations,
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  Speaker 1: and languages give Palak to a figure with human form.
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  Speaker 1: And the text does not present it as idolatry. No
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  Speaker 1: angel corrects the scene. No prophet objects. It is presented
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  Speaker 1: as correct. The man who wrote both chapters was the
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  Speaker 1: same man. The language was the same language. The word
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  Speaker 1: was the same word. The seat was not empty. Daniel
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  Speaker 1: had described who would sit in the second throne. But
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  Speaker 1: God was not finished with the old man. Because Daniel
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  Speaker 1: was about to receive something no other prophet in the
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  Speaker 1: history of Israel ever received. A date. Chapter 3. The Countdown.
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  Speaker 1: Years after the night visions, Daniel was reading the scroll
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  Speaker 1: of Jeremiah. He found the number. SEVENTY YEARS OF DESOLATION
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  Speaker 1: DECREED OVER JERUSALEM, AND HE REALIZED THE TIME WAS ALMOST UP.
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  Speaker 1: HE FELL TO HIS KNEES, SACKCLOTH, ASHES. HE PRAYED ONE
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  Speaker 1: OF THE MOST RAW PRAYERS IN THE ENTIRE OLD TESTAMENT, CONFESSION,
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  Speaker 1: NOT OF HIS OWN SINS, BUT OF HIS PEOPLE'S. WE
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  Speaker 1: HAVE SINNED, WE HAVE REBELLED, WE HAVE NOT LISTENED TO
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  Speaker 1: YOUR SERVANTS THE PROPHETS. HE WAS NOT ASKING FOR A VISION.
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  Speaker 1: He was begging for mercy on a ruined city. The
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  Speaker 1: angel Gabriel arrived mid-sentence, and Gabriel did not answer the
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  Speaker 1: prayer Daniel had prayed. He answered a larger one. Seventy
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  Speaker 1: weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city,
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  Speaker 1: to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin,
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  Speaker 1: to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to
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  Speaker 1: seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most
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  Speaker 1: holy place. Daniel 9.24, 70 weeks. In Hebrew, Shabuim, literally, sevens, 77s,
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  Speaker 1: 490 years, divided into three segments, seven weeks, 62 weeks,
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  Speaker 1: and one final week. The first 69 weeks, 483 years,
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  Speaker 1: count from the going out of the word to restore
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  Speaker 1: and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one,
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  Speaker 1: a prince. a countdown, not to a kingdom, not to
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  Speaker 1: a battle, to a person. Four Persian decrees could qualify
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  Speaker 1: as the word to restore and build Jerusalem, but only
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  Speaker 1: one specifically authorized rebuilding the city and its defensive walls,
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  Speaker 1: the decree of Artaxerxes I to Nehemiah, recorded in Nehemiah
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  Speaker 1: chapter 2, issued in the month of Nisan in the
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  Speaker 1: year 444 BCE. That is the starting gun. 483 prophetic years.
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  Speaker 1: Each year, 360 days, the standard prophetic year unit used
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  Speaker 1: across biblical apocalyptic literature. 483 times 360 equals 173,880 days.
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  Speaker 1: The scholar Harold Hoener said, in his 1978 work, Chronological
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  Speaker 1: Aspects of the Life of Christ, ran one widely cited
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  Speaker 1: version of this calculation from Nisan 1, 444 BCE, forward
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  Speaker 1: by exactly that number of days. He landed on March 30, A.D. 33,
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  Speaker 1: a date many scholars connect to the triumphal entry, though
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  Speaker 1: others start the clock from a different decree or count
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  Speaker 1: the years differently. and arrive at other dates in Jesus' ministry.
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  Speaker 1: That is the day Jesus of Nazareth rode a donkey
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  Speaker 1: into Jerusalem, fulfilling Zechariah 9-9, while crowds threw palm branches
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  Speaker 1: on the road and shouted, Blessed is he who comes
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  Speaker 1: in the name of the Lord. No other prophet gave
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  Speaker 1: a date. Isaiah gave a birthplace. Micah gave a town.
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  Speaker 1: Zechariah gave a donkey. Daniel gave 173,000. 880 days. And
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  Speaker 1: the clock ran out on a Sunday afternoon in Jerusalem
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  Speaker 1: while a carpenter from Galilee rode through the eastern gate.
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  Speaker 1: But the prophecy did not end with arrival. Gabriel's next
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  Speaker 1: words were surgical. And after the 62 weeks, an anointed
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  Speaker 1: one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. Yikaret.
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  Speaker 1: From the Hebrew root, karat, to sever, to execute, to
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  Speaker 1: eliminate by violence. the Messiah would arrive on schedule, and
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  Speaker 1: then he would be killed and have nothing, no throne,
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  Speaker 1: no earthly kingdom, not yet. And then the people of
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  Speaker 1: the prince who is to come shall destroy the city
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  Speaker 1: and the sanctuary. In 70 AD, 37 years after the crucifixion,
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  Speaker 1: the Roman legions under Titus burned Jerusalem to the ground
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  Speaker 1: and demolished the second temple stone by stone. Daniel predicted
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  Speaker 1: the arrival, the execution, and the destruction that followed. In
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  Speaker 1: that order. Many scholars date Daniel's composition to approximately 165
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  Speaker 1: BCE and identify the anointed one cut off as the
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  Speaker 1: high priest Onias III, murdered during the Seleucid crisis. That
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  Speaker 1: view is held by serious academics, and it must be named.
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  Speaker 1: But it does not account for the destruction in 70 A.D.,
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  Speaker 1: which occurred more than a century after, even the latest
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  Speaker 1: proposed date for Daniel's writing. Whatever date one assigns to
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  Speaker 1: its composition, the text described an event that had not
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  Speaker 1: yet occurred, and would not occur for more than a century.
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  Speaker 1: The seat was not empty. And now it had a date.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter 4. The Receipts But Daniel was not the only
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  Speaker 1: one reading, Daniel. In the spring of 1947, Bedouin shepherds
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  Speaker 1: chasing a lost goat climbed into a cave in the
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  Speaker 1: limestone cliffs above the Dead Sea. Inside they found clay jars.
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  Speaker 1: Inside the jars they found leather scrolls wrapped in linen cloth.
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  Speaker 1: What followed was the greatest archaeological hunt of the 20th century.
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  Speaker 1: Cave after cave was searched across those sun-blasted cliffs. In
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  Speaker 1: August 1952, they reached Cave 4, cut into a chalk
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  Speaker 1: ridge across a ravine, and it turned out to be
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  Speaker 1: the main deposit. Roughly 75% of all the Qumran fragments
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  Speaker 1: came from that single cave. And among them was Daniel.
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  Speaker 1: Eight separate manuscripts. Caves 1, 4, and 6. More copies
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  Speaker 1: than most books of the Hebrew Bible received. That desert
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  Speaker 1: community did not merely read Daniel. They built their eschatology
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  Speaker 1: around it. One fragment stopped researchers cold. It is cataloged
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  Speaker 1: as 4Q246, sometimes called the Son of God text, Aramaic, pre-Christian,
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  Speaker 1: from Cave 4. The surviving columns contain two phrases that
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  Speaker 1: silenced the room when they were first published, Son of God,
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  Speaker 1: Son of the Most High, and beside them, the promise
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  Speaker 1: of an everlasting kingdom. Scholars remain genuinely split. Some read
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  Speaker 1: the figure as a messianic deliverer, others as a boastful
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  Speaker 1: earthly king closer to the arrogant horn of chapter 7
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  Speaker 1: than to the Son of Man. That debate has never
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  Speaker 1: been settled. What no one debates is that the text
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  Speaker 1: depends on Daniel chapter 7 and that Jewish writers before
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  Speaker 1: Jesus were already using divine sonship language for an end
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  Speaker 1: times figure, which is the real significance of the fragment.
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  Speaker 1: and it was written before Jesus of Nazareth was born.
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  Speaker 1: When Daniel was translated into Greek centuries before Christ, the
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  Speaker 1: translators reached chapter 7, verse 13, and wrote something the
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  Speaker 1: standard text does not say. In the Aramaic, the Son
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  Speaker 1: of Man comes to the Ancient of Days. In the
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  Speaker 1: oldest surviving Greek translation, the Son of Man comes as
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  Speaker 1: the Ancient of Days. One preposition says, the two figures
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  Speaker 1: described with the same attributes, the same identity. That reading
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  Speaker 1: almost vanished from history. The Old Greek was replaced by
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  Speaker 1: a later translation and by the 4th century had nearly
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  Speaker 1: disappeared from circulation. It survived in three witnesses, Papyrus 967,
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  Speaker 1: a 3rd century codex unearthed in Egypt in 1931 after
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  Speaker 1: 1700 years buried in the sand. the Cisianus 88 Codex,
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  Speaker 1: and a Syriac version, three threads. If any of them
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  Speaker 1: had been lost, no one alive today would know that
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  Speaker 1: reading ever existed. Every discovery pushed the timeline further back
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  Speaker 1: into antiquity. But Daniel did not only see a throne,
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  Speaker 1: he saw a face. Years after the night visions, standing
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  Speaker 1: beside the Tigris River, the old prophet looked up and
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  Speaker 1: saw a figure dressed in linen with a belt of
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  Speaker 1: pure gold. His face was like lightning, his eyes like
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  Speaker 1: flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of
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  Speaker 1: burnished bronze, his voice like the roar of a multitude.
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  Speaker 1: Daniel collapsed. His strength left him. His face hit the dirt.
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  Speaker 1: He could not stand. That description, every detail of it,
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  Speaker 1: reappears word for word in the last book of the Bibles.
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  Speaker 1: the linen, the gold belt, the fire eyes, the bronze limbs,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the voice of many waters. Two authors separated by six
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: centuries describing the same figure in the same language. The
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: face Daniel saw by the tigress is the face John
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: saw on Patmos. Near the end of the first century,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: a man exiled on a rocky island in the Aegean
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Sea turned around to see a voice. and saw one
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: like a son of man. Daniel's exact phrase. But John
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: did something no writer before him had done. He took
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Daniel's two figures and merged them into one. The white
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: hair like wool, white as snow. Those belong to the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: ancient of days in Daniel chapter 7 verse 9, not
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: to the son of man. The eyes like flame of fire,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the feet like burnished bronze. Those belong to the figure
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: by the Tigris in Daniel chapter 10. John dressed the
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Son of Man in the Ancient of Days garments and
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: in the Tigris figure's features. Three separate visions from one prophet,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: chapters 7, 10, and 12, collapsed into a single figure
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: standing among seven lampstands. The same fusion an anonymous Greek
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: translator had made two centuries earlier. Rabbi Akiva ben Joseph
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: was not an ordinary sage. He was one of the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: absolute giants of Judaism, the man who organized much of
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the oral tradition that would become the Mishnah, teacher of teachers,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: a figure so central that his name alone carries authority.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: He studied Daniel chapter 7 verse 9. He saw the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: plural thrones and he gave his answer. It is recorded
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 38b. One throne for
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: him and one for David. David. In that context, the Messiah,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the son of David. One of the most important scholars
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: in Jewish history read Daniel's vision and placed the Messiah
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: in the second seat. Rabbi Yosei the Galilean confronted him directly. Akiva,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: how long will you profane the divine presence? He offered
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the correction. Both thrones belong to God, one for judgment
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and one for mercy. Akiva accepted the rebuke publicly. Whether
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that was genuine correction or damage control is something historians
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: still argue about. But either way, a founding figure of
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: rabbinic Judaism had just said out loud what this script
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: has been arguing, that Daniel's second throne looked occupied. The
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: scholar Alan Siegel would later document, that Akiva was not alone,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: that a belief in two divine powers in heaven ran
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: through Second Temple Judaism like a subterranean river, visible in
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: scroll after scroll, until the rabbis formally branded it a
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: heresy in the second century to shut the door forever.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And it was not only the rabbis who were counting. Josephus,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Jewish historian, former rebel commander turned Roman client, recorded that
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: what had most incited his people to war was an
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: ambiguous oracle found in their sacred writings predicting that at
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: that time someone from their country would rule the world.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Jewish War, Book 6, Section 312. Tacitus, Roman senator, no
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: friend of Judea, wrote in his histories that in the
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: sacred writings of the priests there was a conviction that
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the East would grow strong and men from Judea would
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: come to power. Histories, Book 5, Chapter 13. Suetonius, imperial biographer,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: noted an ancient and persistent belief throughout the East that
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: men coming from Judea would rule the world. Life of Vespasian,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Chapter 4. Three sources, two of them pagan, none with
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: any reason to invent this. In the first century, people
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: were counting Daniel's clock. The expectation was so visible that
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: even Rome wrote it down. The seat was not empty.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: The scroll said so. The rabbis knew it. Even Rome
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: had heard. Now it is possible to see what made
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Daniel different from every other prophet in the Old Testament.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Micah told you where the Messiah would be born, Bethlehem.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: A man can be born in Bethlehem without being divine.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Isaiah told you how he would suffer. Wounded for transgressions,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: silent as a lamb led to slaughter. A man can
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: suffer without being divine. Zechariah told you how he would
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: enter Jerusalem, humble, riding on a donkey. A man can
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: ride a donkey without being divine. Psalm 22 told you
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: what his death would look like. Hands pierced, garments divided
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: by lots. A man can die that way without being divine.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Daniel told you where he would sit. And no man
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: sits in the second throne, rides the clouds of God,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: and receives the worship three men chose to burn alive
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: rather than misdirect, unless he is more than a man.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: That is why quoting Micah never tore a single robe.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And that is why quoting Daniel did. Chapter 5 The
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Courtroom And then came the night when someone claimed the seat.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: FRIDAY Before dawn, Jerusalem, the upper quarter of the city,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: oil lamps burning, the judges of the Sanhedrin gathered in
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: a semicircle, the air thick with smoke, damp wool, and
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: stale sweat. The cold spring wind coming down from the
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Mount of Olives. In the center of the hall, standing
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: with his hands tied, in front of him, a man
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: from Galilee. Hours of accusations that fell apart on contact.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Witnesses contradicting each other. One said the prisoner had threatened
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: to destroy the temple. Another told a different version of
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the same story. Under Jewish law, Two testimonies had to agree.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: These did not agree. The case was collapsing. Time was
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: running out. Dawn was coming, and with dawn came the feast,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: and with the feast came the impossibility of doing anything
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: at all. The high priest stood, walked to the center
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of the floor, looked at the prisoner. He asked whether
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the accused had nothing to say. No answer. silence so
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: complete you could hear oil sizzling in the wicks. Then
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: he asked the only question that mattered, the question no
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: judge should ever ask an accused man, because any answer
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: was a trap. Are you the Christ, the Son of
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the Blessed? The Galilean raised his head. He said, Yes.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: And then he added a sentence that no one had
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: asked for. You will see the Son of Man seated
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: at the right hand of power, and coming with the
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: clouds of heaven. Mark 14.62. Twenty words, two scriptures, one claim.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: The first half, seated at the right hand of power,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: comes from Psalm 110.1, where the Lord says to the
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: psalmist's Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: your enemies a footstool for your feet, the seat beside God.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: The second half, coming with the clouds of heaven, comes
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: directly from Daniel 7.13. The Son of Man, the Cloud Rider,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: the one who receives Palak. Jesus fused both texts into
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: a single sentence and applied them to himself. The translation
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: for every man in that room was immediate and unmistakable.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: The second seat is mine. I am the one Daniel saw,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the one who sits where only God sits, the one
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: who rides the clouds. the one who receives the worship
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: that three men chose to die rather than misdirect. The
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: high priest grabbed his own tunic with both hands and
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: tore it from collar to hem. The sound of the
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: linen ripping cut through the air. What further witnesses do
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: we need? You have heard the blasphemy, not for saying,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: I am the Messiah. Several men said that in that century.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Rome killed them for sedition. No high priest tore fabric
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: for any of them. Claiming Messiahship was not technically blasphemy.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: The blasphemy was the seat. The blasphemy was Daniel chapter
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: 7 fused with Psalm 110 spoken by a bound carpenter
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: in a room full of men who had spent their
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: entire lives studying those exact texts. They understood instantly what
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: they had heard. No one asked for clarification. No one
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: requested a second opinion. In a room full of Scripture experts,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: the meaning landed in less than a second. Unanimous verdict. Guilty.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Worthy of death. They spat in his face, blindfolded him,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: struck him with their fists, mocked him, prophesied, they said,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Tell us who hit you. Outside in the courtyard, a
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: fisherman from Galilee swore beside a fire that he had
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: never known the man. And somewhere over Jerusalem... the first
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: rooster began to crow. In every text that would be
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: written about him after that night, every letter, every sermon,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: every hymn, the figure is described as seated at God's
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: right hand, every single time. Except once. Chapter 6. The
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Standing One. His name was Stephen. He was not an apostle.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: He was not part of the inner circle. He was
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: a table-server. one of seven men chosen to distribute food
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: to widows. They dragged him before the same court that
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: had condemned the carpenter. He delivered the longest speech recorded
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: in the book of Acts, a complete sweep through the
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: history of Israel, from Abraham to Solomon. And at the end,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: with stones already in the hands of the men surrounding him,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: he looked up. I see the heavens opened and the
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Acts 7.55-56. Standing. Every other text says seated. The letter
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: to the Hebrews. He sat down at the right hand
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: of the majesty on high. Paul to the Romans. Christ Jesus,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: who is at the right hand of God. Seated. Finished. Enthroned.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Stephen saw him on his feet. The only one in
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: heaven who had a seat was not using it. He
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: had stood up Some say he rose the way a
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: host rises when someone he loves walks through the door.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Some say he rose the way a judge rises to
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: deliver a verdict against the men throwing stones. Stephen fell
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: under those stones. He asked that the sin not be
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: held against the men killing him, and he died. Standing nearby,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: holding the cloaks of the men who threw the stones,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: was a young Pharisee named Saul, the same man who
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: years later would write that At the name of Jesus,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: under the earth, and every tongue confess that he is Lord.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Every tongue. All peoples, nations, and languages. The exact words
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: of the old man in Babylon. The seat was not empty,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and the one who filled it stood up, for a
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: man dying under stones. Mirror turn. Daniel never knew the name.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: He died in Babylon, far from Jerusalem, without seeing the
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: temple rebuilt, without hearing the word Nazareth. At the end
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: of his book, a celestial being told him to close
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: the words and seal the book until the time of
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the end. Daniel asked what the outcome of all these
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: things would be. The answer he received was, Go your way, Daniel,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: for the words are closed up and sealed until the
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: time of the end. And he went. He obeyed without understanding.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: He wrote without comprehending. He described a throne he would
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: never sit in, for a king whose name he would
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: never speak. That is the faith the book of Daniel
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: actually describes, not the faith that sees and then believes,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: but the faith that writes and seals and dies without knowing.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: The question is whether you would do the same. Trust
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: a promise you cannot yet see. Serve a king whose
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: face you have not yet seen. and walk your road
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: to the end without demanding that God explain himself first.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Daniel did. He sealed the words and went his way.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: If this documentary changed the way you read Daniel, drop
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: your thoughts in the comments. Like this video and subscribe
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: to Bible Origins so you do not miss what comes next.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: We made a full documentary on the five giant races
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: of the Bible, who they were, what their Hebrew names meant,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: and how each one was destroyed. The link is on
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: your screen. Share this with someone who studies the Bible seriously.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: God bless you, and we will see you in the
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: next one.