Part 7 of this series
I’m giving you a short entry this time (a little over 2,600 words) so I can finally buckle down on the proposal for my upcoming book. I also have some things to say about Pulliam’s views on Christ’s Kingdom and our eternal destiny, and I suspect I’ll move the posts covering those to before this point in this critique series once it’s finished (to give future binge-readers a more natural sense of progression).
The Main Argument
One of the sections in Pulliam’s work that I saw problems with the fastest was Lesson 16: The Great Parenthesis. {p. 165-177}
If every prophecy of the Old Testament has been fulfilled, then Dispensationalism is in error. It is waiting for events that will never occur. Dispensationalism needs a huge gap in prophecy to extend the Bible timetable into the future. In Dispensationalism, everything between Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the Rapture is their gap called the Great Parenthesis.
The primary passage for presenting this parenthesis is Daniel 9:26-27. The diagram at right presents their view, but we still must ask, “What within the text of Daniel 9 tells us that a parenthesis of time is occurring?” {“In the Days of Those Kings: A 24 Lesson Adult Bible Class Study on the Error of Dispensationalism”. Pulliam, Bob. 2015. Houston, TX: Book Pillar Publishing. 166. Italics in original. Underlining mine.}
Set aside the fact that Pulliam is admitting that his whole eschatology relies squarely on the premise that every prophecy in the OT has already been fulfilled, a notion that I already have pointed out a handful of problems with. In my upcoming book, I exegete Daniel 9 in some detail {HIDMF p. 657-669, 672-675, 679-680}–which is why I immediately knew that there is indeed something in the text that conclusively indicates a time gap in Daniel’s prophecy! But first, I feel like letting Pulliam embarrass himself (and his dispensationalist opponents) by making more statements that show his (and their) ignorance of that something:
Dispensationalists think that the prophecy “hints” that it is there. We are told to believe that, because the Messiah is cut off after week 69, there must be a gap between 69 and 70. In truth, the reader can safely assume that 70 follows 69. Daniel being told that it comes after 69 does not mean it is between 69 and 70. We know that it falls within the 70th because it is specifically dealt with in verse 27…
What we have is a specified period of time intended to instruct on God’s intentions. When God specified “when” in every other Bible prophecy, it came to pass “when” He said it would. Why is the Dispensationalist seeing something different here? He sees a postponement because his doctrine needs to delay the fulfillment of prophecy. He cannot get the Millennium into the seventy-week scenario clearly laid out for Daniel. If the seventy weeks have passed, then Jesus is already on the throne of David, but the Dispensationalist cannot accept that. In Dispensational theology, that final week must be a “container” housing a Rapture, Antichrist, Great Tribulation, and Battle of Armageddon. As long as the Dispensationalist holds his original views of Israel’s return to the land for a Millennial reign of the Messiah on David’s throne, he must move that final week into the future. {p. 167. Italics and boldface in original. Underlining mine.}
…The parenthesis (gap) theory is worse than fine print in a contract that traps an unwary signer. At least with the fine print, you can actually read what is specifically intended. {p. 168. Italics in original. Underlining mine.}
…In other words, there are seventy literal weeks, and no more; however, there is a hidden span of time between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week that Daniel “only hinted at”… His “hint” forces the student to believe Gabriel foretold an event as being after week 69, but not during week 70. Why? Because his doctrine needs extra time.
…We cannot justify a gap in a prophesied seventy week period that makes it longer than seventy weeks. {p. 169. Italics and boldface in original. Underlining mine.}
There are no parentheses, or gaps, in the prophecies of God. He has never had to insert a prophetic postponement because things just didn’t work out right. Dispensationalism needs them because its time line has moved events into the future, even though God has already carried them out. {p. 174. Italics and boldface in original. Underlining mine.}
I agree with every statement I underlined in these quotes. But I differ from dispensationalists by saying that the final “seven” is actually 8 years long (the sabbatical cycle over which the Apocalypse occurs, plus the Jubilee Year in which Jesus returns), just like every 7th “seven” in the prophecy is (since each successive set of 7 “sevens” constitutes a full Jubilee cycle) {HIDMF p. 675-680}; as a multiple of 7, the 70th “seven” would be no exception. I also disagree with them by having the Antichrist show up ~3.5 years into the Apocalypse (Revelation 11:7; the participle rendered “comes up” in the 1995 NASB is present-tense — i.e., “coming up” — meaning his resuscitation coincides with the end of the Two Witnesses’ testimony), the Great Tribulation constituting the 3.5 years following, and the Battle of Armageddon and Rapture occurring on the same day–Tishri 10 in the 8th year of the 70th “seven” (when Jesus will usher in the Jubilee Year with the trumpet blast; see 1 Corinthians 15:52 cf. Leviticus 25:9). I also reject the idea that God postponed the 70th week “because things just didn’t work out right”, although I can’t think of any dispensationalists who explicitly claim that is what happened here (that doesn’t mean none of them do, though!).
The Conclusive Rebuttal That Even Dispensationalists Miss
But I find it shameful that the dispensationalists Pulliam was citing here offered such pathetic arguments about the 70th “seven” being “hinted at”, as if they had no conclusive argument for that gap. It provides easy fodder for Pulliam to claim that they’re going beyond where the text warrants while he’s not. But the truth is, the real reason Pulliam and even the dispensationalists he’s citing don’t see an unequivocal gap in the text is because the gap is getting lost in translation! Here’s the rendering of verses 26-27 that Pulliam gives in his book:
Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.
And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate. {p. 173. Italics and boldface in original. Underlining mine.}
Now, here are those same two verses as I quote them in my upcoming book, followed by my pointing out the textual justification for the time gap between the 69th & 70th “sevens”. Pay close attention to the underlined phrase in his quotation of verse 27a versus mine:
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood [“flood” was often a metaphor for a large army, cf. Isaiah 59:19, Jeremiah 46:7-8; see also Daniel 11:22], and unto the end of the war desolations are determined [Masoretic Text literally reads “and until the end, war is determined, causing desolations”]. (Daniel 9:26 KJV, emphases added)
…
And then he shall strengthen a covenant concerning many for one seven [literally, “many, seven one”], and half of the seven, he shall cause to cease sacrifice and offering, and on account of [or “and on”; the Hebrew preposition is `al…] a pinnacle [literally, “a wing”] of abominations, makes desolate even until consummation [literally, “until a completion”], and what’s been decided shall be poured on the desolation [singular]. (Daniel 9:27 my right-to-left translation, emphases added)
…
The Hebrew text of verse 27 opens with a waw-consecutive perfect-tense verb (“And then he shall strengthen”): the 70th “seven” occurs after the destruction of verse 26 (“shall destroy” is the last imperfect-tense verb prior) has already happened. This demands a time gap (40 years, minimum) between the end of the 69th “seven” and the beginning of the 70th.
{HIDMF p. 668-669, 673-674. Boldface and italics in original. Underlining added.}
Checkmate, Pulliam. There is indeed “fine print” (if he insists on calling it that) in Daniel’s prophecy that enables us to “actually read what is specifically intended”. As many ad hoc devices as dispensationalists have invented to prop up their ideas (e.g., the notion that the rapture of Christians is imminent, to prop up their idea that it occurs at the start of the Apocalypse rather than the end of it), the time gap in Daniel 9:25-27 isn’t one of them. It’s been right there in the Hebrew text this whole time. Don’t think my translation is accurate? Check out the Masoretic Text of verse 27 and click on the Parsing information for the very first word; the verb type is “Sequential Perfect (weqatal)”, which indicates that the action of the verb occurs chronologically after (or at earliest, coincides with) the action of the Imperfect (or Sequential Perfect) verb immediately before it (which in this case, would be “shall destroy”). Hence, the absolute earliest the 70th “seven” could have begun was at the second destruction of Jerusalem on Av 10 of A.D. 70, nearly 41 full years after the 69th “seven” ended!
Given how loudly dispensationalists trumpet their adherence to a “literal” hermeneutic, I’m surprised that they (especially Walvoord, who Pulliam cites a handful of times in the course of the above quotes) never pointed this out in their works that Pulliam consulted (or maybe some dispensationalists whose works Pulliam consulted did, and Pulliam just neglected to inform his readers of that fact; I personally can’t be bothered to figure out which of these scenarios is the truth). Then again, when I brought this to the attention of my friend John Gerstenmier (pastor of Tirzah Presbyterian Church in Waxhaw, NC), he reminded me that Bible teachers tend to argue from the translations they’re comfortable with, without checking the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek–and I have yet to find an English translation that makes the waw-consecutives in the OT explicit like I do (or the waw-disjunctives, for that matter; English translations tend to render all of them as waw copulatives)!
Additional Remarks
There’s something else worth bringing out here that I don’t address in my book (aside from presenting the more literal rendering, as seen in the quote above): Many English translations render the last part of verse 26 as something akin to “and until the end of the war, desolations are determined”, where the phrase “until the end of the war” gives the impression that the fulfillment was completed in the days of the Jewish-Roman Wars. But the Hebrew literally reads: “and until [the] end, war is determined, causing desolations”. In this case, the prophecy is saying that for the period of time from the second destruction of Jerusalem until the end of the 70th “seven”, Israel and Jerusalem would be subject to military tension, preventing Israelites from returning to the land in numbers significant enough to regain full control of it. This has indeed been fulfilled with the dozens of riots, revolts, battles, sieges, attacks, captures, and/or recaptures of Jerusalem that have occurred since A.D. 70. {“Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel”. Cline, Eric H. 2004. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. 9-10.} So the fact that Modern Israel currently possesses much of Jerusalem (one notable exception being the Temple Mount, other than the Western Wall), but not all the land covered by Ancient Israel (although I personally doubt {scroll to the second paragraph above “A Quick Exercise”, to the part discussing Zephaniah 2:4} they’ll possess all of it until Jesus returns; only time will tell, especially in light of the current political situation in the Middle East!), suggests that we’re relatively close to “the end”! (Of course, by “relatively close”, I mean relative to the entire length of time between A.D. 70 and the start of the 70th “seven”, which has so far been almost 1,955 years.)
Indeed, I show in my book that because each of the 70 “sevens” is tied to a sabbatical cycle, and the final year of the 70th “seven” must be a Jubilee year, and the first year of the 1st “seven” must have immediately followed a Jubilee year, this means that the last year of the 69th “seven” must end 8 years short of the end of a Jubilee cycle, and the first year of the 70th “seven” must begin 8 years short of the end of a Jubilee cycle; therefore, the last year of the 69th “seven” and the first year of the 70th “seven” must have an exact multiple of 50 (Jewish) years between them. {HIDMF p. 680, 744} I further show that Hosea 5:14-6:3 prophesied a period of 2,000 years from when Jesus announced the beginning of its fulfillment at the Feast of Tabernacles in A.D. 29 (John 7:32-36) to when the Two Witnesses show up at the third tabernacle/temple (Revelation 11:1-3; note that verse 2 indicates that most of the Temple Mount will be under the control of pagan nations at that time, meaning this can’t be the second temple destroyed in A.D. 70 or the temple described in Ezekiel 40-48, since the Temple Mount was/will be fully controlled by the nation of Israel for both of those–that this goes for the latter is shown in Ezekiel 44:9 & 48:19), opening up the path for Israel to repent on the national level (Deuteronomy 30, Malachi 4). {HIDMF p. 729 Fn 1273, 760} I therefore predict that we’ll see two people in Jerusalem satisfying the description of Revelation 11:5-6 (literally, of course) starting in the autumn of A.D. 2029. {HIDMF p. 723, 759-760}
If that prediction of mine comes to pass, I’ll be willing to help Pulliam and those in his congregation “collect oil for their lamps” before it’s too late for them to do so (Matthew 25:1-13). {HIDMF p. 723} As harsh as I’ve been to Pulliam in this blog series, I still want the best for the members of his congregation, and am willing to extend mercy to those who show genuine repentance. (Indeed, I’m generally so willing to give second chances that my sister has claimed that I set myself up for people to take advantage of me!)
But in the meantime, what we have in Lesson 16 of “In the Days of Those Kings” is yet another blunder that Pulliam could’ve avoided just by checking the text in the original language. (If you want to avoid making such mistakes, I recommend utilizing the Interlinear functionality at Blue Letter Bible on proof-texts for any claim. There are more steps to the investigation process than that of course, but I recommend doing this one first: in my experience, around 80-90% of false teachings and/or arguments from skeptics about what the Bible supposedly says can be undercut with this step alone.)