Scripture for Sunday August 12th, 2018
Daniel 11:1-13
Also I in the first year...
1 Also I in the first year of Darius the Mede, even I, stood to confirm and to strengthen him.
2 And now will I shew thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all: and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.
3 And a mighty king shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will.
4 And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; and not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those.
5 And the king of the south shall be strong, and one of his princes; and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion; his dominion shall be a great dominion.
6 And in the end of years they shall join themselves together; for the king's daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement: but she shall not retain the power of the arm; neither shall he stand, nor his arm: but she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he that begat her, and he that strengthened her in these times.
7 But out of a branch of her roots shall one stand up in his estate, which shall come with an army, and shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north, and shall deal against them, and shall prevail:
8 And shall also carry captives into Egypt their gods, with their princes, and with their precious vessels of silver and of gold; and he shall continue more years than the king of the north.
9 So the king of the south shall come into his kingdom, and shall return into his own land.
10 But his sons shall be stirred up, and shall assemble a multitude of great forces: and one shall certainly come, and overflow, and pass through: then shall he return, and be stirred up, even to his fortress.
11 And the king of the south shall be moved with choler, and shall come forth and fight with him, even with the king of the north: and he shall set forth a great multitude; but the multitude shall be given into his hand.
12 And when he hath taken away the multitude, his heart shall be lifted up; and he shall cast down many ten thousands: but he shall not be strengthened by it.
13 For the king of the north shall return, and shall set forth a multitude greater than the former, and shall certainly come after certain years with a great army and with much riches.
Inspiration of the Bible Under Attack
"Based on both internal and external evidence, the standard conservative view of the Old Testament canon marks its completion no later than 424 B.C. Liberal critics, on the other hand, postpone the completion date as long as they possibly can, crediting the hypothetical Council of Jamnia with officially closing the Old Testament canon in A.D. 90. A fundamental disagreement concerning the divine origin and inspiration of all Scripture lies at the heart of this considerable difference of opinion. Whereas orthodoxy requires a belief that God, as the ultimate author of Scripture, breathed out every one of the words using human instruments to write them down, liberal critics deny the supernatural inspiration of the Scripture and claim the Bible to be nothing more than a humanly produced book with a particular religious bias and agenda. Since they deny supernatural inspiration generally, they must deny the possibility of supernatural before-the-event prophecies specifically. The Book of Daniel is a casebook example of such critical denial. Daniel 11 especially stands out because of the undeniable accuracy with which it records the events of Seleucid history. Critics are forced by their creed to date this chapter specifically as well as the apocalyptic visions generally to the second century B.C., after the events actually transpired, whereas conservatives date the composition of Daniel no later than about 530 B.C."
-- Barrett, Michael. God's Unfailing Purpose. Ambassador Int'l: Greenville, SC, 2003, page 174-175.