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368
From Here to Forever
the Christian Church, vol. III, 3d period, ch. 7, sec. 75, p. 380,
footnote 1. See discussion in Albert Henry Newman, A Manual of
Church History (Philadelphia: The American Baptist Publication
Society, 1933), rev. ed., vol. I, pp. 305-307; and in L. E. Froom,
The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers (Washington, D.C.: Review and
Herald Publishing Assn., 1950), vol. I, pp. 376-381.
Page 35. Prophetic Dates. An important principle of interpreting
time prophecies is the year-day principle—under which a day of
prophetic time equals a year of calendar time. Some of the Bible
reasons for this principle are as follows: (1) The year-day principle
is in harmony with the principle of symbolically interpreting beasts
as kingdoms, horns as powers, oceans as peoples, etc. (2) The Lord,
speaking in
Numbers 14:34
and
Ezekiel 4:6
, upholds the principle.
(3) The 2300 days (years) of
Daniel 8:14
cover the history of the
Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires, as the angel explains
in verses 19-26 (“at the time of the end shall be the vision”). These
empires lasted many times longer than 2300 literal days. Nothing
can fit except the year-day principle. (4)
Daniel 11
is an expansion
of the prophecy of
Daniel 8
, yet
Daniel 11
is not symbolic. Three
times it speaks of “years” (verses 6, 8, 13) as a parallel of “days” in
Daniel 8:14
. (6) The angel explained to Daniel that these prophecies
concerned “the time of the end” (8:19, 26; 10:13, 14). If the “days”
were literal, the prophecies would not make sense. (7) A day for a
year was a common way of speaking in Old Testament Hebrew. See
Leviticus 25:8
;
Genesis 29:27
. (8) The book of Revelation unlocks
the prophecies of Daniel, showing that their fulfillment was still
future in the time of the apostles. Further, the year-day principle has
been recognized and accepted as a valid biblical principle by many
careful Bible students such as Joachim of Floris, Wycliffe, Joseph
Mede, Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Thomas Newton, Alexander Keith
[414]
and many others.
Page 37 (See also page 352). FORGED WRITINGS. Among
the documents generally admitted to be forgeries, the Donation
of Constantine and the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals are of primary
importance. See The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious
Knowledge, vol. III, art. “Donation of Constantine.”
The “false writings” referred to in the text include also the
“Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals”—fictitious letters ascribed to early