Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times - Conscious Evolution TV

What robin-bobin Does the Bible Say About the End Times? 89their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until thedecreed end is poured out upon the desolator. (Daniel 9:26–27,NRSV, italics added.)In the premillennial dispensationalist view, this is a prediction ofthe tribulation at the end of time, and the period of desolation issaid to last for “one week,” divided into two halves. ForLaHaye and others, the book of Revelation describes in moredetail what will happen in that last “week,” and they claim thateach day is a symbol for a year, thus making the final tribulationseven years long (a “week” of years).Interestingly, the book of Revelation never mentions a sevenyearperiod, nor does it describe the final events as taking placein one week. The book of Revelation is filled with all kinds ofreferences to sevens, but not to seven years. There are five referencesto some different time periods:42 months (Rev. 11:2; 13:5)1,260 days (Rev. 11:3; 12:6)“a time, and times, and half a time” (Rev. 12:14)If one does the calculations, 42 months equal three and a halfyears, and 1,260 days are almost the same length of time. If “atime” is one year, and “times” are two years, then that referencemight equal three and a half years as well. Persons like LaHayeclaim that the tribulation is divided into two halves, and thesetime periods refer to those halves, sometimes duplicating eachother. Others argue, on the basis of these verses in Revelation,that the tribulation is really three and a half years long, not seven.And some persons find all of these numbers and symbols veryobscure and believe it is foolish to attempt precise calculations.This is indeed the complaint of many, who believe that toomany people are too certain in trying to interpret all of thesesymbols. Evangelical commentator John Goldingay, writingabout Daniel 9:24–27 (considered above), says that “the versesdo not indicate that they are looking centuries or millenniabeyond the period to which chapters. 8 and 10–12 refer. ...Itdoes not refer specifically to concrete persons and events in therobin-bobin