The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

End Times
dwilkins
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Re: The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

Post by dwilkins » Sun Sep 22, 2013 7:56 pm

steve7150 wrote:Jesus declares in Matt. 23-25 that the doom of Jerusalem is tied to judgement against the nation that has been building up since its beginning. Revelation 20:4-6, 11-15 describe Daniel 7 and 12. However you handle it, they are tightly integrated. I don't see Ellis penetrating the narrative of the Old Covenant nation transitioning to the New Covenant.



The message of the Old Covenant nation transitioning to the New Covenant is in many places in scripture prior to Revelation so ES has a different vision which is that Revelation describes the Church Age.
If we can narrow the argument down to this point then I think we can make some headway. I suggest you read the first portion of Chilton's book, "Days of Vengeance" on this. You can skip the introduction by North, but the book itself is very good. It explains in detail how Revelation is organized as a covenant/treaty on the same lines as Deuteronomy, which precludes Skolfield's approach in my opinion.

http://www.rpts.edu/media/TheDaysofVeng ... hilton.pdf

Doug

steve7150
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Re: The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

Post by steve7150 » Mon Sep 23, 2013 7:42 am

If we can narrow the argument down to this point then I think we can make some headway. I suggest you read the first portion of Chilton's book, "Days of Vengeance" on this. You can skip the introduction by North, but the book itself is very good. It explains in detail how Revelation is organized as a covenant/treaty on the same lines as Deuteronomy, which precludes Skolfield's approach in my opinion.










I'll try to read it as i really find the Preterist viewpoint odd, but i can see many intelligent folks believe it.

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robbyyoung
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Re: The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

Post by robbyyoung » Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:07 am

steve7150 wrote:I'll try to read it as i really find the Preterist viewpoint odd, but i can see many intelligent folks believe it.
Hi Steve,

"Really... odd". At first glance I took exception to your comment, and then, I remembered my first exposure to dispensationalism being challenged and argued. That's when I found out how shallow my understanding of eschatology was. I was altogether unqualified to speak of such matters. I was a lazy student of the bible, who simply never investigated what people told me. So yes, it was really odd at the first. So now here I am, a little more knowledgeable, defending the integrity of Jesus and the Apostles.

In brotherly love of course Steve, please explain to me how their words and predictions failed to our 1st century brothers awaiting the promises? Because this is the situation the former idiology is confronted with, which is "odd" indeed. Are the skeptics correct? Jesus and the Apostles were themselves false prophets? What C.S. Lewis correct in his assessment concerning Jesus' deception? I am sure you will whole heartedly disagree, but nevertheless, how then does one still hold to the claim that the end time events promised in the 1st century didn't in fact happen?

God Bless!

steve7150
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Re: The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

Post by steve7150 » Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:25 am

Hi Steve,

"Really... odd". At first glance I took exception to your comment, and then, I remembered my first exposure to dispensationalism being challenged and argued. That's when I found out how shallow my understanding of eschatology was. I was altogether unqualified to speak of such matters. I was a lazy student of the bible, who simply never investigated what people told me. So yes, it was really odd at the first. So now here I am, a little more knowledgeable, defending the integrity of Jesus and the Apostles.








Hi Robby,
I think my knowledge of eschatology is not bad as it interests me. I'm certainly no expert on Preterism but it does seem odd to me (no offense meant).

Conceptually i find the concept of Revelation explaining the transition from the Old Covenant to the New plus the destruction of Jerusalem odd to me because it is interpreted very symbolically in Rev yet it had been clearly stated many times prior to Revelation. To me for this to make sense this idea would have been stated symbolically prior to Revelation and then clearly revealed in Revelation. That would be a revelation to the reader not the other way around.

There are other issues which i'm sure you are aware of like, judgment of the world, resurrection of the dead and evil being defeated and the milleneum being 40 years among others.

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robbyyoung
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Re: The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

Post by robbyyoung » Mon Sep 23, 2013 1:58 pm

steve7150 wrote:Conceptually i find the concept of Revelation explaining the transition from the Old Covenant to the New plus the destruction of Jerusalem odd to me because it is interpreted very symbolically in Rev yet it had been clearly stated many times prior to Revelation. To me for this to make sense this idea would have been stated symbolically prior to Revelation and then clearly revealed in Revelation. That would be a revelation to the reader not the other way around.

There are other issues which i'm sure you are aware of like, judgment of the world, resurrection of the dead and evil being defeated and the milleneum being 40 years among others.
Yes Brother, these very same issues is what surprised me the most, to find that they did indeed happen. Let me put it this way, the time statements concerning these events you've just mentioned is irrefutable. Most all scholars and even dispensationalists agree they were clearly tied to the 1st century church. The main argument these days are concerning the nature of these events, and in so doing, new methods of fringe hermeneutics are popping up like, "double fulfillment, Jesus and the Apostles, themselves and their teachings, being types not the anti-type or fulfillment" to name a few.

All this mind you, just to fit a presupposition that was alien to those 1st century believers, who lived and witnessed all these events. Your list of oddities concerning Preterism is not at all difficult to explain. Every bit of it was focused on a 1st century fulfillment. Most importantly, it's not what I'm saying, it's what Jesus and the Apostles said. And you know what else is interesting? You cannot find one example of any eschatological event, mentioned in the N.T., that the 1st century believers were told would not happen in their lifetime, not one!

I believe we had wrong the nature of how these events would transpire for a long time. For example:

Revelation parallels Ezekiel, pulls from Daniel, Isaiah, Matthew 24, etc...
Revelation was clearly stated to the original intended audience. They knew perfectly what John was writing about, they were mostly comprised of Jews steeped in the Hebrew language and culture. The language of Revelation is the language of the Law and the Prophets recorded in the Old Testament, which they all were very familiar with. These symbols were stated many times over in the O.T., it's right there and always have been!

Judgement, the resurrection, the millennium and such are not that difficult to understand. If you like, we can have a discussion concerning each point to see if the nature of the event is understood biblically. Well God bless, and enjoy reading that 700+ page book, LOL!

dwilkins
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Re: The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

Post by dwilkins » Mon Sep 23, 2013 8:14 pm

steve7150 wrote:
Hi Robby,
I think my knowledge of eschatology is not bad as it interests me. I'm certainly no expert on Preterism but it does seem odd to me (no offense meant).

Conceptually i find the concept of Revelation explaining the transition from the Old Covenant to the New plus the destruction of Jerusalem odd to me because it is interpreted very symbolically in Rev yet it had been clearly stated many times prior to Revelation. To me for this to make sense this idea would have been stated symbolically prior to Revelation and then clearly revealed in Revelation. That would be a revelation to the reader not the other way around.

There are other issues which i'm sure you are aware of like, judgment of the world, resurrection of the dead and evil being defeated and the milleneum being 40 years among others.
I think if you take the time to work through all of Chilton's book (it's one of the major references for preterism in Steve's Four Views books) you will get a fair presentation of the position. I am a bit to the right of Chilton on this. I am closer to J. S. Russell, whose important book can be found for free as a PDF at the link below:

http://www.preteristcentral.com/pdf/pdf ... rousia.pdf

Between these two free books I think you'll have a good idea of the position.

Doug

dwilkins
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Re: The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

Post by dwilkins » Mon Sep 23, 2013 8:17 pm

To be fair to Skolfield, I think that he deserves to have his most important book "The False Prophet" linked to as well:

http://www.ellisskolfield.com/pdf/TFPChapters1-9.pdf

http://www.ellisskolfield.com/pdf/TFPChapters10-17.pdf

I was very impressed by his arguments when I first stumbled on them, so I have a lot of sympathy for anyone who finds him persuasive. If you had to categorize him I think he would technically be a Historicist, though not exactly in the same vein as the Reformers.

Doug

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mattrose
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Re: The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

Post by mattrose » Wed Sep 25, 2013 2:33 am

Steve7150... did you know you started an almost identical thread in 2005? :)

I'm still really bothered by the fact that Skolfield switches his starting points. I posted back then:
Quoting from "The False prophet": "Almost 100 years after Gabriel spoke to Daniel, a special decree was granted by Artaxerxes I to Nehemiah (444-445BC). This is the ONLY decree recorded in the Bible that gave the Jews permission to "restore Jerusalem and rebuild its walls". The Messiah, Jesus, was crucified in 32 or 33AD. But are those 69 weeks 69 sevens of years? If so, then we have 69 x 7 or 483 Hebrew years. Using a multiplier of .9857 to adjust Hebrew years to solar years (our unit for historical record) yields: 483 x .9857 = 476 solar years. Artaxerxes' decree in 444BC + 476 years = 32AD, the cross right to the year!"

So, from this quote, we can see that he uses the decree of "Artaxerxes I to Nehemiah (444-445BC)" for the first 69 weeks.

From article on 70th week...From Cyrus. decree to return to the land in 536BC to new Israel in 1948AD is exactly 2484 solar years! 2. The exact middle of that time is 706AD, one year after
the completion of Islamic work on the temple mount! From the above, it appears that the Lord intended the 70th week of Dan 9:27 to be an overview of the time that Gentiles
would control the Holy Land.

From this quote, we can see that he believes the 70th week actually began with Cyrus's decree in 536BC, about 90 years before the 1st week of Daniel's prophecy.
Unless I am incorrect on this, I think Skolfield can be dismissed on these grounds. How can it be considered legitimate to use 2 different starting points?

steve7150
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Re: The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

Post by steve7150 » Wed Sep 25, 2013 7:18 am

Steve7150... did you know you started an almost identical thread in 2005? :)

I'm still really bothered by the fact that Skolfield switches his starting points. I posted back then:






You have some good memory. My original thread looks like it was June 2006 but i did come by ES by accident & i printed out "False Prophet" but later misplaced it. Recently i got interested in Revelation again & ES came to my mind.
You are right that in one claim re the Abomination of Desolation (70th week) date he used the Cyrus date and in another about the 69 weeks he used the Artaxerxes date.
However the reason you noticed it was because he disclosed it so i'm assuming he had a reason that makes sense to him. I'm going to e-mail him and hopefully get a response.

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mattrose
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Re: The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

Post by mattrose » Wed Sep 25, 2013 7:50 am

Yes, I'd be very interested to hear his justification for doing that

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