Translation and Interpretation

Daniel 11

11:36 And the king shall do according to his

will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify

himself above every G-d, and shall speak

marvellous things against the G-d of gods, and

shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished:

for that that is determined shall be done.

11:37 Neither shall he regard the G-d of his

fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard

any G-d: for he shall magnify himself above all.

11:38 But in his estate shall he honor the G-d of

forces: and a G-d whom his fathers knew not shall

he honor with gold, and silver, and with precious

stones, and pleasant things.

11:39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds

with a strange G-d, whom he shall acknowledge

and increase with glory: and he shall cause

them to rule over many, and shall divide the

land for gain.

11:40 And at the time of the end shall the king

of the south push at him: and the king of the

north shall come against him like a whirlwind,

with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many

ships; and he shall enter into the countries,

and shall overflow and pass over.

11:41 He shall enter also into the glorious land,

and many countries shall be overthrown: but these

shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab,

and the chief of the children of Ammon.

11:42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon

the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.

11:43 But he shall have power over the treasures

of gold and of silver, and over all the precious

things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians

shall be at his steps.

11:44 But tidings out of the east and out of the

north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go

forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to

make away many.

11:45 And he shall plant the tabernacles of his

palace between the seas in the glorious holy

mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none

shall help him.

CHAPTER 12

12:1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the

great prince which standeth for the children of

thy people: and there shall be a time of

trouble, such as never was since there was a

nation even to that same time: and at that time

thy people shall be delivered, every one that

shall be found written in the book.


Back a few years ago, I used to prototype simple

electronic circuits. They were mostly just basic

transistor circuits. A transistor can be used in

any number of configurations, so that it behaves

in a particular way, and there are different

types of transistors. But to an untrained eye,

looking at a circuit schematic, one transistor

looks like any other transistor. You have to

know how to understand the configuration in order

to know what the circuit is designed to do. The

design work is as much an art as it is a science.

A transistor has a predictable behavior, but you

have to know, by looking at a schematic diagram,

how it's configured. When I had the opportunity

to work with people who had alot of design

experience, I found that they were able to do

things with a circuit that reflected their years

of experience and make the less experienced

designers look a little clumsy. Experience was

able to go beyond building a transistor circuit

that worked, to design one that was as reliable

and stable as possible. It's the kind of thing

that translates into a very small percentage of

defective products in production, less rework and

no problems in the field. In other words, the

experience and skill level of a designer makes

alot of difference in the end product.


In my mind, circuit design bears a good analogy

to language translation and interpretation. When

looking at scripture, you can find a word for

word translation, but as in circuit design, you

have to know a little bit about the configuration

of the wording to really understand what's being

communicated. It's often subtle nuance that

provides significant meaning. Knowing that and

doing it are two different things. The

transistor circuit analogy sheds some light on

the significance of correctly understanding the

context of a word or phrase in order to arrive at

an accurate interpretation of any text. If I'm

not mistaken, that is the goal of hermenuetics;

to arrive at an accurate translation.


But where does that leave us with interpretation?

It's just like the passage in the book of Daniel

when the fingers write four words on the wall,

but nobody knows what they mean until Daniel

comes along to convey the bad news. Daniel was

able to provide an interpretation. And as I see

it, that's the underlying message in the book of

Daniel, it provides not only a message of what

the future will look like, but it provides a

schematic to interpret future events.


You can see that there is quite a bit of

disagreement between various writers about how to

interpret the book of Daniel. Everyone can't be

right, except in the twilight zone dimension of

the moral relativist, where it's all good. But

we can see by analogy that nothing really works

that way. In other words, if you wish to

approach the text of scripture with the idea that

you can apply a dialectical modern interpretation

in an effort to conform to the doctrine of

secular humanism, you are already headed in the

wrong direction. In explicit terms, that means

from the outset that it is a big mistake to

assume that there is any relationship between the

text of scripture and babylonian legend. But the

secular trend is to do exactly that, because

that's what I heard at the university. The

overiding assumption is that the text of

scripture is just another collection of ancient

text originating in the minds of men. But

even at the most superficial level, that can't be

the case because the writers make the explicit

claim that their message has a Divine origin.

That claim lies at the center of all

disagreement.


At this point it becomes obvious that there is an

either/or conclusion. Either the text is of

Divine origin, or it is not. If it's not of

Divine origin, then we can safely ignore it. It

is no more relevant than the daily newspaper,

it's just another propaganda document. But, if

it really is of Divine origin, then it has

absolute authority. If it were the former case,

why would anyone be offended by the Ten

Commandments, since they are only suggestions

that we adopt a social code of conduct. That

view runs into trouble right away though, because

the first commandment places the highest intent

on the worship of the one who created us and the

universe that we inhabit. So either we recognize

the absolute authority of our Creator or we

don't. There isn't any middle ground left to

occupy. At this point, it's obvious that secular

doctrine is at odds with genuine faith, and that

it doesn't occupy some neutral middle ground.

There is no neutral middle ground. There is only

one way or the other.


That's the way that Jesus described the world.

There were only two groups of people in this

world. There were his followers, and there was

everyone else. There is the straight and narrow

that leads to one destination, and there is every

other route, that leads to the other destination.

In some sense then, the person who believes that

all religions lead to the same Deity, are

partially correct. All religions, but one, do lead

to the same destination (you don't want to go

there). But it's alot like the circuit design

analogy, where transistors are all the same

(semiconductors), but the configuration isn't.

If the design doesn't satisfy the basic

transistor characteristics, it won't work. In

other words, if you just solder a bunch of

component leads together, it doesn't make a

circuit. Either it's correctly done, or it

isn't. The idea that troubles some people about

the true or false nature of things, is an idea

that gives comfort to a circuit designer. He

doesn't want to be left with an uncertainty about

whether a design will work on Mondays, but not

on Tuesdays. There isn't any neutral middle

ground in the real world.


So what does all this have to do with the book of

Daniel? Well, it's just my long winded way of

saying that not everyone can be right about how

to interpret the book of Daniel, and that there

are certain popular modern approaches that get it

wrong, right out of the starting gate. And the

analogy is used to show that it's not just in the

way that you approach scripture, but in the real

world some configurations will work and some will

not.


As I look at the outline provided in my study

Bible, I'm left with disappointment. I'm not

sure what to make of it. But they manage to

break things down, to a certain degree, into

useful divisions. That puts todays subject as

the message about the Antichrist, or as Walvood

puts it 'the end time'. You can see that there

is already a bit of interpretation applied in the

way that these two authors view this passage from

the book of Daniel. As I see it, the final ruler

described in this passage is the same as in

Revelation 13:8, who is called 'the beast'.

Since I spent so much time today going over the

idea of interpretation as opposed to translation,

I'll continue tomorrow by having a look at this

final ruler (gentile) who is known as 'the

beast'.


Daniel lays out a succession of rulers and

kingdoms. He describes in detail his personal

experience from inside a world empire, and the

trials that he meets over the course of time.

But the series of world empires, I suspect, are

representative prototypes of a worldly kingdom that

leads up to the ultimate worldly kingdom of 'the

beast', which is the prototype that ushers in the

eternal kingdom, the one and only legitimate and

genuine kingdom of G-d. The one who occupies the

earthly throne, seems always to covet an

illegitimate desire for deification. But the

prototype is there because it has Divine origin;

it's only a reflection of G-d seated on the

throne of the universe. The problem is that men

are evil, and cannot manage that kind of power.

So they rise, then fall, only to be replaced by

an endless series of the next guy who thinks he

will do better. Daniel provides an interpretation

of this worldly system, and shows that it is leading

up to only one final period -- the time of the end --

when the ultimate kingdom is established to rule

over eternity.