The strongest confirmatory evidence supporting the view that “the daily” is the self-exalting behavior (gadal) of paganism and not Christ’s High Priestly ministry is the time prophecy of Dn. 12:11. Hasel ignores “the daily” in 12:11 in totality.(126) A definite time is specified for the turning aside or removal (sur) of “the daily” either militarily or politically in order to set up the papacy. The 1290 days are essential to the true identification of hattamid.
Adventist expositors over 150 years still see AD 508 – AD 1798 as the 1290-day application. Shea is unequivocal in establishing the connection of the 1290-day/year time period of Dn. 12:11 directly with Dn. 11:31. He establishes the linkage through linguistic terminology common to both passages.(127) Shea maintains that the 1290 days supplied by Dn. 12:11 should be applied to 11:31 and should be used to date the taking away of the “daily” or “continual” and the setting up of the abomination that desolates in both 12:11 and 11:31.
Shea’s analysis is correct. The dramatic events leading up to the turning aside or removal of the “daily” commenced with the conversion of Clovis, King of the Franks, in AD 496 following which the titles of “Most Christian Majesty” and “Eldest Son of the Church” were bestowed on him. Thereupon, Clovis attacked and defeated the Arian Visigoths in AD 507 gaining the favor of the Catholic bishops and Roman officials in governing his country. In AD 508 the Emperor Anastasius I conferred on Clovis the title of “Proconsul” becoming a fellow emperor.(128) In the same year, AD 508, a league of Arian powers under “Theodoric came against Clovis and gained a victory, after which he unaccountably made peace with him” (Clovis), “and the resistance of the Arian powers was at an end.” The significance of the victories of Clovis in behalf of the Roman Church led to the decision “that the Franks, and not the Goths, were to direct the future destines of Gaul and Germany, and that the Catholic faith, and not Arianism, was to be the religion of these great realms.”(129) Clovis thus prepared the way for the full unopposed establishment of the papacy in AD 538. The activity of Clovis does not refer to the rum activity (lift up, incorporate) of the little horn in Dn. 8:11, but to the military activity of removing (sur) the self-exalting character of paganism inherent in mankind of which Arianism became integrated and replacing it with the self-exalting character of nominal Christianity of which the papacy became the fountain head. Thus, “the daily” was turned aside or removed and “the abomination which desolates” was set up (Dn. 11:31). The full establishment of the papacy occurred following the decree of Justinian in AD 533 and the retreat and abandonment of the Ostrogoth siege of Rome in March AD 538. This Gothic horn, the last of the three, was thus plucked up before the little horn of Daniel 7. The pope was now free to exercise the power conferred on him five years earlier by Justinian.
The “new view” proponents of “the daily” are unable to exegete this verse, leaving Daniel to self-extinguish in meaningless speculation. Any attempt to suggest that Christ’s High Priestly ministry was taken away in AD 508 either by the institution of penance or the mass cannot be supported. Evidence for the mass appeared as early as the fourth century but the doctrine of transubstantiation was argued and not fully affirmed until AD 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council.(130) Evidence for public confession and penance appeared as early as the third century, but private penance also received its charter at the Fourth Lateran Council in AD 1215 where every Christian was required to confess his sins in penance at least once a year.(131) Daniel’s application of hattamid in both Dn. 11:31 and 12:11 strongly support the view that the “daily” in Dn. 8:11-13 is the self-exalting character of paganism, lifted up and ultimately replaced with the self-exalting character of papal Rome’s nominal Christianity identified in 12:11 as the abomination which desolates.
While the “continual” self-exalting behavior of paganism was “taken up” (rum) into the papacy and “turned aside” or “removed” (sur) politically and militarily, there could never be an actual or literal removal of the ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary. The papacy could only attempt to usurp Christ’s ministry; but Daniel states that the “daily” was removed or turned aside (Dn. 11:31; 12:11). Elsewhere Daniel speaks of the papacy changing God’s law but explicitly states it was only an attempted action: “he shall think to change times and laws” (Dn. 7:25). No power can ever remove or turn aside Christ’s High Priestly ministry (Heb. 4:14-16; 5:6; 6:19, 20; 7:24, 25; 8:1). The papacy never removed or turned aside Christ’s ministry from the minds of true Christians.(132)
The unique perspectives of our exegesis of Daniel 8:9-14 including our identification of “the daily,” which is diametrically opposed to current Adventist scholarship, does not in any way restrict the spiritual significance of the sanctuary. On the contrary, it establishes 1844 and the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary as the only possible understanding of Daniel 8:14.
References:
126) G. F. Hasel, DARCOM:Vol. 2, pp. 378-461.
127) W. H. Shea, DARCOM: Vol. 6, pp. 338-340.
128) F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford: Oxford university Press, p. 307, 1974. (Hereafter referred to as Cross:ODCC)
129) Quoted by U. Smith. See Smith: D & R, p. 328.
130) Cross:ODCC, pp. 475-476.
131) Ibid., p. 1059.
132) E. G. White, Great Controversy, Mountain View: Pacific Press, pp. 61, 74-75.
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