Originally posted by Lord Lucien
I don't know about you, but I think it's a tad odd that you feel these faith-based assertions can be undermined at all by anyone. Is your faith wobbling?
It's an understanding of this scripture:
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)
Of course what I will tell you about faith-based things will sound ridiculous and be undermined by someone like you...
The silk road.
The Jews were scattered abroad by then in the Jewish diaspora. It doesn't fit the theme of what the prophecy was getting across.
No that doesn't explain it. What of the Muslim empires that ruled over Judea and Jerusalem from the beginning of their conquests all the way until modern Israel? That's roughly 1,400 years of history that's totally ignored by the Book of Daniel's prophecy.
Most of the Jews were out of Judea by that point. They migrated into Europe for the most part. There were some still in Judea at the time, but for the most part it was completely Arab. That's why there's such a big conflict in the middle east. The Jews desired to go back to the land that was (and still is) rightfully theirs, and the Arabic Muslims hold to the "finders keepers" approach (it doesn't help that the fundamental Muslims want to push Israel into the sea). This exact conflict was predicted way back in the Book of Genesis with Isaac and Ishmael. Ishmael wanted to be the heir, but it was rightfully Isaac's. Isaac begat Jacob, who begat the twelve tribes of Israel. Ishmael begat the Arabic peoples.
Anyway, by then, the Muslim caliphate and Ottoman empire wouldn't really qualify because the Jews were not collectively in Israel at the time of their formation and power. Again, the 4 main empires that have come and gone on the statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream all have one thing in common: All had a direct relation to Israel when they were collectively within their homeland. Neither the Ottomans nor the caliphate meet that criteria.
Why is the immensely destructive genocide attempt by the Nazi empire not mentioned to Daniel? That's something that God should have mentioned. He can warn him ~700 years in to the future, but not further? Why the cut-off date at 70 AD?
The Holocaust is talked about quite a bit in scripture. Not specifically, but as something that would happen to the Jewish people if they turned from God:
"And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the Lord thy God. And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:" (Deuteronomy 28:62-66)
That happened quite a bit in history, actually. The Nazi Holocaust was just the worst of them all. This is for two reasons:
1) They repeatedly denied the God of their fathers, who came down from heaven to save them. In fact, they were the ones who hanged Him on the cross.
2) The formation of the Kabbalah in the middle ages, and its expansion and acceptance in the centuries following. While Jewish mysticism existed since the days of the Exodus (they made the golden calf, remember), it wasn't until the Kabbalah that it received mainstream Jewish acceptance. Mysticism and witchcraft are outright BANNED by the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) and is given a death penalty in the Levitical law.
Why not mention the Nazi empire in Nebuchadnezzar's dream? Because the Nazi German empire did not directly deal with Israel when they were collectively within their homeland. That is the criteria. Israel as a nation (or even as a region, like Judea) did not exist during the Nazi regime in Germany.
Neo-Babylon, Medo-Persia, Hellenistic Greece and Rome all fit that criteria, and all are considered great empires of the past. The last empire upon the earth, which is coming, will also fit that criteria.
This is one of the reasons why Israel HAD to become a nation again in order for the end times to really begin. The Bible predicts many times that Israel would become a nation again, even going so far as to say it would be born "at once" and "in one day".
On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel".
Why couldn't God let him see further? What was God's explanation for this lapse in prophecy? And again, why are they referred to as "world empires"? They only fall within a certain, small, area of the world? Why that name?
God could have let him see much further. That obviously wasn't God's purpose for Daniel. Just like it wasn't his purpose for Isaiah, or Ezekiel, or Jeremiah, Hosea, Zechariah, Zephaniah, Amos, Joel, etc.
God's plan is hidden from mankind, and a lot of the time we don't understand why certain things happen the way they do. In the end, it all ties together perfectly, and makes sense.
It's fairly obvious that multiple authors over a number of generations accumulated these stories based upon their own, then-present settings. Rome was the last earthly empire becuase that was the big one that existed at the time of writing. These empire are called "world empires" because that area of the world is largely what was known to those people at the time.
That is your opinion. You are entitled to your opinion, but I suggest being diligent in this matter. It's a matter of life or death, really.