Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

DESOLATING SACRILEGE

The usurping of God’s prerogative of worship by a pagan political power (Heb. šiqqûs šōmēm; Gk. bdélygma tḗs erēmṓseōs); also called the abomination of desolation. A part of the Jewish and early Christian apocalyptic traditions, the desolating sacrilege occurred in 167 b.c.e. with the desecration of the Jerusalem temple by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Dan. 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; 1 Macc. 1:54, 59). Antiochus forcibly ended Jewish worship and introduced the worship of Zeus Olympios (2 Macc. 6:1), placing an altar to Zeus upon the altar of burnt offerings (Josephus Ant. 12.253). In Daniel the phrase “desolating sacrilege” is perhaps a mocking distortion of “Lord of Heaven” (baʿal šāmên), the Greek Zeus Olympios.

Subsequent Jewish tradition and the NT regarded this desolating sacrilege as a prophetic paradigm for analogous idolatrous attacks on the people of God by pagans. Jesus prophesied that a desolating sacrilege would occur in Judea (Matt. 24:15; Mark 13:14), but the referent is uncertain. Proposals include Caligula’s attempt to erect his statue in the temple in 39-40 c.e.; events leading to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 c.e. (Luke 21:20), especially the activity of the Zealots in the temple (Josephus BJ 4.196-207); and the coming of the antichrist. Paul’s man of lawlessness (2 Thess. 2:1-12) and the beast of Revelation (Rev. 13, 17) are other versions of the desolating sacrilege tradition.

Bibliography. D. Ford, The Abomination of Desolation in Biblical Eschatology (Washington, 1979).

Duane F. Watson

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

DESOLATING SACRILEGE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)