Q: Is this comparison chart a fair and exegetically honest treatment of Daniel 7 and 8?
A: No. The chart conflates two distinct little horn prophecies, Daniel 7 and Daniel 8, as if they describe the same entity, which is a fundamental exegetical error. Daniel 7's little horn arises from the fourth beast (Rome), while Daniel 8's little horn arises from the third beast (Greece). Even within classic SDA interpretation, these require careful distinction. Blending them to build a cumulative case against the Papacy is rhetorically convenient but hermeneutically sloppy.
Q: What about Daniel 8 specifically? Doesn't the context point to a Greek-era figure?
A: Yes, overwhelmingly so. Daniel 8:20-21 explicitly identifies the ram as Medo-Persia and the goat as Greece. The little horn of Daniel 8 "grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land" (8:9), geographic language that fits the Seleucid expansion under Antiochus IV Epiphanes precisely. He desecrated the Temple (168 BC), abolished Jewish worship, and persecuted covenant-faithful Jews for roughly 2,300 evenings and mornings, a specific, literal period. The angel Gabriel explicitly tells Daniel this vision concerns "the time of the end" of that specific indignation (8:19), referring to the Maccabean crisis, not medieval church history.
Q: But the chart says Antiochus only gets "NO" across the board. Isn't that dishonest?
A: Quite. Antiochus IV did persecute the saints (1 Maccabees 1; Daniel 8:24-25), did change laws and times (abolishing the Torah observances), did claim divine authority (calling himself Epiphanes, "God Manifest"), and his power lasted the exact prophesied duration. The chart's "NO" answers misrepresent Antiochus dramatically and depend entirely on redefining each category to only fit a medieval institution. This is the fallacy of rigged criteria.
Q: What about the "1260 years" and "times, time, and half a time" in Daniel 7:25?
A: The SDA year-day principle applied here (538–1798 AD) is an interpretive tradition, not an exegetically demanded reading. The phrase "time, times, and half a time" appears in Daniel 7:25 and Revelation 12:14 and parallels the 42 months and 1,260 days of Revelation, all of which, in a partial-preterist, New Covenant framework, point to the period of tribulation surrounding the first-century Jewish-Roman War and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. The "saints" being worn down fits the early church under Neronian and Domitianic persecution far more naturally than a 1,260-year calculation that requires a symbolic leap the text itself never demands.
Q: Is the Daniel 7 little horn Rome at all?
A: The fourth beast of Daniel 7 is widely understood as Rome and within a partial-preterist hermeneutic, the little horn can refer to Nero Caesar or the Flavian dynasty, whose persecution of the church and blasphemous claims (Nero as divine, Domitian demanding "Lord and God") fit the textual markers well. The "three horns uprooted" correspond to the Year of the Four Emperors (AD 68-69). The "wearing out of the saints" reflects the Neronian persecution. This reading requires no year-day speculation; it takes the text more literally, not less.
Q: Doesn't the Papacy still fit some of the criteria, though?
A: Some historical features are genuinely notable and deserve honest theological critique the Papacy has exercised enormous institutional authority, has persecuted dissenters, and has claimed spiritual jurisdiction that many Protestants rightly challenge. But fitting some criteria does not make a prophetic identification exegetically valid. The methodology here works backward from a desired conclusion. If you define "changed times and laws" as the liturgical calendar and canon law, the Papacy fits. If you define it as Antiochus abolishing the Torah and Sabbath observances as the text's own context demands, Antiochus fits far better.
Q: What's the core methodological problem with this chart?
A: Three things:
First, the conflation of Daniel 7 and Daniel 8 is treated as one prophecy when they are distinct visions with different beasts, different symbolism, and different scopes.
Second, rigged criteria: each category is defined post hoc to exclude Nero and Antiochus and include the Papacy, rather than letting Daniel's own context define the terms.
Third, anachronistic hermeneutics: the chart assumes a futurist or historicist framework without defending it, while dismissing the preterist reading that has strong exegetical and historical support from the early church fathers (e.g., Eusebius, Chrysostom on Daniel 8).
Q: What's the bottom line for a Reformed Christian evaluating this?
A: Approach Daniel with grammatical-historical exegesis first. Let the text's own contextual clues and the explicit angelic interpretations in Daniel 8:20-21 guide identification before imposing a prophetic grid. The SDA historicist framework has a particular denominational interest in identifying the Papacy as the little horn because it anchors their distinctive Sabbatarian and investigative judgment doctrines. That's a significant theological motivation to account for when evaluating their apologetic. Honest exegesis should follow the evidence where it leads, and in Daniel 8, Gabriel himself points us toward the Hellenistic period, not medieval Rome.
The Three Unanswered Challenges: SDA's Fatal Silence on the Sabbath Change Claim
Q: SDAs claim the Papacy "changed the Sabbath to Sunday" as proof of fulfilling Daniel 7:25's "change times and laws." Have SDAs ever been able to substantiate this claim with historical specifics?
A: No, and this is one of the most devastating unresolved problems in the entire SDA prophetic framework. Despite decades of debate, SDAs have been unable to answer three direct historical challenges that strike at the very heart of their "Papacy changed the Sabbath" argument:
Challenge #1: Who is the Pope responsible for?
Name the specific Pope who officially changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday within the alleged 1,260-year period of 538 AD to 1798 AD.
SDAs cannot answer this because no such Pope exists in the historical record. There is no papal bull, no encyclical, and no decree from any identifiable pope within that window that formally changed the day of Christian worship from Saturday to Sunday. Sunday worship predates 538 AD by centuries; it is attested in Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107 AD), Justin Martyr (c. 150 AD), and the Didache, long before any papal supremacy was established. If the change happened before the SDA's own proposed prophetic window, their entire timeline collapses.
Challenge #2: When did the change happen?
Give a specific date or year within 538 AD–1798 AD when this official change was enacted.
Again, silence. SDAs typically point to vague references like the Council of Laodicea (363 AD), which is outside their own 1,260-year window, or quote Catholic catechisms boasting about the change, which are apologetic claims, not historical documentation of a specific papal act. A claim this central to SDA theology and prophetic identity demands a specific, verifiable date. None has ever been produced.
Challenge #3: Which Ecumenical Council ratified this change?
Identify the Ecumenical Council that formally supported the Pope in changing the Sabbath to Sunday between 538 AD and 1798 AD.
No such council existed within that period. The seven Ecumenical Councils (Nicaea I through Nicaea II, 325–787 AD) did not convene to legislate a Sabbath-to-Sunday change, and none falls neatly within the SDA window in a way that addresses this claim. The Council of Laodicea predates it. The later medieval councils (Lateran, Trent) dealt with other controversies entirely. SDAs cannot produce a council, a canon, or a decree that formally enacted this alleged change within their own prophetic timeframe.
Q: Why does the inability to answer these three challenges matter so much?
A: Because the entire SDA identification of the Papacy as the little horn of Daniel 7 pivots on the "changed times and laws" criterion. Remove that, and the prophetic identification loses its most distinctive and historically specific plank. If SDAs cannot demonstrate who, when, and by what conciliar authority the Sabbath was changed within their own 1,260-year framework, then they are making a prophetic claim without historical substance. This is not a peripheral issue; it is load-bearing to their entire eschatological and ecclesiological system, including the Investigative Judgment, the Three Angels' Messages, and their identity as the remnant church.
The honest conclusion is that Sunday worship was an organic, early church development rooted in the Resurrection (John 20:1, Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:2, Revelation 1:10), not a medieval papal conspiracy. And if there was no papal change, then the "changed times and laws" marker as SDAs apply it simply does not point to the Papacy.
