The main purpose of this article, and the subsequent ones, is to specifically point out the inconsistencies and contradictions in our traditional interpretation of the prophecy of the 2,300 evenings and mornings. These are questions that the membership can ask district pastors, association leaders, and ultimately qualified theologians from the Biblical Research Institute, who will hardly be able to give us an objective and satisfactory answer. The second reason is to help our leaders remove the veil that has clouded their prophetic understanding by accepting traditions and beliefs about prophecies based on assumptions and deductions formulated by our sincere pioneers, without any biblical or historical basis, due to the prevailing level of ignorance at that time.
The third purpose is to motivate a specific review of the beliefs that will be questioned in this article and the following ones, in order to seek and be on the side of the truth. It is worth noting that some of the material that we will consider in this article has already been shared in previous articles in a general way, but this time it will question and challenge to provide a satisfactory answer to each question. The first question is: What is the “continual” in Daniel 8? Or in other words: What does the continual consist of? We start with this question because it is the central question that points out in Daniel 8:11, the beginning of the desecration of the sanctuary with the suspension of the continual, and in verses 13 and 14, it inquires about the duration of said suspension, which another heavenly being answers would be for 2,300 evenings and mornings, and which we interpret to be 2,300 years that ended in 1844.
The above biblical interpretation forces us to ask ourselves: What was the continual, and how could it be removed or suspended for a period of 2,300 years, after which it is restored as the first step in the total vindication of the sanctuary? Before attempting to answer the previous question, we must clarify that “continual” comes from the Hebrew word “tamid.” The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, volume 4, pages 868-869, helps us understand the meaning of the word continual in the Scriptures, and particularly in Daniel 8:11, by stating: “Continual Sacrifice. Heb. “tamid,” a word that appears 103 times in the Old Testament and is used as an adverb and as an adjective.” As a time adverb, it means continually or continual, and “applies to various concepts such as … the lamp that was to burn continually, Exodus 27:20; the fire that was to burn continually on the altar, Leviticus 6:13; the offerings that were to be made daily, Numbers 28:3-6, etc.” In chapter 8:11, “tamid” is used as a substantivized adjective, as there is no other noun; therefore, it invariably refers to the daily ritual of the morning and evening sacrifice. In the Talmud, when “tamid” is used independently (as a noun) as it is here, the word uniformly refers to the daily sacrifice”
The Adventist Bible Dictionary, on page 246, confirms the previous statements, recording: “In late Hebrew, ‘tamid’ is the technical term for the full daily offering that was presented morning and evening… In Daniel 8:11-14, the power symbolized by the little horn desolates the sanctuary and interrupts its ritual services, but after a period of 2,300 days, the sanctuary will be cleansed or vindicated,” and consequently, the ritual services of the sanctuary that had been suspended, like the continual, would be restored. Despite the honest and categorical statements from the qualified sources mentioned above, our theologians have deliberately ignored them because they do not fit our traditional interpretation of Daniel 8, which we have held for approximately 170 years.
Rejecting the previous biblical explanations of what the continual is poses a problem, as it creates an interpretive vacuum in the meaning of that term that we have been unable to fill throughout the history of our church, despite all attempts. In order to better understand the above, it must be mentioned that for William Miller, the continual represented pagan Rome, which had to be removed to make way for papal Rome, an interpretation that Uriah Smith adopted, and which our church accepted and upheld for the following 50 years after 1844 (Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, volume 4, pages 66-68). At the end of the 19th century, a new line of thinking arose within the church regarding the meaning of the continual, proposing that the continual that had been removed was the priestly ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, replaced by human services instituted by the pope. This interpretation led to a disagreement among the church leaders of that time, with some defending Smith’s “old interpretation” and others approving the “new concept.”
In this struggle, both sides turned to Sister White to define the matter, and she rebuked them for engaging in discussions of little importance, adding that God had not given her any instruction on the matter. However, despite Sister White’s statement, at the beginning of the 20th century (1910), our theologians continue to preach from the pulpits and write in our books that the suspension of the continual consisted of the alleged substitution of the Lord’s priestly ministry in the heavenly sanctuary by the small horn or the papacy, as the representative and mediator between God and man.
This interpretation presents the following temporal and ritual inconveniences:
1 – If the papacy, which removed the continual and usurped the high priestly function of the Lord, represents the little horn in Daniel 8: How could it remove the continual in 457 BC, during the Persian Empire, eight hundred years before its emergence as a religious institution?
2 – The papacy, which kept the continual suspended for 2,300 years, leading to the alleged religious usurpation that ended in 1844, why did it continue to claim to be the mediator between God and man after 1844 when the continual had already been restored as the first step in the total vindication of the sanctuary?
To conclude, it is important to highlight a statement from the Adventist Bible Commentary, in volume IV, page 869; where it is noted that our church still does not have an official position on what the continual in Daniel 8 means, stating: “Perhaps this is one of the passages of Scripture for which we must wait for a better day to have a definitive answer.” After reading the above statement, we must ask ourselves: How do we intend to understand and explain the prophecy of Daniel 8 if we cannot explain what the suspension and restoration of the continual consisted of after 2,300 evenings and mornings, pivotal events in the prophetic revelation of Daniel 8? On the other hand, how can we claim that UNDERSTANDING AND DEFINING WHAT THE CONTINUAL IS, IS A MATTER OF LITTLE IMPORTANCE, when the other elements mentioned in the prophecy revolve around the suspension of the continual, which was the first step in the desecration of the sanctuary mentioned in Daniel 8:11, and the reinstatement of the same, which should also be the first step in its vindication?
If we do not have an official interpretation and explanation of what constituted the continual, our entire interpretation of the prophecy of Daniel 8 loses credibility and requires a revision to make sense and be supported by Scripture and history; otherwise, it remains a collection of well-intentioned assumptions and deductions lacking coherence, and divorced from what is revealed in the book of Daniel. Blessings.
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