James Nagy
For many decades, there has been an increasing interest in Bible prophecy and the end times. People are fascinated by the rapture, the tribulation and the mark of the beast. Unfortunately, many of the sensationalized themes that are promoted today are based upon a faulty interpretation of the Bible and are accepted by a naive audience who lacks a knowledge of history. Many of the Old Testament and New Testament prophecies are taken out of their historical context. The purpose of this book is to provide that historical context so that the Bible can be more easily understood. Different chapters will take the reader on a journey of Israel in the historical setting of five of the great empires that shaped the nation: Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Along the way, we will look at the prophecies of Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel and others who spoke during the reign of these empires. We will study the Beasts of Daniel and Revelation, Gog and Magog, the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity, the destruction of the temple in AD 70, and see how Bible prophecy spoke to these events. Different views of the millennium will be compared, such as premillennialism and a-millennialism. We will discuss different interpretive frameworks such as the preterist and futurist views. The reader will also be introduced to the origins of the modern end-times view that began in 1830 and see how it has grown in popularity to become the dominant view today.
