The European Union in Prophecy The EU in Prophecy I | Page 558

The European Union in Prophecy
vol. IV, The Great Century A.D. 1800-A.D. 1914 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941),
pp. 2-4.
Pages 327, 329. [Return to Pages: 327, 329, 399 ] Prophetic Dates.--According
to Jewish reckoning the fifth month (Ab) of the seventh year of Artaxerxes' reign was
from July 23 to August 21, 457 B.C. After Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem in the autumn
of the year, the decree of the king went into effect. For the certainty of the date 457
B.C. being the seventh year of Artaxerxes, see S. H. Horn and L. H. Wood, The
Chronology of Ezra 7 (Washington, D. C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1953);
E. G. Kraeling, The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri (New Haven or London, 1953),
pp. 191-193; The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Washington, D.C.:
Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1954), vol. 3, pp. 97-110.
Page 335. Fall of the Ottoman Empire.--The impact of Moslem Turkey upon
Europe after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 was as severe as had been the
catastrophic conquests of the Moslem Saracens, during the century and a half after
the death of Mohammed, upon the Eastern Roman Empire. Throughout the
Reformation era, Turkey was a continual threat at the eastern gates of European
Christendom; the writings of the Reformers are full of condemnation of the Ottoman
power. Christian writers since have been concerned with the role of Turkey in future
world events, and commentators on prophecy have seen Turkish power and its decline
forecast in Scripture.
For the latter chapter, under the "hour, day, month, year" prophecy, as part of
the sixth trumpet, Josiah Litch worked out an application of the time prophecy,
terminating Turkish independence in August, 1840. Litch's view can be found in full
in his The Probability of the Second Coming of Christ About A.D. 1843 (Published in
June, 1838); An Address to the Clergy (published in the spring of 1840; a second
edition, with historical data in support of the accuracy of former calculations of the
prophetic period extending to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, was published in 1841);
and an article in Signs of the Times and Expositor of Prophecy, Aug. 1, 1840. See also
article in Signs of the Times and Expositor of Prophecy, Feb. 1, 1841; and J. N.
Loughborough, The Great Advent Movement (1905 ed.), pp. 129-132. The book by
Uriah Smith, Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation, rev. ed. of 1944, discusses the
prophetic timing of this prophecy on pages 506517.
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