Hi Scott, and welcome to the forum!
My apologies if this has been posted elsewhere.
Right category and right thread. (let alone right forum! )
Watch this video and judge for yourself the validity of the LBL "beast" interpretation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-Ti-dNTw0M
Blessings In Christ
It is valid and evermore so as we watch the entire middle-east Islamic world further consolidating under the rule of the Muslim brotherhood.
Though in regard to his secular number crunching to suggest a conquest of Israel, I believe the times of the gentiles in Jerusalem were fulfilled - for good.
But watch how this other forum's thread develops, to see how the very idea which seems so obvious to you and I through sound hermeneutics, catches in the craw of 21st century futurists and preterists who both must necessarily turn a blind eye to 1900 years of Christian era history.
PS. I am a little concerned about the complexity of your signature. In fact it wasn't until very recently when a member asked me if he could post one, that I allowed the function for the first time, after years of being online. I am concerned it could goof up the database backup. If you could restrict it to a verse or sentence it would be appreciated.
I've been studying watching this for most of my life, at first I believed in the Herbert W. Armstrong interpretation... and he got the "punishers" right in his book "The U.S and GB in Prophesy" (Islamic Nazi Arab hordes) but the rest of it... no so much, at least as the future events are concerned.
I have to say that I have found no other interpretation (False Prophet, AoD etc. etc. right down the line) as cogent and biblically sound as this. (I've studied pretty much all of the "Behold the Beast" website etc. for years now... first time I've posted though.
The Remnant is out there... and God leads them to the truth, one by one...
Kudos and God bless.
As far as the signature thing:
Sorry but I am a total newbie and I'm not sure what you mean about my signature exaclty lol... I didn't do anything except just post that text + pic...
?
Don't even know how to quote on here correctly yet... lol (I'm a fast learner though)
So you can edit my signature however you want because I didn't even do anything with it and don't even know what it is...(the ending I guess maybe)?