The Days Were Shortened

From Mathew
22And if the days had not been shortened, (in the time of Daniel) no flesh would survive what is to come: but for the mercy of God those days were shortened.[1]

A day is the length of time it takes the Earth to make one rotation around its axis. The only way the days can be shortened is if the Earth is made to spin faster. The only way this could happen is if a celestial object struck the Earth near the equator, with an inbound trajectory in the same direction as the Earth’s rotation. In the spiritual context, it would be like the Hand of God slapping the Earth in a manner similar to someone balancing a basketball on their finger and making it spin faster by hitting it in the same direction as the spin.

It is hard to accept the idea of the Earth being moved in any manner. Perhaps this is why the true nature of the abomination of desolation and the shortening of the days has been written out of the Bible. The general populous has barely come to grips with the fact that the Earth is still prone to impact situations. But few people have ever seriously considered how the world might be moved by one of these events. The idea of something like this happening during the life of Daniel (in 500BC) is out of the question.

The shortening the days is not specifically mentioned in the Book of Daniel, these words are found no where else in the Bible except in the Book of Mathew. The Gospels were originally written in Greek. It is logical to assume that they were pinned by early followers of Jesus who were from that area. The Greek author Herodotus has come to be known as the father of history due to his efforts to record all the legacies of the major cultures living around the Mediterranean. Great thinkers like Socrates also lived in the same era. Records of the shortening of the days in 500BC were probably available in the libraries of Athens at the time the Gospels were written.

The story of the exile of the Jews to Babylon is only told in the Book of Daniel. This book is essentially about how Daniel survived under the rule of several Babylonian kings and his visions of the Son of Man. It is a very important book to the Christians and the Jews because he is apparently the first prophet to communicate with the great soul who would in incarnated as Jesus. And, Jesus told him what was going to happen while Daniel was alive up until the Second Coming. Unfortunately, somewhere down the line the Hebrew scribes rearranged the Book of Daniel to negate the words of Jesus about Michael standing up and unleashing the abomination of desolation while Daniel was alive.

Both the Jews and the Christians agree that there will be a New Covenant. For the Christians, it will be Jesus who ushers in this Covenant at the end of the age. The Jews acknowledge Jesus as a prophet but are waiting for another Messiah to appear at the dawn of the next age. For those who hold to the second view about the coming of the Son of Man, the Bible was apparently altered at some point to reflect only two age ending transitions. One occurred at the time of Noah when beasts and sub-humans were eliminated from the Earth. The other is still to come and will be instigated by a Messiah who has not come to Earth as of yet. All other references to the passing of ages were removed, including the shortening of the days during the life of Daniel.

There is however, a fair amount of scientific evidence to support the occurrence of a global cataclysm around 500 BC. So far, most of it is circumstantial and no one has put the pieces together. This evidence includes the destruction of the First Temple, the destruction of west coast of South America and Mexico, the loss of written records throughout the world and geological upheavals that occurred around this time. However, without the effort to identify the impact site the truth about what caused all of these events and the shortening of the days will never be acknowledged.



[1] Ibid, Chapter 24, Verse 22.