The Syrian conflict — and the U.S. decision to strike a base inside the embattled country — is leading to increased concerns about the future of the nation’s civil war, the state of the humanitarian crisis and the best political path forward for diffusing the situation.
But in addition to the ongoing chatter about practical and logistical steps countries like America should take to remedy the crisis there has also been an intense theological debate brewing, with Christians debating whether the events unfolding on the ground in Syria could have some sort of connection to the Bible.
While some point to the current crisis as evidence of “prophecy” — a biblical prediction of an event that has yet to unfold — others decry this notion as irresponsible and wrong-headed. Let’s start by examining arguments made by author Joel Rosenberg, who has pointed to Old Testament scriptures like Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49 to potentially assess the current events unfolding inside Syria.
“We’re watching Damascus unravel…is that the prelude to the completion of those prophesies?” he rhetorically asked, pointing back to Isaiah and Jeremiah, which both say that the city will be “destroyed.” “We don’t know, but Damascus is the oldest continuously inhabited city on the planet…so the fact that it is coming apart is quite extraordinary.”
Following Russia’s air strikes targeting rebels in Syria in October 2015, questions began reemerging in evangelical circles about whether events surrounding the country’s ongoing civil war, which began in 2011, were tied in any way to biblical prophecy.
Rosenberg published a blog post in the wake of the air strikes claiming that Russian president Vladimir Putin is “working hand-in-glove with Iran’s government” in formulating operations in Syria. It came the same week as reports that Iran was waging a ground attack, while Russia was carrying out assaults from the air.
“The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel wrote 2,500 years ago that in the ‘last days’ of history, Russia and Iran will form a military alliance to attack Israel from the north,” Rosenberg wrote. “Bible scholars refer to this eschatological conflict, described in Ezekiel 38–39, as the ‘War of Gog & Magog.’” He added, “Are these sudden and dramatic moves by Moscow and Tehran…simply coincidental, or [do they] have prophetic implications?”
Rosenberg’s question is at the center of the very debate surrounding Iran, Syria, and Russia and their perceived involvement in the end times—one that has attracted a great deal of attention both in Christian circles and in media over the years, as I covered in my book “Armageddon Code.”
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http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2017/april/is-chaos-in-syria-fulfilling-bible-prophecy1
Categories: America, Americas, Arab World, Asia, United States