"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, whoso readeth, let him understand:" Matthew 24:15.
The "traditionalist" view of this particular verse (as opposed to Christ's mentioning of the Second Coming elsewhere in Matthew) seems to be that the "abomination of desolation" refers to the pagan standards and flags (representing the emperor) of the Romans as they marched on Jerusalem. Titus actually conquered Jerusalem, but it was Nero who began the campaign against the Jewish rebellion shortly before his suicide (68 CE). He was not held in high regard by the Christian community of the day, having conducted the great persecution after the burning of Rome.
F.F. Bruce in 1884: "When the temple area was taken by the Romans, and the sanctuary itself was still burning, the soldiers brought their legionary standards into the sacred precincts, set them up opposite the eastern gate, and offered sacrifice to them there, acclaiming Titus as imperator (victorious commander) as they did so. The Roman custom of offering sacrifice to their standards had already been commented on by a Jewish writer as a symptom of their pagan arrogance, but the offering if such sacrifice in the temple court was the supreme insult to the God of Israel. This action, following as it did the cessation of the daily sacrifice three weeks earlier, must have sensed to many Jews, as it evidently did to Josephus, a new and final fulfillment of Daniel's vision of a time when the continual burnt offering would be taken away and the abomination of desolation set up" (Bruce, p. 224) |
