Introduction

ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY YEARS BEFORE the actual events came to fruition in the Middle East, two dedicated Bible scholars predicted accurately several key years in the then approaching conflict for tenure of the holy Land and Jerusalem, involving a long prophesised regathering of the Jews to their Promised Land, after nearly 2000 years of Diaspora.

Doctors Clarke and Guinness pointed well in advance to the coming years 1902, 1917, 1947-8 and 1967 AD, having based their predictions on the 2,500 year old Biblical book of Daniel.

Not only did their advance forecasts prove accurate decades later, but those key 'Signpost Years’ continue to mark events and developments in the holy Land, ever since their occurrence in modern times, that now represent the specific themes of serious contention in the struggle for Peace in that region today.

These following NOTES explain the rational behind the Clarke-Guinness thinking in as fast and concise a form as possible, and elaborations will follow. A second critical aim here is not to prove 'The Signpost Years' correct, but rather to use the scientific approach of attempting their falsification first. You can help either way by passing on any objective comments to this site.

PART 1 Is an Introduction and looks at each of the Signpost Years as they were foretold in the writings of Guinness and Clarke. It looks at many of the side issues and has a number of detailed footnotes.

PART 2 Looks at the period 1901 – 1903, and the first of the Signpost Years predicted by Clarke in 1825. This part explains the huge significance of the period and sets the scene for a further link that comes in Part 4.

PART 3 Begins to address some of the typical questions that might arise in the mind of the reader regarding the Signpost Years. Items are added to this from time to time as new considerations are brought to light. Again, feel free to contribute any comments that will add to those pages.

PART 4 Looks at the Signpost Years in the light of the last 6 months of Christ’s Ministry, and especially the last week of messages He imparted to His followers for the future. It ties directly back into PART 2.


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Click on QUICK LINKS to Parts 1 to 4 of the Signpost Notes:
Part 1: Introduction, Timelines, Conclusion.
Part 2: The SignPost Year 1902 AD and Max Nordau
Part 3: Q & A on the Signpost Years
Part 4: Jesus and the Signpost Years



Wednesday 10 December 2008

PART 3: SIGNPOST YEARS Q&A

OBJECTION: The fact that the predicted signpost years came to fruition for the Jews only proves Hitler’s contention, in Mein Kampf referencing the ‘Protocols’, that they are ‘manipulating world history behind the scene.’

ANSWER: ‘The Signpost Years’ text intentionally included an account of the 1967 Russian Middle East involvement promoting their war technology there while America was looking the other way in Vietnam, even at the cost of a potential war between Arabs and Israel. And a war would have created a USSR chance to stop Israel developing the atom bomb. There are many other examples that show the Jews were not making The Signpost Years ‘come true’.
- see Ginor., Remez and Isabella. ‘Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War.’ Currently in print, Yale University Press. July 2007.
With the Protocols, unfortunately for Hitler and millions who died in World War II as a consequence, the history is somewhat different: “The Jews, claimed Hitler, were planning a world conspiracy, supposedly outlined in ‘The Protocols of Zion’, a forged document…” - McDonough., Frank. ‘Hitler and Nazi Germany’. Cambridge Perspectives in History. Cambridge University Press. 1999. p 14.


OBJECTION: Others have used Daniel, and Clarke’s method, to make predictions and got it wrong. It was inevitable that someone would eventually make a lucky guess.

ANSWER: Yes, a few others have tried, but to our knowledge Clarke was the first and he simply listened to what Daniel was saying. The Bahai and Seventh Day Adventists count 2300 years from 457 BC, for example. This is obviously wrong, the vision starts with Alexander the Great coming up against the Medes and Persians (Dan 8:5-7) and so counts from that point. Any history book will show that this event took place at the Battle of Granicus in 334 BC. That projects to the Signpost year 1967 AD. Why, we should ask the Adventists and Bahai, did the messenger to Daniel in chapter 8 give him decades of superfluous prophetic-history if the vision was not intended to count from Alexander? Similarly the Witnesses got it wrong counting 2520 years from 607 BC, instead of 604 which is factual (see ref.15) and so missed the correct Signpost Year 1917 AD.

Clarke was not guessing, but using sound prophetic Biblical principles and sound historical anchors.


OBJECTION: The signpost years are based on a ‘day for a year’ prophetic reading of Daniel, a system that is simply not indicated in scripture, so the whole line of reasoning is faulty.

ANSWER: Quite simply untrue, many people have written extensively and persuasively (see Kellie below) regarding this ‘day for a year’ prophetic approach which, critically, also works for predicting the arrival of the Messiah, as derived from Daniel 9:24-27. If it’s correct there, and it is, it is correct for other prophetic markers in Daniel, and as used by Clarke and Guinness to pinpoint the Signpost Years. – Kellie., Lawrence. R. ‘Year Day Principle.’ www.historicist.com


OBJECTION: But Daniel uses all kinds of ‘descriptive terms’ associated with his numerical utterances, ‘mornings-evenings’, ‘weeks’, ‘times’, and so on. There is no common theme in any of this and it could all mean absolutely anything you want it to. (Daniel 4:16, 8:14, 9:24)

ANSWER: Just as a year can be described as 52 weeks, or 365 days or evenings, or ‘thirty-one and a half million seconds’, these all reduce to the same thing – a year. And this, basically, is all that Daniel is doing, foretelling key future events encoded in different descriptive terms but which are all reducible to given numbers of the same prophetic time spans - or years. These are, astronomically, ‘Tropical/Julian’ years (see below).


OBJECTION: Clarke and Guinness got it all wrong, the Jews reckon their years differently (Lunar years instead of our Solar years) which throws all the ‘Signpost’ calculations off by miles.

ANSWER: The same principle outlined above applies: it doesn’t matter what nationality you are, Jew or Russian, or system of measuring a year one uses, the fact is that ‘years’ are 365.24220 days in length and any system that does not allow for that (with leap years and so on) would drift in terms of the seasons very quickly. The year that applies universally is used by Daniel, and this works out perfectly well for the prediction of the Messiah (see ref. 18) as well as the Signpost Years.


OBJECTION: Even if the time spans associated with the ‘signpost years’ are correct, there is no ‘rule’ for determining the point from which each is meant to commence. It is arbitrary, perhaps even indicating the date of birth of individuals involved, for example, and means the destination years reached could, similarly, be anything.

ANSWER: Not at all. The trend is clear. It is the arrival of the individual on the stage of human history that counts as the commencement for each of the Signpost timelines. Alexander, for example, had several exploits over a number of years within Macedonia before suddenly, and indelibly, imprinting himself in destiny at Granicus (334 BC) and beyond.
Again, importantly, this principle applies to the Messianic prophecy in Daniel (chapter 9). It does not Signpost the birth of Christ, for example, or His coming of age, but His specific arrival (and subsequent impact) upon the pages of human history (see footnote 18).


OBJECTION: Even if the actual signpost years work out themselves: a) how can the expectations in Daniel 8, pointing to the ‘cleansing of the Sanctuary’ (NKJV) in 1967
and b) in chapter 12 for those being ‘blessed’ at reaching 1948, be squared with actual events?

ANSWER: In a) the word translated by some as ‘cleansing’, while appropriate, is very open in the Hebrew at this verse (8:14), but readily accommodates the retaking of Sovereignty over the Jewish Temple (Sanctuary) area in the 1967 War, with its Western Wall used ever since as a Synagogue and now the central place of Jewish Worship. It has been variously translated: The Sanctuary will ‘emerge victorious’ (NEB), ‘will have its rights restored’(NJB), ‘be dedicated and in use again’ (CEV), ‘be vindicated’ (Interlinear – Green), ‘be re-consecrated’ (NIV), and so on.

In b) Daniel 12, from Clarke’s view, points to the period 1902 to 1948, which time-span exactly matches the physical commencement of the return of Israel, and concludes in its reinstatement as a Sovereign State. Those attaining to the latter were ‘blessed’ indeed, for millions of Jews had fallen in just the prior decade before, and indeed over the preceding centuries also. But Clarke, based on other prophetic markers in Daniel, certainly did not believe that 1947-8 would be the final resolution of all things.


OBJECTION: But Israel has had other Wars and major struggles since 1967, at least in 1973 and twice in Lebanon, for example. Why weren’t they ‘sign-posted’ in Daniel if it’s all supposed to be ‘fulfilling prophecy’?

ANSWER: The set-up for today’s Middle East Crisis exactly matches occurrences arising in the formative Signpost Years. THE CURRENT CONFLICTS, over the ‘Kibbutz/Settlements’ and the ‘Zionist presence’ STARTED in 1902. And the current absence of a Palestinian State problem goes DIRECTLY back to 1917. The current question of the displaced Palestinians arose EXACTLY in 1947-8. Further, the current central ongoing struggle over the Golan Heights, Gaza, and east Jerusalem ownership most especially, commenced PRECISELY in 1967. But, remember? These are the Clarke-Guinness Signpost years!


OBJECTION: The sequence of prophetic events in Denial 12 does not match the historical record at all: it notes a MASS RESURRECTON event (verse 2), for example, followed only then by the so called ‘signpost years’ (verses 11, 12). When and where is that supposed to have taken place? Certainly no one here saw the Resurrection occurring before 1902 AD! The whole ‘signpost’ argument is absurd and does not fit the observed and sequential facts.

ANSWER: Unfortunately for this Objection, prophetic utterances do not always flow in an A to B, or linear succession. They can start with consequential or end results and then recount elaborations that will be their precursors.
The book of Daniel itself is a case in question, for example, starting with a prophetic vision of global powers culminating in the Kingdom of Heaven (chapter 2), declared ahead of all that must precede this and detailed only in the six (prophetic) chapters that follow.
Jesus Christ also supplies another example at Luke 21, relating culminative prophetic happenings, but then back-tracking to their precursor events in verse 12: (‘But before those days, they will…’). This is merely what is happening in Daniel 12 where critical endpoints are elaborated on, ahead of their prophetic antecedents.


OBJECTION: Well, very interesting but even if it seems to fit, it’s nothing more than a huge coincidence.

ANSWER … and the question of ‘coincidences’ and the statistical frequency of representation of The Signpost Years in contemporary literature will be addressed in future Notes.

Karl Krysko © 2007 - Nov 2008