The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

III. Bibliander-Antichrist Is Papacy; Millennium Yet Future

THEODOR BIBLIANDER (1504-1564), lecturer on the Apocalypse, was born near Constance. Called the “Father of Biblical Exegesis in Switzerland,” ¹⁵ he studied Hebrew at Zurich, and in 1526 under Oecolampadius at Basel. After teaching high school for two years he became Zwingli’s successor as professor of theology and Old Testament literature at Zurich, in 1531. His specialty was linguistics, for he was master of numerous languages. His rendering of the prophets was highly successful, winning the commendation of Bullinger, who attended his lectures. He wrote a Hebrew grammar and also published a Latin translation of the Koran in 1543. ¹⁶ Openly attacking the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent, he antagonized the Roman College of the Propaganda, and advocated missions to Jews and Mohammedans. With others he completed the Zurich Bible of Leo Juda. Openly and strenuously opposing Calvinism in its conception of predestination, he was finally dismissed from office in 1560. Many of his manuscripts were never published but are preserved at Zurich. ¹⁷ PFF2 338.1

1. 6,000-YEAR PERIOD FOLLOWED BY MILLENNIUM

Bibliander’s purpose, as expressed on the title page of his Relatio Fidelis (1545), was to give a “faithful relation” that “from the only Word and Son of God is to be sought exact knowledge of present and future times, and even of Antichrist himself, as the worst plague of the whole world.” He was persuaded that after six thousand years of prevailing wickedness there would come the still future predicted millennium of righteousness, and that it therefore behooves us to study the signs and prophecies to know when it is near. ¹⁸ Holding the prophetic time measurement to be a day for a year (Ezekiel 4), he counted the seventy weeks of Daniel 9 from the 32nd year of Darius Hystaspes to the birth of Christ (A.D. I). ¹⁹ PFF2 338.2

2. SEALS AND TRUMPETS ARE SUCCESSIVE AGES

In the midst of the Turkish inroads he declared that the Papacy was worse than the Turk, and is the Antichrist predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation 17. ²⁰ He held the seals and trumpets to be so many successive periods. According to Revelation 10, the gospel is to be reinstated, whereby Antichrist will be revealed. ²¹ In 1533 he published appeals to return to the Bible as the only rule of faith and the only means of uniting Protestants. PFF2 339.1