Legion Ten Fretensis Fulfills Bible Prophecy

2 February 2009: In continuing to explore historical accounts and research on the Legio X Fretensis, I find the following article to be invaluable in supporting the long-held tradional exegesis of Daniel 9:26 as regards "the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary." Bold emphasis added.

Legion Ten Fretensis fulfills Biblical prophecy
by Terry Nix

"Could such a statement be true? It is hard to conceive indeed that a single Roman legion could have been used to fulfill the words of Jesus Christ concerning Biblical Prophecy. During the siege of Jerusalem, this legion was stationed on the mount of Olives. On the commands of Titus, the entire city was leveled to the ground after it's fall. The literary and archaeological evidence also indicate that the city was totally destroyed in 70 A.D. Not a single building remained standing. Even the Temple was totally destroyed. This was part of Imperial policy to fundamentally change the cities destiny. Only in this way can we explain the tremendous effort and expense involved in removing all signs of the Jewish past. Josephus says "For the war had ruined all the marks of beauty and no one who knew of it of old, coming suddenly upon it would have recognized the place, but, thoughbeside it, he would have looked for the city. —Mark 13:1-2, NIV As he (Jesus) was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” This same prophecy was repeated in —Matthew 24:1-2, NIV as well as —Luke 21:5-6, NIV. An account says a Roman soldier threw in a torch which caught the temple on fire. It was one of the last buildings standing and many Jews were held up in it making a finale stand. Another story says that the temple had a golden roof or golden dome. When the gold was heated to it's melting point, it started to run down between the cracks of it's stone block walls. The Roman soldiers to get to the gold tore the temple apart stone by stone. So much gold was looted by the Roman soldiers at Jerusalem that it lost 1/3 of it's value for some time afterwards. Vespasians Temple to PAX and the construction of the massive Coliseum was financed by this as well. The stationing of the Tenth legion in Jerusalem marked the beginning of Roman colonization of the city. The tenth Legion built several triumphal columns. Two of these bearing inscriptions have been found. The legion also began it's own building program for it's garrison. It made tiles for both it's roof and it's floors in several areas like baths etc. I have owned several legion ten tiles over the past 25 years but most were fragmented. My finest example is in near mint state. This floor tile even has some of the original mortar on it. The stamp reads LEG X FR and is with in an incuse rectangle and can be seen below."

I strongly recommend all serious eschatology students or researchers read the rest of this incredible article and its details by clicking on the link above. In so doing you will read the following statement (again, bold emphasis added):

"The banning on pain of death to all Jews and the building of the Temple of Jupiter on top of their own destroyed Temple was more then they could bear. This led to the second Jewish revolt (132-135 A.D.) and would have placed Legion Ten at the century of the fight once again. Whether or not Legion Ten was forced out of Jerusalem is still debated. Even if the Jews did take Jerusalem, Legion Ten seems to have not feared any counter attacks as no new walls were built by the Jews or Romans during or after this war. The Tenth Legion was transferred from Jerusalem to Aila (modern Agala*) at the end of the third century A.D. to ward off Arab invasion."

*NOTE-- The ruins of the ancient Roman port of "Aila" are located within the modern day Jordanian city Aqaba. North Carolina State University is the sponsor of an archeological project on the site.