The Dome of the Rock = "the Abomination of Desolation"

The Dome of the Rock is a Muslim shrine    
set up right where the Jewish Temple had stood.    
It defiles that holy spot because it is a pagan building "standing where it ought not"(Mark 13.14).    
Why is the Dome of the Rock important?      
Because it enables us to figure out the approximate time of the start of the Tribulation.    
(The Rapture occurs at the start of the Trib.)  
For Daniel 12.11 alludes to the Jewish Temple by speaking of "the ending of the regular sacrifices".    
Which is shorthand for the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple which occurred right after that cessation of the sacrifices.    
The absence of the Jewish Temple cleared the way for the Muslim shrine to replace it.    
Yes, from the Jewish point of view that was the time that "the abomination of desolation was set up"(Dan. 12.11)!!    
     
At that point "1290 days" are mentioned without explanation.    
Since days stand for years, the message is that we are to count off 1290 years from the time that the Dome of the Rock was begun to be built.    
     
Evidently some notewothy event is to take place 1290 years after the erecting of the Dome of the Rock.    
When would that be?Well the Muslims took control of Jerusalem around 635 AD.    
And the Dome of the Rock was finished in 691 AD.    
So the starting point was between those two dates.    
Some Christians on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land wrote in their journal that a crude Muslim edifice was already in place by the 680s.    
     
If we take 677 as the year of the building of the temporary Muslim building later succeeded by the Dome of the Rock,    
this allows us to end up with 1967 AD as the 1290th year.    
That is supported by the fact that the amazing Six Days War took place in June 1967 !!    
At which time the Israeli army liberated the area called "the Temple Mount" !!    
Yes, 1967 fits as the 1290th year for no other year  provides any competition whatsoever in terms of events concerning the Jerusalem Temple.    
Lastly, we read, "Blessed is he who..attains to [the end of] the 1335 [years]" (Dan. 12.12)!!    
That would mean 1967  + 45 years or the end of 2012.    
Presumably the Tribulation Period should have begun with the "sudden destruction" which causes the departure of saved souls from dying bodies (and from this world.)    
In the glorious event called the Rapture(1st Thessalonians 4.17-5.3).    
     
But America escaped Judgment Day in 2012, at least temporarily.    
But we can add the "three and a half years" of Daniel 7.25 to late 2012, bringing us to mid 2016.    
For that period of time was supposed to be the length of the Tribulation in the future.    
But Christ said He would "shorten the days" of the Tribulation(Matthew 24.22),    
leaving the "3.5 years" available for some  form of substitutionary purpose.    
But the 3.5 years don't work, for they bring us only to mid 2016.    
But wait a minute.    
In the original text, it reads vaguely, "a time, times and half a time"(Dan. 7.25).      
This is usually interpreted as a year plus    
2 years plus half a year.    
But "times" need not be limited to just 2 years.    
We are free, "under grace," (Romans 6.14) to take "times" just one step further to mean 3 years !!    
And so this brings us to the middle of 2017.    
Don't be surprised if mid-October 2017 (feast of Tabernacles, Zechariah 14.16) turns out to be a time that will "live in infamy," to borrow a phrase from FDR.