Freethought & Rationalism Archive

arnoldo · 03-08-2008, 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CountryPreacher

Quote:

Originally Posted by stuart shepherd

Jesus believed that Daniel was a real prophet.

Mark 13:14 (King James Version)
But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:

If Daniel is a fraud, then so is Jesus.

Stuart Shepherd

It's not that Jesus is a "fraud." It's just that he's not God!

Daniel ain't a fraud. Josephus backs up the book of Daniel (unless you believe Josephus is also a fraud).

Source: Antiquities of the Jews - Book XI

Quote:

The Jews also did all together, with one voice, salute Alexander, and encompass him about; whereupon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind. However, Parmenio alone went up to him, and asked him how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews? To whom he replied, "I did not adore him, but that God who hath honored him with his high priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is that, having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the Divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind." And when he had said this to Parmenio, and had given the high priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him, and he came into the city. And when he went up into the temple, he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high priest's direction, and magnificently treated both the high priest and the priests. And when the Book of Daniel was showed him (23) wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended.

Toto · 03-09-2008, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

...
Daniel ain't a fraud. Josephus backs up the book of Daniel (unless you believe Josephus is also a fraud).

Source: Antiquities of the Jews - Book XI
...

Arnoldo: it is well know that passage in Josephus was something he made up, He was not a complete fraud, but he was a propagandist.

Sheshonq · 03-10-2008, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshonq

3. Now you want to change the topic again and talk about Daniel, Medes and Persians. But as usual, your post is merely a distraction: who cares if Daniel knew that the Medes were subjugated to the Persians? How does that explain # 1 or #2, above? During the time that Daniel was written, it was common knowledge that 300 years prior the Persians had conquered the Medes. The author(s) of Daniel are repeating history that was already 3 centuries old by the time.

1. Babylon blah claim blah claim blah blah blah.......

Sorry; this is just a list of the symbology mentioned by Daniel, overlaid with your wishful-thinking interpretations about what that symbology means.

You haven't proven anything here; stating your position is not the same as proving it. Moreover, you haven't dealt with spin's more consistent interpretation, or shown why yours is better.

AND FINALLY:

Since my point was:

During the time that Daniel was written, it was common knowledge that 300 years prior the Persians had conquered the Medes. The author(s) of Daniel are repeating history that was already 3 centuries old by the time.

that means that you've made yet another crippled post that fails to address the argument on the table.

ROFLMAO ROFLMAO ROFLMAO

Sheshonq · 03-10-2008, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Daniel ain't a fraud.

The author(s) of Daniel get many historical details wrong. That doesn't make them frauds; it merely makes them incorrect.

Quote:

Josephus backs up the book of Daniel (unless you believe Josephus is also a fraud).

Josephus, on the other hand, was in many ways a sycophantic fraud who wanted to appease the Romans. This particular passage has already been rejected - how could the priest show Alexander a passage from a book that hadn't been written yet?

PROPHECY FAILS!
:rolling: :rolling: :rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

spin · 03-10-2008, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshonq

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Josephus backs up the book of Daniel (unless you believe Josephus is also a fraud).

Josephus, on the other hand, was in many ways a sycophantic fraud who wanted to appease the Romans.

Wanting to appease the Romans certainly wasn't what Josephus was doing. He was writing to his patrons, just as another subjugated historian, Polybius, was, so the accusation of sycophantic is harsh. Many historians of the period were writing for patrons and their work was hindered by it, but still we find works by Tacitus quite amenable as historical sources.

While Tacitus and Polybius were engaged in a more restricted enterprise of writing histories fundamentally of their own times, Josephus, who did write of his own time, also wrote his antiquities which used materials beyond his experiential control, as the Roman and late Greek collectors of antiquities did, people like Livy and Diodorus. This made the quality of his historical efforts based on those materials only as good as the sources were reliable. What we can see in Josephus is his efforts where possible to corroborate his Jewish sources with non-Jewish sources. For example, while using Daniel as his major source (which we've seen is not a very trustworthy source), he tries to understand it in the context of a source that knew about Nabonidus as the last Chaldean king, so he incorporates the knowledge of Nabonidus, equating him with Belshazzar, in an effort to make the best senses of both his sources. This for us is not functional historical procedure, but it does show the desire on Josephus's part to do it better, to get it right.

We can criticize him for his efforts, but such efforts show the label of "fraud" to be misplaced and wrongheaded. If he is trying to get it right, he wasn't a fraud. Josephus's work is a composite effort, both antiquities and history of his own times. You cannot treat these two aspects equally. Antiquities are only secondary materials which we trawl through for want of anything better. He could not distinguish the differences in quality between Daniel and his unnamed historical source dealing with the same period Daniel ostensibly was. He treated them fundamentally the same. He was only as good as his sources but to his merit he wasn't slavish: he tried to use multiple source wherever possible..

spin

Sheshonq · 03-10-2008, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshonq

Josephus, on the other hand, was in many ways a sycophantic fraud who wanted to appease the Romans.

Wanting to appease the Romans certainly wasn't what Josephus was doing. He was writing to his patrons, just as another subjugated historian, Polybius, was, so the accusation of sycophantic is harsh. Many historians of the period were writing for patrons and their work was hindered by it, but still we find works by Tacitus quite amenable as historical sources.

Josephus, were he alive today, would have been branded a collaborator and a sell-out. His lapdog relationship with the Romans is pretty well known. Britannica:

Quote:

The Romans, under the command of the future emperor Vespasian, arrived in Galilee in the spring of AD 67 and quickly broke the Jewish resistance in the north. Josephus managed to hold the fortress of Jotapata for 47 days, but after the fall of the city he took refuge with 40 diehards in a nearby cave. There, to Josephus' consternation, the beleaguered party voted to perish rather than surrender. Josephus, arguing the immorality of suicide, proposed that each man, in turn, should dispatch his neighbour, the order to be determined by casting lots. Josephus contrived to draw the last lot, and, as one of the two surviving men in the cave, he prevailed upon his intended victimto surrender to the Romans.

Led in chains before Vespasian, Josephus assumed the role of a prophet and foretold that Vespasian would soon be emperor—a prediction that gained in credibility after the death of Nero in AD 68. The stratagem saved his life, and for the next two years he remained a prisoner in the Roman camp. Late in AD 69 Vespasian was proclaimed emperor by his troops: Josephus' prophecy had come true, and the agreeable Jewish prisoner was given his freedom.From that time on, Josephus attached himself to the Roman cause. He adopted the name Flavius (Vespasian's family name), accompanied his patron to Alexandria, and there married for the third time.
[...]
In Rome, Josephus had been granted citizenship and a pension. He was a favourite at the courts of the emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and he enjoyed the income from a tax-free estate in Judaea. He had divorced his third wife, married an aristocratic heiress from Crete, and given Roman names to his children. He had written an official history of the revolt and was loathed by the Jews as a turncoat and traitor. Yet despite all of this, Josephus had by no means abandoned his Judaism. His greatest work, Antiquitates Judaicae ( The Antiquities of the Jews), completed in 20 books in AD 93, traces the history of the Jews from creation to just before the outbreak of the revolt of AD 66–70. It was an attempt to present Judaism to the Hellenistic world in a favourable light. By virtually ignoring the Prophets, by embellishing biblical narratives, and by stressing the rationality of Judaic laws and institutions, he stripped Judaism of its fanaticism and made it appealing to the cultivated and reasonable man. Historically, the coverage is patchy and shows the fatigue of the author, then in his middle 50s. But throughout, sources are preserved that otherwise would have been lost, and, for Jewish history during the period of the Second Commonwealth, the work is invaluable.
[...]
As a historian, Josephus shares the faults of most ancient writers: his analyses are superficial, his chronology faulty, his facts exaggerated, his speeches contrived. He is especially tendentious when his own reputation is at stake. His Greek style, when it is truly his, does not earn for him the epithet “the Greek Livy” that often is attached to his name. Yet he unites in his person the traditions of Judaism and Hellenism, provides a connecting link between the secular world of Rome and the religious heritage of the Bible, and offers many insights into the mentality of subject peoples under the Roman Empire.

Personally, Josephus was vain, callous, and self-seeking. There was not a shred of heroism in his character, and for his toadyism he well deserved the scorn heaped upon him by his countrymen. But it may be said in his defense that he remained true to his Pharisee beliefs and, being no martyr, did what he could for his people.

spin · 03-10-2008, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshonq

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Wanting to appease the Romans certainly wasn't what Josephus was doing. He was writing to his patrons, just as another subjugated historian, Polybius, was, so the accusation of sycophantic is harsh. Many historians of the period were writing for patrons and their work was hindered by it, but still we find works by Tacitus quite amenable as historical sources.

Josephus, were he alive today, would have been branded a collaborator and a sell-out. His lapdog relationship with the Romans is pretty well known.

I guess some Greeks would have labeled Polybius the same way. The label doesn't mean much. And the crass Britannica article doesn't help either. Didn't Tacitus toady to the anti-JulioClaudian patricians? Our job is to be critical of Josephus as a source of historical information, both primary and secondary.

What do you want the man to have done, continued in the folly of many of his compatriots? You wouldn't be able to criticize his efforts if he had done so.

spin

CountryPreacher · 03-10-2008, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Ok, you are stating that the Book of Daniel is not historically accurate and written after the fact, right? Can you just list one or two historical inaccuracies in the book of Daniel? Can you also list the source of the historical record you are using to verify the inaccuracy?

Why didn't you read the OP? As I said: "See the OP" -- you know the first post in the thread. It's a good place to start.

spin

External Evidence against an early date.

Ben Sirach, writing about 190 B.C., in his famous catalogue of he great men of Israel (Ecclus, 44:1-50:24) brings the list down to his own day, yet though he mentions the twelve prophets, Zerubbabel, Joshua, and Nehemiah, he makes no mention of Daniel.

Interpreter's Bible vol 6 p. 349
Introduction by Arthur Jeffery, formerly Professor of Semitic Languages, Columbia, University

arnoldo · 03-10-2008, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CountryPreacher

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Why didn't you read the OP? As I said: "See the OP" -- you know the first post in the thread. It's a good place to start.

spin

External Evidence against an early date.

Ben Sirach, writing about 190 B.C., in his famous catalogue of he great men of Israel (Ecclus, 44:1-50:24) brings the list down to his own day, yet though he mentions the twelve prophets, Zerubbabel, Joshua, and Nehemiah, he makes no mention of Daniel.

Interpreter's Bible vol 6 p. 349
Introduction by Arthur Jeffery, formerly Professor of Semitic Languages, Columbia, University

Thanks, just wondering if you knew an online source where I could find the list of the great men of Israel in order to see how many other famous men (besides Daniel) Ben Sirach didn't list.

The following archaelogical evidence for Babylonians officials listed in Jeremiah 39:3 for your consideration (the source has a PDF file you can view)
The Nebusarsekim Tablet Stadhouders, Henry A.I. 2008

Quote:

Young's Literal Translation
and come in do all the heads of the king of Babylon, and they sit at the middle gate, Nergal-Sharezer, Samgar-Nebo, Sarsechim, chief of the eunuchs, Nergal-Sharezer, chief of the Mages, and all the rest of the heads of the king of Babylon.

ThinkingMan · 03-10-2008, 10:03 PM

A short primer on the dating of Daniel: How to pick up a hot Persian chick.

sorry, couldn't resist.

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03-10-2008, 10:03 PM	#880
ThinkingMan Regular Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Seattle Posts: 116	A short primer on the dating of Daniel: How to pick up a hot Persian chick. sorry, couldn't resist.

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