Casper

I'll have to say I don't quite agree.

If Daniel is completely omitted by Ben Sirah, later named heroic in Maccabees, and yet later exhaulted by Josephus then it tells me there is evolution of the character to say the least.

I don't follow your insistence that it is failed prophecy and nothing more, because to Josephus it wasn't failed prophecy, obviously. Likewise it wouldn't represent failed prophecy/incorrect history to much of its audience. How would they know?

Sheshonq

Not hardly. It's merely how you would like to set the game up. There's a world of difference between those two.

No, that is a conclusion based upon the internal evidence of the text.

You have got to be kidding me. You want to infer from Josephus' silence on any hypothetical reshaping of opinion, that somehow proves his viewpoint represents not only all of 1st century Jews, but it can also be *extended* backwards to also represented Jews 200 years prior?

What kind of joke is that?

Nonsense. The fact that Josephus speaks in a certain manner about something does absolutely zero to demonstrate that Jews two centuries before him would have the same viewpoint. It does not "take us back" to anything whatsoever. You are stretching so hard that I'm afraid you're going to snap in two, if you don't refrain.

1. No, what I said is that you pushed this on this audience and overlooked the fact that it's not a witness for the time period you tried to claim it was. I caught you red-handed.

2. I don't have to produce a witness to support your strange theory. Ignoring for the moment that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, this whole Josephus rat-hole was your own creation to support one of your sidetracks. Why should I be obliged to find contrary witnesses for one of your frankenstein arguments? You brought it to life, you need to support the argument.

Actually, for the discussion to progress, it would help if you supported some of the claims you've abandoned in this thread, as well as explain some of the points you keep evading. Would you like a list?


Item #1:

You originally claimed that Daniel contained precise geographic location about the Battle of Ulai. Let me refresh your memory:

Historians have since long known that the battle of Ulai was fought somewhere in Elam, but it is Daniel that gives a precise location for it.

What you need to do is explain that statement in light of the fact that:

(a) it isn't clear whether a river or canal is meant here;
(b) the identification of which body of water is "Ulai" is not even agreed upon;
(c) the reference in Dan 8 doesn't mention a battle;
(d) the historical event (Battle of Ulai) was already known by that name and connected to the river - therefore, how did the Daniel reference create any more precision in the location than what already existed with the name of the battle already;

Item #2: Daniel 5:30 and 5:31

* No mention of Cyrus II, the actual conqueror of Babylon;
* No mention of Cambyses II, who ruled after Cyrus;
* No mention of the almost two decades that intervened between (a) the fall of the Chaldeans and (b) the reign of Darius I (539 to 522);
* No "Darius the Mede" in any case;
* No conquest, no uprisings by spurious "Nebuchadnezzars", no revolt in Babylon against the Persians, no protracted military engagement to re-take Babylon - NOTHING

Dan 5:30 slides right into 5:31 and misses all these things.

Item #3: assorted claims that have no citations to support them:

You claimed:

would have made use of a word ‘Ulai’ of which (a) there is no precedent elsewhere in the Tanakh and (b) whose general use was probably discontinued well before the fall of the Persian Empire and (c) certainly after 330 BC?


I'm still waiting on (a), (b) and (c).

Item #4: your reasoning WRT: Daniel's dreams

First you say that Daniel "carefully" mentions certain events, to date the dreams. Then you say that his audience doesn't need the dates, because the story is already known. If the audience can leave off the dates (due to familiarity with the story) then for what reason was Daniel "carefully" mentioning dates? You just said the audience wouldn't find that information necessary.

Moreover, if the person Daniel is addressing "knows the story too well" then regnal dating wouldn't even be invoked at all; it would be left off. The story would be recognizable merely from its own distinctive internal details.

Item #5: citadel vs. capital

The only support you seem to have for "capital" comes from the RSV; the mjaority of bible translations disagree with you. In light of that, please explain your insistence on capital?

Item #6: Kitchen's analysis of Aramaic

You claimed the following:

Basically, Kitchen threw a reasonable doubt into the debate, which had so far been dominated by Driver’s opinion that occurrence of Greek words in Daniel was proof of its having been written in the Hellenistic period. To this extent, he challenged mainstream.

But Kitchen's work says otherwise. Why did you mispresent Kitchen?

Summary. What, then, shall we say of the Aramaic of Daniel? It is, in itself; as long and generally agreed, integrally a part of that Imperial Aramaic which gathered impetus from at least the seventh century BC and was in full use until c. 300 BC, thereafter falling away or fossilizing where it was not native and developing new forms and usages where it was the spoken tongue. If proper allowance be made for attested scribal usage in the Biblical Near East (including orthographical and morphological change, both official and unofficial), then there is nothing to decide the date of composition of the Aramnaic of Daniel on the grounds of Aramaic anywhere between the late sixth and the second century BC. Some points hint at an early (especially pre-300), not late, date—but in large part could be argued to be survivals till the second century BC, just as third—second century spellings or grammatical forms must be proved to be original to the composition of the work before a sixth—fifth century date could be excluded. The date of the book of Daniel, in short, cannot be decided upon linguistic grounds alone.259 It is equally obscurantist to exclude dogmatically a sixth-fifth (or fourth) century date on the one hand, or to hold such a date as mechanically proven on the other, as far as the Aramaic is concerned.

If you're truly interested in advancing this discussion, then addressing the above issues would be a great place to start. At the moment, though, it looks more like you're just trying to avoid admitting that you've made a mistake by changing the subject every few posts or so.

Then you are indeed a pauper.

I haven't brought forth claims here; you have. Burden of proof is on the claimant; not on the audience. That doesn't change merely because you're empty-handed or frustrated.

You'e done nothing of the kind. You picked one source from 200 years later - hardly contemporary - and assumed from his (Josephus') silence that his opinion could stretch backwards two centuries. Moreover, you assumed by his silence that no opinion-shaping on Daniel had occurred.

I know a valid argument when I see one. You haven't shown me any.

Sheshonq

At its root, ynquirer is engaging in a false dichotomy; it must be one or the other of two choices he presents us with. The alternative - that it was a loosely historical story (with much artistic license and thus mistakes) told to encourage Jews in a time of dispersion and subjugation - is simply not acceptable to him.

ynquirer

That’s evidence, truth to be told. Let’s briefly discuss it.

Ben Sirah, in the first place. Most sources date it in or before 170 BC. The fact that it mentions a comprehensive series of prophets, though omitting any mention to Daniel, is negative evidence, that is, argument from silence in favor of dating Daniel in or about 164 BC. Such evidence, together with the Greek words for musical instruments, and possibly other, should be weighted against Persian words for official titles and ‘Ulai’ an Elamite word - more or less extensively discussed here. Yet, it says nothing at all about the original intent of a book allegedly written afterward.

It’s true that mentions of Daniel the man occur several times in the books of Maccabees in a somewhat ‘heroic’ tone. That is scarcely relevant since those books are written in an epic style, and all the mentions are intended to praise defiance of death rather than clairvoyance. Accordingly, Daniel in the lions’ den and his three companions’ in the furnace are mentioned as proof of miraculous protection for whoever trust in God. Mentions of Daniel's prophecies were no use to stir patriotism since they might be discounted after producing a desired outcome - deliverance of the Jews and removal of the abomination from the Temple. Instead, Daniel's courage to defend faith looked like everlasting.

Josephus’ praise of Daniel’s prophetic capability is not incompatible with mentioning both stories, the lions’ den and the furnace. I don’t see how Maccabees’ mention of the latter alone would imply a change of perception of the former, say, as across 100 BC and AD 90. What you have is again argument from silence, and this a rather feeble one.

As you say, Josephus didn’t think it was failed prophecy, and I agree with him. Conquest of the Holy Land by the Romans in the first century BC could have eroded the perception of Daniel's prophecies as unquestionably successful. This perception, I agree, probably changed, but not the perception about the genre. That is a much later change of perception, which was triggered by the collapse in AD 70.

At any rate, Daniel is too difficult a text to have been written for educational purposes. If you have ever been in the business of education you’ll understand what I say: there you need texts as easy as possible. Something, say, like Esther, a sort of a fairy tale with a simple story and clear implications. But Daniel? No, that’s the opposite of a text for teaching anything.

Sheshonq

But neither of you have demonstrated the prophecy succeeded. And given that both of you are relying upon bad history, does it really matter if you and Josephus agree? Until you work the bugs out of your position, you both dead -end against the same wall of reality.

1. An interesting personal opinion. However, hardly authoritative. I don't see anything too difficult about Daniel that would disqualify it from being a teaching tool.

2. Your attempt to claim that Daniel was too complicated to be a teaching text appears to be another ad hoc claim manufactured without much serious thought. In an age when most people were illiterate and relied upon religious leaders to teach them, it wouldn't matter if the text were difficult of not -iIt's the job of religious teachers to explain the inner meanings to the general population.

Ah. I see. So a fairy tale is for teaching. A simple story with clear implications. Is that your new criteria?

OK.

• A fairy tale showing that Jews should stay faithful to their monotheism even in diaspora and under pressure? Followed by a fairy tale like three men being thrown into a fire and not burning, on account of being faithful?
• You mean a fairy tale like a man being persecuted for his faith? Followed by a fairy tale of a man thrown into a lion's den and not being eaten, illustrating the value of being faithful?
• A fairy tale about a floating hand that appeared and wrote letters on a wall, which (conveniently) only an observant Jew who observed the dietary laws could read?
• You mean a story using historical characters (slightly out of place) to show that Jews should stay true to their faith?

A fairy tale like that?

How you can consider Esther - a simple story with clear implications - to be a good example of a 'fairy tale' useful for teaching, yet NOT consider Daniel to also qualify in that category is stupefying. Daniel has SEVERAL "simple stories with clear implications" in it.

By now I think it's obvious that you're creating imaginary criteria out of thin air to support your position. You might want to do a better job of proofing those criteria first, however; they appear to be backfiring on you.
:rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

spin

Sheshonq, stop wasting your breath. This duffer is babbling about rubbish. He has taken a comment from me about "edification" and turned it into "education" and is off musing about idiocies of his own creation. There is no point in joining him when he's thrown himself off a cliff. Obviously statements like "No, that’s the opposite of a text for teaching anything" are totally irrelevant, because it works on the false premise that he's arguing against. In a religious context edification is not an intellectual process, but one for the soul.




spin

ynquirer

And what is "edifying" in Daniel 8 to 12?

By the way, all those personals are intended to avoid answering my question about your ignorance of Josephus' version of Daniel 8:2, aren't they?

Toto

Discussion of the translation of BYRH has been split off here

Casper

Strange thing, I remember the story of the lions den and the furnace being fairly popular in sunday school, but never heard anything about Esther.

I may have been too busy coloring Jesus pictures and gluing macaroni onto paper crosses to have noticed though.

arnoldo

That's a pretty silly idea about executing someone by fire, even Jermiah 29:22 has that ridiculous concept. I guess the writers of Daniel in the 2nd century BC didn't have a clue about what happened in Babylon during the exile, huh?

In contrast the Persian religion held fire as a sacred symbol and so would be unlikely to execute individuals by roasting them alive.
Fire Temples