bfniii

exactly. chaldeans speaking to the king in that form of aramaic does not in any way imply what form of aramaic daniel would have attempted to write in. given that he had come from outside babylon, it is unlikely he is as well versed in their form of aramaic as they are. biblical aramaic being a hodge-podge as you call it attests to the fact that it was close to hebrew which is what one would expect from judean exiles.

is that all you've got? i've gotten better insults from second-graders. if you're going to waste time with personal insults, at least type something the moderator has to edit out.

i am saying i think it's ridiculous to require us to use our own linguistic analysis when both of us are going to be using someone's translation. neither of us initially translated the aramaic languages.

it appears the link is incorrect. if that is my fault, i apologize. let's try again.

dead sea scrolls

another sneaky tactic. you didn't respond to one iota of the linguistic analysis in the article. on the surface, it seems that you are hiding behind the pretense that it's not worthy of your attention because it's not "up to date" which you also fail to define. besides, whether it is "up to date" or not is irrelevant. is it incorrect?

the precedent in no way means daniel's account couldn't have happened nor does it mean nebuchadnezzar was incapable of such actions, no matter how out of the ordinary.

again, similar events in the 2nc century bc do not disprove alledged events in the 6th century. they're circumstantial at best.

the origin of the word may be persian, but it was used in biblical aramaic. the original meaning of the word does not prove that it wasn't a title at some time. do you know of historical information that contradicts the title theory?

there are several theories regarding this person that are based on ancient sources. the title theory is based on the fact that there are multiple people who could have been "darius" (Astyages, gubaru, Cyaxares, cambyses) and that they were of multiple nationalities (persian and median).

another theory is that darius is a title for cyrus since the age seems to match what we know of cyrus.

if he's in charge and the king is elsewhere for a significant time, the odds of him being called king are increased.

in other words, you have no contradictory information.

he left to teyma for religious reasons, right?

it's not a claim that he was an immediate son or from a male line, as i pointed out earlier. it's a claim that nebuchadnezzar was an ancestor.

how do we know herodotus, or any other historical account for that matter, is confused?

is it necessary for herodotus to hear of nebuchadnezzar in order to be accurate about nabonidus and belshazzar?

it may not be related to anything in the babylonian onomasticon, but wikipedia cites the catholic bible saying "Labynetos is generally understood to be a garbled form of the name Nabonidus and the younger Labynetos is often identified with Belshazzar." i mention it because the catholic bible cites several sources regarding the article on Baltasar. apparently somebody got the idea from somewhere.

nothing? not even be a target for your insults?

let me contribute this:
mlk means provincial ruler (governor, satrap) in the old aramaic Inscriptions from Tell Halaf
mlk means chief in the jewish babylonian aramaic
a search for mlk in sokoloff's jewish palestinian aramaic dictionary yields general and princesses among other things
mlk is used many times in the OT with meanings including royal, Hammelech, Malcham and Moloch.

while the word is overwhelming used to refer to a king, it seems less than comprehensive to interpret the word to mean king specifically as we know it, but highest ruler or ruler.

while this is an interesting anecdote, it is not conclusive in regards to whether belshazzar was referred to as king. we still lack contradictory information.

whether he was king or not is not in question. the issue is whether he was called king or considered the equivalent of king by anyone.

and you haven't conjured up any source that claims he was definitively called something other than king by everyone or that no one called him king.

fine. give me your definition of tangible and we can proceed from there.

according to the critical view. but what the critical view can't do is prove that these circumstantial events are indeed the ones daniel was referring to.

this is an example of what seems to be bias and dishonesty on your part. you proffer an explanation and prop it up as if it is fact but don't dare discuss the negative implications of that view and then ridicule anyone who doesn't agree with it. a difficulty with the critical view is that the end of the sacrificial system that you cite does not equate to "to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin , to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy" in daniel 9:24.

why do you mention that cyrus died in 530bc? what is the significance of that date?

according to the dispenstional view, 33ad is the date at the end of the 69th week. this is based on the lunar calendar and an additional year for the transition from 1bc to 1ad from the starting date of 538bc.

why? are you unable to articulate the differences between the traditional, critical and dispensational?

there were 4 paragraphs of statements and you didn't specify which statements you expected a response to.

similar events in the past that seem to match some parts of daniel are circumstantial. even you admit that daniel's historical accuracy is less than perfect. some people take that to suggest that he wasn't completely referring to that time period, but another.

you seem to set up those who support the critical view as authoritative (non-modern commentators). why are they superior to others? there are scholars who support all three views. why are you so imminently capable of determining which of the three groups is correct and which aren't?

the facts you mention are not in question. whether or not daniel is referring to them is in question. hence, 3 distinct views; traditional, dispensational and critical.

i know what i'm using and i do use strong's but as a concordance, not translation.

i thought we had resolved this issue. as i said, i use strong's as a biblical concordance since it is a respected standard. i am not using it as a translation reference.

you have no idea what i have studied, who i have studied from or what i'm interested in. nor does it matter. what matters is the information. you take the position that the critical position regarding daniel is fact. i'm reminding you that it is neither superior nor is it favored by everyone. so far, you haven't even shown an ability to accurately represent the shortcomings of the critical view. what does that say about your "scholarship"?

i have studied the issue enough to know that there are three basic views on authorship of daniel and that each variation has subvariations. i can and have articulated the difference between the three. you however, have not shown an ability to do so and appear to operate from a critical bias.

as i have stated, what "history" doesn't support is that daniel was irrefutably referring to those events. the three major views support that daniel is using these events as a prophetic and apocalyptic springboard.

confusion indeed.

this underscores the fact that you may be misinterpreting the three views on daniel. there are biblical scholars in each of the three camps. i have tried to accurately represent each of the three when appropriate. it seems that you aren't even accurately representing the critical view that you support. under that scenario, daniel isn't writing to be historically perfect, but couching some events in prophetic language while prophesying about other events. incidentally, this tactic is also acknowledged in the other two positions to varying degrees. he isn't trying to outline history as you have set him up to be doing. contemporaneous readers would have recognized the apocalyptic, dualistic and almost midrashic nature of the genre.

spin

The text purports to repesent what these people said, "the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, '..'", but of course they didn't say any such thing says you. You have an author writing what they said, not a report as the text indicates.

You should be asking is that all you've got. You've show (and admitted) that you don't know anything about the linguistic material. The best you can do is cite someone else writing self-admittedly apologetics who cites someone else. If you don't know anything about it, it will not help you to rely on someone whose work you cannot judge for quality.

One needs to know something about the language to talk about it.

Am I supposed to point out to you that the writer basically only has one linguistic marker (verb position) for his apologetic claim? Am I supposed to point out the glaring omissions in his bibliography for the Aramaic analysis? Am I supposed to cite Kutscher or Fitzmyer? Or would you like a personal linguistic analysis you nevertheless still wouldn't understand?

This is the problem. You wouldn't know the fact that a lot of systematic analysis of Aramaic has been done since the time of the encyclopaedia you cite was written. I've already mentioned two of the greats. Fitzmyer is the editor of 1QApGen. Kutscher revolutionized the study of Aramaic. Would you like some specifics?

Credibility is the concern here. We have a feature which, while represented in the 2nd c. BCE, is unattested before then. The 2nd c. BCE seems only to be a coincidence though, doesn't it bfniii?

When you do history you have to use data, not allegations.

All you need to do is to show that your claim is not absurd by giving an non-anachronistic example. As it is, it is ridiculous.

With this logic you could just as easily claim that Alexander was Roxana.

The name Darius in Dan 6:1 is given a title, "the Mede". He is given a title in 6:7, "king". So what you would like the texts to mean is "the lord, the mede", "the lord, the king", all the while no actual name is given. Can you give another example of such double titles without a name in Hebrew, Persian or Mesopotamian literature?

Why don't you just consult the standard dictionary Brown-Driver-Briggs and see what they say about Darius, but of course you know before you look that they wouldn't waste their dignity on this rubbish. It is falsified conjecture.

Oh, yeah, sure. He's gonna get called king and have his head lopped when the king finds out.

Read it again. The epigraphy shows you what he was called. End of discussion.

What makes you think that? Perhaps it's not any scholarly historical analysis you might have read on the subject. Been trawling apologetics sites, haven't you?

Ancestry is given through the male line.

Because we analyse what he says against the substantiated evidence.

He doesn't mention any of them.

Some scholarship argues that Labynetus is Nabopolassar and his son Nebuchadnezzar, labu <- Nabu; netus <- netzar. What it means is that the Herodotus information is not helpful.

I don't need any targets.

You might find "princess" under the heading mlk, but you need to see that the Hebrew word is mlkt. And perhaps you could oint me to an example in Hebrew or biblical Aramaic where mlk means "general".

"Royal" as in the sense "the king's". The god names both mean "king".

Perhaps you could give one example when someone indicated as king mlk) and who talks of appointing satraps over the kingdom mlkwt). Perhaps generals in Persia could appoint satraps.

It shows that he could not be seen as king in the eyes of the Babylonians and the fact contributed to the unrest towards Nabonidus, ie that he didn't perform the important New Year ceremonies and Babylon was seen to suffer because of the lack of a king in the city. Cyrus was happy to capitalise on the unrest. If Belshazzar could be called king, he could perform the ceremonies. Neither was true.

But there is no issue. I have shown what he was called.

The epigraphy plainly gives him his status.

Anything (in this case knowledge) that can surely stem directly from the period.

One has to use explanatory power. Which explanation is simplest, yet deals with all (the vast majority of) the facts. You have nothing to offer.

You are calling me biased and dishonest, when you have never attempted to analyse the scholarly position. This is just empty hypocritical rhetoric. I've always been happy to discuss it.

But I never said it was, though the analysis is irrelevant. I'll give you a brownie point for creativity, but not for reading skills.

The interruption of the daily sacrifice happened in the middle of the last week.

Cyrus issued the decree (see Ezra 1:2-4) mentioned in Dan 9:25, so it had to be before he died.

Seventy weeks of years is 490 years -- after the decree, I'll use 538 BCE for you, and we come to 48 BCE.

You introduce the position, you at least have to make a valid case for it, otherwise why bother?

I still haven't made the point clear, it seems. Some modern commentators, not scholarly commentators, try to insinuate Daniel into the category of history, ie of the period it is set in. On what grounds they do so, they haven't really ever argued. An examination of Daniel shows its direct knowledge of the third and early second centuries, but little knowledge of the time it is set in. This is not a reflection on Daniel, but on the commentators, who are shoehorning Daniel into a category which it doesn't seem to fit.

Instead of those non-scholarly commentators assuming the category of sixth century history, they have to demonstrate it. Do you understand this?

Evidence.

What would you like me to do, send you to a historical comparison of Dan 11 or would you like me to rehash it for you? Or are you capable of comparing the events in Dan 11 with the history of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies yourself. What would interest me is how the other two make any sense out of Dan 11. Who are the various kings of the north and the kings of the south (starting with the warrior king from Greece in 11:3)?

The questionable transliterations you are using along with the erroneous meaning for "Darius" come directly from Strongs.

There is nothing respected about strongs. It is simply ubiquitous, ie great original marketing.

I've already indicated exactly what you got from strongs. Are you stooping to lying or just lack of knowledge about from where your information ultimately derives?

A person who knows nothing about a subject is in no position to comment about it. When you know something about it, then you can see what another person knows.

I take the position that the scholarly position covers the majority of the data in a coherent manner. That makes it far superior to the other approaches to the text.

You have not articulated any differences of coverage of the material in Daniel.

Again, it is a matter of dealing with the data in Daniel. The others don't.

There are scholars in one camp, apologists in another camp and simple believers in the third.


How could you when you haven't examined all of them enough?

The difference is that one is simply trying to do history without assuming anything unsupported about the text, such as that it must basically be a valid history, which your extremes have shown to indicate you as guilty of.

The first subject is who are the contemporary readers. You have washed your hands of dealing with the issue. You have just covered your tracks in the post I'm responding to with various subterfuges. I have given you a method of finding who those readers are, by looking at the historical knowledge presented cryptically in the text and where that knowlege ends, ie prior to the death of Antiochus IV.

(Midrash requires a source text. Daniel doesn't admit such a source text, so hardly midrashic.)

bfniii, what are you trying to talk about? Here you are spouting strong to defend the historicity of Daniel as a 6th c. BCE work and there you are saying that it is one of the possible interpretations of the book. It seems to me that you have lost track of what you were initially on about. You're way out of your depth on any philology. You're not interested in history. It seems that you are arguing for the sake of arguing.


spin

bfniii

if the name is transliterated, how do we know daniel got it wrong? apparently he got it right enough for people to know that he was referring to nebuchadnezzar

pharoah

I wonder if you could address this question that I asked 1 week ago..

bfniii

fine. now prove that the chronicler should have or must have written that belshazzar was king.

you seem to be saying that belshazzar, even if he was the son of the king, was inconsequential? the second most powerful person around is inconsequential? see, now your hidden assumption is that there is some nebulous "level of interest" that the chronicler adhered to. i sure hope you can produce some chart as to who was at this level and who wasn't.

and why are you reading daniel as history? even the proponents of the critical position, like andre lococque et al, don't take that stance literally.

again, the word does not imply female or male. i'm sorry you have trouble understanding that.

here you misrepresent my position. how can your argument have any integrity when you can't even accurately represent the position of another person?

you make it sound like i came up with the theory that darius may have been a throne name.

spin

The onus is certainly on you to show that what you have been supporting is not a crock.

With the king present he was.

I don't understand your turn of phrase here. When you say reading Daniel for history, do you mean for example what I do with regard to chapter 11 and its relation with the kings of the north and south? If so, I do nothing out of the ordinary with the data. If not, what do you mean?

All you need do is to show evidence for a case that you would like to make.

Well then, it seems now that you are not claiming that Darius the Mede was a king or that Belshazzar accepted being called king (which amounts to being a king).

We've now gone from title to throne name now! This is a new wriggle. Persian evidence for "Darius" being simply a throne name??


spin

bfniii

what babylonian author in what historical account should have mentioned these events? unless you can prove someone should have recorded them, it's just an argument from silence.

pharoah

Let's list some of the events that take place in Daniel:

1) Nebuchadnezzar orders the death of all wise men in Babylon.

2) Daniel tells the king what he dreamed and its interpretation, thereby sparing the lives of himself and the wise men.

3) The king rewards Daniel by making him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placing him in charge of all its wise men.

4) At Daniel's request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego administrators over the province of Babylon.

5) Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into a fiery furnace and survived unscathed.

6) A fourth person, who was said to be like a son of the gods, who was not thrown into the fire, was also seen walking around unscathed.

7) The king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

8) The king was driven away from people for seven years and ate grass like cattle. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.

9) A hand writes on the wall.

10) Daniel is proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom.

Now what's more likely, that no one in Babylon thought that any of these events were remarkable enough to record for posterity, or that they didn't happen? If you're honest with yourself, you'll choose the latter.

bfniii

the text does not say daniel recorded in imperial aramaic what they were saying in imperial aramaic. you seem to be assuming that it does. besides, i have already pointed out that it doesn't matter what dialect they were speaking, that doesn't mean that daniel was educated enough in it to be capable of reproducing that dialect.

no, i'm asking is that all you've got in terms of insults. wasting time with these personal comments seems to indicate some sort of insecurity. otherwise, you wouldn't waste everyone's time by posting them.

i don't remember admitting something like that.

you act like citing someone else or someone from an apologetics background is bad. look, you cite other people's works and it's even possible that the works you cite are not without fault or bias and they may even rely on someone else's work before theirs.

i asked you, regardless of who gets cited, whether the info was incorrect or not and you hide behind this historical hubris. again, the historical minutiae that you refer to isn't in question. your ability to understand that the critical position is not the only parsimonious analysis of daniel is in question.

wait, are you admitting you have to use someone else's translation to formulate your analysis? did you learn your hybrid critical position from someone else or did you come up with that on your own?

how many do you require? besides, i cited another article on that same topic as well so it's not like the analysis has only point. this article contains other non-linguistic points as well.

what omissions?

do you have something from them to cite?

how do you know i won't understand it? by personal do you mean you translated aramaic before anyone else and you're not going to rely on anyone else's work?

you wouldn't know what i know and it's a sign of insecurity for you to even bring it up. this is more obfuscation on your part. i asked whether the information was correct or not.

unattested, but not impossible.

ah. so you have some data that shows daniel's account can't possibly be true? otherwise, you're using allegations, not data.

since you claim it is ridiculous, all you need to do is to show that your claim is legitimate. otherwise, the theories that darius was a title or throne name are no less viable than your claim that it wasn't.

since that claim doesn't seem to have much support, the two are less than analogous.

i think the point of "the mede" is in distinguishing that person from another contemporaneous ruler from another place or other people with that name/title.

precedent is not necessarily required for this theory to be true, nor any other theory for that matter.

just out of curiousity, falsified by what?

BRB does not necessarily cover every theory available which of course does nothing to reduce the veracity of any theory not covered. it just means they didn't cover it.

you don't know that that would happen. nabonidus himself may have allowed it.

first, the source you cite has the word king in it. second, does that source claim that everyone, everywhere called him that? no. end of discussion (i can type that too).

this word does not imply that.

and what would the substantiated evidence be in this case or any other for that matter?

you didn't answer the question. is it necessary for herodotus to hear of nebuchadnezzar in order to be accurate about nabonidus and belshazzar?

ok. so there are competing theories. but that doesn't yet obviate the herodotus information.

yet you seem to insist on wasting time with personal comments.

that's not as inclusive as the word implies.

but this is another example of the flexibility of the term.

evidently, belshazzar as co-ruler would be an example. i said ruler or highest ruler, not a general.

i think what you are overlooking is that belshazzar was apparently co-ruler with nobonidus. he may have had the title, but may not have been allowed to fulfill all of the royal obligations because nabonidus reserved that right. but that still leaves the possibility of someone calling belshazzar king.

your source mentions his relationship to the king, not necessarily what he was called and even includes the word king.

not entirely. but feel free to keep repeating that.

can you give a definition that doesn't just restate your previous post? how can something written in daniel be verified to have come from the period? how can any document from ancient history be verified to have come from it's purported time?

i've got news for you, explanatory power is subjective. powerful to you is not powerful to someone else. that's the reason why multiple theories exist and it doesn't make your hybrid critical view correct.

first, simplest does not imply most correct or correct at all for that matter. second, your hybrid version of the critical view doesn't "deal" with the facts any more than the other two major competing views. third, you can't even accurately reproduce what i have offered much less a command of the daniel gestalt.

you don't know that at all. in fact, there is no one "scholarly position". there are three of them, each with sub-views. you seem to be half way familiar with one of them. it seems hypocritical to accuse someone of being negligent when you are the one who hasn't even attempted to represent the other views and why the critical view is superior.

no you have not. all you have done is regurgitate some historical minutiae and slap a "daniel" label on it. what's even funnier is that you then claim that daniel is historically inaccurate in some aspects which you can't even admit is detrimental to your own pseudo-critical position.

this is evasion. i challenged you to outline the shortcomings of the critical position other than what i have already pointed out. if you continue to avoid such analysis, how can anyone assume anything other than the fact that you just don't know the scholarship on the subject?

but you did imply that what happened after onias was murdered, the stoppage of sacrifices, lends support to daniel's anointed being onais to which i responded.

if the stoppage of sacrifices is not what daniel was referring to, then daniel may have not been referring to onias as the anointed one.

i'm not following this point. perhaps you could elaborate.

you said "490 years (70 weeks of years) after that [530bc] is 40 BCE." you seem to imply that the clock starts ticking at 530bc instead of 538bc or 444bc.

583bc is when the clock starts ticking for the traditional view and it does not purport that 48bc is the outcome. the critical view usually starts in 605bc.

because all along the contention has been that you espouse one particular (although misguided) view on daniel when there are two others that have just as much merit and parsimony. you claim to be "scholarly" on the issue but have yet to be able demonstrate command of the various facets of these views.

you are sorely misinformed. the three major views on daniel have been around. they're not new.

which certainly doesn't prove that it was written then. prove that daniel's knowledge of the time is "direct".

what is "little"?

in your opinion.

what you don't seem to understand is that they have done so in a way that is, at this time, no less plausible than the other two views. if you claim that the traditional or dispensational is weaker than the critical, prove it. show an analysis of each one.

you didn't respond to this: similar events in the past that seem to match some parts of daniel are circumstantial. even you admit that daniel's historical accuracy is less than perfect. some people take that to suggest that he wasn't completely referring to that time period, but another.

you didn't answer this question: why are you so imminently capable of determining which of the three groups is correct and which aren't?

why do you get to decide who is scholarly and who isn't?

no. just prove that those events were what daniel was referring to and that they are not merely circumstantial evidence. please include in your proof your accusation that daniel doesn't even follow the mold of your characterization because of his "historical inaccuracies".

the standard critical, dispensational and traditional views on daniel acknowledge that he was mixing history with prophecy. they maintain that contemporaneous readers would recognize this. they do not take daniel as trying to literally record historical fact in the entireity of the book.

i'm telling you i don't use strong's for translation since it is a concordance. i'm sorry you are having trouble understanding that.

like your inability to give a credible comparison of the three major views of daniel?

"i take the position" and "coherent" are subjective. your position is built on the premise that daniel was written in the time that he focuses one part of the book on. this is no more supportable than the other two approaches.

i have pointed out one of the shortcomings in the critical position and i have shown how you are distorting the traditional critical position on daniel. i pointed out that none of the three views regard daniel as trying to write literal history. i have also pointed out that the dispensational and traditional views don't take onias as being the anointed one daniel referred to. your accusation is incorrect.

more repetition. you haven't shown that your view on daniel is superior. in order to do that, you have to show some knowledge of the competing views which you haven't done.

i'm the one out of the two of us who has even bothered to represent the three views. i have asked again and again for you to join in the discussion but you either won't or can't.

i hope you're not referring to your hybrid critical position because it most definitely makes unsupported assumptions about the text as i have pointed out.

i'm afraid i don't quite understand this response. could you rephrase it?

the critical view takes the stance that the book was written in the 2nd century bc. that is what i was referring to. if that is the case, you have misrepresented the critical position by trying to argue that daniel is trying to record factual history and ended up making some historical mistakes.

the critical position (supposedly the one you espouse) maintains that daniel 9 is alluding to jeremiah 25:12 and 29:10. hence, the midrash.

bfniii

evasion.

now just back that up with the reason you think so. otherwise, you employ tautology; he didn't record it because he was inconsequential, we know that because he didn't record it.

i'm saying that not everyone who supports the critical position takes the stance that the entire book of daniel is a literal record of historical events as you have stated. if it were, there would have been no need to use apocalyptic and prophectic language.

already been done.

i have said that there are multiple possibilities for who this person might have been, including the fact that he might be someone lost to us.

again, there is more than one possibility for what daniel recorded.

it's not new. it's been around. it may just be new to you.