spin

Alexander never ever ruled Jerusalem. You jest. This depends on a fanciful tradition cited in Josephus.


Horns being replaced. Animals being killed. Got any decent examples to your claim or are you just being hopeful that Alexander was this kingdom for less than ten years, represented by -- as you want it -- a beast implying four kingdoms?

I was asking you to get beyond your conjectures. Too bad, you couldn't.


Persia conquered Cappadocia, Phrygia, Bactria, Egypt, Thessaly, Thrace, and a host of other places. You just picked "Lydia" out of the hat.

"Arbitrary" or "unjustified" I guess isn't necessarily "unaccountable".

It may be that I misunderstood your original statement on fighting. It doesn't change the fact that youhave badly represented your claim with this: "Jerusalem was ruled by a sequence of 4 kingdoms, Babylon, Persia, Alex the Great, and Seleucids (fighting a lot with Ptolemies in Egypt)."

The Ptolemies held control Jerusalem for 100 years, longer than the Babylonians or the Seleucids (and forget about Alexander totally). Your rationale doesn't reflect any reality.


I'm glad you've sorted that out amongst yourselves.

This thought about the ribs is only your guessing. It's got nothing to support it other than your arbitrary choice of nations.

Unfortunately, your next statement proves you don't.

You didn't read either of the references I gave, otherwise you'd realise that this is irrelevant.

That's the beauty of trying to understand what the writer understood rather than how you perceive the situation.

Do you think Jer 51:11 was written before the Medes were defeated by the Persians??

Yup. Inherited.

Silly? You aren't making much effort to understand anything here.

The Median kingdom existed. Your complaint should be about the anachronism.

Actually, it's Isaiah's and Jeremiah's, both "prophecies" against Babylon. Opinions which Daniel inherited.

Why not? The writer did.


spin

Phscs

I do apologize for my mistake. Will you be nice and inform the makers of this map

http://library.thinkquest.org/10805/alexmap.html

and many other maps that they should remove Palestine from it?

There was something about a small horn growing out among others - but maybe I've read a different Daniel than you.

Not quite, I put Media and Lydia together because they were conquered recently before Babylon, and you yourself have pointed out that Media should be considered "large" enough to be one of four beasts.

Very well, I hope you can suggest to certain map makers to edit Palestine out of Alexanders kingdom then. Terrible that there are so many mistakes around.

And would you suggest as an alternative that the bear has simply just had a meal of .. ribs?


Of course not, as an atheist I believe the bible is mostly crap, and that Daniels book is as fake as it can be.

But I dont think Daniel is totally as incompetent as leaving Alexander the great out of his list of animals.

But I dont see an anachronism there. Its a lot easier for Daniel to mistake some of the rulers in Persia (like Darius "the mede") than to mistake an entire country.

Exactly - hence Darius "the mede".

Only according to your interpretation of the beasts. As we debate an author writing around 165 BC, which kingdoms would he have heard of from the past? Persia and Alexander the great, or Media - which perished almost 300 years before those two?

regards

-phscs

spin

How ironic. This is just a pathetic argument from authority based on a generalizing map. How wise!

In Dan 7:8 the three were plucked out to make way. In 7:20 they fell -- a verb often used to talk of an important person being killed. Still Antiochus was part of the Macedonian beast, just as Alexander was.


One usually has some personal criterion when one makes an arbitrary decision.

Do you really believe that Alexander wasted his time going to a little mountain town in between trampling Syria and Egypt? You must be joking. Jerusalem came under the nominal hegemony of Macedon by virtue of Alexander's conquering the powers that previously had control of the city.

If you read the JPS translation, it talks of three fangs. The Aramiac word (L( is only used once in the bible so there are no other indications for the significance from Aramaic. You are the first person I know of to take the "ribs" as not being part of the beast. Each beast is a modified form of what it appears to be:

• the 1st is like a lion, but with wings;
• the 2nd like a bear, but with the ribs between its teeth (note, not just in its mouth, as if being eaten, but between its teeth, as if physically belonging there);
• the 3rd like a panther, but with four wings and four faces (like a statue from Babylon); and
• the 4th, unnamed, but in description like an elephant but with tusks of iron (the Jews had never seen an elephant before, so they had no word for the animal).

So you have no argument. It is sufficient that the Jews believed the tradition to be as Jeremiah wrote it. That supplies sufficient reason for the Medes to be the second beast. They were destined to destroy Babylon, as "prophecied" by Isaiah and Jeremiah. The Medes were a great empire.

If you think it is mostly crap, why are you wasting your and my time with this diatribe of yours?

That has nothing to do with logic. Dan 7 is about kingdoms, until we get down to the present, when it is dealing with Antiochus IV. Alexander is a representative of a kingdom. Is the lion solely Nebuchadnezzar or is it Chaldaean Babylon? Is the Persian beast just Cyrus?

What about the anachronism of Jeremiah's prophecy??


He is merely following tradition (Isaiah, Jeremiah) for his position regarding the Medes. Why blame the writer of Daniel?

This has little to do with the subject of Isaiah and Jeremiah putting the destruction of Babylon into the hands of the Medes. You were trying to attribute the anachronism to me and not to the Hebrew tradition and suddenly you accept that tradition to explain Darius the Mede.

The writer or his community plainly knew of the Medes because they are mentioned in the text. If he read his predecessors, he'd certainly know about the prophecies about the Medes conquering Babylon.

Obviously the writer or his community knew of Alexander: who for example is the big horn in ch.8?

Yours is an ideosyncratic interpretation of Dan.7 that seems uninterested in the tradition the writer was part of, that depends on a literal translation of key words, such as "ribs", that depends on such useful authorities as generalizing maps, and that wants to change the modus operandi of the writer to suit your interpretation (ie make the third beast represent a single person rather than a kingdom).

I have already pointed out that the upshot of our differences is insignificant when dealing evangelical Christian readers of the text who are still in ga-ga-land believing that Belshazzar was a king that Darius the Mede is a viable reference, that Belshazzar can be manipulated so as to be the "son" of Nebuchadnezzar, that Nebuchandezzar really went off on a mad spree, and all the rest of the gullible stupidity that the religion, they think, requires them to believe in their naive literalism.

As to the analysis of the four beasts, the attribution to the kingdom I supply is nothing strange in that it is the scholarly norm -- which is not something that I'm arguing from, but is given for you to understand, so that you may give a little more cool consideration.


spin

Dave Roberts

See if this helps at all.
I came across this after a very similar argument with someone who told me that he based his "faith" on the truth(s) found in Daniel.


http://www.2think.org/hundredsheep/b...t/daniel.shtml

spin

Its fundaments on Dan 7 are those that I've been stating, so I don't think it will help Phscs at all.


spin

Dave Roberts

Well aware of your knowledge of all said facts Spin :notworthy

Posted for the possible benefit of others

Phscs

I merely searched for any map showing alexanders kingdom, and the first I found does appear to show him in control of Palestine. Can you provide us with a more accurate map? How did he take Egypt btw? Did he fly his army by Gulf Air from Babylon to avoid going through Palestine?

I've never said that Alexander visited Jerusalem, I mentioned Palestine as apparently part of his kingdom.

The author takes time to mention 3 *something*. Since Daniel is a collection of riddles, it is reasonable to consider if these 3 *something* refers to countries or rulers.

And btw, I am not the first person to take the three ribs as "not being part of the beast", a certain Muller has a page on Daniels book which also regards the ribs (and beasts) as I do:

http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/daniel.html

Daniel usually mentions what is kingdoms and what is kings.

What about it? Its there - so what?

Blame who? Most people today know that Germany went to war against England and France back around 1940. Many will not be able to tell you who was the prime ministers/presidents of France and England at that time. Its easier to forget/mistake peoples names than countries.

As I've stated above - its easier to confuse rulers than kingdoms, especially when Daniel as you say has a motivation from GT to let some "mede" take Babylon. But does he let the medes take Babylon, or does he persians do it - with a "mede" as leader?

This appears to be where our disagreement is - I see Daniel as faking a "mede" king in the persian empire, while you see him as putting in a whole Mede kingdom in 539 BC.

Nope, I do not make the third beast a person - I make it the empire ruled by Alexander the great. The fact that he was the only ruler of this particular empire does not make the beast a person.

And yet, even with the "scholarly norm" on your side you dont really come across as too convincing regarding animal #2 and #3.

A writer writing in 165 BC and looking back in time, what large kingdoms would he see? Certainly the Seleucids, and alexander the great, plus the persians and Babylon. But the Medes? If the second animal is the medes, why did Daniel see a need to emphasize that "Darius" was a mede? Does it not seem more likely that he squeezes a "mede" ruler into a persian beast? Would that not be easier to "sell" to his readers than actually inventing something which didnt fit with the history his readers might have known?

regards

-phscs

spin

With little Jerusalem up in the Judean hills, dangling off the other side, you expect forces which went up or down the coast were felt there? You jest again. So many rulers went along that coast. So many didn't get a mention in Jewish literature, just the ones who had a direct impact on Jerusalem.

How was that felt in Jerusalem? Did they see tax extractors such as with the Ptolemies or the Seleucids? Was it garrisoned as during the Persian period or the Seleucid period? How did the Jerusalemites know that they were even a part of this "kingdom" which existed for them.. what, five years?? Short answer: they didn't know.

So you're simply and only guessing.

Congratulate him for me.

So why would you even contemplate Alexander's conquest fest as a kingdom, when no trappings of it were felt in Jerusalem at all?

You were talking about introducing an anachronism if we considered that the second beast was Media, to which I asked: "What about the anachronism of Jeremiah's prophecy??" and you responded:
Yeah, so what. Jeremiah can have the same anachronism as Daniel, but only Jeremiah gets a "so what?"

Your response doesn't make sense to me.

If the writer of Daniel is writing in a tradition why shouldn't he follow that tradition?

Rubbish. You mentioned Darius the Mede. I was talking about the tradition which Daniel was written, a tradition which has prophecies about the Medes conquering Babylon.

An empire which was only felt in Jerusalem because of his successors.

Fine.

I was only asking you to contemplate that norm, so I gather you went out over the weekend and read up all the scholarly books on the subject, so that you could give your learned opinion now.

(Alexander was a king not a kingdom. Remember?)

I love this. In the 400 years from the time of Babylon the Persians held sway for 230 years, the Ptolemies for 100 years, the Seleucids for 30 years, and umm, Antigonus for about 10 years, Alexander's kingdom for what, umm, well, did he ever hold sway in Jerusalem...?

Whatever the case you purposefully forget the Ptolemies in your approach, though they held control of Jerusalem in recently memory for a lot longer than anyone except Persia.

First, Daniel was written in two different periods. The first part of the book is a different form from the second, and it tended to contain stories rather than visions (and when the latter they are integrated through the character Daniel's "abilities" as a dream reader). Darius the Mede is introduced in the first part ch.6 and inherited by the writers of the second part. The vision in ch.7 has nothing to do with your musings on this Darius. History as really happened doesn't interest these writers, otherwise one would know that it Cyrus who entered Babylon on the invitation of the Babylonians and brought about the end of the Chaldean control over the city, yet 6:29 can have this Darius the Mede being followed by Cyrus.

Phscs

I see. So Palestine wasnt actually part of Alexanders kingdom at all. Does that mean that it was actually conquered first by Ptolemy? Or by Seleucus? Or never at all?

I wonder how much of Alexander the greats empire would fit that description. He can hardly have visited every city in his empire - hence by your logic they were not part of his empire?

Then I can certainly understand that you do not include Alexander the greats empire as a beast - only the cities/places he actually visited was part of it. That probably doesnt leave much.

Perhaps you can explain what your own point is here?

He is - he introduces "Darius the mede".

And what is your point? You can probably say this about most of Alexander kingdom, since he lived so shortly. By this logic, his kingdom did practically not exist.

If you are in possession of these books perhaps you can enlighten us instead?

But his kingdom was consisted only of the cities and places he actually visited when he was alive?

Nice of you to list the numbers for us, but lets recall that we are discussing the book of Daniel, a man who devoted the entire chapter 11 to the ten Seleucid kings and their quarrels with the southern kingdom.

Now, since the persians ruled 230 years, why didnt get get far more treatment? Or is it that Daniel didnt count up these years when he assigned importance to the different kingdoms?

And how do I "forget" them? Dont we both agree that the ten horns/kings are of the Seleucid empire?

Yes, this is actually written on my web-page I referenced earlier. Your point about the (at least) two authors of Daniel does not help your case.

Darius the mede was introduced by the author of ch 1-6, the four beast we debate was introduced by the author of ch 7-12. Consequently, its nothing wrong with asuming that author 1 was ignorant of who took Babylon (or faked history), and that author 2 *did* know who took Babylon, and hence used the right sequence og kingdoms for his beasts. Author-2 did not need to put in any mede kingdom, since the first author had fixed the GT "prophesies" by introducing "Darius the mede".

regards

-phscs

spin

I can understand your confusion. Jerusalem was a small statelet in the Judean hills. It cannot be equated with Palestine. It was just a tiny part. Ptolemy Soter was the first Macedonian to turn up at Jerusalem.


We are looking from the perspective of Jerusalem, not other parts of the ANE.

This is getting extremely laboured, but I'll try one more time. Jeremiah, obviously writing after the demise of the Medes doesn't seem to know the fact and "prophecies" that the Medes would destroy Babylon. I can't date Isaiah, but its prophecy is probably in the same position. We therefore have a tradition in Jewish literature of the Medes conquering Babylon. Your response was "so what?" apparently unaware that Daniel was writing with the knowledge of this tradition, ie the idea that the Medes would destroy Babylon. That notion easily explains the second beast, ie the beast which came after that of Babylon, ie Media.

On the Daniel writer not being aware of the tradition of Media destroying Babylon"

Darius the Mede is not his addition and it doesn't occur in Dan 7. You are simply sidestepping the tradition with such levity.

That's right. He just conquered all the places and left the empire's existence to those who picked up the pieces.

I don't own the books. Try this for example.

You're going to suffer from repetitive stress from such repeated shock and repetition of response. Besides six months mainly spent in Egypt in 332/1 Alexander passed the rest of his brief ramage in the east. What did Jerusalem experience in all this time? The rumour that an army went down and up the coast? No officials to extract taxes from it? You have the weirdest idea of Alexander's "kingdom". He had a relatively compact group of military elite around him who went with him everywhere he went. Do you imagine that he deposited administrators around his newly conquered territories he just so happened to import for the occasion?

No, we are not discussing the book of Daniel as a whole, we have a vision which is just one element in that book. The vision in ch.11 has a different vantage point from the one in Dan 7. Each vision has. Starting at the end of ch.11, the angel of Israel explains that when the prince of Persia is dealt with, the prince of Greece will come. We are dealing at a supernatural level. The angel struggles with each "prince". "No-one is helping me except your prince Michael", 10:21. Then we go down to the earthly sphere and see what actually happens in ch.11.

Don't mix visions. They have different interests.

You are trying to make Alexander's effect in Jerusalem something that it simply wasn't. You get what the Jews in 164 BCE see. First there are the Seleucids, the current overlords. Then we have the Ptolemies who were stronger earlier, but the Seleucids got the better in recent times, as indicated in ch.11. Ch.8 starts with the Medes and then the Persians, followed by the Greeks. The four visions all culminate in Antiochus IV who was not anywhere as important as Antiochus III on the world scene, but had a greater impact on Jerusalem.

Trying to provide context for a reader to understand this is just too difficult for me.

But we are going back to the first vision... "Them", the Ptolemies, had an impact on Jerusalem life in such a way that Alexander never did, yet you want the third beast to be Alexander, because you feel Alexander was so important, even in Jerusalem, and that's just bullshit.

Yes, the horns are the Greeks, mainly manifested in the Seleucids.

Especially when you simply ignore the reason I mention the fact, ie that the second part of the book inherited Darius the Mede, just like it inherited the Medes from the prophetic tradition.

OK.

Sorry, this doesn't make much sense to me.

It's not a matter of fixing them. Why should he? What makes you think he didn't accept them? He accepted the erroneous notion of Darius the Mede.

We are dealing with tradition history, not history. We are viewing the world through the parochial vision of a small locality on the eastern side of the Judean hills, which saw the world via the powers that came to dominate it. What we will see in the literature are a) the maintenance of tradition and b) local mountain perspective. That's what you see in Daniel.


spin