mdd344

Reasons the Book of Daniel was written in the 500’s B.C.

1. The book itself identifies the time (“In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it” (Dan. 1:1).

2. The reign of Jehoiakim, one of Josiah’s sons, occurred during the assault by Nebuchadnezzar upon Judah. That assault began in 606, happened again in 597, and then was completed in 586.

3. Jesus referred to the words in the book as Daniels (see previously noted scriptures in first post—multiple ones). He said for instance, ‘…spoken by the prophet Daniel.’

4. Daniel writes that God told him to record what he wrote (Dan. 12:4).

5. Barnes records that the first challenge to the authenticity and genuineness of the book was, “The first open and avowed adversary to the genuineness and authenticity of the book of Daniel was Porphyry, a learned adversary of the Christian faith in the third century. He wrote fifteen books against Christianity, all of which are lost, except some fragments preserved by Eusebius, Jerome, and others. His objections against Daniel were made in his twelfth book, and all that we have of these objections has been preserved by Jerome in his commentary on the book of Daniel.”

6. Barnes further notes, “Until a comparatively recent period, with some slight exceptions, the genuineness and authenticity of the book of Daniel have been regarded as settled, and its canonical authority was as little doubted as that of any other portion of the Bible. The ancient Hebrews never called its genuineness or authenticity in question (Lengerke, Das Buch Daniel, Königsberg, 1835, p. 6; Hengstenberg, Die Authentie des Daniel, Berlin, 1831, p. 1). It is true that in the Talmud (Tract. Baba Bathra, Fol. 15, Ed. Venet.) it is said that “the men of the Great Synagogue wrote - כתוב the קד�*ג K. D. N. G. - that is, portions (eleven chapters) of the book of Ezekiel, the prophet Daniel, and the book of Esther;” but this, as Lengerke has remarked (p. v.), does not mean that they had introduced this book into the canon, as Bertholdt supposes, but that, partly by tradition, and partly by inspiration, they revised it anew. But whatever may be the truth in regard to this, it does not prove that the ancient Jews did not consider it canonical. It is true that much has been said about the fact that the Jews did not class this book among the prophets, but placed it in the Hagiographa or Kethubim, כתוּבים kethûbîym. It has been inferred from this, that they believed that it was composed a considerable time after the other prophetic books, and that they did not deem it worthy of a place among their prophetic books in general. But, even if this were so, it would not prove that they did not regard it as a genuine production of Daniel; and the fact that it was not placed among the prophetic books may be accounted for without the supposition that they did not regard it as genuine. The usual statement on that subject is, that they placed the book there because they say that Daniel lived the life of a courtier in Babylon, rather than the life of a prophet; and the Jews further assert that, though he received Divine communications, they were only by dreams and visions of the night, which they regard as the most imperfect kind of revelations. - (Horne, Intro. 4:188). The place which Daniel should occupy in the Sacred Writings probably became a matter of discussion among the Hebrews only after the coming of the Saviour, when Christians urged so zealously his plain prophecies (Dan_9:24-27) in proof of the Messiahship of the Lord Jesus.”

7. NextBible.org confirms what Barnes said, “With the exception of the neo-Platonist Porphyry, a Greek non-Christian philosopher of the 3rd century AD, the genuineness of the Book of was denied by no one until the rise of the deistic movement in the 17th century. The attacks upon the genuineness of the book have been based upon: (1) the predictions, (2) the miracles, (3) the text, (4) the language, (5) the historical statements.”

8. Josephus, who did not believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, spoke of this entire episode in Daniel’s life (the statute with the head of gold and the stone) and also recognized that Daniel gave predictive prophecy (see Antiquities 10:10 thru 10:11, & 12:7:6).

9. Wayne Jackson addressed ‘higher criticism’ and ‘Daniel’ and stated the following:

“Porphyry, a pagan philosopher of the late 3rd century A.D., was the first to deny the genuineness of Daniel’s prophecies. He wrote fifteen books against Christianity, the twelfth of which was intended to depreciate the predictions of the inspired Daniel. But, as Jerome, an ancient scholar (c. A.D. 348-420), once noted, such oppositions to the prophecies are ”. . . the strongest testimony of their truth. For they were fulfilled with such exactness, that to infidels the prophets seemed not to have foretold things future, but to have related things past” (quoted by: Thomas Newton, Dissertations on The Prophecies, London: B. Blake, Bell-Yard, Temple-Bar, 1831, p. 202).
A denial of Old Testament prophecy, of course, flies directly in the face of Jesus Christ. Without belaboring the point, we merely mention that the Lord affirmed the Old Testament prophets spoke and wrote about Him (cf. Lk. 24:44; Jn. 5:39,46-47). The destructive critics would indict Jesus as being a victim of the ignorance of His day—or else nothing more than a dishonest charlatan.”

10. The Jews recognized that the Old Testament canon was closed by about 400 B.C. This canon included Daniel the Book. Geisler and Nix state:

“The completion of the prophets…the continuity of the prophetic writings ended with Malachi. Several lines of evidence support this assertion:

a. There are intimations in some of the postexilic prophets that the next revelation from God would be just before the coming of Messiah (Mat. 4:5), and that there would be no true prophets in the intervening period (Zech. 13:2-5).

b. Furthermore, there is confirmation from the intertestamental period that there were indeed no prophets after Malachi. In the Maccabean period, the people were waiting “until a prophet should arise” (1 Mac. 4:45; 9:27; 14:41). The Manual of Discipline from the Qumran community (B.C.) also looked for the “coming of a prophet” (IQS, 9:11).

c. Verification of this view also comes from Josephus; The Talmud, which states, “After the latter prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel”; and from the New Testament, which never quotes a post-Malachi book as canonical. In fact, Jesus uses the expression “from …Abel to…Zechariah” (Mat. 23:35) to identify the Old Testament. This reference encompasses all the books from Genesis to 2 Chronicles, which is the chronological arrangement of the entire Hebrew Old Testament. Harris summarizes this view well when he says, “The chain of prophets evidently wrote a chain of histories from Genesis through Nehemiah, and the writings of these prophets were accepted, one by one, through the centuries, until, when the Spirit of Prophecy departed from Israel, the canon was complete” (GBI, Geisler/Nix, p. 243).

d. Further, they state about late additions, and/or changes, to any of the Hebrew Old Testament text in the period following 200 B.C. (called the redaction model of canonicity favored by higher critics):
“The redaction theory assumes there were inspired redactions of the Old Testament well beyond the period in which there were no prophets (namely the fourth century B.C.). There can be no inspired works unless there are living prophets. And the Jews recognized no prophets after the time of Malachi (c 400 B.C.). Thus any changes in the Old Testament text after that time could not be inspired. As a result, such changes would be a matter of textual criticism, not canonicity” (Ibid. 255).

They state the absurdity of the claim of a ‘late canon’ by saying:

“A redaction model of canonicity entails acceptance of deception as a means of divine communication. It asserts that a message or book that claims to come from a prophet (such as Isaiah or Daniel) did not really come from him in its entirety, but rather from later redactors…But that involves an intentional misrepresentation on their part, which is deceptive and contrary to their own assertions. The same applies to whatever later redactors allegedly changed what a stated prophet wrote. To do such would be a deception, misleading the reader to believe that the God directed original writers had said that. But God cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). The redaction model of the canon confuses legitimate scribal activity, involving grammatical form, updating of names, and arrangement of prophetic material with the illegitimate redactional changes in actual content of a previous prophet’s message. It confuses acceptable scribal transmission with unacceptable redactional tampering with the inspired text” (Ibid. 254-255).

Geisler and Nix also state regarding the progressive collection of the Old Testament canon:

“The standard critical theory enunciated by Herbert E. Ryle and others asserts that the books of the Hebrew Scriptures were canonized in three stages, according to their dates of composition, into the Law (c. 400 B.C.), Prophets (c. 200 B.C.), and Writings (c. 100 B.C.). However, this view is untenable in light of the more recent developments and the arguments summarized by Sid Z. Leiman, Roger Beckwith, and others, which demonstrate that the canon was completed no later than the second century B.C. and possibly as early as the fourth century B.C., Jesus, Philo, and Josephus, well before A.D. 100. Furthermore, there is evidence that inspired books were added to the canon immediately as they were written. Hence, the Old Testament canon was actually completed when the last book was written and added to it by the fourth century B.C…

The older notion that the Old Testament canon was not finalized until the so called “Council of Jamnia” (c. A.D. 90) has been completely refuted in the works of Jack P. Lewis and Sid Z. Leiman” (Ibid. p. 237).

The conclusion: There is more evidence, but this is a great deal that shows that Daniel was written by Daniel, and was part of the Hebrew Canon by at least 400 B.C. and no later, however unlikely, by 200 B.C. The Book of Daniel is genuine and authentic.


So too are the prophecies therein.

*This was written to go with the first post. Specifically for IIBB.*

mdd344

Spin,
You seem to have some pretty big misconceptions about plain Bible terms. In reading what you wrote, I found that you do not have a clear concept of what 'power' is at it is used in Acts 1-2, you do not understand the nature of the kingdom in the OT as it would have been viewed by the Jews (confirmed in the NT use of it btw), you do not grasp that Isa. 2:2-3 is not about the Old Covenant Temple but about the church to come (as evidenced by 'the law will go forth" yet the Law of Moses was in effect then).


Those misunderstandings make it, in my estimation, nearly impossible for you to study and get what I wrote. For those reasons, and the reasons stated above that testify to the time of Daniel and its authenticity and genuineness, I must reject your post overall. I will stipulate that I didn't deal with your history notes, or what Daniel writes in great detail about history (the ten horns, the three, etc.) but that is beyond the scope of this thread.

gregor

Kudos to you, spin. I don't know how you can slog through these things.

I just get "tired head" reading another version of dime-store apologetics trying to claim a early authorship of Daniel.

mdd334, please go ahead and submit an article to SBL on Daniel and let us know when it will be published.

funinspace

Spin, I decided to give you a little context regarding mdd344. I think I'll drop out not seeing the value in adding more words.

mdd344

gregor,
What is SBL? And what is dime store apologetics?



People asked for proof. There it is above. In detail.

funinspace

Holy Zeus…SBL:
http://www.sbl-site.org/

You might try looking up what the word "proof" means as well in a dictionary, apparently you don't know what that means either.

Gamera

If God were truly interested in proving his existence through prophesy, he would have made sure a mss of Daniel from before the events predicted survived and could be dated by us with accuracy. Surely if God can arrange for Daniel to predict future events, he could arrange for an indisputable mss from Daniel's time to survive.

But that's not what we have.

From this one can only conclude (if you are a Christian as I am) that the role of prophesy is not to "prove" God's existence to modern people, but rather had a contemporary role with the audience of the texts at the time, or more likely, the texts merely memorialized a narrative in which prophesies played a role, and that narrative is the issue, not the predictive value of the prophesy to us.

In short, your exegesis of these wonderful texts appears naive and seems to miss the mark.

hatsoff

It amazes me how people still think that they can prove or disprove anything supernatural. Do you really think that every last non-Christian is either pitifully ignorant or intellectually dishonest? Because that is what would be the case if you actually have the proof you're claiming.

By the way, my guess is that dime store apologetics refers to arguments in favor of Christian claims which are accepted only by believers.

But why isn't Daniel proof God exists? Well, most obviously, most of the "predictions" within the document cannot be reliably shown to predate their fulfillment. On the contrary, the more accurate the prophecies, the more likely that they were written after the fact--which is precisely why non-Christian scholars universally acknowledge that Daniel was completed no later than the 160s BC.

Alleged Messianic prophecies from Daniel are too vague, having been shoehorned to fit later traditions.

Sorry, man, but your "proof" not only fails to convince, but it is actually evidence against Daniel's authenticity!

mdd344

Hm. It is interesting noting the reactions. More than a few are, 'but wait, prophecy like that cannot happen, so it must be that Daniel was written really later than it stated.' That is restated this way, 'God doesn't exist, so people who claim He does are liars, all the Bible writers are liars, so Daniel was written much later than those crazy people claim."

Wow what an argument that is. Not.




Gamera,
The NT Apostles and Christ used Old Testament Scripture, particularly prophecy, to prove who they were and what they were about. So I don't think I missed the mark at all. While the prophecies of Daniel had a purpose at the time, the overall purpose of the book (which I gave) was to demonstrate the power of God. Those prophecies do just that.

Gamera

Did they? Show us where and show us how it relates to the kerygma of the gospel (as opposed to discourse with other Jews about common narratives involving prophesy)


Paul seems utterly disinterested in the prophesies of the Hebrew scriptures. And of course Marcion threw them out entirely.

I'm open to citations, though I can tell you with certainty that I didn't accept the gospel because of some prophesy in the OT. Did you?