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Originally Posted by renassault
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Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic
In the Tyre thread, arnoldo made some erroneous and uneducated claims about the dating of the Book of Daniel and, when corrected -- specifically when reference was made to the historical inaccuracies made by Daniel with regard to the Babylonian exile -- arnoldo asked for details. So as not to hijack the other thread away from the Tyre discussion, I've chosen to start a new thread to explain to arnoldo or others who might be curious why Daniel is easily and uncontroversially dated to the 2nd century BCE by contemporary Biblical scholars (who are to be distinguished from religious conservatives and traditionalists who date Daniel according to predisposed religious convictions rather than empirical methodology), and invite any questions or address any rebuttals he might imagine he still has.
Without further ado, here we go.
Daniel (with the exception of the first few chapters which may date to the 3rd century) was written during the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus and the Seleucid Empire between 167-164 BCE. It is set during the Babylonian captivity but historians do not believe it could have been written then for a number of reasons. Those reasons include the following:
- Daniel contains a number of historical inaccuracies regarding Baylonian history- the era during which it is alleged by traditionalists to have been written. These include such things as the erroneous belief that Nebuchadnezzar had a son named Belshazzar, that this Belshazzar was the last king of Babylon during the Jewish captivity, that Babylon under Belshazzar fell to Darius and that Darius was a Mede. Every single one of those points is wrong. There were four kings of Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel thinks there was only one, and the one he names never existed. Nebuchadnezzar did not have a son named Belshazzar and no one by that name was ever king of Babylon. The guy who was king when Babylon fell was named Nabonidus and he was not related to Nebuchadnezzar. Interestingly, Naboninus had a son named Belshazzar but that son was never king and he died before his father did.
Daniel is also wrong about both the name and nationality of the person who conquered Babylon (and liberated the Jews from captivity....something which a contemporary Jew should not have gotten confused about). Babylon was not conquered by "Darius the Mede," but by Cyrus, who was Persian. There was no such person as Darius the Mede and (contrary to Daniel, who was evidently trying to backfill failed prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah) Babylon was never conquered by the Medes.
Cyrus had a grandson named Darius who eventually became king, but he, like his grandfather, was a Persian, not a Mede. Daniel also says that "Darius the Mede" was the son of Xerxes, but Xerxes was actually the son of Darius, not his father.
It is quite implausible that any Jewish person who survived the entire exile would get this many things wrong but would be entirely to be expected by anyone who was writing historical fiction several centuries later.
- The Book of Daniel contains a number of historical anochronisms which date it well after the Exile and into the Hellenistic period. It uses Greek words and references a Greek musical instrument which didn't exist until the 2nd century. it contains Aramaic dialect which dates well after the exilic period. It contains an anachronistic use of the word "Chaldean" to refer to astrologers. That word was only an ethnic indicator during the era of the exile and only came to be used for astrologers much later. Daniel contains post-exilic eschatological ideas about such things as a resurrection and judgement of the dead. Daniel also references the book of Jeremiah as a "sacred book" (i.e. as scripture) but Jeremiah would have been a contemporary of Daniel and the Book of Jeremiah did not become part of Jewish Canon until c. 200 CE.
- Daniel is very accurate about the Greek period and makes historically sound "predictions" regarding Alexander's conquest and subsequent dynasties up to and including the reign of Antiochus, his installation of a statue of Zeus in the Temple (167 BCE) and the revolt against him. Once Daniel gets past 164 BCE, though, the predictions all fail. Daniel predicted that Antiochus would be killed in Palestine by a Ptolemaic king from the south and then the end of the world would come. Antiochus died not in Palestine, but in Persia, not by a king from the south but by an illness. Obviously, the world never ended either.
This is a clear indication that Daniel was written after the installation of the "abomination" in the Temple (167 BCE) but before the death of Antiochus (164 BCE).
All things considered, Daniel is one of the most datable books in the Bible.
I open the floor to rebuttals. |
This has more than adequately been dealt with in an article over at Tektonics which goes a lot further than that. The first question that comes to mind is HOW in the world will Daniel get the name of Nebuchadnezzar's son wrong, if that is who you think he wrote about, and mention Belshazzar whom nobody knew existed up until recent archaeology discovering his name, or Darius and Xerxes' connections. There are only 3 Greek instruments, and these did exist before the 2nd century as far as I know, but it is assumed that since there was no Greek influence until after Alexander's conquest in the 4th century, they couldn't have had these widespread, yet the Babylonian court was known to trade with the Greeks and explains why it would be common to have these instruments. Anyway kitharos is mentioned by Homer. Enlighten yourself: http://www.tektonics.org/guest/danielblast.html |
The Dead Sea scrolls indicate that the book of Daniel was not a 2nd century BC forgery. In reference to your source this is the pertinent paragraph to this discussion.
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Daniel and Darius the Mede
65) Another error that Burtchaell makes, he is not alone in this as we will see, is in his claim that Daniel lists "Xerxes, Darius, and Cyrus ... as reigning in that order." Sierichs in private correspondence makes the same error. [9/12/96, page 3; see also Soggin, 408; Collins (1975): 228; Lacocque (1979): 24] Note that Burtchaell did not say where Daniel said such a thing--for the simple reason that Daniel did not say it! This claim is based on the assumption that the Darius of Dan 5:31 is the Darius I of historical renown [see Heuvel, 5-6]. But, as Baldwin has pointed out: it is "unlikely, as some allege, that the author of the book of Daniel, who was meticulous in other details would have muddled Darius the Mede with Darius Hystaspes". [Baldwin (1996): 255; contra Collins (1192): 29 as well] Likewise, it also assumes that the Ahasuerus (Xerxes) of Dan 9:1 is the Xerxes with whom we are familiar. [McCabe; Eissfeldt, 521; Taylor] Note that the "Xerxes" of Dan. 9:1 is never mentioned at all in terms of being a ruler; these statements are also usually given in terms of when the person was a ruler--note that this is absent. Plus, does it really make sense to say Darius the "Xerxes"? Also, it is now recognized that Ahasuerus "may be an ancient Achaemenid royal "title"." [Baldwin (1978): 163--citing D. J. Wiseman, Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel, 15; see also R. N. Frye, The Heritage of Persia. (1962): 95, 97; according to Boutflower, on page 53, Herodotus said that "the names of some of the Persian kings -- Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes -- were appellatives rather than proper names." -- Montgomery, 64 claims that this is merely a hypothesis, he doesn't show that it is wrong or that it has no factual foundation] Thus, it is possible that the phrase "son of Ahasuerus" may be a way of saying that Darius was of royal blood. And it has been suggested that the Darius the Mede in 9:1 and 11:1 may, in fact, be the same as the Cyrus the Persian in 10:1; i.e., the same person was known by two separate names and two separate ancestors (royal intermarriage?). In Dan. 6:28 where both names are given it may be that the Hebrew word 'waw' should be translated as an explicative: "during the reign of Darius, even the reign of Cyrus the Persian" (or "that is" as in the NIV note). [Wiseman, "Some Historical Problems in the book of Daniel," Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel; for more details see Shea (1991); see also Emery, 26-7, 44 where he notes that for Daniel 'waw' is a "literary characteristic".] Harrison points out this possibility: "just as James VI of Scotland was also known regnally as James I of England." [Harrison, ISBE. (1979): 863; Baldwin (1978a): 26-7, 127; J. Barr, Interpreter's Bible, (1956): VI:451; see also the NIV on this verse] Further support can be seen in 1 Esdras 3:1 to 5:6. It is commonly assumed that the Darius of these stories is Darius the Great; however, as Emery notes C. C. Torrey has shown that these stories refer to Darius the Mede. [Emery, 30, 124, 137; see Peake's Commentary, 323c; compare 1 Esdras 3:2, 9 with Dan. 6:1-2]
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02-02-2008, 08:12 AM
