wavy_wonder1

he wasn't openly challenging the consensus date in general in the study you posted. he was showing that it can't be decided on the aramaic alone. he says that daniel could be dated from the 6th to the 2nd century based on the aramaic, but that it couldn't be dated more closely to the 2nd century based on the aramaic (e.g., like driver asserted), and that was what he was challenging.

while he did say that one could conclude that the aramaic leans more toward a date in the centuries preceding the consensus date, he did admit that using the unique terms was an argument from silence.

kind regards,
~eric

ynquirer

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. Yet, this semantic qualification is immaterial.

The important thing IMO is this, if Daniel’s lexicon is ruled out of the ratio decidendi, what is still in the basket? Daniel’s mistakes?

I’d question some of these alleged mistakes. That “a Mede” conquered Babylon, to begin with. Much attention has been paid to this detail - and others that I shall deal with in due course. My first question is, what is the reason why we still call a protracted conflict that basically involved the Greeks and the Persians (not the Medes) the Median Wars?

Sheshonq

Skipped for brevity.

Another interesting claim. Do you plan to prove it?

We have only your word for that. Given the circumstances and your past performance, I'm sure you'll forgive us if we don't take you at face value.

1. Yes you do - if you want to make a claim for uniqueness of certain words among those texts.

2. By the way, you never told us what significance you draw from any alleged uniqueness. Is that explanation coming anytime soon, hmmm??

If you were relying on the scientific community's findings, you would have already accepted what that community says about the Aramaic in Daniel and the mid-160s BCE dating of that book. Don't pretend to "rely on the scientific community's findings" while simultaneously rejecting their conclusions.

No, I'm afraid that what you *actually* do is dishonestly try to shift the burden of proof and then throw a tantrum when you get taken to the woodshed for the attempt.

Claiming that you are merely ascribing to the "scientific community" is hardly convincing. You have already shown us that you can't tell the difference between what constitutes criteria for (a) burden of proof vs. (b) falsifiability, both of which are critical to understanding how scientific progress is made and how scientific debate progresses.

And your attempt to convince us that "I'm right unless someone wants to prove me wrong" is somehow acceptable behavior was already shot down in flames, using the precise model you claim to respect: the practice of science:

Search through the professional literature for archaeology, the sciences, etc. You won't find any thesis or published research that consists of just a claim (negative or positive). I mean, *really*; what kind of publication would tolerate just publishing the claim? I can see it now; a quarterly professional journal comprised of nothing but one-page claims, with no support, sourcing or argument behind them. And when the audience of readers asked for proof, the editors just shrug and say, "These are all negative claims. If you disagree, then show why they are wrong."

You don't accept the conclusions of the "scientific community."
You don't understand terms and processes that are core elements of the "scientific community."
You refuse to follow the creative adversarial model (i.e., support your claims and submit to debate) of the "scientific community."

You don't deserve to invoke science at all, given your track record.

And thus we return to where we started: another attempt to shift the burden of proof.

No, you've merely met someone who is three moves ahead of you and isn't allowing you to pull your customary tricks. Flustered and annoyed at being caught red handed, you throw dust in the air to cover your exit and distract the audience from your failure to support your claim.

And sadly, THAT is how this game usually works - skeptics winning and christians whining, taking their ball, and going home.

Sheshonq

Incorrect. Kitchen's analysis of Aramaic does not prevent or refute Driver's position, which is based upon the Greek. How absurd. Kitchen even says his own analysis:

(a) leads to no conclusions about the date, and
(b) is limited to an analysis of only the Aramaic portions:

Emphasis (underlined section) in the original.

As you pointed out earlier, all the evidence in the world can't confirm a theory, but all it takes is one error (or mistake) to refute it. Daniel's mistakes are more valuable as an indicator for that reason.

Unless you were operating under some bizarre concept of 'equal time', where the facts that the author(s) of Daniel got correct somehow should be tallied and measured against the mistakes? Hmmm??

News flash: science doesn't rule things *in*; it rules them OUT - which you would realize, if you understood how "the scientific community" operates.

You think a Mede conquered Babylon?

*cowers in fear*

Who, *precisely*, calls it by that name?

A google search for "the Median Wars" shows only 3,400 hits.
But a google search for "the Persian Wars" shows 112,000 hits.

At approximately 30 to 1 ratio in favor of "Persian Wars", it appears that your question can be answered as "almost nobody calls it by that name".

Besides, your question assumes that commonplace nomenclature always reflects the historical reality. Do you really need a lesson to show you that isn't the case? Here's a freebie that's especially appropriate for your education: why do they call it "The French and Indian War" when the main protagonist was the British in America?

spin

Let's provide some more errors in Daniel:

1. Daniel doesn't know when the king Jehoiakim was captured. Dan 1:1 says "In the third year of the reign of king Jehoiakim of Judah, king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The Lord let king Jehoiakim fall into his power..." but we know from 2 Chr 36:5f Jehoiakim "reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem... Against him king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up, and bound him with fetters to take him to Babylon."
   
2. The name Nebuchadnezzar [NBKDNCR] used throughout Daniel is an incorrect transliteration. It should be Nebuchadrezzar, as used throughout Ezekiel. (And it's not a Persian mistake because, they get it right in the Behistun inscription.)
   
3. Another spelling mistake, Abednego [[i](BDNGW[i]], should of course be Abednabu, "servant of Nabu", not "servant of *Nego".
   
4. While the term "Chaldean" later became synonymous with "magicians", to use the term that way in the court of the Chaldean Nebuchadrezzar is an obvious blunder. (2:2,5,10,...) As 5:30 uses the term correctly, we have evidence of different hands writing the text.
   
5. When Nebuchadrezzar sent word to all his administration in 3:2, strangely the Chaldean king uses Persian words, despite the fact that those words obviously hadn't entered the Aramaic of the time and would not have for several decades.
   
6. Daniel's name in Babylon is "Belteshazzar", named "after the name of my god", 4:8, implying Bel, but the name is actually Balatsu-usur ("protect his life") and contains no theophoric element, ie no god name.

It should also be odd to inerrantists that Ben Sira, writing circa 200 BCE, knows of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the twelve, but not Daniel (48:23-49:10). Equally strange is that the same writer says that there was no-one ever born like Joseph (49:15). This is the great interpreter of dreams, and yet Daniel, also a mighty good interpreter of dreams (at least according to the book of Daniel), doesn't rate a mention. Daniel hadn't made it into Ben Sira's good books.


spin

mens_sana

Nope — just means that Jesus was mistaken in his belief. You don't really have to toss the baby with the bathwater.

mens_sana

As long as we're using authorities whose expertise was the sine qua non of 1917, why not take a look at Raymond Philip Dougherty, Nabonidus and Belshazzar: A Study of the Closing Events of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929. Yale Oriental Series, Researches, Vol. 15. Dougherty goes into considerable detail in showing that the Book of Daniel is extraordinarily accurate about certain aspects of the Babylonian period. He also presents incontrovertible evidence — in the form of overlapping, change of government cuneiform tablets — that show that Darius the non-existent Mede did NOT conquer Babylon and was never its governor. You will have to get the book through InterLibrary Loan (I went to the trouble to do so). Most collections are neither specialized enough nor budgeted enough to carry it.

mens_sana

Unfortunately, "morning" and "evening" pretty well establish that this was meant literally.

arnoldo

He is an a true scholar who wrote his book in 1917 using archaelogical evidence to prove his claims. What is even more amazing is that the archaelogical evidence obtained since 1917 has further demonstrated that Nabonidus and Belshazzar are both historical, not fictional persons.

STUDIES IN THE BOOK OF DANIEL by ROBERT DICK WILSON, PH.D., D. D., WM. H. GREEN PROFESSOR OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES AND OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM, PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, 1917

spin

Jeez, this is just...



... ahh,... hysterical. So that's where you've been mining your crap from. Too bad there's no blind leading the blind smilie. I do get the idea that you won't read a modern scholarly commentary on Daniel, but thank you for this gem. Others should be able to get a good laugh out of it just as I have.


spin