Jack the Bodiless

bfniii:
The critical position is "maintained" by pretty much everybody: it is the scholarly consensus, universally accepted by non-fundies (which is why the Britannica article didn't even mention any scholarly controversy on this).

The stoppage is referred to in Daniel 9:27. You seem rather confused on this: I get the impression that you think the critical position claims that Daniel 9:24 refers to the stoppage (which it obviously does not). Spin corrected you on this in post #22.
No, you still haven't admitted your error. Hence:

REMINDER: bfniii, you have not yet admitted your "Greek musical instruments" blunder.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to bfniii: The book of Daniel is suspect. Please reply to the following that I posted previously:

At a web site at http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...tz/critic.html Bernard Katz aptly deals with Josh McDowell’s mention of Daniel’s 70 weeks in McDowell’s book titled ‘Prophecy: Fact or Fiction.’ Ironically, Katz discredits McDowell with some of McDowell’s own sources. Following are some excerpts from the article:

“Christian fundamentalist Josh McDowell has become quite rash in one of his latest books Prophecy: Fact or Fiction. For he is pinning his whole faith in Christianity on the ‘historical evidence for the authenticity of the Book of Daniel.’

“Here's his argument: ‘Such amazing accurate predictions (in the Book of Daniel) defy the possibility of merely human origin. If these prophecies were composed in the lifetime of the sixth century Daniel, they would compel our acceptance of special revelation from a transcendent, personal God. No anti-supernatural position can reasonably be defended if Daniel is a genuine book of prophecy composed in 530 B.C. or the preceding years’ (p. 5).

“Sounds like Burrows definitely agrees with McDowell as to the historicity of Daniel - right? Wrong! For this ‘friendly witness’ then goes on to say: ‘Naturally readers of the Bible have supposed that in these passages the hero of our book of Daniel was meant... Now, however, we have from Ras Shamrah (tablets which are giving us ‘an enormous mass of new knowledge regarding the religion and mythology of northern Syria in the age of the Hebrew patriarchs’) a poem concerning a divine hero who name is exactly what we find in Ezekiel. He sits at the gate, judges the cause of the widow, and establishes the right of the orphan... In any case one can hardly doubt that the Dan'el referred to in Ezekiel is the same as the Dan'el of the text from Ras Shamrah. Here is a group of biblical passages which have been put in an entirely new light by a recent archaeological discovery’ (p. 263). And this refutation is from a ‘friendly witness.’

“In his From Stone Age to Christianity, 1957, paperback edition, Albright tells us: ‘And yet, the book of Daniel, the book of Enoch, and other works of the same general age show that a positive doctrine of the after-life had already gained the upper hand as early as 165 B.C....’ (p. 351).

“Farther along, on page 362, this archaeologist states: ‘It is highly probable that the idea of seven archangels was taken from Iranian sources. In the earlier books of the Old Testament and the earliest apocryphal and pseudepigraphical literature there is nowhere any suggestion that certain angels formed a specially privileged group in the celestial hierarchy, nor do the angels receive person names identical with those of human beings. In Daniel (cir. 165 B.C.) Michael and Gabriel appear...’ (p. 362)

“Notice that Albright uses the date of 165 B.C. in the above two quotes. This late date of 165 B.C., not 530 B.C. as McDowell would have us swallow, is repeated by a great many other scholars. All of which flies in the face of the extreme claim of McDowell, who quotes from one of his sources: ‘Therefore, since the critics are almost unanimous in their admission that the Book of Daniel is the product of one author" (c.f. R.H. Pfeiffer, op. cit., pp. 761, 762), we may safely assert that the book could not possibly have been written as late as the Maccabean age’ (p. 14).

“Now if we turn to the very same book by Pfeiffer (Introduction to the Old Testament, 1948 - and cited by McDowell in his own bibliography on page 132), we find that if we look back just one more page - to 760 - we will see that Pfeiffer himself lists twenty major scholars who deny that the book was written by one author, Daniel, and that they mostly agree that the book is much later than 530 B.C.!

“To disprove a long chapter by McDowell (‘Attacks on Daniel as a Historian,’ pages 33-79, which amounts to 35 percent of the whole of McDowell's book), and in which McDowell says: ‘The alleged external discrepancies between the historical assertions of the Book of Daniel and secular historical sources will not hold up under close scrutiny’ (p. 129), I'm going to use Pfeiffer again. He's a top scholar and McDowell favors him with a thumb-nail biography on page 139 besides quoting him on pages 14 and 65.

“The historical background of Daniel is presented by Pfeiffer on pages 754 through 760, which is much too long for extensive quoting, so I'll choose just the highlights.

“He denies the correctness of McDowell's assertion that the Daniel mentioned in Ezekiel is the same Daniel who wrote the book of Daniel. This is what Pfeiffer says: ‘The Daniel of Ezekiel could conceivably be identified with that of Ras Shamra, but hardly with the hero of our book who, being at least ten years younger than Ezekiel, could hardly be classed with Noah; moreover, in 591 and 586 when Ezekiel was writing those passages, our Daniel had barely begun his career....’ (p. 754).

“Pfeiffer continues: (page 754) ‘The historicity of the Book of Daniel is an article of faith, not an objective scientific truth... In a historical study of the Bible, convictions based on faith must be deemed irrelevant, as belonging to subjective rather than objective knowledge. The historical background of Daniel, as was discovered immediately after its publication, is not that of the sixth but of the second century B.C. In the Sbylline Oracles (3:3831-400, a passage written about 140 B.C.) the ‘ten horns’ of Dn. 7:7, 20, 24 are already recognized to be ten kings preceding Antiochus Ephiphanes (175-164 B.C.) on the throne. In the first century of our era Josephus correctly identified the little horn in 7:20-27 with Antiochus Ephiphanes... (Antiquities 10:11, 7)... But the real discoverer of the historical allusions in Daniel was the neo-Platonic philosopher Porphyry (d. ca. 304 A.D.), who devoted the twelfth volume of his Arguments against the Christians to the subject. The extant portions of this work which have been preserved by Jerome (d. 420) in his commentary, which is the most important of all the studies on Daniel. Porphyry assailed the historicity of Daniel by proving in detail that ch. 11 presents a history (not a prophecy) of the Seleucids and Ptolemies culminating in the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Ephiphanes. Jerome honestly accepted the views of this foe of Christianity, although in 11:21-45, he identified the tyrant Antichrist ... and not with Antiochus Ephiphanes’ (pp. 755-56).

“In view of the great importance which Pfeiffer attaches to Jerome's commentary on Daniel, I find it incredible that the only mention in McDowell of Jerome is that this great scholar places Daniel among the prophets (McDowell, p. 38).

“Pfeiffer continues: ‘It will be noticed at once that the amount of historical information gradually improves as we move from the days of Nebuchadnezzar to those of Antiochus Ephiphanes’ (p. 756). The reason for this is that since the book was written during the reign of Antiochus then those events pertaining to this Greek king would certainly match those in Daniel, but as history receded the events became more confused an in error.

“But McDowell takes the opposite tack. He says that the events of the sixth century B.C. are accurate because that is when the book was written and that the subsequent events (which are historically correct) substantiate the infallible prophetic revelations given by God to Daniel (p. 13). But the whole point of all the critical analyses by scholars shows that McDowell has turned the evidence upside-down and actually inverted the truth!

Pfeiffer: It seems clear that our author's misconceptions about the Persian period are derived to a great extent from late sources of the Old Testament and possibly from other sources of questionable trustworthiness (p. 757).

Pfeiffer: Our author confused Nebuchadnezzar with Nabonidus not only by making him the father of Belshazzar, but probably also in the story of Nebuchadnezzar's madness (p. 758; cf. McDowell pp. 123-4).

Pfeiffer: The chronology of Daniel is sufficiently elastic to allow the author to superimpose on the course of history a mechanical scheme based on the interpretation of Jeremiah's seventy years as seventy weeks of years, or 490 years. He divides the seventy weeks into three periods; seven weeks from 586 to 538 (with close approximation, 48 instead of 49 years), sixty-two weeks from 538 to 171 (actually 367 instead of 434 years), and, correctly, one week from 171 to 164 (p. 758; Pfeiffer cf. McDowell pp. 15-22).

Katz: This one paragraph destroys McDowell's reconstruction of Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks. To authenticate this prophecy, since it's crucial to the dates of the coming and death of Christ, as well as to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, McDowell devotes, as noted above, seven pages (15-22). The arithmetic of the weeks consumes three pages alone. McDowell would have been more productive if he had used the space to prove ‘pyramid power!’

“To resume listening to our ‘friendly witness’… ‘In conclusion,’ states Pfeiffer, ‘the author's information on the period preceding Alexander is extremely vague, being partly drawn from his imagination and partly from unreliable sources (p. 758). While the author knows very little about the history of his first three world empires, his information about the fourth, particularly in its later phases, is exact and clarified’ (p. 759). This corroborates what was said earlier in this article about McDowell inverting the truth.

“‘What lies beyond December 165,’ says Pfeiffer, ‘is not historical reality but apocalyptic dream... our author gives an imaginary picture of his (Antiochus') end. After a successful conquest of Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia, Antiochus shall meet his end in his camp between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean, 'broken without hand' by a supernatural agency. This unfulfilled prediction follows the pattern set by earlier apocalypses...’ (pp. 759-760).

“Thus the ‘friendly witnesses,’ Burrows, Albright, and Pfeiffer break the back of McDowell's thesis. By his own words, McDowell has hoisted himself on his own petard. The implications for a Christian fundamentalist's faith in his religion and his Saviour are in great doubt - this according to McDowell's own words: ‘Of course it must follow that if the critics can prove their case, then they have seriously undermined the credibility of Christ, the Bible, and the Christian faith’ (p. 9).

bfniii

unsupported, vague generalities. i would never expect such a statement to come from you. since you made such a statement, i can be sure that you have the results of a poll of every pertinent scholar which shows that only "fundies" reject the critical position.

do you know who andre lacocque or john goldingay are?



you don't know that.



i understand that.



no. that's not what i am saying.



no, he didn't.

what i am saying is that there is to be a stoppage. after the stoppage, it will be resumed. 9:24 states the result of these events.

nkj: To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.

hcb:to bring the rebellion to an end,
to put a stop to sin,
to wipe away injustice,
to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy,

the stoppage and the resumption of the tamid does not equate to what is listed in 9:24. the timeline of the critical position is anchored on the stoppage and the resumption of the tamid in 167bc and 164bc respectively. therefore, it is a difficulty with the critical position.

Jack the Bodiless

bfniii:
Of course I know that! Even YOU know that. I have QUOTED from Britannica before. It DOES NOT mention any controversy. The scholarly consensus (of late authorship) is presented as fact:
Where is this "problem"? Surely you're not arguing that the ongoing existence of sin and injustice is a problem for the critical position??? WE aren't the ones claiming that the author CAN predict events in his own future!

Johnny Skeptic

Message to bfniii: Please reply to my post #52.

bfniii

first, no you don't know that. you do not know why the author(s) of that article do not mention other viewpoints. it's not a controversy. there are differing opinions on how to interpret daniel. each have strengths and weaknesses, as i have been saying all along. there are christian scholars in each of the three camps.

second, you didn't answer the question i asked (go figure).



and i have illuminated the problems with this article in the biblical errors thread. this article is not intended to be comprehensive regarding interpretation of daniel. if it were, it would be much longer, would cover all three major viewpoints and wouldn't contain errors.



i have explained it at least 3 times in this thread. i'm sorry if you don't understand it. perhaps further study of the issue would help clear up your confusion.

Jack the Bodiless

bfniii:
Yes, I certainly know that the Britannica article didn't mention any controversy, and presents the "critical position" as fact. You also know this.

I also know why this is so: but, apparently, you do not.

There are no "weaknesses" in the critical position. That's why you can't present any.

The only real area of uncertainty is whether or not the Book of Daniel was written ENTIRELY in the Maccabean period: parts of it MIGHT be older. But genuine Biblical scholars have long since abandoned the "Daniel was written by the prophet of that name" camp.
What question? The one about Andre Lacoque and John Goldingay? I considered it to be irrelevant. I can't imagine how you think name-dropping of people who do not support your position helps your case.
It doesn't contain errors. It could have gone into greater detail, yes: but it isn't "erroneous" for an encyclopaedia to not cover crackpottery.
You have repeatedly failed to present any such problem. You've now had plenty of time to research the issue, and actually come up with a detailed explanation of this supposed "problem": from your ongoing inability to do so, it is apparent that you were mistaken in believing that a "problem" exists.

bfniii

i certainly do not know why the author(s) of that article did not include any other scholarly positions on the issue. i have a strong suspicion that you do not either.



i have already presented one (multiple times) and yes, there are others.



of course, this is entirely false. the issue surrounding authorship of daniel is centered on three major viewpoints; traditional, dispensational and critical. there are christian scholars that espouse each of the three. if you had studied the issue, you would know this. i presented just a couple of names in the hopes that you would look into their position on daniel which would have most likely led you to look into the other two positions.



ah, "genuine". and who gets to decided which ones are genuine?



that makes sense since you seem to have little knowledge of the overall issue regarding this book. if you could reproduce their position, then you might understand the relevance of the question.

btw, have you discovered who those people are? it illuminates an important point regarding the issue of the 3 major viewpoints on daniel.



first, it's not name-dropping. i was attempting to delve into the specifics of the issue. second, i have not espoused a position on daniel in this thread. all i have done from the beginning is try to get skeptics to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the 3 major viewpoints.



aside from the ones i pointed out.



i don't understand how you would even know if it were crackpottery because you have yet to demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of the subject. i'll ask you the same elementary question i asked spin: please provide a timeline of the 70 weeks prophecy according to the critical position including the events that corresponded with the text.



i have indeed done so on multiple occasions. all you have done is avoid addressing it. you merely claim "it's not a problem" without providing any explanation as to how it isn't.



there isn't just one. there are multiple problems.



this isn't an issue of my belief. this is an issue of what are considered to be problems by scholars. i have already named a couple and there are plenty of others to discuss.

Jack the Bodiless

Still making content-free posts, I see. I don't see why you chose to resurrect this thread when you so obviously have nothing of substance to contribute to it (and I'm not sure that the moderators will be sympathetic either).

You are still pretending to have knowledge that you evidently lack, and still continuing the ludicrous ploy of attempting to bluff us into listing ( apparently nonexistent) problems that YOU are unable to describe for us.
...And you seem entirely immune to embarrassment. How many times has this bluff been called now?
You've been gone for several weeks, and you STILL haven't found such a timeline? I know the basics, of course: the timeline is designed to end in the Maccabean period, Daniel 9:24 is an overview of what needs to be "wrapped up" by the end of this period. Then there's a more detailed breakdown of how it's supposed to unfold: 7 "weeks" from Cyrus' decree to the anointing of prince Joshua and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, then a big gap (62 weeks, i.e. 434 years), then the final events relevant to the author's time: the "cutting-off" of Onias III and the start of the Maccabean revolt, and the events of the "last week" (including stoppage of the Tamid for half a "week", and the setting-up of the "abomination of desolation", the altar of Zeus in the temple). There's more stuff elsewhere, of course (e.g. Daniel 7), but no "timeline" is given there.

I see no "problem" here, and apparently neither do you (which is why you are unable to describe exactly where it lies: earlier, you tried to equate the overview in 9:24 with the stoppage of the Tamid). I can only guess here, but it seems that you read about a "problem" in a source you can no longer find, and you've been floundering ever since. Hence the appeals for information, in the desperate hope that you can find this "problem" in what we provide you.

Jack the Bodiless

Oops, nearly missed this:
Now you'd like to start hallucinating that you've provided TWO problems?

You STILL haven't explained why the language of Daniel 9:24 is inapplicable to the resolution of the Maccabean crisis (probably because you have no idea of the events of that time: all you've done is firstly to equate it to the stoppage of the Tamid, and then to equate it to the stoppage and resumption of the Tamid, as if this was no big deal, apparently unaware that the Maccabees considered themselves to be fighting for the survival of the Jewish religion itself).

And yet you want to start pretending that we now have TWO "problems" to contend with?

I'm familiar with the Trinitarian 1+1+0=1, but 0=2 is new.

BTW: bfniii, you have not yet admitted your "Greek musical instruments" blunder either.