spin

I don't think that's fair about Daniel. When you know the history of the period it was written, the text is relatively simple to understand. You can follow it with a brief history of the Seleucid period, especially chapter 11, which is the most transparent. When you see that there are many similarities between the various visions, you start to see that even the terminology is repeated, the little horn, the arrogance, the prince of the covenant/anointed prince swept away, the stopping of regular sacrifice, all terms and events from a known era, well enough documented, you can then start to see a lot of other things coming in to erspective.

It's there in the text. What is not there, and is plain to see when you compare the Jewish view of their own text to the Christian view, is the decontextualised, Christianized manipulation of the text. You can't blame Daniel for being obscure, you blame the Christian for ignoring the text because of indoctrination. It's rather unfair to compare Daniel with Nostradamus's quatrains.

Take something basic which shows the congenital misunderstanding of the Christian view of the text: 7:13 talks of a figure which was "like a son of man". After reading Ezekiel for example you know that son of man referred toan ordinary human being. Our figure from Daniel is like a human being, unlike the four beasts that are like lions, bears, panthers, and the unlikened fourth, which in description is like an elephant. Naturally, the figure which represents Israel is in the form of a human being. Being like a son of man, makes it perfectly obvious that "son of man" in Daniel is purely descriptive, yet taken out of context, it suddenly becomes a title of Jesus, yet it never makes to a title in Hebrew. This is ignorance on the Christian part. It shows that they simply don't understand the text, and that is because they've been taught not to understand it, because the gospels refer to Jesus, strangely, as "the son of man". You can't expect anyone with such baggage to understand the text. But it is not the fault of the text. It's like parents who find Gulliver's Travels presented as a children's book, the significance of the text is totally missed, because it is not read for what it was.


spin

Diogenes the Cynic

I understand all that, Spin, and I wan't blaming the text or implying that it was insensible to anyone who understood its historical and literary context. I meant that it's frustrating trying to get that context across to apologists. They prefer their own version and that's that.

The "Son of Man" conversation is one I've had many times. Typically I've been accused of not knowing what this author meant, that I can't prove Ben Adam NEVER meant the Messiah, etc. You can lead them to water but they won't even sniff at it. Since the text does not explicitly say that the little horn was Antiochus then they feel they have room for other interpretations and that you haven't proven anything. I get a sore head from arguing about those books. :banghead:

spin

You don't argue with someone who doesn't contemplate your logic or even listen to you.

For people without the conviction that incarcerates their minds, I think that it's pretty easy to show each of the kings of the north or of the south mentioned in chapter 11 as specific Seleucid and Ptolemaic kings. You can follow the struggles that we call the Syrian Wars. The information is extremely full, full enough to be able to contemplate Daniel as a primary source for the period.

If one gets that far, ie that the history is not rejected -- one doesn't have to believe it, just be open to the possibility --, then one takes a look at the relationship between the visions, as in here. If you don't get that far, no amount of evidence will get you further.


spin

Ulrich

I am surprised that no one has taken Jim to task on this before...

There is no "zero year", the Roman numerical system had no figure representing zero as a number, and zero was not treated as a number when Dionysius Exiguus developed the basis for our modern calendar. The year 1CE (1AD) immediately follows the year 1BCE (1BC) with no intervening zero year.

Even if there was a zero year, we would not need to insert it in the calculation, as zero is assumed in modern math. What we actually need to do is subtract a year from the calculation, as the zero year did not exist.

Chris Weimer

Ulrich, actually you can't fault him on this one, since by zero year I think he's referring to the inclusive counting of the Romans, i.e. always count the year you start from as the first.

badger3k

I thought he was counting the "0", as in -2, -1, 0, 1, 2 = 5 years. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but thats how I understand it. He still has the 360/365 day year problem he refuses to see.

Chris Weimer

If he's referring to the year 0, instead of the 0 year (the base year) then yeah, you can fault him on that one too. Does anyone know if the Hebrews used inclusive counting?

Jack the Bodiless

Ironically, I have seen other apologists count off intervals between events in 360-day "prophetic years" - when it suits their purposes.

Jim misses his first target (Jesus beginning his ministry) by 9 years if he uses his "prophetic years" and 2 years if he uses actual years. Nothing in this "prophecy" requires 360-day years.

His second, however, requires 360-day years to get the figure of 1260: and that's 1242 calendar years. So, I guess our encyclopaedias "must be wrong" about either Justinian's crowning of Vigilius or Berthier's abduction of Pius VI: by 18 years!

Phscs

Some years ago I debated Daniels book quite a lot on a norwegian debate group, and after the long debates I summarised a little about Daniels book.

This web page on Daniels book was originally written in norwegian, but I translated it sometime 2002 into english (well, as best I could). The web site is here:

http://home.no/phscs/phscs00/bible/index.html

The web shows tabulated verse by verse most chapters of Daniels book, with hyperlinks to web-sources (e.g., encyclopeadias). Unfortunately the encyclopaedia britannica seems to have changed, so those links are now out of date.

Any comments or corrections are welcome!

regards

-phscs

spin

My major quibble with this is that historically Media was a separate entity from Persia. It had subjugated the latter for a while and was responsible for the final defeat of the Assyrians. Religious interpretation likes to conflate the two but the nearest we get is the fact that the ram had two horns, one Media and the other, which came later, was Persia.

Nabopolassar brought Babylon to its apex against Assyria, Cyaxares conquered Asshur, the Babylonians and the Medes finished off Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar exiles the nobles of Judah, Persia conquers Media then Babylon. The only reason to lump Media with Persia is that they had similar cultural traditions and were basically contemporary. Nevertheless the Medes fell to the Persians.

You are right that the fourth beast represents the Seleucid empire. Look closely at it and you'll note it is like an elephant (just as the first is like a lion and the second like a bear, etc), the dreaded war beast of the Seleucids.

The little horn is also in Ch.7 and is again Antiochus IV.

The ten horns are:

1. Alexander (the Great)
2. Seleucus I
3. Antiochus I
4. Antiochus II
5. Seleucus II
6. Seleucus III
7. Antiochus III
8. Seleucus IV
9. Antiochus (usurper)
10. Heliodorus (usurper)

The last three are swept away, probably Heliodorus killed Seleucus and set up this Antiochus, then decided to govern directly. But then Antiochus IV was already on his way, having slipped out of Rome with Polybius's aid. He was not destined to govern, but gained control of Antioch through foreign help. He uprooted the last three horns.


spin